On work (or "The Pleasures And Pitfalls Of Funk, And I Don't Mean Funk In The George Clinton Sense Of The Word"):
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Sunday shifts at the bookstore are kind of nice, because they're usually very uneventful (save for an afternoon rush of bookworms and people dragging in their yard sale leftovers for us to rummage through). Aside from dealing with the indignity of having to listen to mariachi music and New Age instrumental covers of "My Heart Will Go On" every now and then (I'm still dreading December, when we have to put it in the Chipmunks Christmas album in our disc changer... *shudders violently*), work on Sunday is a breeze. And today was no exception, save for a brief encounter with a funky fresh individual.
When I say funky fresh, I really really wish I was talking about Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Rick James' zombie, or even fuckin' Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem. I may be as rhythmically challenged as the next awkward listening-to-Pavement white boy, but I do love funk. Not this kind of funk, though; a customer came in with his own horrid brand of funk, the kind that moves bodies to writhe in agony as opposed to funktastic ecstasy. I could smell him before I could see him, and when I did see him, I must confess that the sight of him was almost as much as an affront to my eyes as his scent was to my nose. Stringy hair, sunken cheeks, pale skin, faded jeans with holes in the knees, and a massive yawning abyss in his mouth where his front teeth should've been. The guy asked if we had any books on map-making, and he seemed a nice enough sort, the kind of brainy lanky man that just got dealt one bad hand of cards after another in life. Nice... but as longtime readers of my journal know, few things will make my opinion of a person sour more than a horrible smell (goddamn my sensitive nose). This dude smelled like he spent 3 hours wrestling a sweaty man in a pit full of Limberger cheese. Fetid, foul, fiercesome funk, the kind of funky smell that would kill a drug-sniffing dog stone dead with a single whiff.
He parked himself on a stool near our kids' VHS section, flipping through the pages of a thick Eagles biography, and I got a nice constant sampling of his odor over the next half hour. Yikes. Since I was manning the buy counter at the time (and I was dealing with a prototypical Scottsdale customer, the kind of rich asshole that comes in with 10 boxes full of water-damanged and decaying books that are decades old and expect a king's ransom for them), I couldn't exit stage right like all my instincts told me to. Then again, being of French descent, running away from something is an unconscious reflex (we lack the first part of that whole fight or flight reflex).
The highlight of the workday was that shortly after he left, we had the chance of cleaning all the aural shit out of our ears, all the hours of KT Tunstall and Ray Charles and world music we're subjected to over and over again, by slipping Tom Waits "Real Gone" in the player. Hearing that magnificently gnarled voice hollering and lisping and leering and bellowing over the speakers was a real kick in the teeth. Haven't heard "Real Gone" before we played it, and I have to say I dug the almooooost hip-hop elements that seemed to surface in some of the songs (it almost sounds like he's sampling in some of the songs), and the overall grimy and noisy texture of the songs was a great note to end the work night on. The thing I like about Tom Waits: I hope that when I'm as old as him, I'll be just as eccentric and ballsy as Tom. Apparently he never got the memo that artists are supposed to "mellow" and "mature" with age. Such a glorious old coot.
Sunday shifts at the bookstore are kind of nice, because they're usually very uneventful (save for an afternoon rush of bookworms and people dragging in their yard sale leftovers for us to rummage through). Aside from dealing with the indignity of having to listen to mariachi music and New Age instrumental covers of "My Heart Will Go On" every now and then (I'm still dreading December, when we have to put it in the Chipmunks Christmas album in our disc changer... *shudders violently*), work on Sunday is a breeze. And today was no exception, save for a brief encounter with a funky fresh individual.
When I say funky fresh, I really really wish I was talking about Bootsy Collins, George Clinton, Rick James' zombie, or even fuckin' Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem. I may be as rhythmically challenged as the next awkward listening-to-Pavement white boy, but I do love funk. Not this kind of funk, though; a customer came in with his own horrid brand of funk, the kind that moves bodies to writhe in agony as opposed to funktastic ecstasy. I could smell him before I could see him, and when I did see him, I must confess that the sight of him was almost as much as an affront to my eyes as his scent was to my nose. Stringy hair, sunken cheeks, pale skin, faded jeans with holes in the knees, and a massive yawning abyss in his mouth where his front teeth should've been. The guy asked if we had any books on map-making, and he seemed a nice enough sort, the kind of brainy lanky man that just got dealt one bad hand of cards after another in life. Nice... but as longtime readers of my journal know, few things will make my opinion of a person sour more than a horrible smell (goddamn my sensitive nose). This dude smelled like he spent 3 hours wrestling a sweaty man in a pit full of Limberger cheese. Fetid, foul, fiercesome funk, the kind of funky smell that would kill a drug-sniffing dog stone dead with a single whiff.
He parked himself on a stool near our kids' VHS section, flipping through the pages of a thick Eagles biography, and I got a nice constant sampling of his odor over the next half hour. Yikes. Since I was manning the buy counter at the time (and I was dealing with a prototypical Scottsdale customer, the kind of rich asshole that comes in with 10 boxes full of water-damanged and decaying books that are decades old and expect a king's ransom for them), I couldn't exit stage right like all my instincts told me to. Then again, being of French descent, running away from something is an unconscious reflex (we lack the first part of that whole fight or flight reflex).
The highlight of the workday was that shortly after he left, we had the chance of cleaning all the aural shit out of our ears, all the hours of KT Tunstall and Ray Charles and world music we're subjected to over and over again, by slipping Tom Waits "Real Gone" in the player. Hearing that magnificently gnarled voice hollering and lisping and leering and bellowing over the speakers was a real kick in the teeth. Haven't heard "Real Gone" before we played it, and I have to say I dug the almooooost hip-hop elements that seemed to surface in some of the songs (it almost sounds like he's sampling in some of the songs), and the overall grimy and noisy texture of the songs was a great note to end the work night on. The thing I like about Tom Waits: I hope that when I'm as old as him, I'll be just as eccentric and ballsy as Tom. Apparently he never got the memo that artists are supposed to "mellow" and "mature" with age. Such a glorious old coot.
On Bullshit (Or "Stupid People Never Fail To Amuse"):
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
When I got back home late Saturday night, Chris and Eric were over at the apartment watching "Lock, Stock" (Eric had seen "Snatch", but never got a chance to watch Guy Ritchie's 1st flick, back before he married Madonna and vanished off the face of the earth). We shot the shit and argued about the upcoming election, and as they left, Chris let me borrow the 3rd season box set of "Bullshit" he brought over. Ever since Chris introduced me to Penn and Teller's "Bullshit", I've been a huge fan of the show. Their episodes on PETA, the Bible, the raw foods/organic foods movement, and end-of-days apocalyptic nutjobs still stay fresh in my mind. Granted, I can see how the shows approach can turn some people off: they're obviously biased and have a stance before airing a piece, and you can see that in how they manipulate the interview footage they show, but at least they own up to being biased. Frankly, I find their "let's piss on everybody" approach to be refreshing, especially on the third season, where they really spend as much time kicking around lefties as they do the conservatives. Of the episodes I've seen tonight, the ones on college (and the politically correct culture it spawned), circumision, and gun control were some of the best episodes, but none of them were as good as the crown jewel of the set: an episode devoted to taking the piss out of Mother Theresa, the Dali Llama, and Gandhi. Great show, but I'm always left pondering a single question: why does Penn Jillette have only ONE of his fingernails painted? Always the same finger too. Strange...
When I got back home late Saturday night, Chris and Eric were over at the apartment watching "Lock, Stock" (Eric had seen "Snatch", but never got a chance to watch Guy Ritchie's 1st flick, back before he married Madonna and vanished off the face of the earth). We shot the shit and argued about the upcoming election, and as they left, Chris let me borrow the 3rd season box set of "Bullshit" he brought over. Ever since Chris introduced me to Penn and Teller's "Bullshit", I've been a huge fan of the show. Their episodes on PETA, the Bible, the raw foods/organic foods movement, and end-of-days apocalyptic nutjobs still stay fresh in my mind. Granted, I can see how the shows approach can turn some people off: they're obviously biased and have a stance before airing a piece, and you can see that in how they manipulate the interview footage they show, but at least they own up to being biased. Frankly, I find their "let's piss on everybody" approach to be refreshing, especially on the third season, where they really spend as much time kicking around lefties as they do the conservatives. Of the episodes I've seen tonight, the ones on college (and the politically correct culture it spawned), circumision, and gun control were some of the best episodes, but none of them were as good as the crown jewel of the set: an episode devoted to taking the piss out of Mother Theresa, the Dali Llama, and Gandhi. Great show, but I'm always left pondering a single question: why does Penn Jillette have only ONE of his fingernails painted? Always the same finger too. Strange...
And Finally, Music (What? Expecting Another Pseudo-Clever Subheading? The Well Of Wit Is Dryin' Up Over Here):
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Songs I've been digging the hell out of lately:
-The Dead Milkmen "Punk Rock Girl": used to totally ignore the Milkmen (totally for pretentious reasons too: "oh, they're a novelty band, I'm too good for such goofiness"... I and the stick up my ass had forgotten my middle school love for Weird Al). I've seen the errors of my ways lately. Plus: its just a great song. I love the sloppiness of it, sounding like it was recorded by a bunch of D&D geeks inside a barn.
-Modest Mouse "The View": Love the Mouse, mostly because Isaac Brock sounds like a deranged hillbilly when he sings.
-Scritti Politti "Wood Beez": the vocals are the thing with Scritti. A lot of bands are described as having "androgynous" singers, even though they blatantly sound like men just trying to sound femme. The vocals on "Wood Beez", though, is truly gender-neutral, and its totally addictive and unnerving to listen to that capital Q question mark falsetto, backed by booming drums and rinky-dink 80's synth. Unfortunately, it gets really bland and smoothed over during the chorus, but the early moments of the song outweigh the 80s cheese.
-Gil Scott-Heron "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised": funny song, and probably one of the more astute songs about revolutionary politics to ever be recorded in pop music. Best of all: dig the hell out of how Gil sounds like he's about to crack up laughing throughout half the song.
-The B-52's "Topaz": I've played this song more than any other over the last ten days. Don't know why, but I keep on coming back to it.
-The Bellrays "Stupid Fucking People": the title says it all, really.
-The Breeders "Invisible Man": The Breeders rock, and this just happens to be the song I listen to of theirs on my iPod the most.
-Peter, Bjorn, And John "Young Folks": in the past, Pitchfork has made some great new music recommendations, and I used to buy most of those recs religiously (and I rarely regretted it). This year, though, a lot of the sites top picks have just been terrible ("I'm From Barcelona?" I wanted to throw MYSELF down a flight of stairs after listening to one song off that record). The shout-out they gave PB&J is working out for me, though: I downloaded some tracks off their "Writer's Block" album and I'm digging it. Especially "Young Folks", with its cool and collected male/female vocal interplay (the vocals are drenched in echo and reverb, which gives the song a nice spacey feel), nimble bass line, jittery percussion, and all that whistling. Shit load of whistling in this song. Best new song I've heard in a long time.
Songs I've been digging the hell out of lately:
-The Dead Milkmen "Punk Rock Girl": used to totally ignore the Milkmen (totally for pretentious reasons too: "oh, they're a novelty band, I'm too good for such goofiness"... I and the stick up my ass had forgotten my middle school love for Weird Al). I've seen the errors of my ways lately. Plus: its just a great song. I love the sloppiness of it, sounding like it was recorded by a bunch of D&D geeks inside a barn.
-Modest Mouse "The View": Love the Mouse, mostly because Isaac Brock sounds like a deranged hillbilly when he sings.
-Scritti Politti "Wood Beez": the vocals are the thing with Scritti. A lot of bands are described as having "androgynous" singers, even though they blatantly sound like men just trying to sound femme. The vocals on "Wood Beez", though, is truly gender-neutral, and its totally addictive and unnerving to listen to that capital Q question mark falsetto, backed by booming drums and rinky-dink 80's synth. Unfortunately, it gets really bland and smoothed over during the chorus, but the early moments of the song outweigh the 80s cheese.
-Gil Scott-Heron "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised": funny song, and probably one of the more astute songs about revolutionary politics to ever be recorded in pop music. Best of all: dig the hell out of how Gil sounds like he's about to crack up laughing throughout half the song.
-The B-52's "Topaz": I've played this song more than any other over the last ten days. Don't know why, but I keep on coming back to it.
-The Bellrays "Stupid Fucking People": the title says it all, really.
-The Breeders "Invisible Man": The Breeders rock, and this just happens to be the song I listen to of theirs on my iPod the most.
-Peter, Bjorn, And John "Young Folks": in the past, Pitchfork has made some great new music recommendations, and I used to buy most of those recs religiously (and I rarely regretted it). This year, though, a lot of the sites top picks have just been terrible ("I'm From Barcelona?" I wanted to throw MYSELF down a flight of stairs after listening to one song off that record). The shout-out they gave PB&J is working out for me, though: I downloaded some tracks off their "Writer's Block" album and I'm digging it. Especially "Young Folks", with its cool and collected male/female vocal interplay (the vocals are drenched in echo and reverb, which gives the song a nice spacey feel), nimble bass line, jittery percussion, and all that whistling. Shit load of whistling in this song. Best new song I've heard in a long time.
And yeah... not much else to report, so I'm going to hit the sack.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
and X actually has two movies... X:The Unheard Music is a documentary type thing intercut with live performances...and then there's just a live dvd that i haven't seen yet. Exene is my hero. i want to be her daughter
and better than chocolate was really good. it sort of dragged a little but a cute lil' love story. i saw the trailor for it when i went to see Blairwitch Project in jr. high.