Holiday Card

So starting last year, L. and I started coming up with unique holiday card ideas. This year? Robot Manger scene! We spent the better part of a Sunday morning designing the set, and photographing it went on all day. Evening shooting worked best.

We have two:

One with full view and lighting.

The other messing with the lighting a bit to create a more dramatic piece.

Both are great, thus on the blog.

Anyway, enjoy the holiday and Happy New Year!

Listening: Tsushimamire Pregnant Fantasy & Vivian Boys A Girl in the Wind. Excellent stuff!

Reading: The Killer's Tears by Anne-Laure Bondoux & Boogiepop and others by Kouhei Kadono

Build it

I like robots. Build one here:


American Visionary Art Museum

Cool diversion, minutes of fun.

Doom Generation

So right now, this moment in time, I surf the public channels. I have no cable so I'm limited (and FREE) in choice. There are a bunch of shaggy haired kids trying to run a town and arguing over who's gonna masterbate the chicken or some such fiddle faddle. The tension is high, another flashing quick shot is a girl crying, and another of a some clueless 7 year old wondering just what the hell is going on. The show?

Kid Nation

What the fuck is wrong with this? Tons. What kind of kid exploitative, emotionally scarring, bullshit is this? Creating a town of William Golding nightmares for entertainment purposes only? Let's get REAL you twits. Let's go to Latin America or some half ass country in Asia and show real exploitation! I wanna see starving bone showing scabby foreign kids making my Christmas toys for pennies a day, not a bunch of snot nosed brats on CBS trying to act like some character from their favorite R rated movie their parents dragged them to see because Mom & Dad couldn't get a babysitter. Shoot, if we're taking a king-asshole-country-of-the-world stance, let's do it right.

I digress...oh, they just had a choice of reward for their "town" that they are building; a library filled with books (comics too) OR free video games....


Reading: Ghost in the Shell : Human Error processor
Listening: Titan Go Kings

Friday, Tune in to my show!

I am making some themed attempt of anti-capitalism on my Breakfast Blend this Friday on WRIR, 97.3 6-8am. I took a photo from the web and had some photo editing fun with what you see now above. Neat?

Buy Nothing Day

I'm not talking groceries, but please don't go trample some old lady over a 20 dollar DVD Player at a box store, okay? If you suck tit to that kind of thinking then just flail yourself into the corporate pit like a mindless lemming already!

Happy Thanksgiving by the way!

Listening to a lot a great stuff lately:
Megababe, Hang the Box, One Eleven Archer.

Saw Paprika at Univeristy of Richmond's International Film Series last Sunday.
Awesome movie!

Wish What Would Jesus Buy? would come here!

Happy Halloween!

What am I?

Reading: H.P. Lovecraft
Listening: New Polysics!

Worship the gourd!

Getting to be that time of year again folks:



http://extremepumpkins.com/



Best website of pumpkin carvings around. I am gonna dress up like a video game for Halloween. Pong, using this shirt.



Don't go stealing my idea now damnit!

Donate to WRIR 97.3!

Hey all you public radio listeners, how about supporting the local independent radio station WRIR 97.3 .

WRIR is a non-profit organization and needs funds in order to bring quality independent news and music to Richmond's airwaves. We couldn’t do it without supporters of independent radio, so now is your chance!

It would be even more appreciated if you donated during my show, which is Friday 6AM – 8AM (Breakfast Blend).

Here are some phone numbers: 804-622-9747 OR 649-9737 (studio #). So call in this Friday!
Fundraiser is Oct 3rd – Oct 11th.


Prize info on Website, lots of great stuff again this year!
Website: http://www.wrir.org/

I get married in 3 days! WHOOOO!!!

Watching: Serial Experiments: Lain
Blue Seed

Music recommendations...

So I've recently realized that I have become one of the many who order a lot online. I gotta say there is some serious bennies in it. One website for music that has never failed me is CD Baby. They give a larger percentage to the musicians and are damn good, and the shipping FAST!

Recent purchases, ordered Thursday-received Monday, shipped across the country:

Suphala "Blueprint", a tabla artist with her stunning follow-up to The Now CD also features vocals of Edie Brickell, etc. Just a great moody CD. She was the first female artist to perform in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.

Peelander-Z Happee Mania, crazy ass Japanese punk touring this Fall in the States! Damnit and OF COURSE no one cool that I wanna see every comes to Richmond. Loserville.

Another most excellent and probably will be one of my picks of the year on my Breakfast Blend show on Fridays will be Tinariwen. Just check out the link and new CD and you will see why. Beautiful music, also touring the US in the Fall.

Just finished reading the first two Flight graphic novels. Good stuff.

Getting married in 12 days! YAY!

Cohorts in the wee hours

This is the Breakfast Blend / All-Nighter crew for 97.3 WRIR. They are good people who do butt shifts to provide local radio programming for the rest of us.

Local vibes for local times. Proud to be one of 'em!

Nerdin'

Not to get caught up in some marketing ploy for a movie, but the Golden Compass has a thing where you answer a few questions to find our your Daemon.

Here: http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

Me? Mine is Antigone:
A flippin' raccoon! So if ya see me routin' through your trash one night, just leave me be!

Listening: The Fall has a new one and is not that bad actually!

Reading: 1491 by Charles C. Mann

Less than a month till we're wed! YAY!!!

Litter this!

So while driving home from work one day, well to the grocery store, this big ole SUV pulls out in front of me. Yeah, expected, I know. Then, from the passenger side window flies out an empty cigarette pack of Newports. Just like that, like it was nothing. Like all people who get enfuriated at these litterbastards, I wanted to stop my car, pick up the trash and remind them at the next stoplight that they dropped this. Well, maybe throw it at him and cuss, and then probably get shot. Anyway, I have NO RESPECT for fuckers like that. I want them to die. Plain and simple, and YES I know that is drastic but put it like this: since most humans in this day and age know that littering is a bad thing, then why are people still doing it? Because they don't care. And when someone doesn't have sense enough to care about the environment which they live in, do you think that they care enough about you or me? Certainly not. I mean really, WHO litters with such intention and disregard like that? Not anyone I want to give a crap about. So, yes, I wish ill will upon them, but what they really get from me is a lack of sympathy for anything bad that may happen in their lives; bad girlfriend, jail, sickness, etc. --aw, that's TOO BAD. Harsh I know, but times like these call for drastic passive aggressive measures! Ha!

Listening: To a few Japanese compilations I found at Plan 9 for a buck each at the Watermelon Festival last weekend.

Reading: Kathe Koje's Extremities

Getting interested in: Kayaking. No way....really? Well, we'll see...

The revolution will be wind-ups....

My robots will one day take over the world!!!!

Well, probably some serious shelf space....

Listening to Gogol Bordello to review for the magazine.

I think I know what is wrong...

Okay, so for a few weeks now I haven't been able to really figure out WHY I enjoy watching the insipid show, America's Got Talent. It's act after act of bad, terrible, acts (I know I like it for that trash aspect, but wait), followed every so often by what the "judges" call stars, I call same old hat of hack singers or magicians, etc (some actually not bad though). The 'judges" being some Brit dirtbag that I think has been fired from many a newspaper, the wife of a drunken washed up metalman, Sharon Osborne (and the most likable of the 3), and then David Hasselhoof er hoff.

[Hasselhoff is an inept talent judge theory: a) he can't act, b) he can't sing, c) germans like him]

Okay, so anyway, the other night I figure out why I like it. Being that I like fringe culture - b-movie, b-music, b-books- the bad acts that flow through are the ones I totally dig. So the the other night, they let this one crazy dude on, wearing a Native American outfit with bells on his legs, playing the violin while he yodels songs created from his own language. His name: Thoth. I knew this before they even said his name. See, in the Outsider music arena, he is fairly well known, featured on the Songs of the Key of Z book and CD written/compiled byIrwin Chusid. Ah, this is why I like it, I KNOW some of these acts. Not KNOW in the literal sense, but know what other music is about, as well as the other freak acts, that have been piping through.

It's like the goddamn Gong Show except a little more controlled and without the talent of Chuck Barris. We do, however, get Jerry Springer being the backstage mom, which is almost as hilariously disturbing. Naturally in the progression of these braincell slaughter programs, they start taking the "talent" they let through WAY too seriously and it gets all fakey drama and then EVERYONE starts taking it way too seriously. Puke.


I should digress and I can't believe I have written this much about this subject.

You know what is cool? Tin Robots.

Just got my Carbon 14 magazine package for review, so listening and listening and listening and listening, liking so far: The Final Solutions

Good link to a good afternoon.

Check out my buddy Allan's rendition of our filming and having on the radio the strange dealing with "Cotton" Dick Clinton.




Reading: Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.

Listening: Shellac's new one, it's OK.

Another Picture

CDC:

On the Air

Saturday June 9th, starting around 5 Pm or so, last about an hour or so. Please tune in webstream or the old fashioned way; fiddle that dial!

Reading: "Nemesis: the last days of the American Republic" by Chalmers Johnson till I get too angry then "Falling Man" by Don Delillo!

Listening: New Balkan Beat Box , also Chumbawamba's "A Singsong and a Scrap"

Misson Demolished.

Consider this:

400 years ago, the whole Jamestown thing...
...400 years later, we learn that the fable that was created with Pocahontas & John Smith is a lie.
...we don't care, hell it was 400 years ago.

Today, the President has repeatedly mislead the American people about the war in Iraq thing...
...today, we learn that the fable of WMD, etc etc etc is a lie.
...we don't care, hell it was....oh wait, practically yesterday.

Imagine our apathy in the future....

Mission Accomplished.

Remember he was off the coast of California when that happened too.

If we have to be addicted, at least make your money go to a better cause with Citgo, rather than hungry oil barons with Exxon. So all you idiots out there who hate arabs and are glad we're in Iraq shooting brown people, just remember who you are helping when your stupid selves fuel up at the Exxon.

Oh yeah, and Walmart sucks.

Watching: Inuyasha, seasons 1 & 2
Venture Brothers season 2.

WRIR 97.3 Donate!

I love this station. I work for this station.
Why don't ya keep this station alive and DONATE some money to it?

Different levels gets you different stuff and you have till April 25th to get that stuff!

WRIR 97.3

I'm still doing my Breakfast Blend show every Friday 6-8AM.

This Saturday I am doing the local River City Limits show and Liza Kate will be playing live in the studio. Listen!


Thanks if ya help.

Monkey See, Monkey Doo

As if violence at home isn't enough, get ready to armchair quarterback the next big event in the Middle East.

We need drastic, progressive change. Open your mind now people, we are running out of options and sides to be on in this mess.

Don't want to dress in school colors: donate.

Silence.

Virginia Tech is a terrible, awful, tragedy, yes.
But instead of wearing school colors this Friday, I would rather donate to make a difference in law dealing with Gun Control. Particularly since our state is barely passing the grade.
Maybe more on this subject later, but now is not the time. Thoughts are with the families of the slain, anger goes to our system and way of life that is lost in a void of violent distraction overseas.

Reading : "Out" by Natsuo Kirino

Listening: "War on 45" by D.O.A.

More songs!

Couple of more "Cotton" Dick Clinton Songs are found.

"Bad 50s Tonto Show"

and

"Potato Wine Entropy"


Check them out HERE.

Spring!

So, Easter weekend?

Snow!

Ah you can never tire of Virginia weather. I just hope we don't get this stuff when we go camping next weekend. Speaking of camping, why haven't we as good citizens of this country, and stewards of this planet re instituted some new form of the Civilian Conservation Corps? THAT's where I would gladly not mind spending tax dollars instead of the war machine we're feeding now. Let's get all these kids that are geared toward war cleaning up our country instead.
Fix stuff here at home instead of tear down stuff elsewhere.

Speaking of war, I barely tolerated CBS news for a few minutes last night.
Story line up as follows:

--Senator McCain takes some super safe shopping trip to Iraq. We see he like rugs, food and has guys armed to the teeth surrounding him.
-- We see a story about how some National Guard is being called up to duty, but they don't have enough equipment, like guns and armor and night vision goggles.
-- Final bit before I had to turn it off. China has secret christians.

So basically this is what the "liberal" mainstream media is telling me:

--To go around in Iraq these days, you need a shitload of firepower to be safe.
--Our soldiers don't have enough stuff to be safe even though they are going to Iraq.
--And Christianity prevails, even in such oppressive countries as China.

So when all those Senators & Congressmen pass MORE funding to pay for war machine efforts and we lie down and accept it, it is because mainstream media has conditioned us to do so.
We must not let them get away with this....

I think we should support our troops, with tickets HOME. Planes, trains and automobiles, baby. Oh, and more funding should go to the VA Hospitals too. Otherwise, we're gonna have a lot of people running around with all this Iraq warJUNK in their heads. You know, stuff like having to run over little boys with their humvees or shoot them because they MIGHT have bombs strapped to their bodies. Tragic.

This will make you giggle if you like fart jokes.

Listening: VCR , Liza Kate.
Reading: Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian lives changed by Jamestown by Helen Rountree. To balance the last Jamestown book I just read.

New Song!

I have just discovered a new song by "Cotton" Dick Clinton.

It is called MUDVILLE so check it out!

I'll be doing the River City Limits radio show today, St. Paddy's Day, so tune in to WRIR from 5-7PM today and hear me spin the local sounds.

Watching: Ghost in the Shell Season Two!

Daylight Savings Scam

Listen to this.

Seriously, stop it.




Listening: "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back" by Public Enemy.
Reading: "Jamestown : the buried truth" by William M. Kelso.

Birthday is tomorrow

I will be 37.
Good weekend lined up:

Pizza & Beer last night.
Nice restaurant tonight.
Going to Liance's folks farm tomorrow for more food and cake and walking in the woods.

Things I like:

Ghost in the Shell Movie & Television Series
I hope to get Season 2 with my Federal Refund.
I recently bought the reissue of the Manga as well.

Planet of the Apes. Can you tell the nerdness of it all yet?

Also, I am slowly trying to start a metal robot collection.
I have a small bot from Pearl River NYC and a Bender so far...

I am happy and I also like to think I am aging well.

Reading: Un Lun Dun by China Mieville.
Listening: Friend Opportunity by Deerhoof

Quick Post

Some things to know:

Valentine's Day : Maybe we should start going with old traditions of dipping goat skins in blood? It's only a matter of time being how bloodthirsty Americans seem to be these days.

Great Backyard Birdcount : Geeky, but important to know, especially with all the Global warming problems people STILL want to ignore so they can make $$ and drive their big ass SUVs.

Target: Iran? : So there is alleged evidence that some weapons used by insurgents are coming out of Iran. Guess who supplied the rest of the weapons? US!!!! Sheesh...

We are determined to have a strong foothold in that area. Check out where all your tax dollars are going. It's the Middle East Disney!


Reading : Southern Lady, Yankee Spy by Elizabeth R. Varon

Listening: Rah Bras

War Lies & how Tom Brokaw is a Republican slut...

Our treasonous leaders want to put more troops into Iraq?

These links are the images of war from the press:

Pulling down the Saddam statue. A big symbolic moment in the war to make us feel good.
IT WAS STAGED.

Jessica Lynch, cutsie pie innocent gal hero? Supposed kidnapped and held hostage.
IT WAS STAGED.

Meanwhile, we are too busy being entertained to a million little pieces by our self-absorbed goddess Oprah who thinks we should be more concerned about her being wronged than our soldiers dying in a fabricated war.

Bush fakes a Thanksgiving Turkey dinner in Iraq. The bird? Decorative. Some even say it was plastic. Soldiers get the same old processed junk they usually get, maybe with some cranberry in a can for treat.

Mission Accomplished? Not really on a ship anywhere NEAR the Middle East like you were lead to believe, but rather California.

Meanwhile, Tom Brokaw, now retired to play golf whenever he wants, comments on the Democrat victorious 2006 election, saying that now is the time to find middle ground and compromise. What? After these past number of years of extreme right thinking, he wants middle ground? I think the pendulum needs to swing a little further the other way than that!

A great Mother Jones timeline of Lies.

Imagine the future images of war from the press we have to come.


OUR LEADERS NEED TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MISREPRESENTED WAR.

If Clinton (whom I'm no real fan of either) can be impeached for lying about some oval oral action, what the HELL is keeping this current Administration from being put to trial? The Congress, though winning a "democrat" majority, has too many corporate whores in there too. Something needs to be done. Tell someone the things you know, open the chatlines...protest.

Reading: George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America by Robert F. Dalzell & Lee Baldwin Dalzell.
On Deck Reading: "Loop" by Koji Suzuki.
Listening religiously: "In the grip of Official Treason" Jello Biafra

The simplest way out is OUT!