At work yesterday, I found myself trapped in a roomful of bad radio. Trapped is, of course, an overstatement. I could have talked to the people playing the bad boomer-flashback radio station and said some polite version of "for the love of god, please change the music before I am compelled to gouge out my own eardrums." But that's always awkward. They were there first. Yadda etc. Anyway, it confirmed for me that 70s/80s-monster-hit-flashback radio is uniquely irritating to me. I find it much easier to tune out Lite-FM type stuff or country. "Dream On" makes me wish my lower intestine would wrench itself free and strangle me, ending my misery. No doubt just further confirmation that familiarity breeds contempt. One thing I found interesting is that about once every couple of hours, they'd actually play something I liked. Which caused me to wonder what it meant that some song I liked was nestled in amongst audio swill. I'm sticking with the stopped clock theory for now. The lowpoint of the day (which I fortunately missed much of as I was in/out of the room by then)? "Stairway to Heaven" of course. Clearly the worst song ever recorded. Evah! I'm actually thinking of revising my long-held opinion that the Wall is the worst album of all time. "Stairway..." is so bad it may, all on its own, make Led Zep IV ever worse than the Wall. It's an arguable point. the Wall remains the epitome of bloated rockstar whining. But LZ IV has, in addition to containing the worst song ever, been overplayed to the point where even its good songs are sonic pablum -- they were cliches 25 years ago. And in case you're wondering, no, I don't hate Floyd or Zep categorically. (I mean, what would Beastie Boys have sampled if there was no Led Zep?) "See Emily Play", "Wish You Were Here", "Four Sticks", "Communication Breakdown", "Immigrant Song"... that's good stuff. You might even hear a few of those on the radio. Of course, I think they'd sound better if you contextualized them with something recorded, oh, in this century. But I'm a college radio DJ so clearly I don't know anything. Except that there is no excuse for "Stairway to Heaven".

more cowbell!!

More Houston parade photos, including some excellent shots of the firecracker hats. And, also, some more Houston parade photos.
Also, also, here's weekend website #3: the Bacon Show. Baconbaconbacon... their subtitle says it all -- one bacon recipe per day, every day, forever.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 27 may 07)

Ananda Shankar & his Music :: Ananda Shankar
Nu-Med :: Balkan Beat Box
Gems from the Classic Years :: King Sunny Adé
Mi Sueño :: Ibrahim Ferrer
Brasil :: Wax Poetic
United We Swing :: Spanish Harlem Orchestra
lé Temps d'Une Chanson :: Juliette Gréco
Real to Reel :: Noiseshaper
Aman Iman :: Tinariwen
Urban Africa Club :: various

Website of the weekend #2: a local madman pointed me at this site, about le Palais Idéal de Facteur Cheval. Which I can only describe as outsider architecture. He was a postman in rural France who decided to build this huge house. It kinda looks like the entire history of world architecture mashed up into one big wacky thing. Very very impressive. If we ever find ourselves in western France, we'll definitely have to check it out.

Radio hijinks this afternoon. I was a the station with a bunch of the wrrld crew finishing up the big shelf re-organizing project. Hey, it's a nice sunny holiday weekend... what better way to spend the day than re-cataloging and re-shelving CDs... So it got done but then the 3pm DJ didn't show. Since there were 6 of us there, it wasn't a big deal for one of us to go cover for a while. But then 4 rolled around and still no DJ and now we were all done with the shelving. We couldn't find a number for the missing DJ and I already knew that the Programming Director was outta town. So I figured I'd bite the bullet and hang out and keep the station on the air. I can't say I actually did a radio show -- I just spun multiple CDs in their entirety. Not at all what we're supposed to do as DJs but like I said I was just there as a place holder so the station wouldn't have to be shut down.

Also, hanging around XDU for an extra 2 hours side-tracked my trip to Big Orange to get the end-caps I need to expand the irrigation system in the raised beds. At least I had time to shift a few more wheelbarrows full of mulch this morning.

Completely unrelated to any of that: cool site of the weekend #1: old photos of NYC.

2009 update: that site is now offline (as the site owner has apparently died). More info and current Towel Day updates here

More art carz on the interwebs: Here's some shots of a new Hoopmobile. If there's a car artist that better fits the definition "wacky" than Hoop, I'd be damn surprised.
Also, this page of VW mods. Some art cars. Some sculptures. A few I've seen previously online. One I've actually seen in person. And some obvious photoshop jobs as well.
Like fun...

Tonight's movie: the Nomi Song. Wonderful documentary from 2004 about 80s singer Klaus Nomi. Aside from playing "hey that's" (hey, that's Kenny Scharf! hey, that's Ann Magnuson! hey, that's Man Parrish!), I also got a kick out of seeing footage of NYC and esp. the East Village in the late 70s/early 80s -- not much different from the way it looked the first time I saw it just a few years later (St. Mark's Place... the Kiev... Fiorucci...) It was also cool to see bits of Urgh! A Music War. One of my college room-mates had the soundtrack album and that was the first time/place I ever heard Nomi. The movie's sad, of course, as you'd expect from the story of someone dying young. Especially when the realization hits that Nomi died alone with all the people in his life basically too scared to be around him as he was dying. Not that it's a unique story -- it was the first wave of AIDS-related deaths and few people knew how to deal with it. And I certainly hope never to be held accountable, on camera, for the bad choices and failings of my younger self. Even if it's not a nostalgia trip for you like it was for me, the movie's still highly recommended. Like many good documentaries, it paints a picture of a world that's just not there any more.

Art car in the news! Or in this case, art bus. Here's a write-up from Daily Kos, by Emily (creator of VainVan). The Topsy-Turvy bus was built by car artist Tom Kennedy (Ripper the Friendly Shark, among others) for Ben Cohen's Priorities Campaign. Lots of good linkage in Emily's article if you're interested in find out more about the project. (originally found this on boing²)

Or if you'd prefer your art cars with a bit less activism, here's some more photos from this year's Houston parade.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 20 may 07) ::

Gems from the Classic Years, 1967-1974 :: King Sunny Adé
lé Temps d'Une Chanson :: Juliette Gréco
Aman Iman :: Tinariwen
Mi Sueño :: Ibrahim Ferrer
Studio One Kings :: various
Real to Reel :: Noiseshaper
Brasil :: Wax Poetic
Guitar Music from Western Sahara :: Group Doueh
In Dub :: Love Trio
Mind Control :: Stephen Marley

So, for most of yesterday when I wasn't working in the garden or over at the radio station (we are in ur stacks tapin ur CDs) I was hyp-mo-tized by Ninja Warrior. G4 was running an all-day marathon -- actually, it might be an all-weekend marathon since it was still on when we got up this morning. The show's been running in Japan for about 10 years, where it's called Sasuke (apparently the name of a legendary ninja). One of the things I find fascinating about the show (apart from the fact that is is Completely Insane) is the degree to which it could never work on mainstream American television. One of the key things about the show is that it's ridiculously hard -- bordering on impossible -- to win. So you go through the series, however many hours that is, and probably only 4 or 5 contestants out of the original 100 even make it to stage three. And they all fail to complete that stage. No one even gets to stage four, which only a handful of people have even won anyway in the 18 seasons the show has had. Oh well, that's the way it goes. See you next time! I cannot imagine that structure getting through even a preliminary network planning meeting.

Fans of Victorian cookery and household hints, this one's for you. The entire text of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management is available online. Not just recipes (cabbage? boil for 45 minutes!) but tips and techniques (best way to slaughter your hogs), social indoctrination, history, and more. Quite an amazing thing indeed.

I guess it's true... you hang around long enough there's no telling what might happen. For instance, this afternoon at work I heard one of the local commercial rock stations playing Fugazi. If you know anything about commercial rock radio and/or know Fugazi, let's all pause and savor the oddness of that. I mean, even the DJ on-air felt the need to contextualize the moment by doing a couple minute talk intro explaining who Fugazi was and so on. I wish I could tell you what they segued out of Fugazi to (it was "Waiting Room") into, but someone else came in and changed the station in the middle of the song.

(And, no, I'm far too old and cynical to think that it actually means anything that Fugazi got some love from commercial rock radio. I remember way back whenever (probably around the time Give 'Em Enough Rope came out) thinking that the world would be a different place if the Clash could sell out Shea Stadium. And then, only a few years later, they did. And the world wasn't a terribly different place after all. )

The current leader in my personal what-in-the-what-now sweepstakes is the House of Clocks. I've been poking around that site for a couple of weeks now and I'm still mostly confused. Entertained and impressed.... but confused. I think I prefer it that way.

Cleaning up some links and bookmarks and whatnot, I found this little gem from last month: an experiment in Edwardian dining. Altho it would've been more fun if he'd just thrown himself into it without all the tut-tut-ing about the horrible adverse effects. Probably they felt they had to include all those disclaimers and warnings to keep people from going out and copy-catting... damn you, responsible journalists.

Here's some more photos from this year's Houston Art Car Parade. I'm particulary sorry to have missed the firecracker hat tribute to Dean Pauly.
(ETA: here are the official photos from this year)
Looks like our only art car trip this summer will be down to Mount Dora in August. The timing for Artscape didn't work out this year and local friends of ours are getting married the same weekend as Louisville. While there are drawbacks to central Florida in August (mainly that it's central Florida in August), pretty much everything else about the event is great and I'm looking forward to going back.

In addition to the Plant Delights open house, this weekend past was also the Houston Art Car Parade. You can read about it here (and maybe then you can explain to me how something that's been happening every year for the last 20 years can be considered bizarre anymore). Or check out some photos. Or some more photos. Looks like a fine time was had by all.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 13 may 07) ::

Gems from the Classic Years, 1967-1974 :: King Sunny Adé
Mi Sueño :: Ibrahim Ferrer
Aman Iman :: Tinariwen
Urban Africa Club :: various
Guitar Music from Western Sahara :: Group Doueh
Brasil :: Wax Poetic
In Dub :: Love Trio
Studio One Kings :: various
Real to Reel :: Noiseshaper
El Tarab El Aseel :: Riad Abdel-Gawad

The quality of our morning was improved today by the passing motorist who honked to let us know one of the tires on the pick-up was going flat and by the employee at the Durham landfill who let us use their airhose to fill it back up. I'm not going to get all sappy and say something stupid about how this restores my faith in humanity. This is, after all, still a world in which not only do Dick Cheney and Kim Jong Il exist but wield power. But it was a nice reminder that, yes, there are still plenty of nice people out there.

Last night's movie: Drunken Master. This was the 1978 movie that helped launch the careers of both Jackie Chan and Yuen Wo Ping. Although there is way too much plot getting in the way of the story, there's not so much that it drags the movie down. You just need to give in and follow the movie from set piece to set piece and not worry about whether the story will pull together. It won't. But that's okay. (moving the rest of this below the cut as it contains some minor spoilers)

A couple of quick radio notes: playlists for my shows can now be seen by clicking on the "i am what i play" link over to the left. I will be disturbing your morning routine every Thursday, from 7-9am for the rest of the summer (well, 7 at the latest... the station is off the air until I get there so my show starts as soon as I can drag my ass over there and get started). This morning's show was fun. No requests but I did get a couple of phone calls from folks saying that they were enjoying the show. And that's always nice.

Hey, hey... this weekend is the spring open house at Plant Delights. Actually it's the second weekend of the open house but I didn't find out about it until yesterday. Besides, we were all jammed up last weekend anyway. The summer open house that we went to last year was awesome. It'll probably be raining but it should still be a blast.

Thanks to commenter Stew for the reco on Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. It has not replaced Dogfish Head's 60-Minute IPA at the top of my warmer weather beer list but it's a worthy contender. Full of hoppy goodness indeed. And I'm glad I was a bit slow on the uptake of literary references. If I'd caught the Hemingway reference before buying, I probably wouldn't have. And that would've been a shame cos it's a damn fine beer.
Note: I found the Bell's at Sam's, Durham's finest beer emporium. I believe I've mentioned them here before but if you're even slightly into beer you should absolutely check them out. Well, if you're into beer you probably already have. Sometimes I feel like the beer buyer at the Durham WFM, a few blocks away, has just given up. Knowing that he'll never be able to compete with Sam's, he just sticks to the same basic selection. Which is fine as there are usually several good choices there like Duck Rabbit, Dogfish Head, etc. But new finds and exciting surprises are rare. Altho recently they've surprised me by stocking in Samichlaus and the DFH Burton Baton. So either they've got a new buyer or the old one's just had a burst of enthusiasm. Still, Sam's is a local treasure and deserves your support.

This article (from Slate), won't tell you much you didn't already know. If you're married, that is. Or have ever watched an episode of Whose Wedding Is It Anyway? But it's still an interesting read, even if she doesn't draw the conclusion I would, or rather did. Namely that, when faced with an industry that could take as its motto "you are selling dreams, and you can charge anything" the only sane choice is to opt as far out as you can. Seriously. I recommend Vegas. Sure, one could sink as big a boatload o' money on a Vegas wedding as any other kind. But it's a lot easier there to get thru the process without ever having anyone ask you to tell them the story of your wedding. Sure, Vegas is part of the wedding industry but much of it is the unashamed industrial part of the industry. Not so much phony pretending to care about your story so they can suck another 20k out of your bank account. I probably will read One Perfect Day, the book referenced in the article. I love those kinds of books, the ones that get inside something that's almost assumed to be a "natural" part of life and find out what it really is and how it came to be. I guess American Way of Death is probably the role model for a lot of that kind of social history writing.

You might have heard that Björk has a new CD due out soon. I've heard the first single, "Earth Intruders" and it is fuckin' amazing (reminds me a bit of Homogenic, which is my fave Björk album). If the single (and pre-release hype) are any indication, the CD will definitely kicking up a bit more noise than her last two.
Also, in case you missed it (like me), NPR did a live broadcast of one of her shows in NYC. Not sure how long it will be up but right now you can check it out here. Not only Björk but also her opening act, Konono No. 1. I've already listened to their set and it's smoking hot.
(note: I wrote the above before listening to the United Palace concert. Two of the first three tracks she played are from Homogenic. The other was "Earth Intruders." Sometimes I scare myself. Also, judging by the extremely lukewarm review Kelefa Sanneh gave her Radio City Music Hall show, I think I'm glad NPR got the broadcast rights for the Cinco de Mayo show instead.)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 06 may 07) ::

Guitar Music from Western Sahara :: Group Doueh
Studio One Kings :: various
Urban Africa Club :: various
Ulual YYY :: Islaja
Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project :: various
In Dub :: Love Trio
Pequeno Transistor de Feria :: Radio Zumbido
El Tarab El Aseel :: Riad Abdel-Gawad
Stop the Earth, I Want to Get Off :: Zeb
Solta O Frango :: Bonde do Rolê

Just to recap the last few thrill-packed days: worked my way thru a large back-log of CDs for the station, stuff that just didn't quite make the grade and kept getting sent to the back of the stack; continued the never-ending war against weeds (you do all this work improving the soil and things other than the plants you want in there have the nerve to grow... what's up with that?); cooked up a batch of cochinita pibil in the crockpot (using the achiote paste & naranjas agria from Super Compare -- I think next time I'd use more spice and not add as much water to the crockpot to amp the flavor up a bit more); had dinner and hung out with friends at Fed -- we all nitpicked the food a bit and it was, as you'd expect for a Saturday night, noisy as hell, but it was surprisingly smoke-free and even though somewhat overwhelmed by hot mustard, they still do a damn fine burger... and with Dogfish Head IPA on draught... well, it's still a fine way to spend an evening. And some other assorted yardwork type things. And some overtime at work.

Please take adequate precautions. I'll be on the air later today, Thursday, 4-6pm EDT. That's 88.7fm if you're local and/or wxdu.org if you're not. Sure to be 120 minutes of both things and stuff...

Okay, so Wild Zero is clearly the only Japanese rock & roll UFO zombie movie you'll ever need to see. Also contains: Yakuza. Sword fu. Flame-thrower microphones. Hairstyles. Gun-toting paramilitary babes. Eyebeam fu. And, of course, close to the minimum daily requirement of exploding heads.

What I was reminded of yesterday: if you're going to roast a chicken, it's probably a good idea to wait for a day when it's not 90° F. Esp. if you're going to be roasting said chicken at 450 for an hour.

What I was reminded of today: I (l-o-v-e)love Super Compare Foods. Not only did they have naranjas agria I was shopping for, but multiple kinds of queso fresco, crema, chorizo, and produce I've never even heard of (spiny chayote?). Most of those I'd seen before, either there or at Galaxy. What I noticed today was that they're selling cabeza de res. Even if I'll never need to, it makes me very happy to know I'm only a few miles from a store where I can buy a whole cow's head.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 29 apr 07) ::

Studio One Kings :: various
Urban Africa Club :: various
Ulual YYY :: Islaja
Guitar Music from Western Sahara :: Group Doueh
Backspin: A Six Degrees 10 Year Anniversary Project :: various
Remixed :: Midival Punditz
In Dub :: Love Trio
Mind Control :: Stephen Marley
Pequeno Transistor de Feria :: Radio Zumbido
El Tarab El Aseel :: Riad Abdel-Gawad