Why Your Band Sucks

1: You have little or no connection with the audience. You don't talk to them, or if you do, you're not funny, compelling or even very good at making sentences.

What you don't seem to know is that you're not enigmatic enough to be like Bob Dylan, who, even in his suck ass old age-give me the money -I'm only phoning this concert in and I can't sing half as well as Tom Waits after throat surgery phase, can still manage to be compelling. You wanna be a rock star, learn how to at least act like one.

2: Clutter! Your band has too damn many people in it. Six or seven? Please, motherfucker, all you're doing is confusing a wall of bland mushy noise for a full tone.
Get rid of the string section. All they do is goo things up, filling the corners of every song with bland and toothless crap, You're just pumping the audio equivalent of corn syrup into the mix, and it's covering up what little you have to offer. If they can't get in, play something moving and then back the hell out, they're just musical wood ticks. Parasites along for the ride, pull them off and smash them so they don't suck on anybody else and move on.



4: That Harmonica! Dude, learn how to play it with some feeling. My dead beloved grandmother's corpse made more interesting noises out gassing than that thing around your neck.
And the only thing worse is sampling it, or getting somebody else to play it on the keyboards, or playing it on some other lame instrument like the melodica. It's a tool, not a fucking safety net to make you feel less naked. And besides, you're on stage singing your guts out about things you cared enough to turn into songs, so you should be naked, dangling on a rope of burning conviction and mad energy.



5: Plug a big old vibrating egg into that bass player's ass with the remote connected to your drummer's kick drum. Maybe then he'd do something more than take up space and push out passionless bottom end. He's never on the edge of anything interesting.
He is like some heavily sedated mental patient, drugged out on Thorazine. On second thought, maybe he's not like a heavily sedated mental patient. I think maybe he's been lobotomized, had his ability to feel anything strongly severed with an ice pick. Either way, he's committed to making your band a nice, safe place where Nothing Is Ever Interesting Or On The Edge.
God forbid somebody should actually be on fire, to want to rock out. It would harsh the mellow.
Music should be seriously high energy stuff, even when it's a dark acoustic number. It's about touching the cosmic throb and screaming out to the universe, hey, dambitt, I got something to say.


6: Kill the keyboard madness! For Christ sake, how many people do you need playing keys? And how goddamn many fingers have to be pounding away at any one time when there's already a small mob of bland middle aged wanna be rockers up there on stage?
Go listen to some Talking Heads. Those freaks did more with one hand and four or five notes than all those busy things I'm hearing from your midlife crisis masquerading as a band.


7: Turn that Drummer loose. You have one of the best drummers in the damn state, but when do you let things rip and let the drummer get some good rhythm freak on? The rhythm method you use is about as exciting as the one the Pope recommends, and your music is all bland missionary style crap and no doggie style goodness



8: Play your instruments less. A lot less. You got enough people up there to be a goddamn wedding party and the band, too, but you all play all the time, and nobody's playing half a chord, or a simple melodic line. You're all just up there sawing away, nobody listening to anybody else's mojo, and even if they had stumbled upon some chewy nut of musical goodness, that bunch of busy fingered squirrels wouldn't hear it.
Then again, if they did hear somebody doing something interesting, they'd more than likely plot to get rid of them. Gotta keep control, make sure nobody goes off script or does something loud and fun. Never mind.

9: Just say Fuck You to Yes men and women. Maybe if your leadership skills didn't suck, and you actually had an interest in being an real artist instead of a rock star, you could speak up, but no, you'll just go along to get along, and all that nicey nice crap your social club masquerading as a band tells you isn't going to make you any better as a singer or a performer. It's just passionless masturbation without somebody to push you, prod you and light it up. Might as well be in a fucking bridge club or book club, because as an artist, all you're doing is circling the toilet.

10: Knock off the prima donna crap. Don't go into the green room before hand and sit around like you're Eric Clapton snorting blow off your pole greaser's belly waiting for the chant of the crowd to pull you out. You have people out there, and talking to folks who come to see you play connects you to them.
And don't vanish while the other bands are playing, then sweep back in right before your show starts. It's rude and ego centric for somebody who plays out as little as you do. Maybe if you were on tour and were burned out, but the odds of you ever leaving your safe day job and being serious about this make that as likely as me losing 40 pounds tonight and waking up looking like Kate Hudson.
And for god's sake, don't assume that retreating to the green room means you're going to get an encore. It's really pathetic, even more so when your whole set had about as much energy as a road killed possum frozen in the ditch.

Not that my writing any of this matters. I didn't put your name in it, so you won't find it when you're googling yourself and your band of middle aged wannabes. But seriously dude, your band really does suck.

At The Donkey, Athens Ohio, 2005

Kori, drinking coffee and watching the parade of attractive young humans at The Donkey, in very cool downtown Athens, Ohio.

The Big Shitpile Avalance Begins

Today, Bear Stearns was bought up by JP Morgan. For about two bucks a share, a sale price of 236 million dollars.

Less than a year ago, their stock was selling at ten times that price.

And to get JP Morgan to buy it, the feds put up 30 BILLION of tax payers money. And to back that 30 billion dollard Fed loan, they're taking the worthless loans as colateral. So the executives at Bear Stearns will walk away rich, and the rest of the working stiffs get to bail out their criminal mistakes.

That's just one bank of many on the edge of colapse.

And we haven't even hit the hard times yet in the commercial real estate market. Those strip malls and big box developements overbuilt on the edge of every town are next up in the default line.

Fasten your seatbelts, kids. We're about to hit very bad times when this run hits. And as it weakens the dollar, it's going to make all those people selling us oil and gas not want our ever more worthless dollar, and they'll switch to the euro, or some other currency from nations that still have regulations and protections.

It's going to cause huge problems with our stupidly built auto centric suburban lifestyle when the increasingly worthless dollar can't buy gasoline and food.

Add in global climate change, food shortages and the madness of our blind stupidity and stubborn electorate, and things start to look pretty crazy.

Over half of this nation voted for the opportunist scum who got us here. Maybe being poor, homeless and hungry will finally turn some Rethuglican heads around. Or make them explode. But that's too much to hope for.

Live shots from The Crystal Corner Gig

Last night, we rocked out. Not much more could be asked for, I had a very pretty girl tell me "you rock", that made me smile, considering I am fifty damn years old.

Kori took these pictures. I was a wimp, I stuck around till about midnight, then the very loud but earnest and competent Goat Radio's guitar barrage blew my ears out, and the four or five Fat Squirrel ales got on top of me and I took my middle aged ass home. I made Kori drive. She hates that.

I'll catch the Motor Primitives next gig when they aren't playing so late

I was pretty happy with our set, we showed just enough chaos and competence to make things interesting and loose, and the energy rush that happens when you put it all up on a bouncy stage made me smile.

I know it's good when I find myself jumping up and down during a solo.

I really liked singing with Pam last night too, sqeaking out backing vocals on Pixie and Mere Lies. She sing purty!

So thanks, Tim, Pam and Robin, for flogging that musical beast, and to all of you who came out to see us and the Motor Primitives and Goat Radio.

Batboy Drummer Does Not Work For Satan

This is my drummer Robin, although many do not see him this way.

He is not the eggman.

Nor is he the walrus.

Coo coo caa chew, baby.

Come see us at the Crystal Corner on Saturday.

We, the Sigourney Weavers start at ten pm!

A Year without Bob

One year ago yesterday, I got fired from my old band. In that time I've gotten two bands going, both of them really fun. I've learned how to sing a lot better, how to be a kick ass rythym guitar player on the acoustic instead of just a good one, and I've come to embrace the filthy evil grunge beauty that is the Les Paul style guitar, playing leads with damn dirty distortion and grabbing onto the beauty of one amp and one electric guitar in a rock band.

I've figured out how to write and record songs in a short time, and how to record two or three acoustic instruments with one good mic and get some fine music on tape, and I've come to embrace the dark beauty of the banjo.

I've gone a whole year without feeling like I've had to push for what I want, a whole year without a fight with a bandmate, and come to a point where I often find myself jumping up and down while playing with the LOUD band with a gigantic grin, a grin so big it makes me feel like my head's going to split in half from ear to ear, just like Rachel Ray's gigantic mouth smile.

A whole year of people asking me to do things instead of seeing me as a threat or an out of control, over the top freak.

Then again, maybe that's why some of my bandmates like me?

Ce la vie, baby. Either way, things are clicking right along. And as convicted felon Martha Stewart says, "that's a good thing"

So thanks, Bob and The Getaway drivers! I had no idea that I had all that in me, and your sneaky backstabbing ejection of me has turned out to be exactly what I needed!

New Word of the Day: Geezering

In honor of the whiny ass titty baby pals I have who have to go to bed at the crack of nine, I am officially coining a new verb:

Geezering:

(geee-zur-ing)

To whine, complain, moan or otherwise make noises that resemble a whiny goat baby when discussing staying up late for an event/show/sexy time.

Most common in people over the age of 40, usually after the onset of haemroids or grey hair.

Often in conjuntion with constant whines about how things are "too loud".

My Loud Band is playing Saturday at the Crystal Corner

Mother and Child, August 2007

It's not just babies I find to be lovely. Sometimes kids can be, too.

Imagine the joy of having a child like this one!

My Band's Feet, Summer 2007

Can you guess which feet are mine?

I Hate Madison Drivers and The Foul Cars they Drive

1: You Stink. Really, really stink, like nasty partly burnt hydrocarbons and dirty diesel smoke, or rotten eggs. If you actually got out of your rolling cocoon and had to walk down the sidewalk, you'd maybe realize how hard it is to breathe the shit that comes out of your tailpipe. It's a fossil fuel sewer you're pumping out into my lungs. And you're killing everybody not in your car with it, with diseases caused by the microscopic soot, with asthma and heart disease.

2: You're mentally vacant. Not Paying Attention. You're wrapped up in a rolling living room, a plush pod of carpet, sound proofing with an isolating stereo system.

So you don't seem to realize that you're not the only thing in the world, and have no connection to where you're at and where you've been. Everything becomes about getting somewhere in a hurry, or ignoring everything between your ugly suburban house and your even uglier office downtown.

3: ME ME ME ME ME ME! You're a self absorbed bozo, and you seem to think you're the only one that matters. You get mad when somebody actually has the nerve to walk or bike on YOUR ROAD. So when you realize you're about to run over some poor fucker who's only crime is to not burn fossil fuel and have to slam on the brakes because they're crossing YOUR street when the walk sign is flashing, you become enraged, honk your horn or speed up to scare them out of the way of your Very Important Drive.

4: You Have No Sense of Timing. You stomp on the gas at every light so you can rush to the next one and wait for it to turn green, having no clue that you can drive almost all the way from one side of town to the other if go a steady two or three miles over the limit. So you wear out your brakes, piss away your gas and pump even more crap into the air. It's part of the next problem, number five:

5: You're an idiot. You are totally sans clue about the fact that you're driving something that weighs thousands of pounds, and takes a lot of time to stop when driven at the mentally lame speeds you drive at in town. And when you drive those huge pointless SUV's, your brain seems to vacate that lump of bone on top of your head, because being able to go faster on ice does not mean you can stop faster.

6: Your Ability To Multi Task Sucks Diseased Unconsenting Donkey Dicks!

Really, quit fucking with your stereo. Stop talking on your cell phone, don't be trying to choke down that giant 2000 calorie mocha while fiddling with your ipod while checking your hair in the mirror wondering if you wore enough aftershave while thinking about jumping the bones of that new girl in the office and making the beast with two backs. It endangers the rest of us, and that forty two seconds of pleasure you are fantasising about just endanger my life.

7: You're a Smug Prick With a Sense Of Entitlement. You bitch about bike riders being a pain in your ass because you have to share the road with them, you complain about the cost of gasoline, but you drive a gas hog you owe more money on than you could sell if for, and you seem to think you have a god given right to all that oil those dirty brown people have under their soil, without ever stopping to think about how much death and damage is done for you to have that fuel. You're also pretty resistant to the idea that you're an active part of changing the climate, making sure to drive your spawn everywhere in a big car so they're safe, not that it matters, you'll be dead before the big shit hits the fan and your children have to scrounge for food in the burned out grocery stores of their doomed, dry future.

I own a small truck, it's an ancient Toyota pickup. It gets 28 miles to the gallon, and I've arranged my life so I drive it once a week to the grocery store and a few times a month to the haul things like band equipment and lumber.

But the rest of the time, I bike or walk, or share rides if somebody's going my way.

And I am a Madison driver, and have done some of the moron-like things I've ranted about here, more than once.

But the last two years have really opened my eyes to the level of stupid and disconnected people in cars around here, and this winter has been the worst by far for vehicular mayhem and raging stupid.

I don't see much changing until we have six dollar a gallon gas. Maybe then, when everybody's out of a job we'll see change. But damn, it's too bad we're such morons about cars.

Handy Info When Bush Lets Your Town Rot after a Disaster

When BushCo makes a choice to let you rot, let your town suffer in the heat after a disaster and turn your formerly mostly Democratic city into a Red State, here are two things you might find useful to know.
Of course, even if BushCo does decide to do something, unlike what they did in New Orleans, they'll have their buddies do it at five times the price, and you still will be frelled. But here's two handy survival tips.
I love semi-usefull information like this, you never know when the shit's going to hit the fan, disaster wise.
Now I am going to shovel slush, again. Bleeeech. I want to ride my bike.


In Tanzania, villagers have been placing plastic water bottles full of dirty spring water in the sun on their black tar rooftops. After eight hours (or less in very hot areas), UV rays and heat have killed off the bacteria that cause cholera, dysentary, and typhoid.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004261.html

Many people believe that you have to boil water to make it safe to drink. In fact, if you heat water to 65° C (149° F), all of the germs that can cause disease in humans are killed. It takes much more fuel to boil water than to heat it to 65° C.
http://solarcooking.org/pasteurization/default.htm

Halloween, 2007

Why it's Stupid to build a Death Star

I'd like to take a moment to point out something very obvious to all those Hollywood screenwriters, producers and directors and science fiction writers who are reading my blog.
I know it's tempting to build a death star. I know that blowing up a whole planet with a rogue wormhole sounds like fun. I know that planet smashers, giant death rays and multi trillion mega giga maxiton warheads that smash planets to bits are both attractive ideas and fun ways to consider getting your blowing up shit freak on, things that make you hard and squirmy and make your pants tight and your palms warm from being rubbed together.
But please, for a moment, just consider throwing a rock. Or even dropping it, or nudging it. A really, really big rock. That's all it takes.
It's simple, elegant, and while it may harsh out the current planetary ecology, it leaves you with a nice livable planet in a few thousand to hundred years, doesn't take much energy, and usually there's plenty of big rocks to be found in most planetary systems.
You could even make a giant global sauna by picking an asteroid that is mostly water and skimming it in so most of it breaks up on the way, or have some fun sitting back and watching volcanoes and tsunamis by dropping various size rocks that are mostly iron. Drop one on the Yellowstone Super Caldera and watch it blow most of the central USA into two feet of ash!
But I think blowing up a wh0le planet just seems dumb, a waste of rare and handy biosphere and usable space. Not only that, you have to outrun the big chunks, and risk taking a chunk of San Francisco up your tailpipe.
So instead of building huge death stars, making giant fusion bombs, building whole giant motherships that take a whole small sun's worth of energy to use, just swing by a nice big asteroid on the way through a solar system, push it at the planet of your choice, then go have a nice lunch on some pleasure pit/space station in another quadrant, then come back. Whoosh, boom, done!
Might not be as much fun or as lucrative as having contractor buddies build you a mega death star or weapon, but it's a lot like what you'd see when human children are beating frogs with rocks and sticks.

You could even just go park on the moon and set up a rail gun/linear accelerator and fling smaller rocks, and watch human cities go poof!
But really, this whole blowing up planets thing is getting old, and it's a big waste of time and energy. Try kinetic weapons, mass drivers, rock dropping. I think you'll like it!

Another Handsome Baby Photo

I'm thinking of doing an all beautiful baby blog, because they're so damn wonderful to look at.

Ten Reasons Why Your Guitar Playing Sucks

1: You're lazy, and the only time you practice is when the whole band gets together, so you never have anything figured out ahead of time, and are about as fluid as a petrified monkey turd left in a pyramid four thousand years ago.

2: LOUD DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN GOOD, you freakin' idiot. and when you mistake LOUD for good, IT'S THE SAME AS TYPING IN ALL CAPS, SOMETHING ONLY A MORON WOULD DO.

And you do so without giving a shit about tone. I mean, really, just having a big Marshall Stack and a crappy metal guitar is not a substitute for knowing how to make the men jealous and the girls damp with pleasure.

3: You got no groove. You don't play songs, you just play chord patterns. And the same one, on everything, like a mindless robot assembling defective butt plugs in some factory in China that will short out and fry buttholes.

4: You're timid. You cling to one style, one guitar and one tone, and only play safe things you've figured out beforehand, so you can eliminate the possibility of mistakes.

You also suck all the energy out of the music and bore a lot of people to the point of wanting to projectile vomit whatever they're drinking, just to see if you're the robot mentioned above or if you will actually respond to having gastric juices filled with cheap beer hurled upon you by gut muscles.

5: You're an arrogant prick, and are confused, thinking that having a guitar and being onstage makes you think that your fecal matter has no odor, that everybody wants to hear your full shred masturbatory wankifying more than they want to hear a band.

This makes you play very long solos that are really just the scales you learned on the couch watching bad TV talk shows after you got laid off from that cubicle job, instead of figuring out that getting in, dropping your tasty bomb of musical mayhem and getting out makes you seem like a crazed master of restraint and frenzy.

6: You're rigid. You see no need for improvement, and without a drummer, you suck, big time at keeping a steady rhythm.

And you refuse to learn new ways to play to the point of insane meat headed self destructing stupidity, thinking you have to have use heavy strings, flail about beating up your guitars for no good reason with wild pick strokes and and a steel fisted monkey grip.

7: You forget your guitar is a tool. So you baby it, don't play it hard when you need to, are afraid to take it out of the case and leave it out where it will remind you every time you walk past it to check your pointless email or watch that stupid TV show about lactating men and the dogs who love them.

There's no point in smashing a perfectly good guitar, but there's also no point in dying and leaving behind an instrument that's not played into a state of perfection.

8: You forget your guitar is more than a tool. You just use it to push chords around so your heartfelt songs have something to hang on, instead of as much a part of the music as Your Stupid Lyrics About Love and Your artistic PAIN.

This is like ignoring a new sweetie who rubs your feet, feeds you fine chocolate, greets you at the door with an eight ounce bottle of lube warmed to *102 degrees Fahrenheit, wrapped in red Saran Wrap and fuzzy pink slippers holding a giant margarita made with fine tequila while you're spending all your time thinking about your last sweetheart who pissed on all four seats in your car and fucked your best pal for six months. But you're an idiot who's guitar playing sucks, so we don't expect much.

9: You're boring. You do everything the same way every time, and want everybody else to as well. The idea that somebody might just be in the moment and roll off on some great tangent bugs you, because you think being professional means getting everything "right", and that anybody who rides the edge and risks screwing up is a loose cannon, a dangerous sort of free spirit.

10. You never realized that you're one of millions of idiots with a guitar. Even more so in Madison, where legions of white boys with guitars prowl the streets, looking for people to talk at about their greatness. It's boring, self involved and pathetic. You are not a special snowflake, nobody gives a shit. Come down off your high horse, before you fall off it.

Note: the photo of the lovely dark eyed Pam spanking her telecaster is an example of Does Not Suck, and she is a rock star we all should admire and give huge sums of money to.

Found on Craigslist Today:

Yeah, um, right, just what I'd look for in a musical partner, sure.....

Looking for musical partner(s)

Date: 2008-02-26, 2:44PM CSTi have shit. have been working on vocals for 6 years. don't sound like anyone in particular. I live in misery. i had a girl and kid. she left me. i drink when i can but i'm a light weight. i smoke everyday, but i just got fired. sometimes i just feel like dying. the only one that ever cared about me doesn't have much left. i'm looking for weird people that get hocked on by this world to find something to escape to with. you should get a hold of me. I guess i like dark music the most. but i like all types of music. i have lots of originals, maybe you should hear them. maybe not, we could just create new stuff. who cares either way. there now we have no expectations and whatever music we create will be beautiful. i am going to go eat some pills now. i am not a drug addict, i cannot afford it.

Hurling Buicks

Sick, sick, sick. Hurling buicks, tossing cookies, calling up ralph on the big white phone, yawning in Technicolor, kneeling at the porcelain throne, sick, sick, sick.

Finally, after dodging the virus at least six of my pals have had, I am unwell.

This winter just gets better and better, illness, flu, ice making me fall on my ass, shoveling till the snowbanks are too high to shovel, and now I'm out of propane for the shop and can't work out there till I get some.

I think I'm going to bed for a month with a stack of DVDs and a case of everclear. Who needs a liver when you have this kind of winter.

Stretched thin baby head, July 2007

If there's anything more lovely than a human baby, I sure

haven't seen it.

Big Smile, August 2007

Happy big smile, with a photoshop boost.

Kyle and his bass, June 2005

Kyle's my pal Sindi's son, I met him a long time ago when he was a little shit of about six or seven.

I took this photo of him a few years ago when I made it out to Port Townsend, Washington, where he lives with his cool mom and Jake, her sweetie.

Port Townsend is a very cool place, a little town across the water from Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula, out there in the rain forest.

Kyle's a bass player these days in New Faces, a band who just won the first semi-finals of Sound-Off!, the NW battle of the bands.

The finals are on March 1st at Experience Music Project in Seattle.

Here is a link to a video interview of them (some good shots of Port Townsend too):

http://kstw.com/underground

or the direct link to the video is:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1417325757/bclid1419760717/bctid1419760716
I wish them luck, he's a pretty cool dude for his age, and I'm envious that he started so young. It took me till I was thirty to finally learn to play, and I didn't get good till a few years ago. Good at being loud, anyway.

They're coming to visit soon, I'm looking forward to hanging with the three of them.

And winter still sucks. Four to eight more damn inches of snow on the frakkin' way.

bleeeech.

Climbing the Walls and Falling on my ass..

I think I am going to make hardwood cleats and attach them to the studs all over the house. I'm already climbing the walls, might as well save what's left of my fingernails. One month of winter left on the calendar. Yeah. Sure. Whatever, I sorta doubt that winter cares what that stupid calendar says this year.

Everything is covered with ice, I managed to fall right on my back walking to the coffee shop the other day, and last night's record cold was only tempered by the fact that there wasn't much wind.

My shop's too cold to work in, and I already dropped about as much money as I can spend on propane for it, so I'm not building anything, or even fixing things I should be.

This winter is about as harsh as I can remember on the brain, even more than the ones in the early 70's when I was living in Northern Wisconsin.

I want to ride my bike, plant my garden and crack the windows and air out the house so bad it's making me insane.

But at least it's warm, I have enough food and a sweetie who loves me and a wide screen TV and dvd player and electric blanket, and our band's playing this Saturday at the Winter Market. So it's not all suck, but this cabin fever making me batshit insane.

Emma, August 2007

One last photoshop hack of Emma, then I have to go change into different pojamas. You know,that's all people with blogs do, just shower ever few weeks and change jammies.

It's a hard and brutal life posting all this stuff for all 19 of you on a regular basis, but you're worth the effort.

And if you live here in Wis-cow-sin, go vote for Obama tommorow.

I'm sick to the point of barfing up every one of the five thousand burritos I've ever eaten at the thought of another four to eight years of anybody named Clinton or Bush.

Two hundred ninety or so million people in this country, and all we seem to be able to get are people with those two names.

Ellis, Sept 2007

I love the liquify function I just learned how to use in photoshop.

And children are sooooo photogenic!

Family Portrait, August 2007

The lovely and talented Erickson family.

No relation other than being part of the tribe.

Think I should go into the portrait business?

Lucy

Lucy with her Ball, 2006

I love dogs, and Lucy was a big happy one, the best kind. I miss her

every time I go to see Martye and David. If I wasn't allergic to dogs, I'd have two or three.

Toadkillin' at the Winter Market

Here's a shot from our last gig at the winter market.

We'll be there again a week from Saturday, starting around 9:30.

It will be a simple, mostly instrumental gig.

I like playing that all red electric at the farmer's market. Sorta goes against the grain.

And on another note:

Up to ten inches of snow due Sunday!

Happy goddambitt not another frakkin' snowstorm coming again day, everybody!

It's Official, Texans can go Fuck Themselves

From the Washington Post, an empty shell of a newpaper that brought us lots of BushCo love and enabling:

"Feeling lonely in the Lone Star State this Valentine's Day? You'll be glad to know that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has just overturned a statute outlawing sex toy sales in Texas.
According to a law on the books since the 1970s, the sale, promotion, donation or lending of "obscene devices" was punishable by up to two years in jail. And all it took to "promote" was a goodie drawer of six or more.
The statute was seldom enforced. But the owners of two Austin sex shops, as well as a retail distributor doing business as Adam & Eve, claimed it hindered their business and deprived potential customers. The state argued that it had a moral basis for maintaining the law, "discouraging prurient interests in autonomous sex and the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation."
The 5th Circuit, however, found that sexual privacy supersedes that morality. The court cited Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down bans on consensual sex between same-sex couples. The 5th Circuit, siding 2-1, said it is unconstitutional to punish individuals selling sexual devices, since those devices are typically used in the privacy of people's homes.
Alabama and Mississippi now remain the only states where sales of sex toys is illegal, though several other states have restrictions. The defenders of those laws say it would be dangerous to make sex toys more easily accessible. They note that sexual addiction is a recognized mental disorder, and they worry that sex toys may encourage that.
So has Texas opened up a Pandora's box here? Or has the Lone Star State simply opened its mind?"

Happy Fake Holiday!

Happy Hallmark and Floral industry holiday, everybody!

It's that day of the year where we spend billions of money on the slowly withering reproductive organs of plants, pack our loved one's faces with too much rich American food, cheap oily chocolate made from crappy ingredients, many of them harvested by poor children in places where they dream of having too much shit like most Americans do!

Today, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds of fat and cellulite will be made by people gorging themselves on this excuse for a holiday, millions of people will finally wake up and realize they'd better do something nice for their sweetie because some advertising dudes figure a way to make them feel guilty for ignoring them the rest of the year as a way to make huge piles of money!

So don't forget to tip that waiter, or that flower delivery person. and at least a few people on the bottom might come out a little less behind.

Me, I tell my sweetie I love her every day, and almost every day thank her for being my partner. And I'm glad that she doesn't buy into fake holidays.

We make our own, mostly.

So, once again, I say, Happy Hallmark and Flower shop scam holiday, chumps!

Sometimes I drink too much coffee at EVP

I draw things like this while bitching about jerks like our Senator Kohl selling out to the rethuglican swine by voting against our interests by passing that shitwad FISA bill, so George Bush can wipe his ass with our laws and constitution.

Enjoy the artwork! And remember, every email you send me gets read by somebody in the government, because my internet account is in the UK, where Gradwell.Com is. That means it can be intercepted and read by people who might decide I'm a threat.

Happy our Senator Kohl is a tool for Bush Day, Folks!

The House Concert Was Fun

We played a good set, or at least it felt good and nobody threw things. We seemed popular!

But we also didn't talk much, played the hell out of our instruments, sang like drunken angels and kept our between song blather amusing and fairly short.

And every song about murder, blood, falling down wells and bursting levees we described as "love songs".

No metaphor intended.

It's still too frakkin' cold. And there's more snow in the forecast.

BLECCCCCCH!

More pregnant earthling photographs

I can't decide which one I like better.

Both shot last winter when my camera shy pal decided

to let me photograph her.

House Concert Tommorow at two

I'll be playing this ugly banjo for one creepy song about guns, drugs, bait tanks and murder in the swamp.

But don't worry, only one song in our set... The rest will be on less scary instruments.

There will be three different musical acts performing in Ellyn's living room, we're on last. Come see our band,

Toadkiller Dog.

It's the first time we're actually calling ourselves that. It seems less cumbersome than Tim, ellie and Bess.

It's at the lovely Ellyn's house, at 1149 E. Gorham, second floor.

There will be hummus and lots of creepy music, and some children.

I like almost all of those things but the children.

Legs, 1990

100 proof Root Beer Schnapps

So, I'm bumping elbows with the polar fleece and snow booted masses at Woodman's today, searching for joy and love and heavily discounted nearly expired produce and wild raspberry stash tea and expensive rustic sourdough bread, and at some point I think, holy shit, there are too many primates here, and head to the checkout lines, where the overworked checkout people struggle to shove everybody's suspect food choices past the scanner.

On the way out, shuffling past the photolab and the soon to be extinct DVD rental section, I throw restraint out the window of my monster truck nascar mind and head into the Liquor store.

I like booze. I like Stroh's Inlander Rhum, a toxic Austrian rum that is 80 percent ethanol. I love Tequila, have a real attraction to good whiskey in less than two ounce portions, and have what can only be described as a tasteless and semi-toxic love for Schnapps, although American Schnapps has too much crap in it for me to really love. Too sweet, too thickened with glycerin, too much like diabetes in a bottle.

But today, I found something almost as good as what them e-u-rope-eans drink, Phillips Root Beer 100, a much less syrup and sugar laced kick ass liqueur.
We killed half a 750 ML bottle tonight, four of us getting friday night stupid. It Does Not Suck.
It tastes like a slightly bitter and aromatic root beer barrel candy, with hints of semi adult spice to it.

An adult version of what we drank as kids back in the mid 1970's, when we had to sucker some lonely 18 year old into buying it for us because we were too young to get it ourselves.

It reminds me of rolling in the wet grass on Clem's hill with a lover I had who had the most amazing curly red hair, of a time when we had fewer chins, flatter and leaner bodies and when we were both clueless and fearless.
I'm still pretty fearless, having decided a long time ago that life is just too damn short to worry about much, even if I'm 50 damn years old.
Back then I was just young and stupid.
Now I'm just too old to burn daylight on idiots unless I can get a good rant going.
Go buy a bottle if you're in the mood for some pleasant stupid. Just don't drink too much, because it will hurt in the morning.

Photo stolen from Bighappyfunhouse.
Check em' out on my links page.

A Letter To Mayor Dave!

It's time to piss off some developers!

Time to make them hear our mighty if somewhat dirty hippie roar!

So take some time and write to these two email addresses if you can, and ask in a nice way for a greener, cleaner Madison with more bike trails, walkable neighborhoods and fewer damn developments made of unsustainable wood and plastic that require cars for every single thing, including going somewhere where it's safe to BICYCLE!

I did today. If you're not sure what to write, just rip off the spirit of my missive to our handsome young Mayor. Be polite, but be a pain in the ass, too.

mayor@cityofmadison.com

Chrisg@danecorpc.org

My somewhat manic missive to the mayor, in full!

With added exclamation points!!!!!!

(they were cheap, I got whole box full at St.Vinnie's!)

Hey Mayor Dave!
I voted for you!
I want a better city, more bike trails!
More infill and less sprawl!
Fewer ugly expensive condos and more public art!
And more Bike Trails!
Make the whole city like the east side and you'll have a much heathier place, with fewer cars and more community that can walk, bike and take public transit!
And I loved the trolley cars, no matter what the cranky nay-sayers thought.
And did I mention more bike trails would be lovely?
The future is in your hands, let's make this joint like a fine e-u-ropean' city, although you can skip the whole legal drugs thing Amsterdam has for now. I'd be happy with some green planning.
Let's rock this town with some clean, mean green momentum, so I can vote for you again.
And remember, Cars are SOOOO 20th century! Think of them last, they're rolling dead wheels. Zombie transport!

ellie
Another happy biker eastside freak who has time to bug you,
On the Isthmus!

When Coffee is a SIN!

I read things like the blurb below and I hope a virus gets loose that only effects godbag fundamentalist men. A nasty one that makes their genitalia transform overnight into vaginas.

But then I stop and think, they would just start to demand everybody have a vagina, and they'd go around beating up people who didn't have them.

Some days I think this whole fundamentalist streak that stupid human monkeys have is beyond understanding, and I wish they'd all just shut the frak up and go flagellate themselves.
Then I turn off the internet and go build a guitar, and try not to think about how they'd stone me and my girlfriend to death, just like the Jesus-facisists we have here in the USA.

I sure wish we weren't giving a bunch of Saudi thugs billions in oil money every year. That's Amerika, propping up dictatorships everywhere there's oil, all in the name of freedom. Freedom to kill the biosphere with fossil fuels, anyway.

At least they didn't kill her or whip her with forty lashes for going on the internet with a co worker.

Happy godbag fundamentalist day, everybody! Let's all sing!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/07/world/main3800725.shtml

(CBS) An American businesswoman was carted off to jail by religious police in Saudi Arabia for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks in Riyadh, the Times of London reported. The woman, who spent a day behind bars, was strip-searched and forced to sign a false confession before being released, the newspaper said. The Times declined to publish her name at her request.

The 37-year-old businesswoman works for a finance company in Riyadh. Her problem began when her office lost electricity. She and her male colleagues then went to a nearby Starbucks to use the coffee shop's Internet connection. She sat with a male colleague in the Starbucks' family area, the only place women are allowed to sit with men. “Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked 'Why are you here together?' I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin,” she told the Times.

Following her arrest and interrogation, the woman was hauled before a judge. “He said 'You are sinful and you are going to burn in hell.' I told him I was sorry. I was very submissive. I had given up. I felt hopeless,” she told the Times.

The newspaper said the woman had received a visit from officials at the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. A U.S. official told The Times that it was being treated as “an internal Saudi matter” and refused to comment on her case.

Not so much a phlembot

I thought it was just a cold that had me laid out for the last three days.

But I found this under the floorboards of my bed, right under my side.

I suspect that it might not have been just a cold, because I noticed a few other things were different. Like the way I glow in the dark, the way I seem to be able to read people's minds, how I seem to be able to stop time, fly like Supergirl, and remember everything I've read or heard in the last six months. That and my ability to become invisible and to heal instantly from wounds.

But I did have a high fever, and I did watch the whole first season of Heroes in a fever dream state, so maybe everything but the invisible part was a dream.

I know I posess the ability to become invisible, or transparent, because when I got into music stores, auto parts stores and that pit of swine who work at Marling Lumber, nobody seems to see me.

That might just be because I'm a middle aged woman who does not have big tits, a flat belly or big hair.

But enough about my fever dreams and disgruntled state of being.

How about that blizzard? What a perfect three days to spend sleeping off a virus.

Think I'll go do that now.

And because, as my globe trotting pal Craig said to me, "you can't not bring up politics, can you?" here's a bit for you:

How about that fucker McCain? Blows off the vote today that would have provided fifty billion for extended unemployment benefits and aid to retired poor folks after saying "we need a stimulus package!"

He's a nasty old, angry fossil, ready to bomb everyone, and if there was a god worth caring about, he'd toss that bastard a stroke that would make his eyeballs blow out.

But instead he'll stay healthy because he gets gold plated health care

thanks to his privledge as a Senator!

Ain't amerika great?
And, a tip of the hat to that pair of scewups Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid:

Thanks for kneecapping Senators Dodd and Feingold on FISA, and for taking impeachment off the table!

Paving the road for President McCain by being without spine!

Happy snow day and stupid old school Democrat day, everybody!

I have rhinoviruses

Don't you just hate that feeling, the tickle in the back of your throat, the flushed feeling of fever, the slow buildup of more than usual aches, and how your head starts feeling like a big wad of snot soaked cotton, ears ringing?

I do. Even more so because that's what's going on in my head tonight.

bleeeech. Time to go to bed for a day or two.

100 Years Ago Today Was My Father's Birthday

He's on the bottom of Clearwater Lake now, we fed his ashes back to the fish that he used to catch every day like he requested before he died in 1983.

He was 50 when I was born, already grandfather age.

I miss him today. But I have his sneaky grin and his sense of humor, and a lot of memories, the bigger half of them good.

Happy birthday, old man.

10 Reasons You Suck at Leadership

Why your leadership skills suck diseased unconsenting donkey dicks:

One:
You don't listen to people. Even when they're anserwing questions you asked them. You have the attention span of a rabid, horny weasel on crystal meth.

Two:
You're paranoid about everything, seeing danger and conspiracy all over the place, seeing only the worst possiblities, so you trust no one, not even yourself.

Three:
You micro manage everything, because you're a control freak. You can't stand the idea that somebody else might screw up some tiny little thing and destroy your anal retentive picture of How Things Are, and How Things Should Be, missing out on the bigger scheme of things.

Four:
You dismiss the people around you, and embrace the idea that anything invented here must be second rate. So you ask outside people for input, who have no clue about the inner workings of your crew, their ideas or desires to move up in the organization/mob/tribe.

Five:
You're a concept thief. You hear half of what's told to you, file it away, then later on, when it all clicks together, you think it's your idea, even though people loyal to you have been begging you to listen to them. Some of it's subconsious, some of it's just lazy listening, some of it's a desire to make the good ideas seem like yours.

Six:
You're scared shitless of looking like you made a mistake. So you scapegoat, blame your problems on the more vocal members of your group who's actually intersted in changing things, then play kill the messenger, making it seem like they're troublemakers instead of assets. This helps the followers in your group to form a viewpoint that anybody who's talking about issues is The Issue.

Seven:
You trust the wrong people. You trust the ones who tell you what you want to hear, the ones who suck up, and the ones who are more interested in being seen as team players so they can cement a place in the organization, instead of figuring out new and better things. You see anybody who does tell you the truth as a threat.

Eight:
You're too self involved, spinning into your own glorious event horizon, lacking any empathy for the people you're about to screw over, because your own tender heart just can't take it. So you justify it by claiming that it's just too hard to work with them and either shit can them, or lie to them and sabotoge them.

Nine:
You're lazy and easily bored, and hate your job. Instead of figuring out your next move in life, you just bitch about things, preffering a soft misery where you can have dreams of greatness while surfing the web and barking at your underlings.
This is not a dress rehersal, it's your life, and you're too shortsighted to see it.

Ten:
You pretend to work with other people, instead of actually working with them. It's connected to number nine and five, but also about surfing along on the hard work of others, not actually doing all that much when it's time for you to suck it up and be part of something bigger.

Teeth, A Primate Body Language Tool

For a bass player who drives a Taxi,

this man has pretty good teeth.

For sure he's not British.

And unlike the teeth in the photo I put in the well reasoned and pleasant commentary about the MAMA awards, I took this photo.

And I've made a lot of food that these teeth have chewed up and mixed with saliva since I met this fine fellow.

I need a shot and a beer now.

Or a two month nap. Winter sucks this year.

153 word sentence : Why I Hate Bluegrass Music

It's full of literal minded purist jesus freak morons who value speed over emotion, who sing in horrible ballsack crimped nasal voices about seeing the light or keeping on the sunnyside, a bunch of hyperactive dolts who mostly play chunk-a-chunk rythyms until it's their turn to speed wank on a generic solo in a funk impaired major key, all of whom would not be there if they couldn't step up and hog the spotlight, playing the loudest acoustic instruments they can so they can drown out that goddamn banjo that fills up every corner of whatever room it's being played in like a radioactive moldy sauerkraut fart made of greasy atoms that fill your ears with piercing notes, all done on some overpriced chunk of Gibson instrument that they only play because it looks like something some drunken preacher played in 1934 while inventing a new form of music for assholes.

That being said, I love Old Timey music about death, blood, mining diasters played with emotion and a slow hand.

But Blurgrass? The music of egotists, bible slammers, snooty fuckwads and mamma's boys. In my mind they all like like the guy in this vintage photo.

'nuff said.

Hat Nude, 1991 and A Good Zappa Quote

Hat, 1991

And a quote from Librit, a blog favorite of mine:

http://litbrit.blogspot.com/

It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity.-- Frank Zappa

We're Playing a house concert

We're playing another house concert, this time at our pal Ellyn's house, on Feb 10th.

We'll be playing with Matthew Sanborn, who also roasts all the good coffee I drink, then a blues duo called Down Deep is playing a set, then our acoustic trio, Toadkiller Dog is playing the last set.

I don't think the CD will be ready by then, but I'm hoping to finish up mixing it pretty soon. I'm getting sort of sick of recording and want to get back to playing and writing new stuff.

The MAMA Awards Stupidity Returns

It's time for that yearly circle jerk, ego clusterfuck that is the MAMA awards. Rick from Rick's Cafe is pushing the entry process over at the mostly dead in the water Daily Page local music section.

I hate the whole idea. It's a lame ass attempt by local people to imitate the Grammys, and a night of hyper extended ego bloat, where all those local music people in love with themselves pay a good chunk of money in the name of charity to put on airs, bad dress clothing and hope that they've flogged their fans enough to suck down the horrid process of voting on line for them at the MAMAs/Broadjam site, a kloodged up site that is counter intuitive to use, demands a lot of information they claim they don't need.

I went to the MAMA awards two years ago. The band I was in won a MAMA, and I went only because somebody else paid for my ticket in.

It sucked. There was a red carpet and some dolled up bimbo and tech monkey with a video camera at the entrance, pumping up the fantasy by stroking up the egos people walking in, followed by overpriced drinks and self involved bozo conversations in the lobby, then followed by a long, boring bunch of presenters and a fair number of bad performances.

I still shudder at SubVocal's singer acting like a cross between an early Madonna and a bad pole dancer. The only good thing about their set was Tracy Jane Comer's cello playing, and I felt sort of sorry for somebody with her talent having to share a stage with that writhing mass of overactive and oversexed weirdness.

We got dragged backstage after we did our stupid monkey dance picking up the MAMA, where they wanted to know if we wanted makeup done before we got our photo taken.
Stage makeup for photos we never even saw? In Madison?How frakkin' stupid is that?

Real local people playing dress up? I prefer Halloween, it's a fuck of a lot more honest.

I know there's a need out there for dog and pony shows, a lot of both huge and frail egos that need to be propped up. And I know that there is money involved in the whole deal, profits for Broadjam, and some money might just trickle down to the school system.

But it seems a lousy and inefficient way to raise money for what our tax dollars should be already paying for, a way to wank one's ego off while having only a part of the money go to the schools.

I'd prefer a big party where people dance their ass off and give all of the money to the cause selected, not a giant promo for Broadjam and Rick with some trickle down money going to the schools.

My loud band did a party/benefit the last two years for the Goodman/Atwood Community center. We pulled in a thousand bucks both times, and all of it went right to the cause.

Simple, direct and fun as hell.

And winning a MAMA had a seriously messed up effect on my old band. Or at least my former bandmate with delusions of grandeur. He spent the next year fixated on it, and it was a big part of our friendship dissolving into an empty shell.

It became more important to make a perfect CD and get another award than it did to be a band. So we stopped playing enough gigs, the big reason to be in a band. And that weird focus on outside approval instead of playing music for the joy of it had the effect of making people forget about us.

By the time I got booted from that band and they played at the MAMAs, they didn't even win one. I just wanted to play music, rip shit up and be a working band, not in a studio creation that was an extension of somebody's delusions of greatness, not to mention the fascist shit that came with it.

In the end, it's that time you spend playing your ass and your heart out, making music and touching something real that matters. The people we play for and connect with doing music, not the mutual admiration society that the MAMAs represent.

Fuck awards, let's dance.

In Bed, 1990