METAL

Honestly, when you're a kid, what is the most awesome thing ever? Limousines. And possibly Slayer. We just decided to combine the two, that's all.



THE CEILING WAS MIRRORED


THERE WERE LITTLE PLASTIC STRANDS WITH LIGHTS ON THE END OF THEM


This is how McGill figures one drinks Champagne while riding a limo to a metal concert.


Murph hears metal, limo-surfs, accidentally stops the CD.

STRETCHCURSION

OMG, look who's here! It's Teebz.

Here it appears that Pierce and I are judging Teebz' shotgunning abilities. Pierce: upper half. Me: lower half.

We do not know this guy, but he's wearing a shirt that looks like Teebz.


If I had seen my wrist when I was 15, I wouldn't have believed it. VIP for Slayer?!? As an aside, no advantage was taken of the VIP status, unfortunately. No tour buses, no ladies. Sigh.


Stage on fire. Lower left: dude with wicked farmer tan/tribal.


The traditional greeting at a Slayer concert.

Old people.

Trolling

I got bored, which sometimes means that I clean out old emails. I found my confirmation email from Columbia House in November 2000 (I, too, am surprised that Columbia House existed in 2000 AND that I was a member). I was hoping that my free record choices would prove to be hilarious.

A Tribe Called Quest, Anthology
2Pac, All Eyez On Me
Michael Jackson, History: Past, Present And Future
Sinead O'Connor, The Lion and the Cobra
The Cure, Disintegration
The Smiths, Singles
Bjork, Post
New Order, Substance
Q-Tip, Amplified

Even the weakest of the ten, Q-Tip, is still totally listenable. In retrospect, it looks like I was replacing some albums that had been lost in the shuffle. Also, I am really mad that this list included no albums by Limp Bizkit or Silverchair.

Link Dump

Three straight posts with no pictures? QUE HAPPEN?

"What must be NY's first artisanal bacon bar." (via Fimoculous)

Paste, Pitchfork, Pop Matters review Benjy's new album. (C'mon, Pitchfork! Do you really need to universalize a concept album about Bobby Driscoll? Seems to me that it universalizes itself)

Old Jews Telling Jokes (via BaconJew)

Also, someone needs to start a campaign to eradicate the use of "snark" as the only possible modifier for internet humor. I'll do it if nobody else does.

Update: Forgot to link to this sad news a couple days ago. Salih's book Season of Migration to the North is one of my favorites, ever.

Miscellania

Punk and I took a portrait.


Boss broke out the 20-year old Dell QuietKey keyboard (which is in fact the opposite of quiet, interestingly) a few weeks ago because he's too cheap to buy a new one. After I mocked (" bossman the 80s called they want their keyboard back etc"), he added the "ERGONOMICALLY PERFECT SINCE 1984."

Who knew that nerds still like the big keyboards, and that the office at work is now with the times?


Very excited about this album. Tracks 2 and 6 in particular.


Remember my mom's horribly disfigured spine? Take a gander:


+++In the NYT Proof blog (when it's not about being a recovering alcoholic, it's pretty good), a great post about downpouring/blended drinks/top shelf v. rail.

300th Post=CONFIDENTIAL CLUB INFORMATION + Setlist

I will bet that you didn't know that I was a member of a top secret organization WHEN I WAS NINE. Lookit.


I wonder: was I in two clubs named Cobras? Or were the NGA Cobras (No Girls Allowed, natch) different from the regular Cobras, in which girls were allowed? Also, which club gave me the rank of "warrior?" I bet it was "Asp." Only a club cool enough to remain singular would have warriors.

Bonus club information: my sister had a top secret Friendship Pin club. In which two people made friendship pins and sold them. Secretly.


Please notice that this top-secret enterprise was linked to the Detective Agency of Las Vegas in the USA.


In no order. 20 songs of about 100.

Phlogging on the Ones and Twos

I'll be playing music in the Red Room at Black Cat Monday starting at 8pm if'n you want to come by. No requests, marginally good music, likely played from my phone. How can one pass? (Hint: I will likely be the first person to ever play Travis Tritt's "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde" in the Black Cat.)

Thank God It Comes With Free Dr. Pepper

Chinese Democracy comes out on Sunday. Klosterman gave it an A-, which only means that he's lost any ability to listen to music objectively. Cuz it's streaming on MySpace right now, and it's TERRIBLE. (Seriously. Do yourself a favor and listen to "Street of Dreams." It's laughable.) Did Klosterman get caught in some wackedy time continuum?

A song like "Shackler's Revenge" is initially average, until you get to the solo—then it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python.

So it's like a rusty, failing piece of antiquated technology being strangled by a snake? It's an apt metaphor, I just don't see how it's a positive one.

My review: it sounds like the Guns n' Roses album I would've produced as a goof after downing a bottle of Robitussin and listening to November Rain on loop for 9 hours in 2002.

The good thing is that Dr. Pepper hated on Axl, and got burned.

Pandering

Chad America, who I am pretty sure is this phlog's #1 fan (prove me wrong), noted last night that he hasn't seen his face on it in like two weeks. Also, he told me that his new house adjoins a high school, and we decided that we should put on sweatpants, sunglasses, overcoats and fedoras and go watch gym class together.


Also somebody said we should start a ZZ Top cover band. Possible names:

1. We Have Legs
2. TT Zop
3. Sharp-Fingernailed Man
4. Cheap Sunglasses, as Well as Cheap Accessories of All Sorts

Run for Cover here we come.

Atlas District Schmatlas District

After working on H St. for long enough, we haven't been back in a while. Which is a shame, because there's lots of good things about it.

A) The Pug, which I've mentioned before, but never mentioned the fantastic signs over the bar which you can't read here: NO SPECIALS NO SHOOTERS NO POLITICS NO FIGHTING.



B) Al the bar cat at Palace of Wonders.


C) Cobra Kisses, co-worker's hair band playing at Red & Black. Possibly the best encore/road ballad ever written (scroll down their MySpace playlist to "Gaping Hole").

Los Angelesing +

There are certain things one does when traveling to certain cities. In LA, it is getting off the plane, getting in the car, and driving directly to Roscoe's House of Chicken & Waffles.


Then we went to see Teeners and Devin. Saturday afternoon we took a drive up Mulholland and took in the scenery.


Turns out Ana has a thing about standing on cliffs. HAHA LOSER


Last time, we decided that the apartment complex they live in is Melrose Place. This time, however, we realized that it's actually Daniel and Lucille Larusso's apartment from Karate Kid, only with water in the pool. See?

Karate Kid apartment:


Teeners and Devin Apartment:


The only difference is that that fairweather friend Freddy Fernandez doesn't live there. Thanks for backing me up when Johnny beat the shit out of me in front of everybody, Freddy! Enjoy not being in a single scene for the rest of the movie!

The next day we met up with my family before the funeral, and my mom gave me what is likely the best picture ever taken of anyone. Please note my vicious belly, defiant look and my grandma's resulting amusement:


That night, Ana and I toasted to grandma's memory by enjoying a handful of 7&7s--her favorite--at the hotel bar. Hotel bars rule.


After the ceremony we decided to drive down to Newport Beach, where I spend a lot of time as a kid. I asked my mom how to get there (about 30 miles from where we were staying) and she drove me this map:


If you can't tell, it basically says "drive to the coast and take a left." My mom is amazing. But I did get to see my mom's parents' little bungalow for the first time in twenty years:


It's a one-bedroom house and it's probably worth $52,000,000 now.

I had two things I wanted to do in Newport: one, take the ferry across to Balboa Island, which was probably my favorite thing to do as a kid.


Check. Verdict: the ferry lasted all of thirty seconds. But still awesome. Also, either Keri loves the band U2, or she loves me as well.

The second thing I wanted to do was to recreate the picture of me as a kid devouring a chocolate-covered banana. Bam:

Verdict: delicious.

Other delicious things: Winchell's donuts. Particularly chocolate-covered devil's food cake Winchell's donuts. Mom got us a couple for the drive.


Then we got on the plane, looking forward to another delicious red eye. Every time it seems like a good idea when booking the tickets, and a horrible one when we arrive home with two hours before work. But whatevs.


BONUSBONUSBONUS Last week was a bad week for people I knew who were old. Archie, who had been my work's exclusive cabbie for years, passed on Wednesday. He was a great old guy who had become an honorary member of our staff and a friend. We went to his memorial service today:

Archie was a musician, and when he was a younger man he toured with the Ike and Tina Turner Review and opened for Otis Redding before becoming a house guitarist and singer in DC for more than twenty years. He performed under the stage name Art Falls. If you've the gumption, download his song called "I Want You Baby."

Santa Crawls and Their Repercussions

People who work in offices all day have a hard time making friends, so they have to work extra-hard to find like-minded people to do the stupid shit they like to do. In December, the stupid shit they like to do is dress up in Santa costumes and go from bar to bar drinking and losing things.* Saturday, Katie got to witness a little of the magic:


It's amazing what 30 drunk Santas will do to destroy one's Christmas spirit, so Joe and I decided to balance things out by playing some non-Christmas holiday sets on the jukebox. He started things off with Halloween (Monster Mash + Nightmare on My Street=Success), and I followed up with Easter. What follows is my set with brief annotations, in case anybody's interested in replicating it:

1. "Easter Flesh" - The Legendary Shack Shakers. Gotta start things off slow, work the crowd into the idea of a themed set; the Shack Shakers aren't what one would call a "religious" band, so nobody's gonna get all weirded out. Plus, the song is pretty good.


2. "Easter" - Patti Smith Group. Kind of a downer, but the name of the song is "Easter," so it made the cut.


3. Now that the set is in full-swing, time to throw a curveball. In nearly every situation in life, "curveball" means: KIDZ BOP. If you don't know about Kidz Bop, do yourself a favor and cure your ignorance. I played some Kidz Bop Easter song that isn't online. But rest assured that it was amazing.


4. "Easter Bunny Hop" - VeggieTales. How better to follow up kidz doing covers of popular and traditional music than with overtly religious animated vegetables singing vaguely religious songs?

5. "Easter March" - Liberace. How better to follow singing vegetables than with a little piano ditty by the master of moderation?


6. "Easter [something]" - Steve Green. Since the room has pretty much gone silent in awe of Liberace's adagios, it is important to take advantage. The best way to do that is to play an Easter song by my mom's favorite Christian Contemporary blond, Steve Green. People at the bar seemed surprised that I was singing all the words. Maybe they should check the status of their souls.


BONUSBONUSBONUS I bought fashionframes! Unfortch they are basically clear versions of Ana's realframes so I'll never be able to wear them. But maybe--just maybe--my vision will decline enough to need glasses within the next forty years. In that case, my fashionframes will be there waiting for me.


Plus! Ana says hello, Jeanne!


* Things they lost which were later found on the floor: Three credit cards, one ID, one wallet, two hats, two sweaters, one book, one scarf, $40 cash.

Summer Music Thursday Time

DC doesn't have many awesome traditions for its residents. The baseball team, you'll remember, has to make up its own as it goes along. But there is this awesome one where they put on free concerts at Fort Reno all summer long. This is Fort Reno:


This is how people relax there:


Fort Reno is right next to Wilson High School, which would be awesome if you went to summer school there, because you get to go to concerts afterward.


Fort Reno concerts, because they're for the kids, don't have the drugs or the alcohols. They do have babies.


It draws really good bands. This week two of our favorites (Benjy Ferree and the Aquarium) played. I originally wrote "NERD ROCK" on this picture of the Aquarium, not because they're part of a genre of music called Nerd Rock or anything, but just because when I listen to it I think of nerds and it seems that nerds like it alot. But Ana feels that categorizing music is dumb, and that it should just either be Awesome or Not Awesome. Since the Aquarium is her favorite band, I decided to acquiesce. Also she's holding a gun to my throat.



After the show was over, we went to DC9 for this DJ night by this guy. When we got there, Da Committee was on stage singing songs like "Last Call for Alcohol" and "DC Clap," the latter of which details how people in DC clap. The awesome part about the show was that people danced, which in DC is tantamount to a coup.


He asked for a Patron margarita before singing "Last Call for Alcohol." Gotta stay true to the lyrics.


Anyways, it was fun.


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