Way To Shoot A Brother...

Yeah, as if we didn't need anymore proof that being the veep may result in being the butt of many a late-night hosts' monologues, you are apprently in-freakin-vinceable. You get to rip-off thousands out of their pensions, still collect a salary from your former company that you hook up with majorly juicy contracts, continue a war that hardly anybody wants anymore and to top it all aff, you totally get to shoot people. Now, I'm no hunter, but a quail is a smallish, fairly pudgy bird. My regret is that this will give more useless ammo to those LaRouche supporters who hang out outside the Reading Terminal Market on the weekends and make highly unimaginitive puns on Cheney's names. Come on, a realm of political discourse and this is the equivelant of yelling "No, you're a poopy-head!" on the playground when soemone gets to the swings first. Seriously, guys...

So Lisa and I awoke Sunday morning to the Nor'easter that swept the... well... Nor'east. Being from Western New York, our first (and correct) impulse was to run outside in the snow and take pictures of the negihboorhood.

This is 11th St, normally a bustle with cars and such and large men yelling things to people. It was kind of nice.


And these are the little cute sidestreets that pepper most of Northeast urban living. Needless to say, they are impossible to plow by anything excpet these little plows the city imported from Japan. And they don't exactly waste those on South Philly. So that car is pretty much screwed.

Needless to say, we trudged to the video store, where we were the only people there and according to the pile of snow that still lay in front of the entry way, the only people so far. I always knew that people in the South and other more temperate climates freaked out at the first sign of flakes, bu we're in the Atlantic Northeast, and this happens at least once every year. They assign years to all their snowstorms, whereas in Western New York, we would run out of the gravitas behind such a title by January. Wankers.

In other news, somewhat snow-related, out band practice came to a crashing "never-even-started" when we got to the practice space and all the bands had called out and the owner, Joe (of Grammar Debate fame), was vainly trying to dig his way out fo his parking space. Hence, we just went home. It wasn't even freakin' cold last night, man.

I am so exahausted and my limbs still ache from snow football on Sunday (an event that cameras could not even capture, so they didn't).

My Least Favorite TV Event (Next to Ice Dancing)

It's Grammy time, and while my bile rises an inch higher than usual, I'd like to take time out to explore the few categories that I actually care about in music and why the nominees dissapoint me in huge ways.

Alternative:
I could have called these before they even came out. Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand and Arcade Fire were no brainers. Beck is reaching that kind of Costello-esque point where he will get nominated simply for existing. the White Stripes made a lot of sense, too, but they will be passed over, for Mr. Hanson, is my guess.

Rock:
Queens of the Stone Age surprised me for sneaking into hard rock, usually reserved for wahtever schlock Metallica is churning out. Luckily, it was their off year. Coldplay owes their entire existence to U2, who they are in the running against. "Hip" choices like the Queens, NIN, System of a Down and the like are always there to distract the fact that rock just isn't what it used to be and the real hard rock is being done in basements and out of the way rehearsal spaces.

Production, Non-Classical:
This is one of my favorite categories because noone in any way gives a shit about it. Steve Lilywhite gets a nod but for U2 and Jason Mraz, not two of his finer works. Nigel Godrich, who reinvented what a rock record could sound like with Radiohead gets his for working with McCarteny on a record that was very good but very traditional sounding. The Neptunes make amazing music on their own and are possibly the best hip-hop and pop producers around right now. Danger Mouse sneaks in for work on the Gorillaz, which I didn't think was anything special, especially since the joke and mystery about the group is long since diminshed.

Packaging:
Another one of my favorites, since packaging a record in a new and unique way is so difficult. Thivery Corporatio, Ani Difranco and Aimee Mann had records this year that were not only unique in sound but also in appearance. And my favorite for the box set category is The Ramones, whicxh came packeaged with its very own comic book in a 1950s "Weird Tales" motif.

Yeah, ranting about faceless and soulless contests. Aren't I bucking the system while sticking it to the man?

In other news, they're filming again and it's slightly more annoying than last time. there are now three cranes and the craft service tent is not located near our window. So when grips go to enjoy some delicious craft, I get to hear whatever it is they bullshit about ("Hey, man, way to hold that light." "Thanks, I really take great satisfaction in making sure Stallone's doughy featured catch the light in just the right way."). My apologies to grips everywhere.

That's right, you ain't seen nothin' like the Mighty Quinn.

Friday's absolutely gorgeous, early-fall-in-Chautauqua-County weather gave way to cold and rainy on Saturday, nixing any plans to bike up to Manayunk along the Schuykill River. And today is just a little too cold for it to be enjoyable, and it would simply degrade into some kind of masochistic exercise of pain and uncomfortableness. Bah. This is most possibly the last good weekend we'll see in a while.

I spent most of yesterday lounging around the apartment, finally beating Half Life 2, doing a bit of recording, listening to the records sent to me for Aural Minority. So far, the Man Man and His Name is Alive have been my running favorites. I feel slightly out of the loop on things coming out lately, and when I think about it, nothing I've bought lately has been by a new artists, just new releases from old ones.

And speaking of old ones, a trip to Hope on 7th (a thrift store owned by Peter Lehman, who drummed with us for a short time) yielded a nice haul in vinyl. That said haul consisted of:
- Bob Dylan's Best of... Vol. 2 and 3: Purchased mostly because I have a constant urge to hear my Dylan on vinyl, and it doesn't really matter if I already have the songs in other forms. You can't have too many versions of "Maggie's Farm" around, anyway.
- EC and the Attractions' Armed Forces: I've owned this on CD about three different ways, but seeing it all big with full sized cover art made me have to grab it as well. Probably going to frame it, as I've said about a hundred other LPs I've bought over the last few years.
- Faces' A Nod Is As Good As a Wink: This is the first live recording they did after the split. Rod Stewart is highly misunderstood when all you take into consideration is his work after the 80s, and his vocals as a young man are much better.

- Bruce Springsteen's The River: Possibly the only Springsteen album I can stand as an album. Released before Born in the USA, it's got all the swagger and power of his full-force arena rock before he actually started playing arenas.
- Queen's Live Killers: Purchased mostly for an extremely long version of "Brighton Rock", perhaps one of the best guitar songs ever written. It appears to take up more than half of side three.



Today my plans consist of making gucamole, bringing it to James and Ange's place and watching the game. It's odd, I never got into football in any way untill I moved to Philly, which is an absolutely insane sports town. It just affects you and you can't really do anything about it. I get Flyers stats on my cell phone, for God's sake.

I finally ventured to the west side of Broad Street in South Philly to go to the South Philly Tap roon (www.southphiladelphiataproom.com), a place often described to me as "the Royal Tavern, but way better." (Note: the Royal Tavern is a very decent but hipster filled faux-divey-tavern-with-oak-trim in Philly that is alright but not nearly as cool as it looks.) Good wings (this from a guy who lived in and is marrying a girl from Buffalo), good burrito made of boar, good beers. Reminded me of the Barker Brew Company in Fredonia, which sadly went out of business during my last months there.

They finally stopped filming on my street a whole two days early. Talking to the guy who owns the bodega across the street, I sadly discovered that they'll be back next week to film some kind of "fight scene" which I can imagine is in no way quiet. To their credit, they left the crane (my favorite).

So the band may actually practice a whole two times in one week this week. We got together on Monday for the first time in almost a month and it was still sounding really good. I have this increasing ithc everytime we play in the practice space to actually, I don't know, play a real show. Ned agrees with me in my "let's just fucking play somewhere" motto. We've become acquaintances with a few Philly bands who are going to SXSW this year, and that just puts the firecracker under my ass to get moving and do the same. I feel that, while these bands are very good and extremely motivated to get themselves out there, we can be even better. I've heard what we can do with all six cylinders running, and I'm psyched to see if people actually enjoy. it.

Lisa bought me the Jenny Lewis solo album so I'm going to listen to it.

With the new arrival of Internet to the house and the discovery of my friend Jeremiah's blog, I somehow got roped into creating one so I could comment on his. So here we are.

A few self-imposed ground rules for my blog:

1) I will most definitely use it to promote my own sense of self-importance. That's what the medium is for, right?
2) I will definitely use it to write about my band, Confusion About Weather.
3) I will also incredibly, surely use it to write about Aural Minority, a web-zine run by Jeremiah Griffey in Oceanside, CA, of which I have an on-again, off-again relationship (the 'zine, not Jeremiah).
4) I would be hard pressed to not write about bands I think are totally fucking sweet.
5) I will not in any way write about my day job, which I spend what few hours I have away from it trying to forget what it is.
6) I will so very much, indubitably use it to post my fiancee Lisa's artwork until she gets her own and does it herself.

With that being said, let the fun begin.

So they're filming the new Rocky movie literally right outside my apartment, and have been doing so since Saturday. They'll continue doing so until Saturday. I don't know how people in cities and places that regularly allow this handle it, but it's been a most annoying experience. Aside from the craft service tent set up outside my bathroom window, or the crane that seems to go up and down only at points when I am most likely to hear and be affected by it, the imported South Philly look-alikes they've imported mill about our block when not standing in front of the cafe across the street (decked out to be "Adrian's Restaraunt").

Yeah, excitement of the silver screen. On the plus side, their random machine operations have been waking me up like clockwork in the morning. It's better than an alarm.

Lisa and I have decided that everything that goes wrong in the apartment is the film crew's fault. When my cell phone randomly resets itself, when we can't get good reception to watch Lost, when I can't seem to get into my apartment door; this is all the fault of the filming, we've decided.

On the plus side, I figured every time I go in and out of the apartment, I'm costing them money. So I got that going for me.