New year's resolutions:

- Only drink Robitussin for legitimate cold and cough prevention purposes

- Add excitement to mundane job by replacing random words in audit reports with Hungarian curses

- Stop ending most conversations with the phrase "ah, who the hell cares, we all die in the end anyway"

- Also, quit using the phrase "yeah, that's what SHE said"

- Stop annoying habit of singing or referencing "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" every time I drive in, around, or past Rockville, MD

- Keep lies on next week's jury duty questionnaire to a legally defensible minimum

- Cut down on habit of strangling hobos to one per month (two in August)

- Practice kindness, understanding and tolerance for all my fellow human beings. Except for Tom Skerritt. Fuck him and everything he stands for. (God, even typing his name makes me want to vomit.)

Oh, OK, fo' reals:

- Pass the goddamned CPA exam, assuming I didn't pass in November

- Continue doomed, pointless search for ----------

- Reduce reflexive misanthropy and cynicism

- Stop procrastinating so much with regards to writing and reading

That oughta be enough for one year. Happy 2004, everyone.

Leonard Pierce of the world famous, much beloved Ludic Log is on vacation for the next two weeks. In the interim, guest columnists are filling his space, and here is my entry - a peek behind the scenes at the cutthroat world of the modern poetry industry.

MP3 - "Regenisraen" by Game Theory. I picked it more for its lovely Simon-and-Garfunkel-by-way-of-Alex-Chilton-with-Big-Star harmonies than anything else, but it's also (kinda, sorta) about Christmas! Hurray for synchronicity!

I've heard the David Bowie and Bing Crosby rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy" on the radio three times during this holiday season. Not on some ironic hipster doofi's college radio show, either, but on normal pop stations playing real life, serious Christmas music. Did I miss some cultural demarcation point here, where the Der Bingle/Ziggy Stardust duet officially switched from bizarre camp curiousity to genuine holiday classic? Will CBS start scheduling its December lineup around the Star Wars Holiday Special? Will Santa's traditional garb be replaced with a Stroh's mesh hat and a "ALMOST HEAVEN NEW JERSEY" vintage t-shirt? Dammit, people, Christmas is a time for serious, tasteful middlebrow entertainment. Save your smirkery for Valentine's Day or Columbus Day.

So, it’s time for another music geek tradition - The Posting of the Year End Top 10 List. Honestly, I’m probably not qualified to create one due to my somewhat lax new CD purchasing this year and my lack of up-to-date knowledge about any and all non-rock genres in 2003. Plus, it’s always difficult to judge anything accurately without some time and distance. If you asked me in 2008, I’d probably have a completely different, much more complete and accurate list. But it’s fun, and I like things that are fun. So here goes, the Vitamin B Glandular Show 10 Bestest Albums of 2003 At This Given Time:

10. The Fall - The Real New Fall L.P. (Formerly Country on the Click). OK, I can probably be accused of fanboy ardor here - the Fall are my favorite band ever, and I can even find much to like about many of the largely abysmal Fall releases of the past decade. TRNFLP(FCotC) is a fine return to early-90’s form - this year’s version of the Fall is the most inspired in years, while MES’ lyrics and vocals have a renewed sharpness and focus.
9. DJ Spooky - Dubtometry. Remix albums generally suck - either they slightly shift everything around to uninspired effect, or they completely eliminate anything that was memorable about the original album in the first place. But Dubtometry reshapes last year’s excellent Optometry into new and interesting forms, using the originals as a springboard rather than a canvas.
8. Mogwai - Happy Songs for Happy People. Haunting, somber mood pieces that linger long after the album is over.
7. New Pornographers - Electric Version. The best pure pop album of the year - hooks and clever melodic ideas thrown off like sparks, covered in a candy-coated sheen. Like four packs of Pop Rocks chased down with a six pack of Coke.
6. Hella - Bitches Ain’t Shit But Good People/Total Bugs Bunny on Wild Bass. Hella delivered a much needed set of electrified jumper cables to the testicles of prog rock with this pair of EPs. Tight, complex, precise, and loud as hell.
5. Pernice Brothers - Yours, Mine and Ours. Another brilliant collection of the heavenly-pop-songs-with-incredibly-sad-and-wistful-lyrics that should (but, alas, won’t) make Joe Pernice a radio staple. Bipolar depression never sounded so good.
4. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief. Yeah. Radiohead. They’re great.
3. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak. Anyone who can make simple, straight-ahead rock-n-roll sound fresh again deserves high praise indeed. Hearts of Oak isn’t revolutionary, but it has everything you want in a rock record - catchy songs, insistent, energetic performance, smart lyrics, and some fine guitar playing to boot.
2. The Rapture - Echoes. Not unlike last year’s Turn On the Bright Lights by Interpol, the Rapture strip mine the seemingly bottomless post-punk sound for inspiration. What could have been an uninspired pastiche is transformed by the Rapture’s incredibly propulsive rhythm section and barbed wire guitar outbursts. “House of Jealous Lovers,” “I Need Your Love” and “The Coming of Spring” are as irresistibly unstoppable as music can get.
1. Wrens - The Meadowlands. The type of album that only could have been made by a band like the Wrens - a veteran band met by mass indifference and record label treachery at every turn - The Meadowlands perfectly captures mid-30’s pre-midlife-crisis directionlessness, wistful regret and resignation like no album before. A deeply felt, rich and rewarding masterpiece that only deepens with each listen.

One of my daily must-visit sites on the information superhighway (or InfSupe, as those of us who like to use outdated catch phrases from 1997 and abbreviate things for no particular reason call it) is 365 Days. It’s a site that provides a new MP3 each day during the year 2003. The selections are odd, marginal audio arcana ranging from old industrial records to incredibly misbegotten celebrity records to outsider music to random recorded bits found on old tapes purchased at flea markets. It’s an incredibly fascinating tour through the soft underbelly of the recording industry - a place of dashed dreams, bad ideas and eccentric brilliance. (Unfortunately, after the year is over, the MP3s will no longer be available at the site. However, they are still plentiful on various filesharing services, and it’s unlikely that the RIAA will sue people for downloading Chris Palestis or Central High School Cafeteria Band mp3s.) Here’s a look back at a few of the most interesting tracks that have been dredged up by the curators of this site:

The Goldwaters, "It's Over Now/Win in '64." Bizarro world folk music by early 60s John Birch Society followers. Imagine a world, if you will, where young conservatives flock around coffeehouses to disseminate the new National Review and organize sit-ins in support of states’ rights. A world where Joan Baez sang the stirring ballad “I Dreamt I Saw John Stennis Last Night” and Pete Seeger was banned from national TV for protesting open-housing laws. Before Bob Roberts and the rise of the hip rebel campus conservative, the Goldwaters paved the way with their earnest diatribes against the Great Society.

Guy Lafleur, "Scoring." Yes, that’s Montreal Canadien great Guy Lafleur talk-singing over a disco beat in this combination hockey instructional record/dance song. Learn to play hockey AND impress the chicks down at the roller rink with your stylin’, French-Canadian-by-way-of-dumbed-down-Eurodisco moves. (And yes, the hockey terminology/sexual innuendo is purely intentional. On another song on the album, Lafleur sings “If it ever came down to it, baby, I’d get my way with my power play.” Two minutes for highsticking and a game misconduct for illegal use of Rohypnol.)

IBM 7090, "Music for Mathematics." Incredibly primitive, repetitive, yet somehow oddly compelling electronic music created by scientists to show off the capabilities of the then-state-of-the-art IBM 7090. Take away Kraftwerk’s synthesizers and force them to play using nothing but old Simon memory games, and…well, it still wouldn’t sound like this, but you’d be in the ballpark. In a similar vein, the "Computer Speech" cut from the same project is worth hearing for the pure weightless, inhuman creepiness of the computerized speech produced by that now-primitive technology. (It’s also where Kubrick got the idea for HAL to sing “Daisy” during 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

Frugal Gormets, "Satan's Blood." Holy fuck, this is disturbing. Two 14 year old kids from the Midwest, infused with a mixture of media violence and fundamentalist anti-Satanic dogma, vomit it all back up in this chilling minute and a half audio collage. The Gormets apparently grew up to be productive members of society, which is almost hard to believe after listening to this demented (and very angry) piece. The concept of “shock” is almost meaningless in this day and age, but this recording manages to at least make the listener draw back a little.

Unknown, "Up Up and Away." A home recording by an unknown girl of the Jimmy Webb/Fifth Dimension song. It’s quite a touching performance, even if her pitch rarely if ever hits any of the intended notes. The whole thing threatens to fall apart during the bridge, but bravely she soldiers on through the atonality. Her wobbly voice evokes an unmistakable vulnerability and sadness that makes the saccharine sentiments of the lyrics that much more poignant.

Leland W. Sprinkle, "The Great Stalacpipe Organ." I can speak firsthand about this one, sort of - I have actually been in Luray Caverns in Virginia and heard the famous, unbelievable stalacpipe organ what’s made from a cavern. It’s a very surreal experience - the sound bounces around the cavern in bizarre and seemingly irrational ways, making you feel like you’re in a horror movie except you can actually hear the soundtrack. White trash guignol. This recording doesn’t quite capture this feeling - unless you had several different microphones at various locations, it probably couldn’t - but it is a moody, creepy bit of organ playing.

(To be continued. In part II - way-way-outsiders, archaic views on sexuality, zany foreigners, and lots and lots of God.)

MP3 - "Dance the Midwest" by the Wrens, from the mighty fine, ignored-by-almost-everyone-except-Pitchfork 1996 album Secaucus. Later this month - why the Wrens' The Meadowlands was the best album of 2003.

It’s time once again for blog filler, or, as I like to call it, “stalling for time because you were too lazy to write an actual entry.”

- One aspect of the Michael Jackson case that has seemingly gone unnoticed is the fact that Michael apparently stole his seduction routine from the dad in Happiness. Why hasn’t anyone roundly denounced Todd Solondz for setting a bad example for androgynous pop singers in their mid-40s? Won’t someone please think of the children?

- Speaking of hysterical pleas in the childrens’ interest, I saw a bumper sticker for one of the candidates for the school board in Fairfax County that read “HUNT 4 THE BEST 4 GR8 SCHOOLS.” What the fuck? Now, let’s set aside the issue of using numbers in place of words a la Prince for a minute. (I did like the candidate’s other bumper sticker, “I WOULD DEMAND MANDATORY APTITUDE TESTING AND NEW TEXTBOOKS 4 U.”) That sentence, in English, reads “Hunt for the best for great schools.” That’s an incredibly stilted, stupid sounding sentence constructed just so they could do the dumb 4+4=8 gimmick. Is this the kind of genius we want deciding the fate of our schools? (Well, apparently so, since after googling I found that Hunt did indeed win a seat on the school board. Oh, Fairfax County, when will you ever learn?)

- I have jury duty next month. When you think about it, registering to vote in the United States is an incredibly stupid waste of time. It puts you in risk of jury duty in most areas, there’s huge statistical odds against one vote ever influencing an election and the winner-take-all system means that your vote is not wanted if your political views aren’t in the mainstream (see: the extremely effective technique of a candidate repudiating “extremists” to prove that he or she is “moderate”). I still vote, mainly because I like to complain about elected officials and voting helps deflect the “well why aren’t you doing anything to change it” retort you get from a lot of people. But the way the system is set up, voting doesn’t really benefit you in any way unless you’re one of those “independent” swing vote suburban soccer moms (or office park dads, or whatever is in vogue in the political consultant field this election cycle).

- I’m against the jury system, and not just because it will cause me mild inconvenience for a day next month. Most people simply aren’t knowledgeable enough about the legal process to make an informed decision about whether or not someone is guilty or innocent of violating a specific law. (Myself included.) There isn’t enough accountability built into the system for jury incompetence, ignorance or neglect of duty. (I realize that the same is true for many judges, which is another problem that will be solved once I become czar and supreme overlord.) It doesn’t seem to me that the advantages of having a jury of your peers would outweigh the advantages of having your case decided by someone who is skilled in law and has to remain accountable to someone. And I think that one of the central theories behind the jury system (that it gives power to the people, and checks the power of judges) has been diluted by the fact that almost everyone in this society views jury duty as a colossal distraction to be avoided if at all possible rather than a serious and important part of citizenship. These and many other viewpoints can be found in my new pamphlet, 8 Points Towards a More Brighter and Wonderfuler America, to be handed out at finer airport terminals all across the country.

MP3 - "Faded Colors" by the Stonemen. One of the seemingly limitless garage/psych bands of the late 60's who released one great single and then completely disappeared into the ether. All I know about the Stonemen was that they were from atlantic Canada and they released their lone single in 1966. "Faded Colors" is most notable for including some of the harshest, ugliest guitar noises you'll ever hear in a pre-1977 rock song.

Thanksgiving is over, which means it’s once again time for three bleak, unremitting months of winter.* I hate, loathe, detest winter. Think about it - what good ever came from winter? Ice hockey, and the fact that it eventually ends and brings on spring, which is clearly and objectively the best season. Now, how winter sucks, let me count the ways: ice on roadways and sidewalks, blizzards, scraping ice off of car windows, chapping, everyone sniffling and sneezing, static electricity, influenza, seasonal depression…need I go on? Clearly, winter blows.

Even worse are people who like winter (or claim to like it - I suspect they’re just perverse, or it’s some new ironic “I like it because it sucks” sort of stance). There people are generally morning people, relentlessly positive go-getters, the type who find it “bracing” to take an early morning jog in subzero temperatures. The kind of perfectly good, well-meaning people that you nevertheless want to club repeatedly with a snow shovel. When the inevitable war between cold weather and warm weather people occurs (and warm people will win, for we are good and pure of heart), and people who love winter are forced to live in camps on the Siberian tundra or the Yukon, we’ll all be much happier.

“But, Brent,” you may ask, “what about the holidays?” Feh, fie and fuh, I reply to you. Christmas is only one day, and besides, it’s a thick candy shell of obligation wrapped around a thin layer of nougaty fun. If Santa came down on his sled with Jesus riding shotgun, shooting toys and candy out of a rocket-powered reindeer’s ass, it still wouldn’t make up for the sheer abject misery of three fucking months of winter’s general suckery.

In conclusion, I hope this short essay has convinced you that action must be taken. Please urge your elected representatives to support new environmental regulations that will increase the amount of atmospheric pollutants produced by modern industry and remove the hated ozone layer that continues to keep global temperatures uncomfortably low. Together, we can stamp out winter in our lifetime. This message brought to you by The National Council of Aerosol, Asbestos and Tire-Burners - Sacrificing Future Generations for Marginal Increases in Our Own Quality of Life - and a generous grant from the Chubb Group.

*Of course, this doesn’t apply for the southern hemisphere or countries that don’t have a thanksgiving. (Or Canada, which puts Thanksgiving in the middle of October for some reason - everyone knows that October is the month when we celebrate the first Europeans who kinda didn’t really discover the new world. C’mon Canada, it’s time to admit that this whole “we’ll do what the Americans do - just slightly different!” thing isn’t working for you. No one watches Canadian football, no one calls it “back bacon,” no one puts gravy and cheese curds on their French fries. Just stop, you’re embarrassing yourself. I say this as a friend, a friend who cares.) All I can say in response is - the Northern Hemisphere rules! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (rhythmic car horn honking)