Swastikas are the new ... not swastikas

Oh man, this article has been going around, and I just wanted to share. It's an article about a couple who named their son Adolf Hitler Campbell, and were denied when they tried to get a cake with their son's name on it for his third birthday. My favorite part of the entire article has to be when they mention that they also have a 2 year old daughter named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell. I mean, I feel like you could be a little more creative than having your kids middle name be Aryan Nation, neither of those are even real names and it is also two words. I think we should just get rid of middle names altogether come to think of it.

Record Update

I've still been intaking records pretty steadily, I made a stop at the CD Cellar the other day and got some good record jankity:


Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline is wonderful, and I got it for a dollar. I've been jamming to it with the JX-70 in my undies a lot. It's a great way to start the day.


John Mayall with Erip Clapton, Blues Breakers - Been liking blues lately, I like trying to play blues riffs. I like the fact that it can be very segmented so I have time to think about what I'm going to try and do. I'm terrible, but it's fun.

Someday me and Danlee will be able to jam the blues and I can sing about my sad sad life as a bachelor.

HOME: The Post-Parlo Records Split CD Series

This is a really cool series of CDs, where post-parlo records will get two artists they like together and ask them to contribute songs themed after the concept "Home". I agree that might sound a little cliche, but it works. I know there is one with Bright Eyes & Brit Daniels (Spoon), and another with Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) & Andrew Kenny. I just got the mp3s from Amazon, you should check it out the cd here, I can't believe I just found out about it now, there are 5 split CD's so far.

You Remind Me of Home from the Ben Gibbard split is off the chains, really good.

Blog War Update

This blog war must come to an end, and I say let's end with something we can all agree on. Andy Lost.

The Fondlers

I've been watching this video that my brother John made multiple times a day for the past week, and just realized I should share it with you people. If you don't know, John treats his gear right, takes it out to romantic dinners at Red Lobster, massages its knobs daily, even flips some switches when the mood is right. This two part short film revolves around the gear, starring John O'Hallaron and Eric Schaeffer:

The Fondlers Part 1
The Fondlers Part 2

Parry Gripp Update

Will just had one of these video as his gchat status, and it turns out Parry Gripp made a bunch of hilarious stupid songs to play over stupid videos on YouTube. I couldn't tell you why this is still funny to me. Here are a few:

Chimpanzee Riding on a Segway:


Hamster on a Piano:


Ultimate Frisbee:

Blog Wars

Also

Also, I was talking to Tommy over break about the new Kanye album, and I must have misheard when he said that this album was good, or maybe his mouth was so stuffed full of Kanye's cock that I couldn't understand. Christ, Kanye is simply wanking it through auto-tune for 11 tracks of pure diarrhea. I'm going to listen to it again now, and maybe I will change my mind, but I'm going to wear a poncho this time just in case I'm in the splash zone of the shit spraying out of Kanye's mouth. We'll see.

Unreal City

Well, I posted earlier about the Unreal City album, Ephemeral Subsistence, coming out and it did at some point between then and now. Ephemeral Subsistence is out on CD, pick it up online wherever or hit your local strip mall and stop off at Hot Topic to pick one up !!!!! I just read this little bio of Unreal City on Smart Punk and I can't tell whether it's funny or if it makes me really sad that I lived in and really love Pittsburgh:

Once known as “Hell with the lid off,” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has yet to escape its tormented past of the steel industry collapse. Culminating into more than just an ongoing economical depression, the decline over the last few decades has toiled on the ambitions of locals who have harbored bleak and desolate perspectives. There are those exceptions with hope or optimism, and there are those at the bottom who wallow in the misery of it all. UNREAL CITY is music for the bleak and miserable only. Engulfed in an atmosphere where the sun only shines 59 days a year, this is depressing, haunting music for failing people in resentful unrest.

Check out those classy quotation mark images I found on Google! Anyways, buy the CD, it is mean.

In personal news, I'm not sure that I posted about the drunk bus experience with my coworkers. My boss was on the bus, which I thought would be wierd, and was kind of wierd until everyone in the world got shitty. In the end he ended up calling me at 3:00AM to leave me a message that he had my wallet, and I picked it up from his house the next morning. Anyways, we had a nice chit chat and that was that. I'm glad he keeps his work and personal lives seperate. Here's a picture of me and my friend Shaun. Yeah I've been working out the forearms, if you were going to ask. No big deal.

New Guitar Y'all

In Vinyl news, I've almost completed the basic pixies record collection, cause I picked up Come on Pilgrim the other day, wonderful. I'm not sure that Trompe le monde is distributed on vinyl, but I guess we'll see if I find it somewhere. Or I could look it up on the internet.

In Crazy News, I bought a guitar! It's an Ibanez JX70. An acoustic/electric that was manufactured around 2001-2002, I got it for 200 dollars on craigslist.

The only thing is that now I think that I hate it. I liked it when I first played it and it sounds fine, but it's got some buzzing issues and the action is way high. It's kind of heavy too. So the conclusion I came to was that I'm going to find a good shop to take it to and get it setup right. That is:

- Lower the saddle, which will lower the action (Strings closer to the fretboard) so it's a little more pleasant to play. The saddle is the white bar that sits on top of the bridge.
- Adjust the relief, this should fix most of the buzz issues. The relief is adjusted by tightening or loosening the truss rod which runs down the neck of the guitar. This will compensate for any bow in the neck.
- Fret maintainance, which I'm not sure it needs because the dude like never even looked at, let alone played this guitar.
- If my nut needs work, then screw it, i'm not going to put that much money into this guitar. That was a sexy sentence.

And the guy will like clean off the neck and whatever so the shit doesn't get moldy or whatever. Here is my dilemma: I think I am going to get the guitar setup and then just try to turn it around and sell it because it will play and sound much nicer when setup correctly. So that presents another issue which is that I'm not in love with this guitar, but if it plays and sounds good once setup, it only cost me 200 dollars so I won't know whether to sell or not.

Anyways, so now I have the JX70 and the Epiphone Custom SG, the SG won't be lonely anymore. Gear baby.

Living Alone

I currently pay $1410/mo for rent in the middle of Ballston, VA. I was trying to weigh the pros and cons of living alone to decide whether I should make the move back to having roommates.

Living Alone Pros:
1. ALL clothing is optional at ALL times (this is important)
2. I know that when I'm cleaning something up, I'm cleaning up after myself, and thus do not get spiteful at the possibility of me cleaning up after someone else. I hate cleaning up after other people, you stupid bastards.
3. Amenities are used by me and me only, so it's not like anyones going to get angry because Andy is using all of the toilet paper to wipe his fat butt.
4. I can play loud music in my living room whenever I want, or play loud music when I cook food. This may not be the case when roomies are present. They also might not want to listen to Jackson Browne or Jefferson Starship when I do.
5. Sometimes living alone gets lonely. But then again sometimes I like to be alone. Cancellation principality theory. I would have people to hang out with in my vicinity at all times, this is a pro.

Living Alone Cons:
1. Cost - Rent could be almost cut in half if I lived in a 3-4 BR house. Utilities would be split and resources would be shared (TV, Video Games, Boobs, etc) resulting in more things for me.
2. That's like it

So, I think I know what I need to do. Find a cheaper 1BR. We'll see if that's possible. In blog news, Dave is posting to his blog again! What a fagmaster. Nah actually it's much better than my stupid blog, he actually has real content.

I'm Just Saying

I just wanted to say that I hate it when I go to take a pee, and somehow my undies are on sideways and I have to surgically remove my schlong from my balls and leg.

Also, I get to play 2 more shows with Chalk Dino! If anyone is in Pittsburgh the day after Thanksgiving, Chalk Dinosaur will be playing a show on Friday, November 28th at Your Inner Vagabond, and also a show on Saturday, December 27th at Diesel with The Morning Light. The Morning Light will probably be the biggest band we've played with, and also it's at Diesel! Excellent.



Check out the awesome T-Shirts they just got printed, they are amazing to me. Awesome design.

Parry Gripp

I visited Philadelphia over Halloween weekend and stayed with BGBK. My brother John was in town for an Of Montreal show on Friday night so John, Will, Brian and I all got to hang out.



We drove to the city a lot and our car soundtrack for the weekend consisted almost purely of Parry Gripp's CD "For Those About to Shop, We Salute You". It's a CD that Parry Gripp, of Nerf Herder, recorded consisting of 51 ~30 second jingles. It's hilarious, definitely check it out.

He also is maintaining a website, posting some new songs every week. If you're into it, check it out here. Another interesting fact, Nerf Herder or at least Parry Gripp worked on an album for Hoops&Yoyo, the E-Card Green Bunny and Pink Cat. Unexpected. Anyways, enjoy Parry Grip, he's a funny guy.

Erection Day

- I got Pinkerton in the mail today. I brought the box inside and it looked a little haggard so I was getting a little worried that the record was damaged in transport. And guess what, it fucking was, it was like a vinyl taco. Anyways, they said they would replace it, those boner heads, it's still a shame that it's ruined. Don't buy from www.caiman.com off of Amazon.

- Brother John recorded a new song the other day that I've been waiting for him to record for a long while. It's called Crash Landing and it's on the Chalk Dino myspace so check it out. It's really dark and has a lot of melodic guitar riffage, it's really nice, give it a good listen.

- Joe Sanderson's band Unreal City is coming out with a record, Ephemeral Subsistence, on November 25th on Double or Nothing Records. I thought it was being released on vinyl and as a digital download, but I'm seeing CD's when I Google it so who knows. I'll have to ask Joe. The artwork they got done is off the hinges, it was done by the guy who did artwork for Integrity. I can't wait to see it printed on a gatefold LP. They are going on a tour down the east coast and back up starting in November. Check out some streaming audio on the myspace linked above and from the Double or Nothing website here.

Clarendon Bars

I think I was getting sick two weekends ago, and my friend Danlee had a terrible night that Friday so neither of us really felt like partying too much that Saturday. We hung for a while and drank a couple whirlwinds, but that got old pretty quick so we decided to walk over to Clarendon and check out some bars that everyone in the entire world doesn't go to. There were a couple bars/venues that I wanted to check out.

The first bar that was stopped at was called IOTA Club and Cafe. This place was neat, they had food but I didn't eat any, maybe will update if I do. It is basically divided into thirds. The right two thirds are the stage and standing room. On the left hand third there are tables and sitting room at the bar. The cool part is that the bar connects the two rooms, so if you don't feel like having your ears blasted off, you can sit at a table or at the bar and still listen to the music, and if you want to be in the crowd and drink, then no problems. Draft beer selection, not great. Yuengling though. The inside is really dark, with not much sitting room at the bar, but a reasonable amount of tables for the taking.

Second and last actually, GALAXY HUT. This place rules, not somewhere I would go all the time, but they have a great bottled and draft beer selection. I got a damn Gordon bro! They basically have just a bunch of good beers, and not much else, Pabst and like miller for 3 bucks I guess. First place I've been that has Oskar Blues stuff though. It's a decent atmosphere too, pretty different, they have a patio and they have live music every Sunday and Monday night. It's enough that they have good beer and a patio, I like this place a lot.

These places are nice, I still need a place that has darts and a good jukebox though, although I went to a bar in Dupont Circle (Buffalo Billiards) that had nice REAL darts and lots of pool tables. Not quite my kind of place though, it was really huge and not cheap at all. Anyways, this isn't really relevant unless you live here I guess, which i'm sure no one who reads this does. If you are in Arlington though and want a Gordon you know where we'll be going.

This Weekend

I had an excellent weekend. BGBK, Joe S., and John bro were here because my friend Eric had a Muay Thai fight on Saturday night. Lots of good hang time, and we discussed some very important topics.

1. The Apocalypse: When this happens, and it will, we will be be starting from scratch. First things first, the group needs to have a good sexual cadence. I'm not sure if cadence works there, but I like it there, and the point is that we can't have any more dudes than women or the other way around. Consensus was that things would get weird if we didn't have a creamy sexual balance. If there weren't enough women someone would get jealous, or women would have too much vagina power over the men. Ultimately, someone would die.

We're going to grow pot, because seriously bro, it's not going to matter. It's the apocalypse. It's not like I need a job, or to make sense when I speak words all the time. The only problem comes if we start eating too much, which I don't think will happen as we should have an abundance of corn, and I love corn. I agree with Joe when he says, "It's my favorite cobbed vegetable."

Joe is making the decisions, he's good at war and presumably post apocalyptic survival strategy. He knows and cares. Our main worries will be other roaming groups of survivors and bears/dolphins coming onto land. Although if we come upon a grizzly cub we will tame and ride it.

There is more , but you get it, and you're not invited.

2. Manatees: Discussing the marketing and production of manatee milk and meat, you know, cows of the sea. Also whether or not, if you were to eat one, it has red or white meat. Either way, fried manatee nipple fritters would be delectable.

3. Would you have had sex with Paul Newman in his strapping younger days, not that he didn't always look good. Consensus: It depends.

4. We went to Eric's muay thai fight this weekend outside of Baltimore, and it was nutso. Eric won decisively, and we got to watch an MMA fight and a padless muay thai fight at the end (gloves and nothing else). Much more exciting than I thought it would be, some guy got kicked right in the head and was out cold. THAT REALLY HAPPENS!!! That was fun.

Anyways, it was a wonderful weekend, it's always great to see some friends and family, especially Brian, Joe, and John.

God there were like 50000 grammatical errors in this post.

Catching Up

I got paid, and have blown a lot of cash as of late on records, but haven't posted anything about them. These are the new additions to the collection that I can remember right now.

1. The Wanktones - Have a Ball Y'all : This was used and I couldn't resist. Not quite up my alley at all as far as the music is concerned, but the name made the purchase irresistible. I learned a little bit about them, they are a DC band from the late 70's on through the 80's, actually called the Slickee Boys. The Wanktones are "...the Rockabilly alter-ego side project..." Maybe I will turn around after a few more listens.

2. Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection: OK, just liked the looks of it at CD cellar.

3. Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die : For obvious reasons, the history of Johnny Barleycorn interests me somewhat. Or it keeps popping up. Twas introduced to me by Frank Black.

4. Johnny Cash - I walk the line : Classic, just wanted to have it.

5. Built to Spill - Keep it Like A Secret : This album is so good, also a classic, and it was out of print and is back on vinyl. Wonderful.

6. Black Star : Another classic that I had to own, and realized I should probably have it at this point. I never realized how rad the cover of the album is.


Other Stuff:



Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos also just released two new albums, Animal! and Not Animal, on vinyl as well as on CD and digitally, so I ordered those two. Not Animal was released on CD and Vinyl, and Animal on only Vinyl and digitally. I have high hopes, because The Daytrotter EP and Dust of Retreat are wonderful. The only bad news is that I ordered them to 4634 Filmore. Dick.

Also, last time I was in Pittsburgh, my brother John turned me onto Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin who are really good. They have 2 albums, Broom and Pershing, and a couple of 7"s. Broom they recorded themselves and is in my opinion a much better album. Pershing is still good but kind of turns me off because some of it is a tad cheesy. Either way, it's good music I like it a lot, check it out if you want.

Cracktoberfest

One of my bosses is going to an event called biketoberfest, which I think is a stretch, but me and nicole were just discussing other blanktoberfests. 12 minutes left of work, here goes:

People would still presumably drink beer at all of these fests.

The obvious Cocktoberfest: Whatever, the obvious choice. I guess this is either people just with their cocks out drinking beer, or something like a cock themed bachelorette party Something. Anyways, it probably looks something like this.



Socktoberfest would likely be almost the exact same as Oktoberfest, becuase people even wear big socks there. Although, people would be able to embrace whichever style of sock they desired. Pants and shoes are optional for maximum sock visibility. It's just all about socks bro.

Cracktoberfest probably goes through as much beer as Oktoberfest, and an equal amount of crack by volume. Presumably this takes place in a damp dark corner somewhere in gotham city. It's got a real ring to it.

Fundraiser Ideas

Update: Shit was also on SNL

I feel like as long as you are doing something for a good cause you can pretty much just do whatever you want and people will get behind it.

If I wanted to raise money I could probably raise money for autism by walking naked from coast to coast surviving on a diet of dried shrimp and toothpaste. I could raise money to promote environmental awareness by holding a competition to see who could carry the most different animals on their body (If one eats or kills another one while on your body, then that counts as two, no initially dead animals allowed). I could raise money for breast cancer by treading water in a pool of milk.

This dude made a canoe out of a giant pumpkin and is paddling it 150 miles to raise money for underpriveliged children. That is so fucking wierd. Buy hey, it's for a good cause.

A Weekend to be Bromembered

The weekend of the 20th/21st my good brothers John and Mike came to visit me in DC, along with one of my oldest and most trusted brossociates, Will. It's so good to see people I know let alone two of my brothers and one of my best friends.

On Friday we went out in Clarendon, to Clarendon Grill and briefly to Clarendon Ballroom. I'm a giant idiot when I get drunk so I payed for all of our drinks on Friday night, which came to a who-opping total of 200 dollars! HOLY BEANS! Things are kind of fuzzy about Friday, but since I'm convinced the only two shots that Mike knows are Washington Apples and Jager Bombs, we ended up drinking Jager Bombs all night. After getting pretty saucy, we tried to get to the strip club, and the cab driver took us to a CLOSED strip club. Mike was not happy about this and started getting all up in his face and saying, "YOU BURN!" So good. Then Will and Mike peed in a bike seat tube, and we were all singing while John played the guitar outside of my apartment. That's about what all happened on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon we got up and my friends Nicole and Blair walked into a brodeo that they didn't see coming. They met my brothers and will, and hung out for a while, so that was nice to have some female company for a minute. We went down to the mall, and threw a disc around for a while, ate some good old fashioned dogs, and visited the air and space museum. There was beautiful weather all afternoon, and because of the dogs and the disc we needed a nap so we put on the pat garret and billy the kid soundtrack and slept for an hour in preparation for another night on the town. Nicole (left), Blair(right), Lila, and Kathy(middle) were at some kind of bar crawl so we met up with them in Clarendon once again for round two. We drank a bunch of beers and danced around like ass holes until we parted with the ladies only to meet back at IHOP in Ballston. It was a glorious meal of corned beef hash and country fried steak, so actually it was really gross, but chowing late at night has never been better.

We all walked back to Nicole and Blair's apartment where we continued to rage and throw down while the girls were trying to sleep. I proceeded to stick my butt through the sliding glass door and fart a bunch while John buried his face in Lyla's butt and Mike was growling in Nicole's ear...I guess it tickles.

The next morning we woke up late, somehow sleeping through two alarms, and Will missed his train to Baltimore. I was still at least a lot drunk, and Will needed to get to Baltimore to meet his parents for lunch, so we manned up and drove to Baltimore. This was hell, as I got lost on the way back and we got lost at least a few times on the way there, but all in all this was a glorious visit. These are the only 2 pictures I could track down.

Refused Party Program

I actually got The Shape of Punk To Come by Refused a while ago, but forgot to write about it. This blog is turning into more of me talking about banal happenings of my every day life, whatever. When Mike, John, and Will were here we listened to it while we played the Mario Kart Drinking game, which will be described right now. Both album and game are classics:

• Step 1: Plug in the N64/Gamecube/Wii/SNES, and get 4 controllers


• Step 2: Get a lot of crappy beer and 4 pabst(optional) pint glasses


• Step 3(Optional): Play rainbow road once to determine player rankings.


• Step 4: The first place player can fill his/her glass to their desired beer fillage level and choose the next map. Second Player needs to fill his/her glass to any beer fillage level above first place's. Third place player above second place, and fourth place above third. You get it.


• Step 5: When the countdown for the race begins, it goes beep....boop.....BEEEEP and then you can grab your glass and chug beer. Once you finish the beer you can start the race.


• Step 6: Finish the race, and go back to step 4.

Game is great. Tell your friends.

Don't Cook Bacon Without a Shirt On

Yeah man, I think cooking bacon after a night on the town is a bad idea all around. If it were only easier to make. I was trying to think of an easier way to cook it just now, like just as I was typing that first sentence, and I came up with this. OK this isn't actually easier, but it's new. You know those pie irons with the big long handles that you put bread and stuff into and then stick into the coals in a fire? Just throw some bacon into there, it would be really easy to flip, and this is a terrible idea. Nevermind.

Back to the point, the grease spattered all over my shit and it was really painful, and then the bacon got burnt because I was trying to solve the rubiks cube before I had to take the bacon off. I also found this video today, which was pretty dumb but I realized I wasn't cooking my bacon in my cast iron pan which was pretty ass stupid, that's gotta be one of the tastiest things to season the pan with no?

Start second point: I can't stop listening to Margot and the Nuclear So and So's. If you're looking for something to listen to, get "The Dust of Retreat" and "The Daytrotter Sessions" EP. Dust of retreat is really great, grab that, and someone who actually reads this tell Andy about it. Later.

Ratatat - LP3 , Pixies - Bossanova

These both came on Monday, I don't really know why I got the Ratatat record (Above). It was an impulse buy and, as I heard someone on CNN say about Barack, I think most of the pixie dust has worn off. This album is pretty different though, I feel that the bass and drums play a much larger role, or at least the rhythm section seems a lot more prominent than in their other albums. Dura I think is a really good song, but is much better when Andy raps over it, which makes me feel like it's missing something. You know what I mean? It sounds like an instrumental track, but there are some good songs, and album is alright altogether.



Bossanova has one of me favorite pixies songs on it, Dig for Fire, among other classics. Also, I just wanted to further complete my pixies collection. Two to go. Anyways, a lot has happened since I last posted, new post coming in a second.

Strokin'

Heyo! There's like a million things going on for Oktoberfest around the area. Tons of specials, happy hours, and oktoberfest beer being brewed. I'm not sure how many of these i'll make it out to, but the DCist lists a bunch to check out.

Anyways, I heard Clarence Carter's Strokin' on the way home from work today. Shit is amazing. CLARENCE CARTER!CLARENCE CARTER!CLARENCE CARTER! God, Hater Players makes so much more sense now.




Mike O, John O, and Will are all coming to visit me this weekend! It's a regular Field Club Drive reunion (That's where we lived). My hopes are that Brian will also be able to make it out and things will just be wild. Hahaha if I ever need a laugh, I can always go back to Brian's picture from highschool graduation, gets me every time.

Overheard at Cube 849-H

Yeah yeah, copying Tommy.

Middle aged white woman reading aloud: "...could result in paralysis or death."

"what is this? I thought it was just a treasure hunt..."

David Shredder

I was listening to XM radio comedy on my way home from Fairfax today, and this fool came on who was just making jokes about how he was high all the time and one time was double fisting Klondike bars and watching basketball or something, not really, but it was pretty stupid. But then, he started telling a joke about playing baseball high, how he hit the ball, and then was like "Oh damn! Now I have to run!" Good one David, but then I swear on my life, he starts ripping off George Costanza's answering machine song.



The words are different he says, "Believe it or not, I'm running for home,..." I forget what he said but it honestly started out "Believe it or not" and the melody and rhythm were exactly the same. I've been searching for an MP3 of this, but all I could find was David Byron - Shred Master and Guitar Instructor. So that was pretty rad I guess, but here is some so-so evidence to prove I didn't completely fabricate this story. I wrote down his name and the name of the track, and looked it up when I got home, and it existed. Maybe this David Shredder came first, and Seinfeld ripped him off. I doubt that. At least George came out on top.

I got my "Inside the Dust Sleeve" and it's everything I've ever wished for. Some of the other vinyl I ordered better come soon, I'm starting to get worried.

I'm Dead

Dudes, I think Joe Sanderson is going to kill me, I might have to just avoid him for the rest of my life. I put this picture up on MySpace, and I think Joe's pretty angry, he has a reputation to uphold I guess. It's Joe's My Aphrodite, but I'm quite proud of it.

I really kind of wish I was in Pittsburgh so I could play music with John, I'm just so jealous when I watch these videos cause I want to be doing that. He posted videos from the show with Farewell Flight at Garfield Artworks on Wednesday of Make up Your Mind and On The Holidays and also If I Had A Nickel from his show at Your Inner Vagabond which looks like it was so much fun. Anyways, watch that, I'm so jealous.

Vinyl Collective

I just wanted to post about Vinyl Collective, which is a blog / shop which posts very regularly about new releases and restocks and they carry a lot of good stuff, like older and also new punk/rock records. They are very active, good dudes, and have great service if you're ever interested in just browsing some of the vinyl they sell. I find something I want to buy almost every time they post restocks, and every time I browse through their selection. Check it out.

Furniture is coming tomorrow morning, whoopie dooo!

This is my Shelter Cove couch:


Check out those giant pillows that come with it. Yeah man. And here's my Lattice Cocktail Table, a handsome table with clean lines and a comforting chestnut wood construction:



and here's a diagram of what my living room might look like after I get my furniture:



This post is dumb, you say? I'm just filling up space with pictures made in paint you say? What about that first paragraph? Dude, suck that shit.

Coalesce - Salt and Passage

Heyo! I got my Salt and Passage 7" today! Shit is so cool, it's clear with red and silver splatter, the vinyl and the music are both baller. Brian bought a copy of this when he saw Coalesce on tour that was white/black. It has two songs on it Son of Son of Man, and I Am This. I Am This is good stuff, but Son of Son of Man is off the hinges. It has a killer guitar riff, and Coalesce does a great job of being Coalesce, bizarre song structure and rhythm and Sean Ingram blowing my mind as usual. There's a really hard breakdown in Son of Son of Man as well which I missed in I Am This.

This is probably the coolest record I now own, bar maybe Coalesce's Give Them Rope 2.0 record I have which is gray and white marbled, and inscribed in between the last groove and the label it says "I don't believe you don't believe that we can believe". Don't know what that comes from but I think it's really cool that someone took the time and did that by hand.

My asshole car wouldn't start again this morning , I don't know if this is related to the first time I left a dome light on for a few days and the battery died, but I'm 99.9% sure I did not leave a light on this time, and ass if I'm paying 50 dollars to get it jumped again. Nicole gave me a ride to work this morning so that was OK, but we went to go jump it after work today and neither of us have jumper cables so we had to go to like 5 places to find that crap. I'm parked in a diagonal spot like this, / / /, headfirst and the parking spots on both sides of my car were occupied. So I figured we'd just push it out and pull her car up, but I got in and I couldn't shift into Neutral for some reason. I thought maybe the keys had to be in or the car had to be on, but for my life I couldn't shift the shit into neutral. I didn't know about the shift lock release, which is that little hole which is usually right next to the gear shift which is for occasions such as this. I always wondered what that thing was.... at least I'm learning. So, tomorrow morning is the one, going to get my car started and my life back on track after derailing on Wednesday. Goodnight.

Diana's Cookies

I wrote Diana (Diana Schmailscookiesried) a letter a few weeks ago, upon request, and she sent back cookies....dude! I didn't know how much better cookies can be when receiving them from a friend via the United States Postal Service...shit is wild. It's like the aforementioned mountain dew wrapper principle in reverse. Cookies from friends via the USPS are amazing, whereas they may just be OK when coming from a mere acquaintance served, say, by a regular hand or hand holding a plate. Thanks Diana.

I saw Mr. Jake the Snake last night as well, he moved to DC recently to work as Boooooz Allen Hamilton and it was good to see a familiar face. I also saw other familiar CMU faces unexpectedly at the bar. Carlene?! Do you remember that crap?! I thought Melissa and Gorana were going to walk through the door and Solesides Greatest Bumps was going to start playing. Also some chick who knew who I was, named Liz (Not Alspector), who said I was the nicest guy anyone would ever meet, which is...not true but was nice. Anyways me and Jakie met up with Patrick, Nicole, Blair, and some other people in Ballston and had a wonderful night. This morning however. I feel so irresponsible, but I'm just tired. Everything's going to be alright.

I also think I might get my Salt and Passage 7" today, excellent. This picture is just for fun.

Dudes

Dudes. I guess this dudes/duders thing is kind of getting old.

I keep posting right when I order something, and I realized I'm just posting about buying stuff. I'll write more on music, that might happen.

I just got Cease to Begin on Monday, which is most excellent. The artwork is beautiful, and one of my favorite albums for a while. For some reason I've been liking the more country-ish songs like "Marry Song", that's my favorite, maybe next to general specific. I just now went to their myspace and learned Cease to Begin is now available at target stores, for a limited time only ... hello good buy. I also found out that both albums were produced by Phil Ek, the duder who produced uh, all of the Built to Spill albums as far as I know. You know this was a really good idea starting this because by buying records I post more, and I buy more records so I can post. It's a wonderful cycle.

Man, I just got up to go to the bathroom to fart and pee, and our bathroom has 2 urinals, one tall one and one short one. But I walked in and there was ONE dude in there, and HE WAS USING THE LITTLE URINAL. Of all the options! Just blew my mind, I avoid the small urinal at most costs, the splash back dude, the pee hits the back of the urinal and gets all over your pants, and at work!? I guess it's possible that someone was using the big urinal when he started peeing, and then he continued to pee while the other guy washed his hands and walked out without me seeing him. I don't know, he was still peeing for a little while after I started. I think he just chose that shit, what a weirdo.

Chalk Dinosaur is playing a show tonight at the Garfield Artworks with Farewell Flight, I really wish I could have played or at least been there. I've been officially been moved from the "Members" section of the myspace page to the "Guest Appearances" list, but at least I still have a nickname. Anyways, if you're in Pittsburgh and reading this (Which might be an impossible combination since Tommy is the only person who reads this, and he lives in California, and he also probably might not make it down this far in this stupid post) you should go to the show because even if you don't love John, Farewell Flight is good stuff. Listen to "On Standby".

Reggie And The Full Effect - Inside The Dust Sleeve

Well RATFE is classic, and this gatefold is classic too, and was released on Vagrant! It's just the Under the Tray LP, but doesn't really work without a cd tray, hence Inside the Dust Sleeve. Same Songs. I saw it and really wanted to get Paco hung up on the wall and listen to RATFE for the first time in a bunch of years. I want to hang it up maybe along with Functioning on Impatience or Show me Your Tears. They are too rad to leave in a crate, also the only things on my walls right now are some crappy photos I took my Sophomore year at CMU and a Get Up Kids poster from highschool. I'm afraid the records might not be nearly as good when they aren't in the covers though. Kind of like how if you take the wrapper off of a Mountain Dew, it doesn't taste as good. I'm worried the Mountain Dew Principle will carry over to these records. I'll let you know.

Listening to these songs is amazing though, I just streamed some from last fm and was right back in highschool.

Work is kind of a bummer right now, getting kind of repetetive and boring, but I get to move somewhere else in the company in a couple of months so I gotta keep on a going and learning stuff until that point comes. In the meantime, I ordered a couch and a table which means I don't have to eat on the floor anymore, and I can sit on something more comfortable than a camping chair. Things are looking up.

Ween - La Cucaracha

I think I probably paid too much for this, but when I saw it in the record store I could not resist. I went to a new place that I hadn't been to yet to check it out called Som Records. It was pretty baller, they are almost purely a record shop, and have a lot of good used stuff and also had a couple crates of new vinyl, where I found this. They had the MGMT LP and I almost got that, with the Black Keys who I haven't heard much of but I've heard things. SOM records probably had the most new records that I actually wanted, and a lot of old rock stuff that I mostly haven't heard of which is usually how it is. But it wasn't a lot of stuff that I normally see in record stores, like old crappy 80's records and stuff, it was a lot of different stuff. So I think this was probably my favorite record store so far, beating out the CD cellar even though they had some good new vinyl as well.

Next stop on the record shop tour is Red Onion Records and Books. They have a mailing list which is nice, and they send out all the new LP's that they picked up every week. It's nice to be able to browse and keep up to date remotely from the convenience of my home. I'm going to stop by at some point this week however and check out the store. Updates to come.

I also ordered like 5000 records online recently because work was a little bit boring this week. So I've got a lot of posting to do in the near future.

On the my life side of things, I think an Asian gay kid has a man crush on me. I went out last night to TWO house warming parties, which were actually a good free time. Anyways we were walking from one house party to a bar or something, and someone spanked my right cheek. I don't know why but I didn't turn around, maybe I didn't want to know who it was, but I'm 90% it was the aforementioned gay Asian dude. Further confirmation of this man crush came upon his asking "So..do you have a girlfriend or what?" I said "Not Anymore", which in hindsight was probably was not the best response. Anyways, he might be moving kind of close to me with these two girls, one of whom I work with, and the other one is a babe who I want inside me. So that could be good or bad. Or both at the same time.

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin

I just ordered this actually, I didn't even get it in the mail yet, but this is one of my favorite records as of late so I anxiously await it's arrival. Will write more about the record when it comes and I can listen to it and write about it.

I actually wanted to write about Labor Day weekend. My Uncle Kevin (My Dad's Brother in Law) called me on Friday afternoon and said he was going to be in Alexandria for the evening and that we should meet up. Kevin's maybe not bro-est of the bros but it's always good to see family. So I drove down to Alexandria at around 5:30pm and we met up, and it turned out to be a big family reunion/birthday party. Needless to say I was out of place. Anyways, I thanked god when we left that house and went up the street to Kevin's brother's house, we'll call him Dale. He was chatting about the limo he had in his driveway, and I thought he was joking, but when we showed up, there it was. I had some serious doubts about where this night was headed, but we had picked up some beers along the way so we headed inside.

I followed Kevin past the limo and through the front door where we were greeted by one of the oldest living men i've laid my eyes on, sunk into a lazyboy, 5 feet in front of a 60 inch projection TV, yelling some nonsense gibberish at his three dogs.Every inch of this house was covered with crap, anything, giant bird cages, they had a suit of armor. Again i'm seriously questioning the direction this night has taken.

He has two sons, Joe and Ed, who are 25 year old twins. One of them works an IT job and the other does landscaping, both live at home as far as I know. It turns out they are total broskis, and we start talking about music becuase they listen to good music and play. Finally, the night has taken a turn for the better. I guess this is where being pack rats is a good thing, they have an absolutely baller band room on the roof with all the goods and then a bar. So we made mudslides on the porch and proceed to jam into the night, exactly what I've wanted to do since I can't play with John anymore. After a most excellent jam session, we moved onto the roof and started drinking the last bits of laphroaig that are out there, talk for a while and then everyone hits the sack of hay.

The rest of the weekend was wonderful after getting over that first hurdle, I went to my uncle's riverhouse and rode boats and jetskis all day and came home Monday night. How Wonderful.

Curl Up and Die - Unfortunately We're Not Robots

Got this on or off the internet and to my surprise when I opened it, it was white/gray marbled! How wonderful! The covers weren't anything to write home about, I get the feeling there wasn't a lot of love put into the physical record, but I love the music. I haven't heard this album in a little while, and just remember jamming to it in the car with Brian. Time to move onto the EP's which i've been told are even better.

I took a wonderful trip back to Pburgh to see Joe, Brian, Rob and others this weekend. We drove up to Erie to ride some serious log. Wait...

We built a raft consisting of 2 giant logs, and rode them like dorothy rides a tornado. Anyways, we enjoyed a sturgeon and cloud free afternoon on the beach at lake Erie and topped it off with dinner at Imperial. Upon arrival back at the double wide we pooped, started a fire, set out some chairs, and cracked open some brewskis. After some delightful catching up and conversation with the boys, and with a miraculous second wind hitting everyone, we decided to take the canoe out for a little lightless night boating. We navigated Snake Island and made our way down a small tributary while the sounds of a mysterious blues guitar in the distance hung in the air like mist on the water. The feeling of vulnerability is overwhelming, surrounded by darkness and unknowing, death was upon us. Frankenfish jumps over the canoe, circling, eyeing us up, like peas in an aluminum pod. Even if frankenfish didn't do us in, the leeches would. I manage to whack it on the head with my paddle, and stun it long enough for us to escape back to the dock.

We made it back safely, and watched revolver before hitting the sack of hay. On Sunday we celebrated our survival with a trip to Old Country Buffet.

In local news, I started carpooling on Monday from Ballston to Fairfax VA and I get the feeling that my new carmate is not going to be too down with record shopping after work. Bummer. Also, I got paid and now have mega cash wads until I have to pay rent. AND I get paid again on Friday so I can get seriously building the record collection. I just need to find some more record stores because nothing beats the feeling of finding a record in the store.

From The Top

This is just going to be a log of the records that I buy from here on out, and actually I might make a few posts about records I bought recently. Let's remember:


Coalesce - Functioning on Impatience (blue/yellow splatter, die cut cover)
The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
The Pixies - Doolittle
Fugazi - Repeater
Botch - Unifying Themes (Redux, Translucent Orange/Black Splatter)
Frank Black - Show Me Your Tears
Bob Dylan - Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid Soundtrack
The Muslims - The Muslims

I haven't gotten paid yet from CGI, so I don't have that much money to spend, but once I start makin the bacon, I will pick it up.

I was however very excited with the Bob Dylan record, as I had been investigating a song that was supposed to be on this album for a while. My friend Kate and I exchanged mix cds before I left for DC, and she put an Old Crow Medicine Show song on one of them. The song was amazing, I don't know what the deal is with this video, but the song is great. Bob Dylan had written the chorus to the song for the soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and I guess Ketch Secor, the singer of OCMS, liked it so much he finished the rest of it. Anyways, I think he did a really good job and I never want to talk about who should be credited what for the song. Sooooo, it was supposed to be released on this soundtrack but was never completed and only exists in super bootleg form. Enjoy.

I was at a used record store in Clarendon, which turns out to be a new AND used record store, and saw the two Pixies records, which needed to be bought. And they were, although Come On Pilgrim is still there waiting for me to get my paycheck.



Show me your tears was an online endeavor, it was, as far as I know, only released on vinyl in the UK, so I had to order out for that one. Even though this album is totally wussy because it's just FB talking about how sad he is about his divorce, he is a wonderful man and I would make sweet sweet chocolate syrup covered cake for him.

Coalesce was another online endeavor, brought to my attention by the Coalesce blog, thank goodness, and an easy decision was made. I opted to not buy the mug, however, in order to get the album faster. In retrospect, I might have rather waited, so I could use the mug at work...

I won't bore you (nobody?) with the rest, but all in all I have run into some good vinyl so far in DC and recently, and the foundations of a wonderful record collection seem to becoming together nicely.

Be back as soon as I can spend my first paycheck.