only now do i remember it clear

First things first: the new Decemberists' single is fucking awesome. Go click that, they will give you the mp3 for free. Which is good, because rakes are broke.

Second things second: this pregnancy thing is harrowing. I've gone from stone sleep to dressed and going WHAT in 2 seconds flat. So far no baby yet.

3rd things next: so I'm at the hospital at like fucking ungodly-a.m. or whatever, and the world turns so daylight happens and here comes the inaugural and holy fuck we have a black president. and fucking hell, he's smart, and capable, and maybe, just maybe, the whole country isn't going into ruin right this fucking second. Cleolinda Jones said something about holding your breath and being horrified that the last 8 years have been something that the people of the country actually wanted and how horrifyingly terrible the idea of that has been, and honestly I've still been holding my breath, worried that it might not happen, that something would fuck up before President-elect Obama became President Obama. My standards are not high: anyone who won't be a craven whore, intent on just using the flag to whip his flaccid dick all over the constitution and the ideals of what this country should be would be a great improvement.

recent song titles

the fish that got away
thrush to go
god knows, xxxxx
the bad man's prayer

i'm still writing 'the fish that got away'.

a plague for your dowry

xkcd's strip today brings up house of leaves by mark z danielewski. which is a genius book. nightmare-causing, take your breath away reading, for real. some of the writing is not as poetic as say harlan ellison's "speculative fiction" but it's certainly more claustrophobically horrifying. i finished this book at the bar, the day before my last conversation with the woman i thought was the love of my life. still is? i don't know. i stopped thinking about it. she's still the love of my life, but now in the past tense I guess. It's just one of those things where you associate something with what was happening -- e.g. Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works II" 2nd disc is to me an incredibly erotic piece of music, just because of associations -- and House of Leaves is just a picture of a raw gaping wound. It doesn't hurt, but it reminds me that there was a tender part exposed and hurting.

So but what do you do? How do you just drop it? No one I know who's gone through hellfire and brimstone can adequately explain. And it's such a personal, subjective thing. If there's a universal that I have found in this, it's that people tend to pull back, reserve more of themselves and give less away. And that's so horrible, so very sad. But I see it time and again in my friends, and I see it in myself. The nerve numbed, you learn that you don't know what's normal anymore, so you learn to not trust yourself to keep from getting hurt. 

Sterling and I ate sushi, a while ago, and we talked about it, again. Except this time she was sober because of the pregnancy, so this time she remembered it I think. And it boils down to: I know it's not all my fault. But I feel like it is. I blame myself, even though I know it's not like that. The bitch of it is, I am sure she blames me too. Which is galling, especially considering the condescending attitude she gave me when last we spoke. Really, that's how I keep my anger going.

So yeah, this started as "look! comic link to awesome book!" and is now about me me me me. Well it's my blog so fuck you if you don't like it. Get yr own.

Enjoy this amazing and very entertaining speech by Malcom Gladwell on the lessons of happiness, self-knowlege and hidden desires inherent we can learn from spaghetti sauce:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html

Here's some awesome music:

Grotus - Brown

Pogo/Faggotron - Alice

everything happens to me

Sterling had Michaelangelo today at 11ish am.

Picked up "Monk Alone": 2.5 hours of Thelonious Monk on the piano alone. It's a little bit like going mad in heaven. He does some standards and things you wouldn't expect ("everything happens to me", "just a gigolo") in his inimitable style. I really try to play guitar like he plays piano but god it's like planning to fall down the stairs: you can't do it naturally without fucking up. The odd accents, the pauses and embellishments.

"Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea" and the four (!) versions of "everything happens to me" are just too. fucking. hardcore.

this one's called "god knows, *****"

what do you want
misbegotten whore
your every word like something fetid
another abortion
scraped from the drooling maw of your cunt-mouth
you never tire
of hurting the ones around you
you set the hooks deep, god knows
god knows
you played the victim so often
you forgot it was a part
the world doesn't owe you,
god knows.

I really must talk to Aik about getting him to drum, if only for just this song.

the vultures are gone and will never return

Laural's away message today was a link to CASSETTE FROM MY EX which is now the 2nd or third time I'd heard about the site. And so I finally clicked it. It's like an aural post-secret, kindasorta. I am both terrified and hoping that a mix of mine winds up there, but the odds are kinda low. Obladi.

I've had a copy of Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart's "Take Me To God" for about 5 years. Picked it up used, 5 bucks or so. I listen to it maybe once a year, which on average is kinda high actually. It's like techno world music that your reggae dub DJ friend mixed for you. Here's a song from the album:



Anyway, I saw a used copy again and picked it up for a friend and in the process also picked up a used copy of Jah Wobble's 30 Hz collection and it is indescribably good. How he does that with his fingers is beyond me. Listening to his basslines makes me want to play the bass forever and forget about the guitar. And you gotta give props to a man who quit the music business out of disdain and keeps dropping out of successful bands when they start sucking.

Jah Wobble (and Sinead O'Connor and Boy George) interviewed: http://youtube.com/watch?v=N425-qsKGQ8

It honestly was beautifully done...

Today I was told that I am part of the problem. Thanks, Little Trouble Girl.

Got my mom a digital camera and made her dinner, camera was a smashing success and I am looking forward to many pictures of her dog, plants, buddhist temple and associated friends as well as family i don't know. Dinner was also a smashing success -- for her birthday I also made her dinner, which was my Porkchops Of The Gods except I accidentally threw in a bit too much hot pepper flakes, so she was kinda gun-shy about me cooking again. But, as I mentioned, I apparently have redeemed myself with: Keema

1 lb ground beef
2 bags peas, ~1000grams total
2 onions, diced
4-8 cloves of garlic, minced or sliced
1/4 of a very large tomato (or 1 small tomato) diced
1 jalapeño, seeded, minced
1 large heaping spoonful of curry powder
1 tsp garam marsala
1 tsp red curry powder
1 tsp red pepper
small bunch cilatro, chopped
1 spoonful ground ginger (or ginger paste, whatever)
1 tsp of olive oil
about a cup of water

oil a large pan, drop the onions into medium-low heat, toss in the garlic after a minute or two (ie, let the onions take a bit more heat than the garlic -- garlic burns easier), toss in the tomato and jalapeño and ping everything with salt to sweat it. Once the onions are shiny but not translucent, get 'em off the heat and onto a plate. Dump the meat in, when it's getting towards brown, break it up and toss in the garam marsala, red curry and pepper flakes, then dump in the peas in. Stir in the water and let it simmer until the water evaporates out and add a bit more. Bring the onion mixture back in and toss in the ginger, half the cilantro while holding the other half as garnish. Let simmer, stirring to keep it from sticking, until the water's evaporated again, say about 20-30 minutes total (you're really waiting for the peas to cook and take the flavor of the rest of the juices in the pot).

Serve over rice, cous-cous or as I did, with a side of pan-seared flatbread and tzatziki, a tomato salad (got the rest of the hugegantic tomato and sliced it, salted it and balsamic-vinegared-it. For jollies I threw in mushroom gnocci as a side, but that was less than stellar with the mom. Protip: mixing the keema with the tzaziki made pure happiness happen in your mouth, I recommend it.

asides: portishead's new album was good so I bought it. Listened to Bill Frissel's "Gone, Just Like A Train" and it still is amazing. Modest Mouse in the car = rock out. Eden's a jerk, I must steal his hat again.

Set Theory Primer

I just stumbled on a site about Set Theory Primer as it relates to music theory. Which reminds me of my favorite story about music I wrote that no one ever heard.

Bunny called me up, "hey there's a gallery opening, we're doing a music/performance/installation -- the theme of the gallery is Summerian/Babylonian art, they're showing some pieces etc etc"

I dig Sumer, cradle of civilization etc etc and I've read through Snow Crash so I know just a bit more than nothing about their language construction (atonal glosolalia? or some shit. doesn't matter, i'm not writing poetry). So I look up Summerian music. Turns out it uses a 60-tone scale. Because I am S-M-R-T smart, I figure OK, I can make music akin to atonal 12-tone theory pieces, but I have to use 1/2 and 1/4 microtones (ie, bends and half-bends) and viola, 12-tone automagically becomes 60-tone. So I write this long droning piece in an open D tuning and because it would be a bitch to be bending whole chords (although you get some really awesome dissonances, some sonic youth/glenn branca shit going on where the notes beat against each other in the air) I go and get me a slide. So it's like this blues hawaiian indian drone monster thing. It's made of pure, concentrated awesome.

And then the day of the show, come to find out they go on an hour before they said they would and also that the music has been relegated to the alley behind the gallery. Which is OK, since that's where the party people's at anyway. Ran into solo and other people from the wayback.

are you an amateur or is it you're unkind?

title courtesy of The Bird and The Bee's "fucking boyfriend", which song was what was playing on the CD that I gave Little Trouble Girl after her romantic misadventure with her puppy-love/co-worker person thing when she was driving to work and ran into (figuratively) said puppy-love/coworker. Like some shit out of a John Hughes movie or something.

speaking to squirt yesterday she drops "you know the reason i never liked you romantically 12 years ago when we met was because when i asked what you looked like you were so negative that it killed it". i cock-blocked myself. I bummed about this on several levels.

got mail from skeeter's man that her kid (#2) had been born, with attendant pictures. They both look glowingly happy, her in particular but that might be a mix between relief and happy and tiredness. The amusing thing is on friday I wanted to call her and in fact got as far as dialing but she's still mad at me (justafiably, i'm a sellout although i take issue with her iron-gripped resentimiento, i'm guilty of the same thing so i can't really complain about that too hard.) and probably would not have answered but I never got to follow up and call again. Too much of that is annoying, especially when someone is pointedly not answering. But WWu mails occasionally, and I hear things on the grapevine de rato en rato so I guess it's ok.

It's hardly news that I am horrible about checking my messages. So yesterday I finally check my voicemail at work -- I haven't checked it since December, easily. There's a familiar number but I can't place it. Victor, telling me to fix the fucking LDAP lookups about two weeks before he died.

improv sheet music for sale

played at the thing at soya and pomawhatever on 1st and 1st NE. it was rockin'. or more ambient. whatever. it was fun; nestor tweaked what i played live and bunny dropped live video. the crafty witch showed up looking good enough to eat, nicole also looking gorgeous and i think i ticked the lovely emily off yet again. got to play the fat tele live tho. swa-eet. i think i'm going to call that augmented chord shape song (xx231x) "i hope you die in a fire in the gaping maw of your cunt". really it's just an excuse to use the phrase gaping maw.

I made mistakes in my life, all things go, all things go

Today, I talked to a friend, didn't get to finish my soup, got to listen to schlocky rock (or jazz? I don't know, bruce hornsby is very jazz-lite, but then again he's done rock too), went to miami beach despite boat show traffic, avoided getting scammed, walked on the beach and got new shoes wet in the surf, saw a wedding i was not a party to, made excellent falafel (hint: before you roll them into balls/patties, drop chopped cilantro/dill and a wee bit of hot sauce into the dough/mix. also, if you fry at medium-low heat they take longer but dry out less,) and had a heavier-than-i-would-have-liked mediterranean dinner (falafel, tzaziki, stuffed grape leaves, flatbread, kaseri cheese). finish the day off by noticing that i never filled out my valentine's card i bought the mrs so spent 15 minutes on something that will make her smile in the morning.

Listened to a lot of Sufjan Stevens today -- picked up The Avalanche on a whim at a used CD store (yeah, I still buy CDs, I'm all quaint) and was blown away. Bought Illinoise just for Casimir Pulaski Day but am enjoying other songs on there. The Avalanche CD is more enjoyable at the moment though; the three versions of Chicago, the supercomputer song, it's all jawsome!great. I even went and learned me some guiterchords for 'em.

the same thing i would want today i will want again tomorrow

I just heard, in quick succession:
Dylan trying to teach The Band "Po' Lazarus" (it occured to me that po' lazarus might be where part of the Stagolee mtyh gets it's power),
the harry smith field recording of prisoners singing "po lazarus",
dylan's "goin' to acapulco"
dylan's "boots of spanish leather" (random cover from youtube: here...I have no idea who that is. actually, ignore that, here's pix of dylan while the original plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTCFhS7IIgM)

I'm not - by any means - a huge dylan fanatic, but it occurs that the scorsese quote re: akira kurosawa about one being able to debate which works are Great and which are merely very very very good, would also apply to dylan's songs.

I'm joining the RPM Challenge with Navel4Eve, here's hoping it doesn't suck. More info next month, wish me luck.

Yesterday, Vero called me up asking how I made my curry sauce ("uh, curry powder and sour cream. a little mayo if you want it tastier but that makes it fattier and greasier.") and it reminded me that I have posted the recipe for my (world-famous) grilled cheese sammich before, but never here, so here it is:

get you:
3 cheeses -- 2 slices of something white (say a meunster or swiss), 2 slices something yellow (cheddar or american) and about 3 spoonful's worth of feta (bleu works too).
bread -- sliced, i recommend rye.
1 tomato slice, 1/2" thick (can be replaced by onion)
butter
1 clove garlic
2 spoon's worth of olive oil
optional: bacon, olives, mushrooms.

butter a slice of bread, drop half a spoonful of butter in a pan with 1 spoonful of olive oil, coat the bottom of the pan and then put the bread in it. medium-low heat -- you're gonna be here a while. put the meunster on the bread. get your tomato slice and poke out the slimy shit in it (seeds pulp etc) so that you have a tomato-spoke. lay on the muenster cheese and fill the empty tomato spokes with the feta. put the slices of cheddar on top of that. lay the other slice of bread on top and butter it. to ensure the cooking side doesn't stick, shake the pan and the weight of the sandwich should shift it. while you wait for it to brown, take your garlic and slice it thin like you've been watchin' goodfellas too much. flip yr sammich and press some of the garlic slices into the bread. while the raw side cooks, wait. sing a song or something. when it's done, flip (so the garlic on top caramelizes a bit) and press the garlic slices that are left into the bread. drizzle half a teaspoon of olive oil on top and flip again, drizzle the oil that remains and serve. wait at least a minute before cutting it or you're gonna get cheese soup. Which is hard to eat inside a sandwich.

you can replace (or augment) the feta with olives (or olive tapenade,) mushrooms and/or bacon.

If you made it right, it's about an inch and a half thick, and a fucking hearty brick to keep your gut happy.

you want the tomato slice to be thick -- about 1/2" or so -- so that the tomato itself doesn't get hot. the cheese next to the bread will melt the feta, but if the tomato's thick, it won't cook very much and you will therefore have an island of cool, refreshing vegetable in a sea of molten deliciousness.