"What is....salvation?"
"Salvation is when you are saved.
Obviously I don't know the first thing about salvation."
-the twilight singers.

There won't be an Overhaul tonight on the netwaves....sorry...I'll be here. Jay Bennett is tonight, Calexico is tomorrow...woo hoo!!

luv, michele.

Thanks to Jake for pointing me to this article:

-------------
Startled Marines Find Afghan Men All Made Up To See Them

from Chris Stephen In Bagram, published in The Scotsman online newspaper

British marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat - being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers.

An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village."

While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search.

"We were pretty shocked," Marine Fletcher said. "We discovered from the Afghan soldiers we had with us that a lot of men in this country have the same philosophy as ancient Greeks: ‘a woman for babies, a man for pleasure’."

Originally, the marines had sent patrols into several villages in the mountains near the town of Khost, hoping to catch up with al-Qaeda suspects who last week fought a four-hour gun battle with soldiers of the Australian SAS. The hardened troops, their faces covered in camouflage cream and weight down with weapons, radios and ammunition, were confronted with Afghans wanting to stroke their hair.

"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

At one stage, troops were invited into a house and asked to dance. Citing the need to keep momentum in their search and destroy mission, the marines made their excuses and left. "They put some music on and ask us to dance. I told them where to go," said Cpl Richard. "Some of the guys turned tail and fled. It was hideous."

The Afghan hill tribes live in some of the most isolated communities in the country. "I think a lot of the problem is that they don’t have the women around a lot," said another marine, Vaz Pickles. "We only saw about two women in the whole six days. It was all very disconcerting."

A second problem the British found came minutes after the first helicopter touched down at one of the hilltop firebases, when local farmers appeared demanding compensation for goats they claimed had been blown off the mountains by the rotor blades. "Every time we landed a Chinook near a village, we got some irate bloke running up to us saying his goat has just got blown off the mountain ridge by the helicopter - and then he demanded a hundred dollars compensation," said Major Phil Joyce, commander of Whisky Company, one of four companies deployed.

As patrols moved away from the landing zones, the locals began pestering Afghan troops attached to the marines with ever more outrageous compensation demands - topping off at a demand from one village elder for $500 (£300) for damage to a tree by the downdraft from helicopters.

But the marines were under orders to win the "hearts and minds" of local farmers in what is one of the few remaining Taleban bastions. "I managed to barter him down to two marine pens, a pencil and a rubber," Major Joyce said. "He went away quite happy ."
-------------

I can't think of a damn thing to say any funnier than that.

fuckyeah.

check this out. Brilliant...

i had the best damn weekend in a long time!!!!

thanks to all parties involved.

love muchly.

start, programs, accessories, notepad.

the white walls of my tiny closet of an office,
the printed black and white photo of a close-up shot of "cadillac desert" on a dashboard, with rain
rivulets obscuring everything, reminding you that it does indeed rain
in the desert.

--------------------

anyway I was saying there's new prosety. click the link on the bottom on the left, as it seems as tho blogger's being smitty about inserting hyperlinks.

so sorry.

sorry, this thing is fucking up. bad blogger.

New

Nnnnnngh. Boy, did I get hammered last night. It would appear I stopped at the market. I vaguely recall that...it's been a while since I went out and drank heavily with the lovely Killradio crew.

Nice overall, but did I have to buy those bananas?

Crap.

Just crazy maybe.
Doesn't mean I'm looking for a cure.
I've got stability that scares you.
'Cause it's hard to believe when you're so sure.
No matter how different you are,
you're just like everybody else.
No matter how hard you try and fit in,
there's no one like you.
You will find you spend
a good deal of your life
sitting at red lights.
-the gloria record.

we're special in other ways / ways our mothers appreciate
-built to spill.

Just going off on a tangent--

I love the root word con. What the fuck does it mean? I'm guessing it's Latin--I should check on that. Indo-European of some sort. In some instances it carries a connotation (look, there it is!) of "with," togetherness, in cahoots, coming together, side by side (convivial, convene, the Italian and Spanish "con," congeal). Other times it pops up as "anti," "against," "versus," et al (contra, convict). Hmmm. Which meaning does "contrast" fall under?

It also appears in the contemporary "con," as in "the art of the con" or "what a con job." A con artist makes you think they're with you (meaning number one above) when they're really against you (meaning number two).

That's why I love the title of this blog. I wasn't gonna pick anything too dumb. "Over/haul" and "under/tow" are both words comprised of smaller words, each of which relate to one another, respectively: over / under, and haul / tow. Over and under are opposing, but haul and tow seem similar--both indicate an exertion of effort, possibly great effort, to move or to change or to effect something. I often think of my life as one big overhaul--a monumental effort to pick up the bits of my life and get them over the hump. To where? I don't know. An overhaul, constantly battling the undertow--pulling you down just as you try to get your head above water. A battle of opposites that are, in the end, maybe not such opposites at all. Maybe I don't need an overhaul. Maybe I shouldn't be fighting the undertow. Maybe there's treasure under the water.

Maybe I'm a mermaid. I donno. [Eeeek, I'm channeling Tori Amos! Someone stop me!]

This is what my brain does when it's bored. My apologies.

My foot is the color of a squashed grape.

What fucking retards during the 1920's decided that the appropriate depth for stairs was six inches? And--as if that wasn't enough--decided to make an overhang on each stair, creating a death trap for any and all who pass over them?

My heart aches for the poor women of this period who had to wear such ghastly cruel shoes as the current fashions of their day dictated, and who then attempted to walk, daily, upon stairs of this sort, prolly carrying trays of food and bags of laundry for sadistic children and lazy, disgusting husbands all the while. No wonder so many of them would be "taken ill," "fall ill," "take to their beds," or whatever they would say back then. With death-trap stairs of that sort presenting a constant sick sort of domestic obstacle course, I'd want some downtime in my bed as well, or possibly a trip to "summer" (don't you love how it was a verb then?) in a warmer climate like Arizona, where the "good humours" of the air would supposedly heal the ailing woman--

or was it the lack of split-level dwellings in those Southwestern towns with plenty of space for sprawl, and nary a sicko staircase in sight?

At any rate, I pelted down one of these "charming" little staircases the other night, wrenching just about every bit of homeostatic stability out of my body that was left, and only catching myself out of some desperate reflexive action; but the four stairs that I did the splits on were enough to begin a slow-burn bruise from my shin down to the toes themselves. It's a miracle nothing's broken and that there was barely any blood. The bruise is only just starting to show, but when it's in full bloom, damn, it'll be a sight to see. I could charge admission.

Consistently fascinated by my body's ability to fuck up and still persist.

Wow. It's like I'm fifteen all over again, but with all the nutball issues I've picked up along the way.

Love. It'll fuck you up, but in a good way.

That sounds like some sort of Volkswagen ad.

On heavy rotation now:
Liz Phair, "Glory": I don't know quite what it's about from her point of view, but to me it makes me think of those fucked-up men who you find irresistible.
Twilight Singers, "King Only": God, it's good. Really, really good. A story of failure, a crashing fall from glory, and loss, sans the redemption part; but nonetheless uplifting in its chorus, which reaffirms the character's love, regardless of whether it is requited or not.
Juno, that third song on A Future Lived In Past Tense: I can't recall the damn title, 'cause they're all so weird and long, but this song is amazing. It builds to an incredible crescendo, with the vocalist screaming "You are the beautiful," over and over. Awesome.

Wait, it's okay now. Jesus effing Christ.

Hmm. My blog appears to be down.

Bugger.

Jacaranda trees all over LA are blooming, irrespective of appropriateness of place. The scariest neighborhoods, by the most tortured asphalt, to the bourgeois streets near me: they're suddenly bursting into crazy purple clouds, chrysanthemum-firecracker-pops of violet and amethyst and lavender.

My birthstone is amethyst. Psychologists who study the sociology of color say that purple is supposed to be a color of change, of the ephemeral realm of dreams where nothing is knowable or permanent, a color of magic and enchantment. Impermanence, the shift in tide, the change of direction, the fork in the road where you waver--that space in time when you go both ways at once, leaving both paths traveled but both roads not taken. Me as a little girl, the only child playing in the backyard, amusing myself for hours with imaginary friends, magic potions brewed from the backyard plants, seeing faries in the grass and hidden doors in the walls.

I kinda left behind my childhood fascination with magic. I dabbled in Wicca during high school, but mostly out of dissaffection for my catholic high school, and within a very brief time I decided it was bullshit too.

But still.

The trees all blooming now, no matter how crummily decrepit or blandly homogenized the neighborhood, remind me that magic is where you find it.

Clichèd brush-with-death-bringing-on-various-forms-of-introspection-and-appreciation moment:

I can't believe how lucky I am to be alive after all the shit that's been thrown my way these last few years. It's fucking nuts; it's amazing. I've had--still have--serious health problems, a fair amount of blinding depression, bouts of awful stuff.

I am endlessly amazed that I have not been completely killed or immobilized by my illnesses, that I haven't killed myself with drinking or any various and sundry other ways one can consciously or unconsciously end their life, that I haven't been hit, with my luck, by a fucking meteorite or something, sizzling the tail end of an interstellar trajectory right through me.

I often announce loudly--as if that might get his attention--that if I were to meet God on the street I'd knock him one squarely to the jaw, I'd take the fucker on after all the sadistic and malevolent shit he's put me and everyone else through.

And yet he hasn't completely had me taken out yet. His reasoning for this course of action, is, of course, completely unfathomable. After all, he IS god. Unknowable and all that.


It was a windy day today when I walked out of the building. I love rainy days and the way the sky falls down on you. And then I got hit, and after the accident I clunked the poor car home, sat in the dark in my apartment, numbly changed the dishwasher contents, and sat in the dark some more.

Then Joe came over and told me everything would be okay and that I looked nice, and the world brightened a lot.

I sat in the dark a little longer after he left, and then remembered too late that it was Monday which means street-cleaning tickets would be administered exactly where I'd parked--and I should have moved my car forty-five minutes ago. The parking enforcement people wait in their little Hyundais right there 'til 12 noon and ticket every loser who's still there. It was 12:45.

I ran out to see that I was the only car still parked on that side. One of the big reasons I'd freaked out so completely and begun sobbing when that guy slammed into me from behind was the money issue; I am so broke, I can't afford repairs! Even if insurance pays, I'll inevitably have to shell out for something. And here I am getting a goddamn parking ticket.

So I run across the street, and because I live on a hill I could stop and look out and see the whole los angeles basin there, glittering post-rain, wet-diamond buildings and the wind upwelling into my face an icy blowback, oxygenating every cell in my blood; and the green looking so deep and bright and emerald, the air smelling green also, with thunderhead-induced ozone, which is the smell of lightening that got dissolved, and the clouds looking for all the world like heaven, so heavy and full, with blue sky pouring through where rain had been just an hour ago.

And I hadn't gotten a ticket.

:)

remember how I just wrote no accidents yet? (below)....

well, someone rear-ended me today.

I am okay, thank god.

wow.

and NO, I wasn't writing at the time, I was on my way to work....I was actually going to be on time...

screw that.

new prosety.

culled from my pc docs and my planner, where I irresponsibly and thoughtlessly write things when I should really be focusing on driving.

no accidents yet

stolen from another blog:

On the way home from the gym, the spousal unit and I ended up behind a minivan with an ichthus and the license plate "WWJD" (What Would Jesus Do). That just brings out my inner Snarkosaurus and we spent the rest of the ride home observing how Jesus drives:

1. Jesus makes very slow and careful left hand turns.
2. Jesus comes to a full and complete stop.
3. Tailgating is apparently A-OK with The Lord.
4. Jesus has good brakes.
5. When you're the Almighty, the speed limit is whatever you think it should be.

hee hee hee hoo ha....

actually, there really IS a How Would Jesus Drive bumper sticker. I've seen it twice.

There's actually a blog called "Asian Sweetness." Hasn't this asian fetish crap gone far enough? Knock it off, for Christ's sake.

Oh, and that comment below? About financial solvency? Um,
I'd say forget it.

~sigh.~

I think I might actually be becoming financially solvent.

Let's give that a month, shall we?

My new workplace is in Glendale, a disturbing suburbia on the east side of the San Fernando Valley. Any building over three stories seems to have been prohibited up until just a few years ago, but it appears that with nearby Disney City (excuse me--"Burbank") and Pasadena filling up with skyscrapers and service/intellectual/creative industry-type buildings, the overflow has spilled into humble little Glendale. The area is now beginning to sprout skyscrapers glittering with mirrored glass, "innovative materials," new-utopia hues like subtle blues and jewel-toned aquamarines, and the noveau-art-deco stylin's that seem to be the hallmark of current Los Angeles skyscraper architecture.

Another thing that occurs in profusion here, but--unlike the still-in-construction towers--sporting the patina of genuine age (a rare thing in LA) are churches. All sorts. Everywhere. Just about each corner has one, from Presbyterian to Latter-Day-Saints (Visitors Welcome!!!). I've been reading (finally) City of Quartz by Mike Davis (which I should have read a while ago, but oh well). According to Davis's astoundingly thorough and knowledgeable survey of the cultural geography of Southern California, in the 1920's through the 1950's this area was a real haven for good Christians, ascetic religious types, and proto-"family values" Protestants who condemned the active labor movements occurring on the other side of the hills (in downtown and urban LA proper) and the influx of Latino and black culture into the central city--the original white flight neighborhood.

No wonder there's something spooky about the place. I can't put my finger on it. It's suburbia, but more sinister. Maybe because its so close to the urban center? Maybe its the huge Angeles National Forest looming overhead, crushing us with an unconscious sense of mortality, of how our carefully ordered world can spin off into the chaos of nature at any moment.

Or maybe it's just the damn churches on every corner, quiet, unobtrusive, reeking with that sense of muted abuses, silent mistreatments, fucked-up families.

Usually I like churches, though. I donno.

Jake, on his weblog Stray Bulletins (click lying media bastards to the left), discovered this info, from the Chicago Sun-Times:

"A brief article about contracts of network news anchors gives a couple of interesting facts. Mainly, that these anchors like Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings make about $7 million a year. Which, by the author's math, works out to a wage of $3,365 an hour to read news off a teleprompter."

Now, here's my math.

I make about $1,984 bucks a month.

A month.

I just can't fathom it.

If these people handed me just 3 hour's worth of their wages I could pay off all my student loans. The loans I am going to have to pay back for the next twenty years.

I am so disheartened. It makes me soul-sick, to think about how much these people have, and how every day I contstantly worry about whether I'm going to have enough money to buy gas.

So many people are so much worse off than me, too.

It's such a simple concept, but it really makes you feel like these people are greedy bastards.

I'd just like to say that Caltrans plus the plethora of really stupid people on the freeway equals a situation maddening enough, enraging enough, blood-boiling enough, to make the Dalai Lama murderous.

Why the fuck are you people slowing down? Is it some sort of stimulus-response thing, some sort of infant-type thing, like the way babies reach for keys or bright colors? "OOoooohhhhh, orange cones!!!! I have to stop and look! Look! Pretty colors! Oh, flashing lights! Wow! Let's all slow down and look! Wow!!!"

Save me from this city.

Fans of the free exchange of culture, ideas, opinions, news, etc. over the Internet take warning. This is what you are up against.

This borders on a violation of first amendment rights, btw.

When this kind of thing happens to broadcast news or newspapers, people scream freedom of the press, conflict of interest, freedom of speech. When this happens on the Net...

What will we say?

Sent to me by a friend from the radio station:

"this comes from a question and answer on saveinternetradio.org
(http://www.saveinternetradio.org/discus/messages/4/11.asp?)

the quote basically says that it is "desirable" to wipe out
all the small broadcasters because they are "marginal economic
entities."

Did someone say Fuck the RIAA?"

-c."

Here's some of the text from that link:

"Dear Save Internet Radio,

I run a small DIY webcast that makes abolutely no money (no banner ads, no affiliate revenues, nada). We offer the most obscure music imaginable, music that would never be played on commerical radio, let alone college or freeform stations. In reading over the CARP proposal, I have several questions that maybe someone out there can help me with.

1)90-95% of the tracks broadcast on my site are from labels that are not members of the RIAA, either small independents, long out-of-business, or foreign. Would I have to pay royalties on non-RIAA label music, and if so, is the RIAA going to somehow track them down to give them my payments? Even labels not based in the US?

2)As an individual "webcaster" generating $0 of revenue, the $500 minimum annual fee is rather expensive. Who is this fee going to? The RIAA? The US Gov't? Divided amongst the copyright holders of the webcasted songs? And what is this annual fee for, since I will be paying royalties already?

3)I am my biggest listener. My site is like a huge virtual mixed-tape from my record collection. Do I have to pay royalties on songs that I download from my site from albums and CDs that I have already paid for?

I strongly believe there should be an "amateur license" of some sort for non-profit hobby webcasters. These sites are offering free promotion and advertising for artists and record labels, out of the individual's pocket, purely for the love of the music."

To answer this question, here is the RIAA's response:

as excerpted from the proceedings-
Dr. Nagle testified that the Panel (CARP)should accord no weight to agreements with licensees which are unable to endure in the marketplace. Dr. Nagle rested his overall analysis on the fundamental assumption that the current webcasting industry consists of a large number of marginal or insignificant entities and that a dramatic “shake out” must and will occur. This, in his view, is both inevitable and desirable because it will bring about market consolidation, which will result in the emergence of a far smaller number of viable webcaster companies. These, in turn, will be able to prosper and endure(operate at a “sustainable scale at this future point of viability” and, not incidentally, be able to afford significantly higher royalty payments to copyright owners. The actions of the marginal economic entities which are fated to disappear in this process, in Dr. Nagle’s view, are economically inconsequential and offer virtually no probative value as benchmarks for setting future royalty rates.
-Dr. Thomas T. Nagle, is one of the RIAA’s lead economic experts.

I feel ill.

Sometimes you interact with complete strangers and it has the feel of a drive-by-shooting with mistaken identities--it wasn't your fault, but for whatever reason someone you don't know at all has suddenly shot you in the gut and streaked off, leaving you wanting to crumple up on the sidewalk.

Case in point:

stopped at the market tonight to pick up some of the amasu shoga I can't live for a day without--sweet pickled ginger, it's like heroin--and found myself also perusing the "health food aisle" for some natural face soap or some shit like that. About six feet to my left was a figure i saw only peripherally, and I was aware of his proximity but that was about it. It's the fucking supermarket, for chrissakes, there are people everywhere. I wasn't gonna give him a once-over or anything.

But he's mumbling under his breath, and as always--because I'm a woman, because it's Hollywood, because it's 11:30 p.m., for ten million reasonable reasons I now peek at him sidelong out of the corner of my eye, to make sure he's not some scary schizophrenic about to lose it right next to me.

He seems normal enough--five feet ten or so, late thirties, a bit paunchy and pallid, with dark brown hair combed over in a very oldschool-barbershop-patron style.

I figure there's no real theat and turn back to the Kiss My Face and Dr. Bronner's products...but then I hear him mumble again, "I wasn't making a pass, I was just clearing my throat," or somesuch thing, but it's at such a low volume that I can barely hear--it's almost like he said it to himself. I turn to him and say, "Pardon me?"

He turns to me and he looks angry for reasons I can't fathom. "Some men will make a pass by clearing their throat or something but I was just thinking," and I said, very creeped out now, "Ummmmmm, that's okay, I didn't think you were making a pass."

His voice is getting louder. "What did you say?"

I'm put on the defensive now. He's fucking scary. "I said I didn't think you were making a pass, you were just talking to yourself, and it was a bit disconcerting," or something along those lines but perhaps less articulate.

He begins to yell. It's 11:30 p.m. at Ralphs on Hollywood Blvd. and some fucking freak has decided I'm the cause of all his woes and the reason all is wrong in his world. "I'm just looking for some fucking medicine! In case you didn't notice, I have a cough! But you had to blah blah blah..." and he kinda stopped making sense, or I lost track of whatever it was he was saying.

I'm backing away, but I don't want to not stand my ground either--I won't be intimidated by some paranoid asshole. "Well, look, I'm sorry you're such an angry person. I hope you feel better!!!" I yell right back, and I walk away, and as I go he shouts incoherently at me and finishes it all of with a flourish of a "Piss off, bitch!!!"

I mumble under my breath, stage-whisper, "No problem," and as I hurry away I hear him yell "Leave me alone!!!"

It's so bizarre. I'm quite sure that as much as I feel that he launched into me unprovoked, that for whatever paranoid reasoning he operates within, he feels the same way too.

And we both came away feeling miserable.

I'm a good person. I make a point to always buy lemonade from kids whenever I see them selling it. Hell, I've bought lemons from kids. (A dollar for four. The lemons were kinda unripe, but such sweet kids.) I wave "thanks" when people let me merge in front of them. I drive random girls who I do not know home at night when I see them staggering down the street alone at two a.m. (One was drunk and had been ditched by her brother, one had fallen at a club, hurt her ankle, and was limping back home up the hill I live on.) I buy beer for happily-homeless-but-too-broke-for-beer punk rock kids from Chicago.

I am not a bitch.

So why do I feel like one? I feel so awful.

Los Angeles, possibly, can trick you into thinking everything is a scenario, everything is a narrative, everything is an anecdote, a story to be told.

Maybe some things aren't...

In case you were wondering if you're just a misanthrope, let me relieve your anxiety--

http://www.icyhotstunta.com/

--you're not. The world actually is full of The Dumb and--even worse--The Bored and Dumb.

Believe it--I grew up in a town full of these people.
I can only assume I escaped in an extreme act of mercy on the part of the universe.
Phew!

ps---What's truly disturbing is not this site itself. It's the guestbook comments. They only confirm my suspicions about the nature of people....

The Anti-Martha Tip for the Week:

Floor too filthy even to walk on? Vacuum wedged in your closet in the interest of preventing various items from falling out? Have no fear! Use your trusty lint roller!

Yes, your lint roller, folks! That's right! With just a few simple rolls over those three square feet of your floor that are actually visible, you too can achieve a clean floor in MINUTES!!! That's right, MINUTES!!!

Impossible! you may say. Ah, but I beg to differ! See my lovely three feet of visible floor? See how shiny and clean my [originally, before the (unrelated) cola and red wine incidents] champagne-colored carpet is? Why, it's the same virgin color as my linen-tinted flocked ceiling! And those lint balls? Gone! Amazing! And if you still see lint balls, I assure you, they will all be pushed under those piles of stuff that cover up the rest of my floor--and all in just minutes!!!

But vacuuming is so much easier, you say? Hahaha, how foolish of you! Don't you remember what happened the last time you tried to remove that vacuum from the closet? No? Well, I'll remind you! Many, many large thingies fell out and all over! And many of them are still on your floor!

Ah, yes, use that lint roller. See? Isn't that better?

setlist of the overhaul, 5/8/2002:
spiritualized, I didn't mean to hurt you
lush, light from a dead star and kiss chase
dntel, This is the dream of evan and chan
weakerthans, everything must go and aside
the get up kids, I'm a loner, dottie, a rebel
weakerthans, without mythologies
whiskeytown, sit & listen to the rain (demo version, offa the Fucker Demos)
weakerthans, left and leaving
the new amsterdams, proceed with caution
wilco, hotel arizona
juno, cover of dj shadow's non-equivalents
neko case, the virginian
death cab for cutie, cover of bjorks' all is full of love
mogwai, punk rock
shudder to think, red house
bjork, joga
clem snide, evil vs. good
the gloria record, a lull in traffic
clem snide, the curse of great beauty
afghan whigs, faded
idlewild, little discourage
earlimart, someday you're gonna love me
olivia tremor control, love athena
wilco, a shot in the arm
whiskeytown, crazy about you
dismemberment plan, respect is due
pernice brothers, flaming wreck.

the overhaul is on NOW. visit killradio to listen.

woo wee.

-m.

coolest things to listen to right now:

Wilco, "Hotel Arizona"--that harpsichord synth[?] at the end is brilliantly poignant. And the lyrics: proving that carefully studied simplicity often creates the most impact.
Dismemberment Plan, "Girl O'Clock"--No, that is not a drum machine. It is a human, and a very nice one, who let my friend Vanessa in to see their show last month at the El Rey, when I couldn't snag her an extra ticket. Points for both kickin' ass on the drum kit as well as being a real awesome guy.
Dntel, "This Is The Dream of Evan and Chan"--An incredible pairing, Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) with Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie)--it really shows how versatile Ben can be, and it sticks in your head like...um...something that really sticks in your head. It's lovely.


Anyhoo, I've gotten some more feedback on the other site, most of which has been overwhelmingly positive, so I'm happy. I donno what I was thinking when I asked for feedback...I mean, no one wants to hear "Your writing really needs work." But no one's said that yet. Phew.

It's 12:10 a.m. and I'm at work; having finished what I had come to do, I was checking my email and this site.

Apparently the timer in the building is set to turn off the lights at midnight; they flickered at 12:02, a warning I guess, and have just now gone off completely.

Am currently very thankful for the glow of the monitor, without which I could not see to find my way out of this damn office.

Passed a huge car pileup on the way here, on the freeway, right at my offramp. It took up four lanes, pieces scattered everywhere. No police had arrived yet; just two large trucks (one rig and one cement truck); a sportscar, two Honda-type things, and one unrecognizable item that once was a car but now resembled a crushed beercan (silver), folded in upon itself precisely where the driver's seat was located. I saw people huddled around a prone figure on the shoulder.

The figure was moving, gesturing with their arms, and I took a deep breath and kept on driving. It's kind of a sick thing, the way we all move on quietly, like people who've stumbled into a funeral, or into a church--silenced, cowed, barging lamely and awkwardly into some private moment, unable to pretend, for that brief time, that our car windows shield us from from the lives of others.

I'm just fucking full of deep thoughts. Jesus.
Los Angeles, possibly, can trick you into thinking everything is a scenario, everything is a narrative, everything is an anecdote, a story to be told.

Maybe some things aren't...

Twice now, in the course of walking around the neighborhood, I've seen police outside your building and wondered, involuntarily, if you were dead.
Indicating, I suppose, an internal knowledge that it was not so impossible a reality.

This spins off into so many fractured and difficult emotional reactions that I cannot begin to write about it,
or even to really think about it.

I guess, all in all, that I hope very much that you are okay, even if I never want to speak to you or see you ever again.

Few single words are more satisfying than Greg Dulli's "Steady," in the beginning of Faded, the final track off of Black Love. The Afghan Whigs kick fucking ass. Whoo.

A little note to anyone as dumb as me: sleep deprivation can fuck you up. Don't try it.

new content on the other site. Woo wee.

The overhaul goes on the netwaves tonight at 11pm, pst, on http://www.killradio.org.


Internet radio stations nationwide are shutting off today in protest of upcoming CARP legislation--that is, legislation that threatens to require all internet casters to pay major fees to huge corporations for the music they play.


Honestly, I pay a shitload for my cd's. I know with certainty I maxed out at least two of my five credit cards on cd's alone (we're talking limits of 2000, 3000 dollars each time). We have an anemic studio library mostly made up of demos, which hardly anyone utilizes; most Killradio dj's buy their own cd's/vinyl to play on their shows. The notion of paying additional fees on top of this is jawdropping to me. It would crush us, we'd never be able to pay.


This link explains everything.



We won't be going dead today, as no one listens to us anyway, so we hardly would be making a point; plus we're all punk-rock and some shit and we're gonna do it our way anyway, no matter what those people tell us to do [/sarcasm]. But I hope every dj discusses it on their shows. KR doesn't just play music; half our programming is news, talk, comedy, discussion and issues. By putting us out of business, BMI and everyone else in their league effectively is silencing community radio and independent voices in a very repressive way. It smacks of Aldous Huxley or somesuch. It's just fucked.


I am terrified of what happens when political clout is powered by corporate motivations and interests. This is happening here. It's happening every day these days. It's why killradio needs to stay alive.

got a nervous kind of feeling
got a painful yellow headache
the waves of nauseous pain
sets off the pressure pad alarms
gotta painful swelling brain
banging in my head
and i called off sick
gotta swelling itching pain
got me pulling out my hair
clutching at my brain
got me laying on the floor
think i left my senses
seems like endless torture
driving me up the wall
dripping out my eyes ears nose and mouth
imploding my thoughts
blasting holes in the front lawn now
going outta my skull
burning up my thoughts
tearing me apart
-devo.


I, um, have a headache.