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6.29.2004
the fall will probably kill you
which is more dangerous, do you think: a gun or a cigarette?
well, one of them's legal in columbus, and one of them's not. you be the judge. 6.28.2004
a ghost is born
i will freely admit it: i hopped aboard the wilco train after pretty much everybody and their brother had already ridden the damn thing two or three times. they'd been this kind of invisible band through much of the late nineties, at least for me -- a single here and there, "box full of letters" or woody guthrie's "california stars" drifting out of my radio, a nod and a smile and then they're gone and out of mind. it took the universal acclaim for 2002's yankee hotel foxtrot plus a good ten or eleven months before i got my head out of the sand and gave the damn thing a listen, joined the choir in proclaiming it genius and felt proud of myself for trying something new. (cue restrained, polite golf claps. i am nothing if not at the very vanguard of johnny-come-latelys.)
so i was excited to give their new album, a ghost is born, a listen when it came out. only someone (i refuse to name names) tried to burst my bubble by declaring that at least one review had labeled the album incoherent and drugged out, a paranoiac jam album with stuttering, extended guitar solos. "rubbish," i thought -- "it's the curse of high expectations, post-masterpiece." well, the truth of the matter is somewhere in between, i guess. "at least that's what you said" starts off hesitantly, cautiously, like tweedy's just checking to see if the crowd will stop talking long enough to realize the music's started. "i said maybe if i leave you'll want me/to come back home/or maybe all you mean/is leave me alone/at least that's what you said." not sure if this is a good fit, maybe we'll just call it a night, all that jazz... hesitant. "hell is chrome"'s even more insubstantial -- again, tweedy's voice is barely registering. are we even sure there's a band here? and then: "spiders (kidsmoke)": full-on lunacy kicks off. the maddening, repetetive up-and-down of the bass and keyboard, the jangly guitar that bleeds off into chaos. and then the yankee hotel tweedy shows up, assured vocals, and the whole thing becomes kind of a heavy jam piece that lines right up, one on top of the other. easy to see why someone looking for yhf part ii would dismiss this record right now. the track is lengthy and almost monotonous, and would be were it not for the moments when everyone falls back into line. "muzzle of bees" starts off simply enough, acoustic guitars gently falling over each other. "half of it's you/half is me." beautiful. "hummingbird": it's... late-period beatles, "eleanor rigby"-style. (although if only tweedy and the boys had the same unerring instinct for timeless melody that mccartney and lennon did at that point. i'm fully aware i've just opened a huge can of worms among some of my acquaintances with that statement.) "handshake drugs": difficult to hear this song without the gentle lilt it had as one of the b-sides on the bridge ep, released on the 'net over wilco's website between yhf and ghost. there was kind of a freewheeling bounce in it that moved along without help; this mix loses some of that, i think, by emphasizing the piano. or maybe not. too much rhythm section? and the tempo's up. still a good song, though. and where'd this echo come from at the end? lefties from "ashes of american flags", although we know that's not the case. "wishful thinking": there was a drop between the songs, but the end of "handshake" and the beginning of "wishful" are of a piece. acoustic guitar from a distance, dreamy and slow. "i got up off my hands and knees/to thank my lucky stars that you're not me/what would we be without wishful thinking?" "company in my back": uh... it's pretty enough, but i suspect this is another of those instances where someone looking for evidence of tweedy's substance abuse problems will see... something. pretty lyrical images and then a line like "they are hissing radiator tunes" to tear you out of it. the dulcimer's nice, though. "i'm a wheel": moves. here's your high-energy rock closer for the show. wonder what this would sound like, a little more unrestrained by production? "theologians": not as much rock as "i'm a wheel", but the piano's got a nice classic rock feel. i'm still not hearing anything that would definitely classify this album as a drugged-out disaster; lyrically, maybe, but then i didn't think the language of yhf was all that coherent, so what do i know? "less than you think": everyone gets a credit for loops, filters and synths, except for mikael jorgensen, who must have lost a bet or something. sparse and haunting, actually, even through the end. is this what the credits refer to as the "drone section" of track 11? again, anyone looking for a reason to dismiss the album's got one (i'm at the 7:00 mark and i'm still getting channel x sound here. i feel like jodie foster in contact, looking for patterns. is that a helicopter over my house, or is that in the mix? i dunno.) holy crap. "there's so much less to this than you think" indeed. "the late greats": it's a present for sitting through that last one. thick, robust bass. niiiiiice. a little uplifting and hopeful after the drone -- light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps? too much pop psychology for me, but it sure feels that way to me... and that's that. twelve tracks, start to finish, one of which is a bizarre-ass move (twelve minutes of noise? twelve? is that arrogance -- you'll listen to anything, you cretins, and proclaim it genius -- or is there some deeper meaning that you're to take into and out of the drone? are you gonna sit there and let it play when you've got ghost playing in your car, or are you just gonna skip up to the last track?) flawed? yeah, probably. a masterwork? nah. but it's new and different in all the right places, so it gets a passing grade in my book. too bad there's not really a single there; nobody's gonna buy this thing... 6.27.2004
6.24.2004
this oughta make our audience happy
sometimes, you wind up with a great picture almost by accident:
(the link is a high-quality version of the photo, taken father's day 2004 by val.) which you should also take to mean that there are new photos awaiting you in the photo gallery. nervous fellow travelers
with respect to paul wolfowitz's testimony before the house armed services committee, editor and publisher sez:
gaining less attention was that he [wolfowitz] identified the media as part of the problem in iraq. "frankly, part of our problem," wolfowitz said, "is a lot of press are afraid to travel very much. so they sit in baghdad, and they publish rumors." snarky question: why might they be afraid to travel? snarkier question: "rumors" like the presence of wmd in iraq immediately prior to the march 2003 start of the war? i guess this all revolves around whether one believes iraq is a "quagmire" or not. cases to be made on both sides, i suppose, but there seems to be this attitude among the administration that when the media reports that things are not all puppies and butterflies in the middle east, it [the media] is somehow fostering an untrue belief that we are mired down. an if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us mentality, even. dangerous to get locked into that kind of thinking, n'est-pas? 6.23.2004
stop the madness!!
so, with the growing trend of low-carb "designer" products, i shouldn't be surprised that the growers are joining in on the fun. i'm sure they're just out to save the reputation of the carb-loving potato, but c'mon... this just sounds scary. actual quote from one of the professors responsible for this monstrosity: "the potato doesn't look or taste like anything that's now on the market, and it's not a genetically engineered crop. "when it comes to beautiful potatoes, this one is a real winner for growers and consumers." if low-carb foods taste anything like non-fat foods, count me out!! cold calling
work-related true story: my boss's legal assistant just took a cold call from someone who wanted to schedule an appointment with jay today. jay's over at court on a hearing which will probably go all day, which maria tells the caller, and might not be back until close of business, so there's no guarantee he'd make the appointment or even be able to return her phone call.
"why's he at court?" caller asks. "he's at a status conference," maria explains. "they don't have those on law & order," caller snaps. "that's a tv show, ma'am," maria says. "i know it's a tv show, because i'm watching tv when i see it," caller says. "are you saying they don't follow the law on law & order?" ... it's a bird
 via boingboing: pictures from the annual superman celebration in metropolis, il, home of the superman museum run by metropolis resident jim hambrick. val and carl: we are totally doing this next summer... 6.22.2004
too big for their britches
6.21.2004
i give it a 2 out of 10
although i will always have a soft spot in my heart for lisa schwarzbaum's review of pay it forward for entertainment weekly, it appears that my new favorite is christopher hitchens's savage... hell, i don't know if "deconstruction" accurately sums up the complete and utter shelling hitchens lays down on michael moore and his new film farenheit 9/11, but it'll have to do for now.
maybe "mutilation"? "nuclear assault"? "literary armageddon"? read for yourself, and laugh along: unfairenheit 9/11 - the lies of michael moore. more from the imaginary laws department
set to be introduced by your friend and mine, copyright-infringing senator orrin hatch: the induce act, which some commentators believe is so broad as to outlaw currently existing and commercially available digital media technologies like dvd burners, file-sharing networks and digital video recorders like tivo and replaytv. the gist is that anyone who intentionally induces copyright infringement (which includes providing technologies or tools that could be misused by pirates, scalawags and ne'er-do-wells) would be in violation of the act and presumably subject to the penalties of copyright law; the intent is that such draconian potential penalties will prevent the advent of copyright-infringing technologies.
let's see... where did i put that copy of the constitution... oh yeah: article i, section 8: the congress shall have power... [t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;... [and t]o make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the united states, or in any department or officer thereof. nope, nothing in there about suppressing or stifling the creation of new technologies. whaddayaknow? not all free music is good
as part of the massive price-fixing class action lawsuit against the major labels that resulted in pretty much everyone in america receiving a claim for thirteen dollars, it appears that libraries across the country will finally be able to fulfill the intense demand for the bee gees' 2001 album, this is where i came in, as well as many other dust-covered bottom of the bin finds.
(a computer glitch is getting the blame, but come on -- you know that this was just a good way to get rid of valueless inventory...) 6.19.2004
yahoo! news - congressman set to introduce bill on movie smut
this comes courtesy my old pal vic, who i should really be having a drink with sooner rather than later:
yahoo! news - congressman set to introduce bill on movie smut a texas congressman is set to introduce a bill tuesday that would take the dramatic step of legislating the digital filtering of indecent content in movies. so glad that someone felt the copyright act needed to be remedied in order to allow this kind of tinkering with someone else's copyrights. (of course, look at it this way: if this hypothetical not-yet-even-introduced legislation does what i suspect clearplay would like it to, that pretty much opens the door for someone like dj danger mouse, don't you think? hmmm.) 6.18.2004
mr. fancy-pants and his girly comic
my pal sean is interviewed by the columbus dispatch about his new book, mary jane, featuring a high school take on spider-man's girlfriend. nifty keen. 6.14.2004
ashcroft saves columbus mall from certain destruction
oh, this is just freaking lovely. why, if they arrested this man at thanksgiving, are details about his plot just now coming out? and which mall are they talking about? thanks, ashcroft. thanks.
6.13.2004
6.10.2004
my morning jacket at the newport, 6/9/04:
 my morning jacket featuring cousin it on lead guitar. via phonecam
6.09.2004
line jumping
how much do i love wonkette?
it's great that the [capitol hill] staffers are going to be able to get to the casket quickly, because if they take too long to get there, he might not still be dead. the answer is: a whole bunch. here in the heartland, we're sick of your commercials
from the new york times: dear old columbus, ohio is a major testing ground for everything from potato chips to politicians.
from all of us here in columbus who are inundated with the endless political ads from both sides, knock it the hell off. eyethankyew.
6.08.2004
spaced
6.07.2004
6.04.2004
gone in a flash
attention conservation notice/of interest only to folks who follow comics.
artist and one-time publisher (i believe) of time warner's dc comics (not president, as the story indicates), has sued tw and dc over the rights to the flash and batgirl, who he says he created for dc in the 1950s while he worked for them as a freelance artist. the story, as is so often the case when it comes to news media discussing the intricacies of copyright, is maddeningly vague about the claim itself or the theory upon which infantino bases his case. but let me break some things down for you: the character of the flash was initially created by gardner fox and harry lampert, appearing in the first issue of flash comics in 1940. in 1956, infantino revived the character, still called the flash, giving him a new secret identity, origin and backstory, in books published by what would become dc comics. i'm gonna go out on a pretty thick limb here and say that the revival of the flash in 1956 will almost 100% certainly be considered a derivative work based upon the initial fox/lampert creation, which means that infantino has no copyright interest in the underlying character. i don't see how it can be anything else. maybe infantino has some claim to the flash's new backstory and the characters he populated it with, but that's kind of separate and distinct from "claiming the copyright to the flash". (this argument's even stronger with batgirl -- if you doubt batgirl is a derivative work from the original finger/kane character of batman, well, i've got a great bridge you might be interested in.) something else: dc probably doesn't have a really specific work-for-hire agreement between themselves and infantino, but neither, i suspect, does infantino have any kind of document granting dc a license of any kind to publish his characters. i'd be very surprised if that were the case. dc's been claiming copyright and trademark to these characters for the last fifty years -- during which time infantino himself not only worked for and at dc, but was the head of the company. which means that any trademark claim infantino's making is probably gone. copyright wouldn't necessarily be affected by that fact, but there's certainly some argument to be made that infantino was fully aware that dc was asserting copyright claims over these characters, and that he tacitly agreed with this assertion in his role as publisher, since the indicia in every book recited that fact -- even more so if dc pursued or actively engaged in legal action over the characters while he was presiding over the company. which leads me to wonder: who's the legal muppet advising this guy? carmine, baby: get new counsel. edit/update: conversations elsewhere have reminded me of the gaiman/mcfarlane case, in which the seventh circuit court of appeals ruled that neil gaiman could share in the copyright to medieval spawn, clearly a derivative work based upon todd mcfarlane's spawn character, but distinct enough to rise to the level of copyrightability. do the silver age flash and batgirl meet this test? again, i have grave doubts -- but the precedent, i suppose, is out there... of ballots and bills
so, uh, president bush might not be on the illinois ballot in november?
if you're ed gillespe, chair of the rnc, how do you manage to screw that one up for your incumbent candidate? because i don't think it's necessarily the state legislature's fault that the gop convention didn't get scheduled until after the deadline -- and maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty arrogant to then expect the legislature to pass remedial legislation conforming to your calendar just do you don't have to change your plans... 6.03.2004
best quote ever
i'm not sure why i found this so funny... but an article on cnn notes that a meteor streaked across the sky in seattle. quote from a typical beltway bureaucrat from the naval observatory:
"there was some question as to whether it was a piece of space junk burning up, but it was not," said geoff chester, a spokesman for the naval observatory in washington, d.c. "as far as i've been able to figure out, it was simply a rock falling out of the sky, as they are wont to do on occasion." i love this town. by the way
odrc goes to the dogs
i always remembered hearing dad talk about the tender loving care dog program in the prisons, so it's nice to see the department getting some well deserved recognition for it. and using manci as the example, no less! but what is the third prison in mansfield that the article references??
6.02.2004
googlin'
sleepnow (long)
so i went in for a sleep study last night, because i snore like a rusty chainsaw cutting through five layers of steel and aluminum sitting on top of a bag of exploding firecrackers.
"sleep study", as used here, is of course a euphemism for "medieval torture re-enactment". arrive at the hospital at 7:00. check in, find the clinic, get set in a room. my attendant, neal, says to make myself comfortable, watch some tv, he's getting his other guy "wired up" and he'll be back for me in an hour or so. the phrase "wired up" does not instill me with either comfort or confidence. neal says that there's movies on channel 21, but sometimes you could get stuck with something like on golden pond, which apparently is bad. i settle for law & order reruns on tnt. after a bit, neal comes back and takes me back to "get wired". neal measures my head with a tape measure, makes marks on my skull with a grease pencil for the electrodes. i'm convinced he's trying to poke through to my brain, like one of those bizarre psych experiments where the doc makes the patient make strange sounds and speak different languages by jabbing his cerebellum with giant metal spikes. wires, wires everywhere. i'm holding a cable that runs down my shirt, through my shorts and down each leg. neal's swabbing (ha! "abrading") my skin with a solution that will allow better contact and conductivity for the electrodes, all the better for the techs to find out what's going on in my head at night. he jabs me in the side with one of the swabs, follows it up with a piece of gauze soaked in the glue solution. i manage not to scream, but it's a close call. back to the room and more tv. neal's got to put his other guy to bed, so i sit back down on the chair and watch some more l&o, only this time i've got wires attached to my head and a circuit box with about thirty different leads on a cord draped around my neck. when sam waterston wins his big case, i turn off the tube, get my book out and read for a while, only to catch myself dozing over the pages. not even soderbergh's palme d'or freakout can keep me awake, it seems. a disembodied voice from the speaker: the camera's been turned on, just so i know. i resist the immediate urge to look up and give it the finger. time for bed. neal starts plugging things in to the wall. i get a couple more things -- belts around my chest, to measure rise and fall, i guess; a finger pulse monitor (damn thing beeps like an alarm clock if it gets dislodged, a fact i find out to my great dismay sometime around three in the morning); and what looks like a stripped piece of speaker wire shoved up my nostrils. "heat sensitive," neal says. "measures your breath. the lower piece will catch you if you open your mouth to breathe in the middle of the night." and indeed, there's a little piece of wire hanging down below my bottom lip, scratching my jaw ever so slightly. sleep on your back? neal asks. nope. well, i'm gonna need at least an hour or so of you on your back sometime during the night, he says. can i sleep on my side? yeah, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. i lean over to try it out, but with wires running everywhere, getting comfortable on my side with a hospital pillow isn't exactly in the cards. on my back it is, i guess. lights out, neal disappears only to return via the intercom. we do some calibrations for the sensors -- move my eyes left, right, up, down; blink; flex my legs; snore. i think i won't be able to relax, but it's not long before i drift off to sleep. weird dreams: in one, neal comes in shouting like r. lee ermey, rousing me from "deep sleep" to see just how fast i can come out of it. there's another guy there, who i guess is one of the other patients, but he's got no gear on, so i can't tell. i'm standing at attention with wires dangling from my head like braids, bare feet on cold tile (which of course it isn't, because the entire suite and hallway are carpeted, presumably to cut down on noise.) then the whole thing shifts and i'm in a glassed-in emergency room, and there's a midget doctor, who says something, looks very happy with himself, and then walks off down the hall. i follow him into the parking lot, where he climbs into the trunk of an old sedan, turns around and falls over like he's had a heart attack. a paramedic comes running over, and i'm all freaked out that this guy just keeled over in the trunk, but there's a woman telling the medic to be careful, and then the midget jumps up, clubs the medic over the head, makes a smart remark about revenge, and then jumps out of the trunk and goes back into the hospital. it's at this point that the fingerpulsemonitoralarmclock thingy starts beeping like mad. ... neal wakes me up at 6:00. when he comes in, he tells me that he feels sorry for my wife, then pours what feels like a gallon of acetone on the electrodes to dissolve the glue. i'm almost gagging from the smell (for reference: take a rag and drench it in fingernail polish remover. hold it in front of your face. inhale deeply.) conditioner gets it out best, neal says, but three hours later i'm still finding little bits of undissolved gunk in my hair. we'll let you know, he tells me -- but i've got a feeling you'll be back. great, i say. can't wait. 6.01.2004
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