The Space Needle and the Damage Done

I'm off to Seattle tomorrow morning for a nice, long weekend. It's a wedding trip, but I also got tickets to day one of the Capitol Hill Block Party. I'll at least catch Band of Horses and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Also planning to visit the Experience Music Project and it's smaller, nerdier, Paul Allen-owned cousin: the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

Temperatures in the 60s, but no rain in the forecast. 72 straight hours of listening to KEXP. Good coffee. Good beer. Perfection!

Full recap, show reviews, images, etc. to follow. Have fun in this weekend's big heatwave!

Zen and the Art of Eternal Adolescence

The *bitter defeat* Legal Counsel was shocked to hear that I got hit by a car the other night... and even more shocked that I was riding a skateboard at the time. He then consulted a pair of Esquire magazine articlets (this one and this one) to confirm whether or not I was, at the ripe old age of 31, still permitted to ride a skateboard at all. These ultra-informative lists of Things a Man Should Never Do After the Age of 30 made for fascinating reading. They also confirmed that the editors of Esquire should buy some stock in GlaxoSmithKline (makers of Geritol and many other fine drugs for the Gray Panther set), get fitted for colostomy bags, and go Rascal shopping.

Am I a "mature" human being? Not by most estimates, no. (This should be obvious, as you are currently reading my blog.) Nonetheless, the idea that I should no longer air drum; utilize any ornate methodology in the consumption of an Oreo cookie; skip; use the word party as a verb; do shots; help my friends move(??); use the word dude (are they fucking kidding me??); listen to Pink Floyd; play fantasy sports; or shave my balls is utter crap. Those things are all perfectly healthy, cool, defensible, and awesome. Look, if you want to tuck your shirt into your khakis, take up golf, talk about financial planning at non-business-related gatherings, suddenly believe in trickle-down economics, pay $60 or more to see over-50 musicians in concert, start thinking Dave Barry is funny, start thinking Coldplay is "rock music," and be suddenly eager to date high-maintenance climbers from the Upper-West Side... well, this is America. Get to it. Knock yourself out. But I think I'll put off being a boring twat until I'm at least 40, thank you very much.

And now, a list of 15 other favorite hobbies and tendencies of which I'm sure the D-bags over at Esquire would disapprove. I, at the age of 31, thoroughly enjoy...

1. Comic books
2. Attending science fiction/superhero movies on opening night
3. Boilermakers
4. Referring to excrement as "poop," "poopies," "twosies," "doodoo," etc.
5. Star Wars
6. Cannonball!!
7. Conversations consisting entirely of movie/Simpsons quotes
8. Eating candy until I feel ill
9. Throwing stuff at other stuff
10. Punk
11. Cartoons
12. Vice magazine
13. Ironic t-shirts
14. Domestic beer
15. Blogging

And so I say, in the most grown-up terms of which I am capable, go fuck yourself Esquire! And may your next profile of Vince Vaughn be even less interesting than the last!

Let Your Soul Glow

Apropos of nothing, there has been much talk of the wonder of Jheri Curls recently. Many famous wet 'n' curly 'dos are considered emblematic of the JC style. There's Eazy-E, whose moist locks were usually soaking through a L.A. Raiders cap; Eriq LaSalle's entire family, owners of the Soul Glo empire, ruined a perfectly good couch with puddles of activator in Coming to America; Lionel Richie... Ashford & Simpson... enough said; and of course there was Larry Fishburne as Cowboy Curtis on Pee Wee's Playhouse. Check Curtis's Jheri steez:


So anyway, yeah... Jheri Curls. Funny stuff. Uh... I wasn't really going anywhere with this. Just wanted to share sweet Jheri reminiscence with you.

Riiiiight. Anyway, here's a real treat for you:

Drink of the Week, Episode Three! This week, MC Nuggets and company bring you... well, you have to watch the episode to find out this week's cocktail creation. Giving it away now would undermine the whole episode.

Apologies for the somewhat...uh...flaccid post. I spent the whole weekend in Atlanta drinking wine and stuffing myself with sweet, spicy pork ribs, and there's just not much going on upstairs today. And it's like 100 degrees outside. Plus I got hit by a car on Thursday night. Nothing serious. Just cuts and bruises and stiffness. And my skateboard is now in two pieces. (I'd had that deck since 1995!) Suffice it to say, I'm a tad slow these days. Excuses, excuses!

Great Moments in Italian Sportsmanship: "You're the Son of a Terrorist Whore"

Will watching Zidane headbut Marco Materrazi ever get old? In a word, no. And you'd probably do the same if you were of Algerian descent and some douchebag called you "the son of a terrorist whore." Now I know the French are... well, French, and I know everyone in America who likes the taste of pizza was rooting for the Italians, but I will never get over that horrible dive in the Australian penalty box.

**UPDATE** Thanks, Suze, for sending the Zidane headbut game... Just click the mouse to headbut the Italian!

Aaaanyway... Apparently Jackie Chan is making another Drunken Master film.

Finally, unless you've been in a cave all day, you know that Syd Barrett had passed away. For anyone who's unfamiliar, here's the Rock Snob Dictionary entry:

Barrett, Syd. Founding member of Pink Floyd who defined the group’s early sound with his juvenile, peculiarly English take on psychedelia. Already in the process of becoming rock’s most celebrated acid casualty at the time of Pink Floyd’s 1967 debut, Barrett left the band in 1968, managing to record two solo albums of skeletal meanderings (one of them entitled The Madcap Laughs) before drifting into the permanent twilight in which he lives today. The post-Barrett Floyd song “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is about him.

Blogging about Blogging about Blogging...

First things first: the most important news item this week? "Unibrow" has been added to the dictionary. It's about time.

Like every other blogger in New York, I saw Broken Social Scene play the Prospect Park bandshell last night. Read all about it from the pros. Tonight is Camera Obscura at Bowery Ballroom. A full report (or, hopefully, a link to someone else's full report) next week.

So everyone else on the Interwebs probably knows about this already, but something called the Fantasy Blog Stock Market has valued this site at $9,901.78, based upon a number of factors that seem both technical and creepily invasive. Remember that Rockwell song "Somebody's Watching Me?" On the bright side, Big Brother's *bitter defeat* profile also details links going in and coming out, which led to the discovery of some new virtual pals on the "coming in" side:

(untitled) features some stunningly beautiful photographs. Shutterbugs should check this one out... lots of nice travel stuff.

i rock i roll preeety much says it all. Rock geek fan explosion, kids. Shows, bands, general awesomeness, and the proprietress (proprietrix?) is a fellow native-Chicagoan-turned-Brooklynite. Also, her links do this cool thing where a red bar appears when you scroll over them. High-fucking-tech.

So there you have it. Sharing the blog love ("blove?").

And speaking of those from whom I can potentially steal ideas, here are some Friday time-wasters of note (P.S. Andy's Friday Video Corner is on a two-week hiatus... Send video fun in the meantime.):

Have a robot voice call anyone and say anything. (No profanity, but do you really need to say the Brown Word to be funny?) [via Tobyspinks]

Lo and behold, Banterist maintains an archive of all the Grammar Cop posts. The editor/grammar Nazi in me just can't get enough.

A pair of Top Ten lists worth reading (fuck it, any list is worth reading):
Dan Simmons's 10 reasons to love the World Cup
Modern Drunkard's 10 great drunk movies

Finally, in our continuing effort to bring you all things HOFF...

It seems the Hoff has been filming a commercial in London, where he has managed to get into trouble. Even to the point of injury! Luckily, BoingBoing has culled some brilliant toys that remind us of the lighter side of Hoffitude:

Waxhoff
The Hasselhoff Arcade

Have a fantastic weekend and may Jesus smile benevolently at the top of your head.

Uh... So What's in a "Jaëger Bomb" Exactly?

I am moving to Skaneateles, NY, as soon as humanly possible. I will also be checking into a recovery clinic.

During a glorious upstate Fourth of July weekend, the management's official *bitter defeat* beer count came to 62 over the course of four days. That averages out to 15.5 beers per day, not including bloody marys and assorted shots. Factoring in stuff like sleep (or, more precisely, "unconsciousness") and showers (of which there was only one, as far as I remember), that's slightly less than one beer per hour. Which means that I was theoretically able to operate a motor vehicle at all times without exceeding the NY State blood-alcohol limit. So if you crunch the numbers, I was never actually drunk at all. (Although this all makes Tuesday morning's Level-8 hangover harder to explain... we'll call it an anomaly.) Math doesn't lie. Therefore, I have no reason to be concerned.

Ten fun facts about Skaneateles:

1. Skaneateles (Skan-ee-atlas) is an Iroquois word meaning "long lake," and it's just that: a 16-mile stretch of one of the cleanest lakes in the country. You feel a sense of belonging here - whether it's to raise a family, build a business, escape for a weekend, or stay for the season. (Courtesy Skaneateles Area Chamber of Commerce)
2. The lake contains fish weighing up to 180 lbs.
3. Everyone in town is better-than-average looking. Their hideously ugly people are like everyplace else's sort-of-cute people.
4. Most locals ride unicorns to and from work each day. The unicorns are communally owned, and you just pick one up wherever... like bicycles in Italy.
5. The town crest features a sailboat and a pair of lacrosse sticks.
6. No one under the age of 30 is ever addressed by their given name. City ordinance requires that either a surname or a nickname be used at all times. Parents are exempt from this rule.
7. If you pick a single, recognizable word or phrase and repeat it loudly and frequently, people will think you are hilarious. This is the best way to fit in. Being incredibly good-looking also helps.
8. Drinking from Skaneateles Lake grants you immortality.
9. Labatt's Blue Light is free and abundant. All drinking fountains dispense Labatt's Blue Light, and residents use the beer to cool their homes in the summer.
10. The town doesn't appear on any map, and is invisible to outsiders unaccompanied by a native.

This bear is the mayor of Skaneateles. He was just vacationing in Tahoe.

Anyway, a giant *bitter defeat* thank-you to Kim the Awesome Girlfriend, her friends and her family for one of the best vacations ever. You'll all be hearing from my attorney when I am diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver or if my hand falls off because of those damned zebra mussels.

(Speaking of drinking bears... well that's a really flimsy transition, but here's the newest episode of Drink of the Week. This week's drink: The Tan Sedan.)