Thank Jeebus it's Friday. I'm tired of selling selling selling product product product. Time to kick it with beer, music and video games with the kids. Cosmo and his cuz Steel spent the whole day goofing around in the garage studio, cutting homemade hip-hop tracks and scratching records. Some of the stuff they came up with is pretty hilarious. It is my opinion that all kids should be turned loose with noise making devices and recording gear. Footballs and frisbees should be banned, as should hot dogs and apple pie.
Tomorrow night is the Hot Summer Nightmare show at Sam Bond's Garage - several Eugene band members playing in one-off, made-up bands, one time only. I think I'm playing drums in the Unbathed and I'm pretty sure it includes Ty, Scottk and Waylon Spoden. Should be a strange and wondrous night. I hope to see you there.

Watched an awesome video on Charles Mingus last night - my co-worker Marta loaned it to me. Mingus was an amazing personality and an amazing talent. Very inspiring to see footage of him I'd never seen before + the footage of Eric Dolphy was quite cool. These guys played music like their lives depended on it - and in Dolpy's case, he lost his life for pursuit of bringing his music to an audience that wanted to hear it . (He was killed by racist thugs in Germany while on tour; he'd been threatened there on previous tours)
Seeing the amount of work these characters put into their music for little or no material gain brought to light the fact that, in this age of extreme commercial radio conglomorates gobbling up the airwaves in order to push their crap "Product" on a sea of anesthetized zombies, people seem to care more about shopping for clothes at Old Navy than they do about true expression and artistic genius... aww, who am I kidding. I'm listening to Beyonce' on the mp3 player that's in the pocket of my Dockers right now. See you at TCBY after I get my hair cut at Super Cuts. Ciao, baby!

Caught a great show last night - Supagroup with the Perverts + Anxietites + Monkee Torture at John Henry's. Anxieties I missed. I was hoping the Perverts would be up next, since they were reccomended by Zookie, but instead it was Supagroup from New Orleans.
I'd heard this name before but didn't recall seeing/hearing them. They kicked ass - very much from the Supersuckers-AC/DC school of music, they struck me as being a cut above most other groups that ape this style. Tight, on-the-spot musicianship, great stage presence and really nice guys to boot.
The Pervs followed and seemed like a Eugene band I had seen before - perhaps some of these guys were in a different band at some point. They reminded me of several classic punk-era bands - Mission of Burma, Wire - as well as Sebadoh. Mostly clean guitar sounds and some ragged songs gave them a different, edgy sound. I would check them out again, but I doubt I'd let them get past second base.
On time for work today - pat me on the back, already. Coffee is good.

Arriving on time to work this morning, getting geared up to sell, sell, sell, I thought of this quote from John Cusack's character Lloyd Pressler from the movie 'Say Anything'

(Responding to his love interest's father's question on what his future plans are):

"You mean like career? Uh, I don't know. I've, I've thought
about this quite a bit sir, and I'd have to say considering
what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything,
buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to
sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or
processed, or... process anything sold, bought or processed, or
repair anything sold, bought or processed, you know, as a career
I don't want to do that."

Reality parodies fiction.

Played a fun show at John Henry's last night along with the Sham and Dan Jones and the Squids. Thankfully, people showed up - the club was dead - empty when we arrived. Our set (Ed Cole and the College Girls of Tora Bora) was loud and crunchy with a few acoustic tunes thrown in for good measure. The Sham were very jam-rock, complete with slick-looking gear and a trombone player. To their credit, they were all good players and no one seemed alienated by the"jams" . The Squids were in fine form, now with Brian from Pellet Gun on drums. I think I may have screwed Dan up a bit by messing with the settings of his effect pedals while he was playing, but the overall sonics were worth it.

Out til 2 am on a Sunday - how late could I possibly be today? Late enough to need more coffee.

By the by, if ya wanna contact me about giving me large sums of money (or other for reasons)

edhead101@hotmail.com

Scottk and Laura's party was great - too much food, too much drink. Ruthie and Raven and some other girls tormented Cosmo with silly string and then forced he and Max to hold the limbo bar while they all took turns limbo'ing. Many luminaries were in full effect - POK members, + the usual good group of Whittaker adults and kids...talked for awhile with various Spodens, OGC people, DJ people - Autumn, Howard, Shannon, Thee Mother , Juice Factory girls + many others.

Now, I'm all partied out at 9:47pm...Time to look at Mars on this perfect, mild, late-summer night.

This is so frustrating ! I just erased my entry for the second time in a row. Technical gods of computer literacy, please watch over me.

I kind of got freaked out when several people mentioned reading my blog/rants. I guess that's what you get when you go public with your "contents" - thanks, MR Random
Cosmo and I had a fun gig in the park today. We played with Dave Snider from Pellet Gun on bass and called ourselves "Danger Seeker" . We rocked the sunday afternoon crowd hard with our songs about Metal Detectors and covers of Sabbath, Ramones and the Who. A squirt gun fight ensued after the show and Tina and I were summarily soaked by Cosmo and Isaiah.

Hung out briefly with the Ovulators - they were about to leave for a show in Coos Bay. They all loooked tan and relaxed after their two-week stint in California. You've got to hand it to those ladies - they are getting out there in the best way possible.

Now , off to Scottk and Laura's Bar-B-Q party. Toodle-loo

Peace out - ( )

Thoughts on thoughts on thoughts:

Back in the office. Was I late this morning? Take a guess. I love showing up on time. Actually, I was very,very close to making it on time today - time to reward myself by walking to the coffee shop and getting jacked up on jet fuel and (non-refined) sugar.

TOP 5 FAVORITE THINGS I HAVE VIEWED FROM MY OFFICE WINDOW:

1) Naked homeless dude taking a nap on a sleeping bag in the bushes across the church parking lot.
2) Young homeless guy curled up in his yellow blanket sleeping across the street on the back stoop of the glass shop. (I often throw this guy $1 while he's sleeping - everyone seems so innocent when asleep)
3) Strung-out, mulleted junkies trying to jump start their Corolla across the street.
4) Reckless post-teens riding their mini-motorcycles at break-neck speed down the sidewalk.
5) Family of women, aged anywhere from 50 down to age 9 or 10, all smoking cigarettes while ambling down the street.

Too much beauty. Time for coffee.

"Each minute closer to death / subtracting every breath"

...and now, even closer. I seriously hope no one considers this blog to have anything to do with suicide. As far as the 'Forward to Death' thing...ya gotta know, the clock is running out on all of us. Better to enjoy what time we have left before we kick it instead of wasting time complaining about how abysmal everything is.
Went out for beers last night with Zookie. We caught some cranky, old folkie bastards at Sam Bonds. The old-timers were digging it - I was jonesin' for a smoke (yeah, I think this is the 15th time I've tried to quit this year) . Dropped off at home late; now I'm late for work again. (I seem to have a theme going here)

Tina is back from her tour with the Ovulators and has many cool stories to tell about the Ov's rock and roll adventures in California. This feeds my desire to get the hell out of dodge and tour on my own ASAP. Times a wastin'. Does anyone have a smoke I can bum?

Greetings everybody and welcome to the contents of my head. I'm sure this all seems very familiar, as most people I know also have contents in their heads and you are probably no exception, so I'll cut the crap and do my best to entertain and edumacate you from my thought-riddled perspective on the human experience.
I, as per usual, was late for work today. My job? Not important right now. Let it be known that I work on the phone. This is not my ideal line of work; like I said, I'll get to that later. Back to being late... I just couldn't tear myself away from watching Leo DiCaprio in 'Basketball Diaries' - a rather uplifting tale. I've been a Jim Carroll fan (music-wise) for some time. Never read the book. I don't know why I (and many others) take delight in watching such stories of putrid misery, but it definitely brought my mood up a notch. Thanks Leo, you young hunk you.
Band practice (I play in several - none really worth mentioning at this time) last night was alright but less-than-fulfilling. I'm struggling with a pre mid-life music crisis at the moment - is this anything new to anyone? How to balance the desire for a creative life without having to live in abject poverty. Anyway, usually band practice is nearly as fulfilling as a good show in front of a caring and attentive audience. Not the case last night, although without it, my night would've been completely free of comradarie, so thanks, Bill and Raenie, for that.
OK, back to work. Boo-ya, all you humanoids in the "house"