its coming

ahhh i cant wait. my predictions are a few days out...

bp

Bp's environmental cleanup management plan for the Gulf of Mexico, that body of water thats currently filling with oil, listed a species that could be threatened by a spill there. That species was a walrus. Yes. A walrus. did you guys know that walruses lived in the tropical waters of the gulf? Hopefully you didnt, because they dont actually. they dont even make it as far south as nova scotia. How then, did BP make this schoolboy error? the answer is really quite simple. -- their environmental cleanup management plan for the gulf was virtually a carbon copy of the one they use on the north slope of alaska and canada. a different ecosystem with a totally different That, unfortunately, has been realized to be the cold hard truth.

Ask me why i have such a firm distrust of corporations, and i could talk your ear off for hours. heres the thing though. i wouldnt be confident in my ability to win you over to my side, if you werent already. That is until i came across this. There is nothing more damning, negligent and sickening as this obvious subversion of responsibility. Keep the shareholders happy. OK. do that. thats how you operate. but at least be decent to the rest of us.

its not just stopping the oil. its identifying where the oil is that is trapped in undersea currents and thermoclines thousands of feet underwater. its clearing the marshes and estuaries. the beaches. its an endless number of things that will continue to grow.

infinite jest

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/books/review/Kalfus-t.html

ill be reading this book. i never really htink about how dfw came off to people. should be interesting.

And it comes

The great thing about Columbia is the unbearable humidity. Because when a late afternoon thunderstorm comes at just the right time and wipes it away there is nothing better. Sitting on the porch, writing and researching for a story im putting together, seeing fireflies, hearing cicadas, waiting for an owl, smelling the flowers as they open back up. out of the worst of it sometimes you find bliss, if only temporary. Its non-events like this that keep us sane, keep us driven, keep us from being hid.

well. just thought id like to point to some irony. even if it be weather related.

it being memorial day, or decoration day. or however else you might call it--

Iucero. ill probably be writing a long over due big long piece on them within a week or so. because early summer is lucero time. all the time is lucero time.

news

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/europe/29czech.html?hp

Later tonight

later tonight, MD and i are going to that music exchange thing where we write about a song that the other has picked out. His, and i feel kind of bad about this. is the current number 1 on the uk dance charts. the cheese charts, the eurotrash, the anti-dubstep, the regressive, sappy, awful, etc etc. worstest music in the world. I feel bad releasing this before he tells me what im going to be doing, as this surely ups the ante. im in total fear of what youre going to give me.....

This. in all its glory. is the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=Fql6aFizfPI&feature=related

Good time, by roll deep.

post punk progressions

so since i talked about bowie earlier. i thought it worth mentioning that im letting la roux take over my mind right now. while i read the v for vendetta book. the two dont really go together. its making me take a much too lighthearted approach to the book. in a way, its making it comic.

for instance, the elegy/bridge thing at like 3:15 in 'in for the kill' just corresponded with V saying 'Good evening London, I thought it time we had a little talk'. What kind of talk? im imaging something slapstick. liek when john cleese would say 'and now for something completely different' on monty python. oh well. no matter.

i can remember the first time i heard la roux in the club last year. it was at this really awesome place called http://www.clubsnafu.com/. well thats the url at least. it was a pretty good place. most nights it was pretty avant garde. which i liked. i didnt really go there often. by that i mean i only went like once a week. sometimes there were just too many people doing blow there.

exodus was my jam. exodus was the greatest place ever. 3 nights a week, my roomate and i would spend about 6 hours each night there. monday, friday and saturday. they have a lot of my money. especially since it was on top of a pub. a pub where i spent many hours.

then there were the wild card clubs, which i usually avoided like the plague and only went to when i was compulsed or obligated to make an appearance. liquid. liquid was the worst. it was a mega club. 3 stories. first floor was like top 40. middle was just trash and the top was like oldies. it was full of slags.

then there was pearl lounge. pearl lounge is probably the biggest anomaly in club history. there was like a 3 girls to 1 guy ratio there. the only thing is, they were all so dumb. i went only once. whereupon i saw a girl jumping on a track light that was recessed into the floor. shed step on the light, notice that no light would shine through, then step off. see the light. step on. not see the light. step off. see the light. my friend and i watched her do this easily a dozen times. then we got our coats and left.

parliament wasnt really a club. it was a bar. i liked that place. nice chairs. like those massive oversized things. ameoba like? if that helps. good place to start the night. take it out of the wild card list.

Bassment-also not a club really. nice place. kind of chill, underground on an old street. i liked it there.

the priory. oh the priory. i had many many bad experiences in this place, countless perhaps. in fact, i dunno if i remember most of them. it was in an old church, or rather kirk. because thats what theyre called there. so why is it called the priory and not the kirk? one of the many mysteries of this place. so yeah. big open place. stained glass and everything still there. dj booth in the middle. i know everyone has heard this story that im about to tell. so yeah, dj booth, big circle thing looks like a birdcage in the middle of where the pews would be. people while dancing would put their drinks on this little bannister type of thing they had while dancing. those drinks would all be drunk by my friends. in a very short amount of time, because the bouncers would come after you like you would not believe and chuck you out. so the name of the game was speed. it all made so much sense then... im sure i consumed an elephants dosage of roophies everytime i went there. thats not even the half of it though. they had this one drink, called the 'purple rain' at the priory. i dunno what the heck is in it, no one does. it cost like 9 quid (15 bucks) and at some points in the night it seems like a good idea to get one. basically they dump like 10 different things into a martini glass and light it on fire. then you have to chug it. after you chug it, they trap the vapors in another glass->AND YOU HAVE TO SNORT THE VAPORS. through a straw. now what happens next is basically disturbing. you feel fine for like 13 seconds, then you have an out of body experience. and then you see double. and then dancing is a lot more fun. its like you have 2 brains. in hindsight they probably put ecstacy in the purple rain. oh well. seriously though, im not even half done with this place. the bathrooms are downstairs, and the guys is extremely small. but inside this extremely small bathroom, fit for like 1 guy at a time (at a club with probably a 600 person capacity, this is hilarious). well anyway, inside of here is one of the large nigerian men that are like 10% of the aberdeen population. and he makes you pay to use the bathroom, and pay to use a towel and pay for soap. it costs basically 3 quid to go to the bathroom there. its for this reason why most people go outside and go to the bathroom on the outside wall of the club. i havent talked about the clientele of the priory. now i will. over there its a lot more common to get hit on by guys. no big deal. but at the priory, you get chased. by guys and like 40 year old women. constantly. you have so many responsiblities there. steal drinks, figure out a way to not get ripped off when going to the bathroom, prevent rear from being grabbed. make it out alive. the place was a joke.

hmm what else. oh yes tiger tiger. tiger tiger is down by the docks, and every weekend someone would get stabbed. to death. no lie. i never went there.

the moorings-i loved this place. down by the train station and the docks. speaking of this place, let me describe a day that ended at the moorings. one day that we had to go to edinburgh to meet with parliament. meetings ended at say 3. we didnt have a train out til around 630. for 3.5 horus we pub crawled, in what are some of the best pubs in teh world, i would say. ill maybe post a ranking sometime. but anyway. did that. then bought more for the train. we had a car to ourselves, and it was a party. incredible time. ok so about 2 hours in, 1.5 hours from aberdeen, the train calls at montrose. montrose has a lot of history. history i wont go into, because now all its known for is heroin. think of trainspotting. trainspotting took place in leith, which is edinburgh. after that movie came out the town got so pissed about the negative press that they cleaned up the town, and all the junkies went to montrose. thats literally all the town is now. junkies. well so, we see this one guy on the platform, and my friend dickie. yes that was his name. waves a pint can at him. then one of my other friends does the same. and by the end of it there are 15 people waving pint cans at this guy. he makes a beeline for our car. and gets on. it as at this point we notice that the guy is about 5'2'' and like 75 pounds, and his nose is pouring blood. and his eyes are glassed over. and he smells like garbage. and he looks like hed kill us all. so he sits down behind my friend, and leans over the chair, bleeding all over. but were so drunk that we are unphased. we have the most delightful talk with teh guy, that makes no literal sense and its not worth me recounting it. but we do learn his name, learn that he used to have a job, he supports labour, and aberdeen fc (though he cant name the main players from the last 3 years). its as if hes frozen in time when tony blair was still running things. fascinating, in a tragic way. so yeah the conductor comes, the guy has no money, but tries to pay with his phone. i still dont know what he was hoping to accomplish with that, but like i said, hes out of his mind. anyway, my friend goes to the bathroom, then the guy goes back there with him. and PUTS A BAG OF COCAINE IN HIS HAND and tries to sell it to him. so yeah. mr harmless junky takes a step too far. so he calls the cops and the junky is sitting next to him at this point, staring at him! so on the phone hes all cryptic and shit but he lets in key details of like, this guy is not right, etc etc. and the junky never catches on. so pretty soon we pull into aberdeen. and we see like 6 cops and 2 attack dogs waiting for us to pull in. of course the junky doesnt though. so he gets off, then tries to make a run for it when he wises up. but he can only run like 1mph and my friend clotheslines him and he falls over and is knocked out. then cops drag him off. wild! so then we go to moorings, and buy lots of drinks for the guy who called the cops and clotheslined the guy. its all rubbish though because this guy probably never got help. drugs are no good.

those are i think most of the clubs, all the ones with histories anyway. wow this a lot of words. all because of la roux. well. should we go full circle?

news news

two new arcade fire songs are out. im too scared to listen. i dont liek to split up their albums into singles. gotta let them stay intact.

today i did some kenpox workout or whatever from a video nick gave me. it was quite fun actually. despite my room's best efforts to shrink in the walls and close around my lanky flailing, i did not, in fact, kick out a window or break anything. that alone, is success enough, for me.

i actually want to go a second round, but i dont think thats a good idea until tomorrow.

ive really been in the mood for some radiohead today. i feel kind of bad that i let the two year anniversary of our first meeting go unannounced. so, better late than never.

Im also seriously in the mood for some bowie. i love this one.

to have great poets, there must be great audiences

walt whitman said that.

frightened rabbit, scotland, network tv debut. thats all you need to know now. everyone needs to own a copy of 'the midnight organ fight' easily the best album of 2008. one of them anyway.

tomorrow, is champagne champagne. and its worth mentioning that im ceaselessly excited. despite the dwindling numbers attending.

hello

hello everyone. im reading about federal land management issues.

but im listening to flylo's new one.

this is an old one.

the highest lama

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html?hp

as promised

talib-

oh the wheels of history and vice (keep turning)

Pt 1 http://www.fitsnews.com/2010/05/24/will-folks-letting-the-chips-fall/

Pt 2 http://www.thestate.com/2010/05/24/1300759/haley-denies-affair-with-blogger.html\

oh geez. thisll play out nicely. Go sc.

handshake drugs

kind of a sequel to earlier, though not entirely.

people got a lotta nerve.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/05/jesus_prayer_opens_texas_textbook_meeting.html

well said.

stand ins

People have been asking me what i think about the whoel floyd landis thing.

Ive been telling them this.

1)when i met floyd at hte tour de georgia, got my picture with him, autograph etc. I said, 'behind you 100% floyd.' the look he gave me was unforgettable. It looked empty, surprised, like what i had said was something he himself did not believe. from then on, i knew the guy was full of shit.

2)that being said, what if these allegations are true, setting all other motivations for landis aside. what if he actually is right?

3)then usa cycling, armstrong, et al. +the sport's credibility would be marginalized to the point of table tennis, at least in the public's perception. of course people will still ride in great numbers, but itll take DECADES for sponsors to return the sport with the financial contributions/advertising/etc that the sport sees today.

at any rate, here are the emails, and theyre quite sad. landis probably needs psychiatric help in all honesty. however, we all know that in history when there is a lone individual that has some measure of truth in his statements that go against established tradition, theyre framed as an idiot or a heretic and locked away, never to be heard from again.

http://www.livestrong.com/teamradioshack/news_series-emails-referenced-statement-regarding-doping-allegations/

on arizona's ignorance, intolerance and racism.

ive spent a lot of today reading up on the arizona immigration bill, because i dont really know what all its about. Naturally, I was opposed to it from the first time i heard it discussed, but my opinion was uninformed.

Now, I loathe it.

The carte blanche profiling that it allows for is one thing, and if SCOTUS doesnt shut this down then it certainly will set a precedent for the southwest and southeast to follow in arizona's footsteps. -- A similar bill is already floating around in columbia.

but really, profiling isnt what im most concerned with. Its the deliberate attempts to whitewash the public education system the state. what i mean is there is a top-down policy being created to remove hispanic heritage classes and the like from the schools. All under the guise that those classes preach ethnic solidarity. OK, if thats the case, then dont teach european history. dont have african-american studies. don't let people learn what they want to learn and what is relevant for them to learn. Go on, continue to marginalize national minorites when they are the majority population in regional contexts. Let people be who they are for fucksake. Its an argument that seems to be so void of logic, and it creates the appearance of an internment camp. What dumbness. itd be great if we still had someone like cesar chavez and a strong united farm workers union. somebody with a voice for these people.

Worried about the drug war spilling over? legalize and regulate marijuana. Problem doesnt go away, right away, but it actually addresses it. unlike throwing grenades over a fence. What is that supposed to do? youre feeding the fire dumbasses.

talib kweli is throwing a special show tonight in arizona, he says hes got a song on the issue that hes debuting tonight. ill post it when i hear it.

anyway. this song describes what i think of the powers that be of that state. the lyrics are good.

'Fi all dem fuckin' people who ignore blatant facts just so dem maintain a order beneficial only to themselves'

'how did we get here and where do we go now'

alright, time to fill my ears with some sonic warfare via hyperdub records. later.

gangsters walk, pimps gonna talk

kanye west said that.

anyway. i watched the documentary harlan county, usa this afternoon. im going to write about it later. its an interesting one, and we'll have to hop onboard the union train. (if you arent already).

later

substantivity

been awhile since i feel like ive written something good on here. do i feel like i owe it to you people to produce? not exactly. to myself? no not really. i feel like i only really owe it to the idea of this blog-that the only way for it to exist as something credible is if it contains things that are substantive. what the blog itself may fail to realize is that was never really my intention from the get-go, but of course the blog would never know that. blogs dont have feelings lawl. but i suppose the idea of them do, and that can be supported through some argument i dont know how to even begin to formulate. will this even be good? i dunno, but ill throw a little effort into it just the same.

i guess theres a lot of things i want to get to here tonight, if possible. i may be up a while yet, but thats ok. the rooms dark, the window is open and the music is on. just the glow of the laptop here. i suppose this is the modern day equivalent of writing by a single candle. its not really the same though, and a lot of me yearns for that. some say to let bygones be bygones though. again, i dont necessarily agree with that either. its that idea of remembrance and nostalgia that im particularly guilty of holding in high esteem, i suppose. i dont really know.

i went for a run today over in fants grove. it was nice. saw a lot of frogs in a creek, stopped to pay attention. i like it out there. suppose ill go back tomorrow. hate running but i like being over there. its a fair tradeoff.

ive been looking at starting to make some furniture. i need a few more tools to make some proper stuff, but im going to make a few sets of bookcases this summer for sure. nothing too fancy, might even just use pine. im just ready to get my hands moving again after spending four years staring at books. theres a part of us schools seem to try to take away, or at least neglect. its really a shame. we could do some good if theyd let us.

the guardian had a story up about a kid in the sudan who had been abducted and forced into slavery. we have it so revoltingly good here that it makes me ill.

might take some time to talk about horse feathers for a minute--. its been a week on since we went, but its all still pretty clear in my mind. that of course means that it was pretty good. they had a guy from seattle opening, guy named barton carroll. good guy, really self referential and you could tell. i like that in a singer songwriter. a really interesting stage presence, he as a performer was more of a reflection of the audience rather than an impression upon them. thats rare, and i enjoyed it. he might be likened to a certain nick hornby. in that he gives the appearance of bearing a lot of some notion of a 'man's soul' or whatever youd want to call it, but in reality hes discussing only whats painfully obvious. its pretty neat to hear. great back and forth with the guy wearing bike cleats. interesting guy, id like to catch him again.

theres always so much suspense here. 'and now about what we came to see...; the main act was...; etc etc, we know how it goes.' i dont know about that style of building something up. first of all, i dont know how well it works for something like horse feathers. i mean ok, lots of people/bands/whatever like to have their ego's served, but i would hazard to guess that many more would much rather just have their stories told. lets just try to be that much less formulaic. formulaic? maybe blase is the word i want, because im sincerely interested in the words and music here.

we were lucky enough to see horse feathers do their first show in the southern appalachians. this is remarkable, given the way their music is presented, as something if not quintessentially then tangentially southern gothic. its hard to believe that one could appreciate the area so much, yet have never witnessed it until now. its the same sentiment i have with the french and their unabashed love for all things faulkner. i simply cannot trust that they fully understand the meaning within. in fact, i know, for better or for worse, that they cannot. but i digress. they seemed to like it here though, and thats good. portland oregon isnt half bad either.

i think that theres another way to think about this, though. are we guilty of forcing the southern gothic narrative to remain with us, or rather confined to us? those from the south, who have to live with the stigma of what happened in the 1860s, jim crow, the depression and all else. the homeland/wasteland dichotomy that defines our existence, perhaps more than anything. though its of course in the present that the new york city cops are the ones who shoot unarmed black muslim men in the streets. but maybe thats not a fair assessment of the situation, because isnt it always them judging us and passing the 'final' verdict anyway? at least in terms of the public consciousness? but again, i digress. still though, i really want to know the answer here.

maybe this just isnt fair. maybe these themes born out of the southern gothic tradition are more, well, transferrable, than we think. maybe its we that are too selfish. certainly the grotesque, the wanderer, the cripple, the lost, the forsaken and the bible salesman are not confined to 10 or so states centered around geography and a semi-shared heritage. thats laughable. why then, is there no established pacific northwest genre to fit the mold? that horse feathers cannot be thought of as such? its strange to me. in fact, there really is no anglo-culture unique to the pac nw is there? i guess thats because it was settled so recently? i dont know. but its just hard to fathom for me. and its not semantics, but rather the themes linked with the genre. blame critics for this hoopla i guess. always a safe bet. they made the term up anyway i suppose. id really like to ask erskine caldwell about this. come to think of it, i wonder what hed say?

ill guess, but it wont be accurate. he'll probably shake from his grave. i can hope not.

1-we no longer have our oral tradition. or rather our oral tradition is no longer particular.

2-theres no longer a passion about simplicity, functionality.

3-we see starts and ends today, when in fact reality is never discrete, but always continuous.

4-experience and imagination are not mutually exclusive, but rather are the very nature of storytelling.

5-character development is the story.

6-are hardships and struggle truly shared amongst others?

7-i should have written that book on jimmy carter

i dont know if thats half-passable. might be.

hed be a great one to talk to.

i guess ive not really talked about the concert itself. not yet anyway. itll come though. 2:00 is coming around and i cant make it much past that anymore. apologies.

titus andronicus

i like these guys. talked about them a few times before, but today ive finally given their civil war concept album a few deserved spins back to back (to back).

i like this song in particular. very uhmericuh, in a sense. maybe revisionist uhmericuh though. i'm not entirely sure.

FAO Kate

just skimmed through and came across these. some of which are tangentially related to what were doing.

http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/3/2morgan.html

http://mcsweeneys.net/2008/9/2rhode.html

http://mcsweeneys.net/2006/11/3kennan.html

http://mcsweeneys.net/2007/1/10young.html

http://mcsweeneys.net/2007/1/25smith.html

http://mcsweeneys.net/2010/4/9waksberg.html

glasses

all of the sudden, or rather over the course of the last week or two, my lenses have started getting tons of microscratches. i dont get it. there were none and now there are a lot. im not really a fan of that.

also, we decided to watch the worst lookign movie we could find on instant view. settled with 'let the right one in'. its about vampires and shit. unfortunately and unbeknownst to us, it seemed to feature child pornography. netflix really shouldnt have that on there.

lastly, the cigarette tax veto was overridden by the house. thank goodness. on a related note, sanford saw whats her name in florida. but dont worry, he didnt do it on our expense, he did it on floridas-florida police provided security. is he going to foot the bill? i hope for them that he does. also, i kind of chuckled when i saw the most recent picture of her. she looks strikingly similar to jenny. megafail bro.

Thanks boomkat, x1000, for this one.

ellipses

2 things im also going to try to do today, in addition to what i said on twitter. 1)talk about curs in the weeds. 2)world cup predictions (though i think i can wait another week or two for these)

tada

grime

so tories-lib dems it is then. may not be such a bad thing if lib dems are able to enter into government as full partners (5 cabinet posts and clegg as deputy pm). itll force labour to get their act together, and by that i mean figure out which one of the milliband brothers will lead the party. time in opposition could do them good and let them build up some charisma and credibility for the party leadership (because those seem to go hand in hand nowadays). itll be interesting. was i hoping for a labour-libdem coalition to happen? yes. but i think the shadow of gordon would have been too great and there was never any serious chance of that happening. also, they would have had to bring in the SNP and plaid cymru and that would have meant some massive subsidies to scotland and wales. that probably wasnt politically feasible. oh well. i wouldnt be surprised if the coalition falls apart in less than a year. we'll see.

yay dizzee.

a good rain song.

ha

i like mitchell and webb. i miss watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df-uemc-e3w&feature=related

when no clear solutions arise

theres always iannucci posing as tucker.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/07/malcolm-tucker-may-7-outbox

slept for a while. and now im up. read for awhile. and now im here. turned the beeb on and dimbleby is still talking. 8 hours? wow. hung parliament. its going to be interesting to see if labour and the lib dems can get a coalition together. if they are able to do so, itll be more democratic. for 2 reasons. 1-the combined share of the popular vote will better reflect the will of the people. 2-the two parties will be committed to electoral reform and the institution of proportional representation. brown cant be pm though.

oh look simon schama is on. talkinga bout how this is all unprecedented.

that is all. i feel tired again.

ha

exit polls are all weird tonight. saying lib dems showed weak today. weird.

in search of the best wake-up music

last week i trashed the stroke's album 'first impressions of earth'. i kind of regret that now. a certain kind of regret. today, instead of sleigh bells, i woke up to 'you only live once' from said album by the strokes. it works well. puts you in a good mood asap.

thanx monsanto, times 1000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?hp

jokers.

wow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/03/gordon-brown-plea-progressive-voters

This, is good. great talking points here gordon. why cant you always be this great? too little too late, i fear. even though labour is going to lose big thursday, at least there was this. motivating and a great argument for communities.

stuff

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/30/nick-clegg-my-hero-samuel-beckett

interesante.