Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "I recognize that guy, but I can't quite place where I've seen him." Maybe this'll jog your memory: "Lauren, I am honored to be the one out of thirty contestants chosen to join you in sacred matrimony." Yeah, that's right. I was the guy who won the Million Dollar Marriage reality show last June. Well, obviously, things didn't turn out "happily ever after" like the commercials promised. We've been separated for three months, the divorce'll be final next month. Our agent pitched the divorce proceedings to the networks, but no such luck. So, I'm just looking for work, trying to make it back into the big leagues.

Oh, y'know, it was pretty exciting at first. We hit the talk show circuit, did the mall-and-supermarket tour of middle America, wrote the book "Eighty Ways to a Successful Instant Televised Marriage..." Man, we were riding high. We were American Idol quarterfinalist-famous. People respected us. And then the new reality shows came on the air, and all of a sudden we were yesterday's news. That fuckin' midget, I swear to God I'll kick him in the shins if I ever meet him and if I can find them. And once the fame wore off, the reality settled in that I was married to a complete stranger who I had nothing in common with besides a shared love of fame. Yeah, you think it's "ironic," huh? I have another word for it - living torture.

The money? Hell, we blew through the money in a month's time. Bought this house in Hollywood that was once owned by David Ogden Stiers, a fleet of Aston Martins (one for each bastard I beat out to win the contest), and as many chemical skin peels as the human body is allowed. We had everything dipped in gold - trash cans, pencils, bars of soap - just because we could. Our stuff will be up for sale at the bankruptcy auction, if you're interested.

Sure, I've got regrets. Wish I had hit on a few more models at those Hollywood parties. Sure wish I hadn't invested in that line of reality-themed pizza parlors with Kelly Clarkson and the guy from the European Joe Millionaire. But I'd do it all over again if I had to. I've got an audition for a Lay's potato chip commercial next week - you think I would've gotten that if I was still working in the insurance racket? Yeah, it's only a radio voiceover spot, but it's a start. And if I can just hold on a few more years, that retro-2000s wave is gonna crest up and sweep me right back into the public eye. VH-1 spots, infomercials for 00s hits CDs and "The Atkins Diet is Back," a whole line of t-shirt decals and sew-on patches for the hip crowd...I've got it all planned out, man.

Oh, by the way, could you do me a favor and pick up the tab for this round? C'mon, man, I gave you a great inside story on one of 2003's hottest reality shows. Besides, I'm saving up for new headshots and teeth whitening - the treatment they gave me during the show wore off.

Here are a couple of dumb but hopefully sort of entertaining cartoons I made with this thing:
Imperialist Funnies #1
Imperialist Funnies #2
Primitive flash animation + kneejerk lefty politics + punchlines cribbed from a Bazooka Joe comic = the reason Jesus invented the Internet.

I was disappointed to see that Rhea County backed down on its promise/threat to ban gays and Darwinists from its county borders. It's high time that someone stood up against the last three centuries of progress and gave a hearty "fuck you" to the Enlightenment. Other sinful items of our modern age that the county elders wanted to ban:

- the internal combustion engine
- marmosets ("Don't cotton to no tiny fairy monkeys round here. We like our monkeys large and hairy! And wearin' those little hats and ridin' a little tricycle. Cracks me and the missus right up.")
- zippers
- hair products (a known gateway drug to homo-sin-uality)
- Newton's First Law of Motion ("Dammit, objects ain't s'posed ta stay in motion with the same speed unless acted upon by an unbalanced force! It just ain't natural!")
- those little sprinkle things they put on cupcakes
- the Gabor sisters
- the three way light bulb ("One setting ain't good enough for you, fancypants?")

It's Sixties-Era Peruvian Rock MP3 Month on the Vitamin B Glandular Show! This is "Demolicion" by Los Saicos, released in 1965. Essentially, it's "Surfin' Bird" except 1. it's in Spanish and 2. the lyrics are an attempt to incite the youth of Peru to destroy the mass transit system (Let's tear railway station down!/Tear down, tear down, tear down, tear down/Let's tear railway station down/We like blowing railway stations up!" - ha, take THAT, Johnny Rotten!). So, obviously, it's much better.

I went to see the Mekons last night at Iota in Arlington, Virginia. It was the first time I've seen them live and I was mightily impressed. The Mekons are even better live than on record, possessing an easy familiarity from two decades of touring and a loose performance style that always remains in service to the song. And Jon Langford and Sally Timms have honed the between-song give-and-take to the standards of an old-fashioned comedy team. (When Branson, Missouri opens a street devoted solely to post-punk, the Langford-Timms Theater is going to be the most popular attraction.)

The setlist consisted mostly of songs from their newest album Punk Rock, a collection of remakes of their earliest material. The show suffered from the same problem as the album; while it's impressive that the 2004 edition of the Mekons is able to make decent to good material out of such thin gruel, the fact remains that these songs pale in comparison to their more recent output. Nevertheless, several of the Punk Rock songs stood out: "Corporal Chalkie" has been recast as a rueful anti-war ballad with a wearily expressive Timms vocal and "32 Weeks and "Dan Dare" were pounded out with a ferocity that made their predecessors 25 years ago sound tame. And the standards still sound fresh - Tom Greenhalgh's alienated Reagan-era "(Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian" sounds even more apt in this day and age, and Timms' clear as a bell delivery of "Ghosts of American Astronauts" adds an unusual emotional resonance for a song that's essentially a comment on American imperialism.

I was eight feet from the door when they came back on stage for the second encore, "Heaven and Back." I would've cursed myself forever for missing such an incredible performance - a soaring, blistering take of an anthemic song on overcoming struggle (personal, professional, political) that's served as a summary of the Mekons mission. It was a transcendent moment, and a prime example of why a seemingly disposable art form like rock music is worth all of the hype, bother and attention. It's a testament to the incredible staying power of the Mekons, who've managed to remain important, vital performers in a medium that values youth above all else and when so many of their contemporaries have fallen victim to dissolution, laziness and creative inability.

Hurrah! I won a free song on the 7-11 iTunes shop giveaway today. Now, this might have been a cool prize in some other dimension of reality, but in a world where free downloads of songs are cheap and abundant, it's kind of like winning a glass of tap water.

MP3 - "It's a Sin to Go Away" by We All Together, a song from the Nuggets II box set that I always skipped over but rediscovered thanks to the miracle of the iPod shuffle function. These one-(not-really-a)-hit-wonders from Peru came up with this psychedelic pop gem featuring overbearing organ, smooth harmonies, a fuzzed-out bass that sounds like a primitive synth meandering about in the background, and an inexplicably funky backbeat that some enterprising producer needs to sample if they haven't already. It somehow works, despite the fact that it's really several different songs slapped together into one piece.

Once again, it's time to kill a few minutes with another edition of blog filler. Please enjoy these random, unrelated thoughts on various topics:

- I have mixed feelings about John Kerry getting the Democratic nomination. Don't get me wrong, I'd vote
for a chinchilla or a telemarketer or a flat can of RC Cola with a 1987 expiration date instead of Bush. But it's kinda difficult to get excited about Kerry, who reminds me of a tenured English professor who quit caring about whether his students were paying attention a decade ago. And although Kerry's record is solid enough, I'm more than a bit worried by the fact that he's never really offered a vision for where the country will be headed in the future, as well as his weathervaning on things like the gay marriage issue. But I'll take one for the team here - anti-Bush unity is more important than anything else right now. (And fine, you win, America - what you want in a president is vastly different from what I want. So I'll just resign myself to voting for the least offensive option for the rest of my life.)

- I finally got a chance to hear the live version of Smile performed by Brian Wilson in London last month. I was apprehensive about hearing it - partly because of Wilson's scattershot at best output of the past thirty years, partly because middle-aged rock shows tend to have an aura of faded glory that dampens the effect of the original works, and partly because you can't go home again - but it's an incredible piece of work. The bootleg versions of Smile were by their nature patchwork productions, featuring some good ideas without any thematic threading, but this version finally flows and feels like a fully realized series of song cycles. And while it's true that Brian Wilson can't hit the notes he could in 1966, his voice has taken on a new resonance - it's particularly poignant to hear the coming-of-age ballad "Wonderful" sung by a 61-year-old whose entire life has been defined by the pain of innocence lost. Obviously, there's no way to recapture the magic of the prime, classic Beach Boys recordings during their brief, meteoric heyday, but this is a rare instance of successful closure of the past.

- I feel obligated to make some sort of comment on the Jesus movie, even though I haven't seen it and I have no real opinions about it either way. Judging from the previews, it seems to consist of two hours of Jesus getting the shit beat out of him. I wish someone would make a beatings-per-scene comparison between this movie and Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom or Caligula or a backyard wrestling tape. (Does that satisfy my legal requirement to comment on The Passion of the Christ? Excellent.)

- McDonald's is getting rid of the supersize fries and sodas this year, in a desperate attempt to deflect some of the growing criticism of their unhealthy product lines (and, mostly, avoid additional class action lawsuits). I guess any vague notions of corporate responsibility are welcome in this day and age (even market-driven ones like this), but this idea that we as a nation need to be protected from our own consumerist whims is sort of embarrassing. C'mon, everyone knows that eating at McDonald's is essentially a low-level form of slow suicide, anyway. But this decision won't put a dent in the fattenization of America. If supersize fries are outlawed, then only outlaws will have supersize fries. And just think of the problems we'll have with people illegally crossing the border to Canada to buy poutine.

- Speaking of food, enough with the damn Atkins-friendly stuff everywhere. I bought a roll of Certs yesterday and each mint is individually wrapped in bacon now.

MP3 is the solo piano version of "Surf's Up" recorded by Brian Wilson during the illfated Beach Boys Smile sessions. Not as great as the version they finally released in 1971 with the "child is father to the man" coda, but one of Brian Wilson's greatest vocal performances - he makes Van Dyke Parks' impressive-sounding-but-meaningless wordplay actually seem profound and heartfelt. And the "mmhhmmm" at 2:33 is one of the most expressive wordless syllables ever recorded.

(And like most of Music Geek Nation, I am breathlessly awaiting the new finished (or as finished as it's ever going to get) version of Smile.)

(Inspired by a real e-mail received by a real life employee of a real life company, really. Only slightly exaggerated. Names and facts changed to protect the innocent.)

I received your letter in regards to our January 27th offer of a three year extended service contract for the Minolta XC680 copier purchased by your office last year. I understand that you have declined our offer.

All right, fine. Just let me warn you that the future of your career, not to mention your entire organization, rests upon this decision. Allied Office Equipment has been in business since 1965, providing our customers with high quality solutions to their printing and imaging needs. That's why we're the industry leader - we have the expertise to handle any possible copying need or emergency situation. You think Office Depot's going to care when your copier breaks down in the middle of a 275 page print job, 35 minutes before the presentation that will make or break your future? No. You'll call them up and talk to some spotty-faced kid making $6.75 an hour who couldn't tell you the difference between xerography and xenophobia. We could have your copier serviced and ready to run in two hours or less, but instead you're willing to throw away your professional reputation to save a measly 600 bucks a year. Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit in disgust.

I am the best, Roger. I am to copier sales what Stradivarius was to the violin, what Einstein was to physics, what Ted Williams was to hitting a baseball. No one's going to care for your needs like I will, Roger. I stay awake very night in a state of constant despair, panicking over the myriad possibilities of flaws and defects in our products. You think Jesus suffered on the cross? That was only six hours. My entire life is subsumed with the search for copying perfection. And you, the customer, will benefit from my unquenchable desire for immaculate service.

I'm just a little disappointed in you. I thought you and I were different than all those little nobodies, those insignificant mediocrities who settle for the path of least resistance. I thought we both had a shared commitment to excellence in a world that cheapens and devalues the meaning of quality and hard work. And, I'll admit it, I'm a little hurt. I thought we had something special, Roger, that went beyond the salesman-client relationship - a mutual brotherhood, if you will. Just watch - your products will break down, you personally will be blamed, you'll be fired, you'll descend into a hellish torment of substance abuse and poverty as everyone who you thought loved you abandons you. And, although I am a kind and gentle soul by nature, I won't be able to stifle a muted chuckle at your expense.

It's not too late, however. Our offer remains valid for another week. Think it over. Prove me wrong.

Sincerely yours,
James Pruitt
Account Executive

While performing yet another random Google search, I found this - a page of video clips of those Saturday morning PSAs the networks ran in the late 70s through the 80s. Most memorable are the ones featuring Timer, a rotund orange cartoon creature who was ubiquitous during the terrible ABC cartoons of my youth. Let's journey back into the past for a moment and relive the glory days of ineffectual attempts to make kids take notice of their health sandwiched between ads for Sugar Encrusted Remnants of Corn Meal and Carmelized Fruit-Flavored Chewable Snack Products:

"Hanker for a Hunka Cheese" - Anyone who was a sentient, TV viewing child in the United States of America between 1978 and 1988 knows this thing word for word and has probably had the jingle stuck in their head during an inopportune time, like a history exam or a relative's funeral. But this PSA also proves that far from a charming 70s retro character, Timer was a spokesthing far ahead of his time. By urging kids to nourish themselves by shoveling cheese into their gaping maws, Timer presaged the Atkins diet by over two decades.

"You Are What You Eat" - Timer parlayed the earnings from his early PSA appearances into a string of cattle ranches in southeast Wyoming. From then on, Timer would use his perch to not-so-subtly emphasize the value of protein above all else. (Notice how vitamins and minerals get a mere ". . . and so on" mention near the end of the short.) You will eat meat, children! Eat the animal flesh! (Bonus fact: the sample of "how can you have your pudding if you won't eat your meat?" from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" was taken from an unreleased outtake of this PSA, which caught Timer in the midst of an obscene, protein-fueled rant against vegetarians.)

"Quick Snack" - This one was targeted for the millions of neglected latchkey kids who grew up in front of the television, showing them a way to maintain basic nourishment during Dad's three day benders or Mom's tours of the American Southwest with Skeetch, Dirthog and the rest of Satan's Avengers. (Unfortunately, this site doesn't include a clip of the "Time to Call Child Protective Services" PSA.) Timer shows a dirty, rickets-and-scurvy-suffering young lad a recipe for a snack involving ice cubes, cauliflower and cheese. I call bullshit. No one in the history of the world ever willingly ate a cauliflower/ice cube/celery/cheese combination - OK, maybe maximum security prisoners forced to eat the special management meal. Clearly, the mighty Timer empire was already fading when this PSA was released.

"Sunshine on a Stick" - Clearly written by an ex-hippie trying to inflict his pro-hallucinogen propaganda into the minds of impressionable young people. One can imagine him sketching the storyboards for this short in between sneaking a J in the executive washroom and muttering about "fuckin' Reagan" and "fuckin' Jefferson fuckin' Starship." In this one, Timer cheers up a depressed proto-emo kid by showing him how to make popsicles from frozen juice. The drug references are numerous: from "sunshine on a stick" (a particularly potent form of acid popular in the San Fernando Valley in the mid 70's) to Timer saying "whatever turns you on," to the poking of the toothpicks in the saran wrap (just like a needle in a junkie's flesh). The connection between the rise in recreational drug use in our nation's youth and the introduction of this PSA cannot be overstated.

Apologies to the hardy few who check this thing for the dearth of original content recently. Blame work commitments, general laziness, my tireless work feeding needy orphans, etc. More of the usual stuff will resume shortly.

But who cares about that, when The High Hat issue #3 is finally ready! Plenty of fine writing abounds, as per usual, and also some junk by me: an essay on the American Music Club's Mercury and the Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen ten (well, eleven, now) years later, and the same 2003 top ten list I posted here in December. (Ah, recycling.) So click, read, enjoy and love.

Ah, Valentine's Day. The day in which we (choose your answer based on your current relationship status and feelings towards same) celebrate love/feed the commercial beast in a hollow attempt to purchase human affection. But why is love the only human feeling that gets its own holiday? It's high time that every single shade of the emotional rainbow is celebrated in its own special day, complete with matching cards and gifts available wherever cheap disposable goods are sold. Here's a list of just some of the new holidays you will be required to observe or else face wrath and shunning from your friends and loved ones:

- April 19th will be St. Boniface's Day, a celebration of hatred. Let those people you've been barely tolerating throughout the rest of the year know how you really feel on this day. Gifts range from cards bearing a simple message of disgust to a special arrangement of animal feces and rotting cow parts for those you particularly despise.

- January 27th will be St. Jonas' Day, a holiday dedicated to indifferent tolerance. For the hundreds of people in your life (co-workers, friends of friends, even family members) for whom you have neither affection nor disgust. Give a gift that says "we have nothing in common, but I still support your general right to exist."

- June 7th will be St. Ambrose's Day, devoted to alienation. A day to embrace the sullen 15 year old in all of us. Suggested ways of celebration include sulking, brooding, wearing all black, and getting into loud shouting matches with your parents. J.D. Salinger has licensed Holden Caulfield for Hallmark's new line of "You Just Don't Understand, Man" cards for this special event.

- August 29th will be St. Theodore's Day, the first holiday completely dedicated to total confusion. Introduce befuddlement into a total stranger's life on this day by giving a random and completely inappropriate gift - from geriatric supplies for young people to feminine hygiene products for the burliest man you know.

- October 14th will be St. Kenneth's Day, a holiday to revel in vague, wistful regret. Celebrate by reliving past failures, quiet sighs, and mournful stares into the distance. The "General Apologies for Whatever I Did Wrong" card will be a popular seller around this holiday.

I recently entered a mix CD sorta-contest thing with a bunch of other music geeks. The goal was to create a mix where each song had to correspond to a specific category. Here's what I came up with:

1) If you were making a soundtrack for your life so far – this song would have to be on it.
"We Are Time," Pop Group. The best track by the underappreciated Bristol post-punk band, "We Are Time" is an incredible epic about the struggle to overcome the unstoppable forces of time and society to carve out an individual life. Admittedly, the lyrics don't make a whole lot of narrative sense, but hearing Mark Stewart yell "we'll tame eternity" and the climactic "you, I, we are time" are inspiring like few moments in rock music.

2) A song from one of the CDs currently in your 1) car stereo 2) portable CD player 3) stereo
"Faster Gun," Wrens. From my favorite album of 2003, The Meadowlands. This is one of the standout tracks - by far the most uptempo, rockingest song on the album, with a driving chord progression leading to the windmill guitar on the chorus.

3) A song from the first album, cassette, or CD (whichever was first or the oldest that you still have access to) that you purchased for yourself.
"Get Off of My Cloud," Stones. The first CDs I ever bought were Hot Rocks by the Rolling Stones and A Decade of Steely Dan, and both hold up a lot better than some of the other classic rock stuff I liked at the time. Just be grateful I didn't get the Foreigner CD first.

4) A song without a word in its title.
"1970," Stooges. Yeah, it's a ringer that I'm sure everyone here has heard time and time again, but who could get tired of the Ashton/Alexander rhythm section's finest moment, and the inspired derangedness of the ending sax solo? (And I already used "1984" elsewhere on the mix, so.)

5) A song from the year you were born
"We Got the Neutron Bomb," Weirdos. I was born in 1978, which was a great year for music, so this one was a tough pick. I went with "We Got the Neutron Bomb," a loud punk anthem with a shoutalong chorus. And the mockery of overassertive U.S. foreign policy seems even more timely these days. Wow, remember when people thought Carter was the biggest threat to world peace?

6) A song with the name of someone in this music swap in it
"The Nazz are Blue," Yardbirds. In honor of TV's Naz Nomad, here's a prime slice of British white guy blues with a sharp Jeff Beck solo that edges into psychedelic territory.

7) A song in a language other than English.
Track #2 from the Cambodia Rocks! compilation. No track or band names were provided by the compilers of this collection, which features garage and pop bands from late 60's Cambodia. It's fascinating to hear the shotgun marriage of traditional Asian music and American rock music, and this one features a female singer belting out an almost Bollywood-like melody to the accompaniment of surf guitar and a chugging organ.

8) A song with a city or state/province name.
"Philadelphia," Magazine. Howard Devoto's ode to American ennui. Also includes the best Dostoevsky reference in music besides the little known Carpenters b-side "My Liver is Diseased."

9) Say you're planning a multi-day road trip, this song could go on every mix you make for the trip.
"Tell Her She's Lovely," El Chicano. One of the finest cruising-around-in-summer-with-the-radio-down songs ever committed to recorded material.

10) A song by a local artist.
"Spider in the Snow," Dismemberment Plan. DC's late, lamented Dismemberment Plan released one of the best albums of the 1990s, Emergency and I. This song perfectly captures the mid-20's crisis of confidence and meaning.

11) A song with a color in the title.
"The Sun is Going Black," Los Chijuas. Ultramelodramatic garage song from a band out of Chihuahua, Mexico. A endlessly repeating bass riff, insanely over-the-top organ scale runs and menacing guitar jangling, all topped off with a ripped-off-from-Syd-Barrett-era-Pink-Floyd breakdown at the end.

12) It’s 5am, your alarm is going off, this song would still make you smile.
"Now It's On," Grandaddy. One of those rare songs that manages to be uplifting and optimistic without sounding rah-rah or cloying.

13) Either a cover you thought was an original or an original you thought was a cover
"I Love You," People. I heard this version of the Zombies song before the original. People slow down the tempo and tack on a vaguely acid (but still safe for the kids) rock intro. The original's better, but this version has a nicely tense arrangement.

14) A song that is about a specific movie or book or at least mentions a specific movie or book.
"1984," Spirit. The Cliff Notes version of the Orwell classic in rock song form - only the part about the jackbooted government thugs is included, so it's not recommended as a subsitute for the book for lazy high school students. A tense, paranoid classic with a killer doubletracked guitar solo from Randy California.

15) WILDCARD
"Leave the Capitol," The Fall. I had to include something from my all time favorite band, because no mix is complete without the sound of Mark E. Smith railing at something.

16) A song that has reached number one on a Billboard chart (state which chart and when).
"Quarter to Three," Gary U.S. Bonds. The number #1 single on Billboard's charts for two weeks: June 26, 1961 and July 3, 1961. Simple yet irresistible mix of an insistent drumbeat, handclaps and saxophone squawking.

17) This song doesn’t fit a category as far as you’re concerned.
"Helen Forsdale," MARS. From the seminal No New York compilation, this song sounds like almost nothing before or since - from the deranged gibberish vocals, to the consistently off beat, to the guitar that squalls away seemingly oblivious to the rest of the song. The song consistently threatens to fall apart into anarchy, but somehow makes it to the finish line.

18) I hate the artist, but I love the song.
"Just Like Heaven," The Cure. I wouldn't say I hate them, but I've never been much for Robert Smith's schtick. This, however, is a classic song, and Smith's overromanticism is charming here instead of annoying.

19) Wha? If anyone can tell me what this song is about, give me a call.
"Letter from an Occupant," New Pornographers. Actually, I doubt this song is really about anything, since the New Pornographers tend to emphasize vocal sounds over lyrical meaning. I just wanted to put it on here because it's a damn near perfect rock-pop song with a strong vocal performance by Neko Case and one of the best "oooh"s you'll ever hear in a pop chorus.

20) Guilty Pleasure.
"Ballroom Blitz," Sweet.
I don't really believe in "guilty pleasures" - I like what I like without apologies - but I'll concede that this is a dumb piece of junk. But it's a rockin' dumb piece of junk.

21) Stump the band.
"Faded Colors," Stonemen. Plucked from an obscure garage compilation, this single from an unknown Atlantic Canadian group features some of the harshest guitar tones you'll ever hear in the intro, as well as a truly nasty guitar solo interjecting itself into the song at random moments.

22) TV theme song
"WKRP End Theme," Tom Wells. The closing credits music to the beloved classic sitcom. Ret too boptenda, bah she ahbet tenna. As a bonus, the meow of the MTM kitten is included at no additional cost.

MP3 is a live version of "I'm Straight" by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, from Precise Modern Lovers Order. This is an earlier rendition than the version on The Modern Lovers, and is far more vicious and sarcastic than the somewhat gentle upbraiding of the more well known album version - Richman's bile is dialed up to Costello-on-This Year's Model levels as he takes shots at the shallowness and conformity of the Woodstock generation.

Well, it's been one week since Tittygate exploded across American television screens. God, January 31, 2003 seems like such an innocent time now - a time when our media was free from sexualization, when decent folk could watch television in peace without being burdened by thoughts of body parts and reproductive acts. Now, in one short week, we've seen the complete deterioration of the moral fabric of this country. Who knew that a simple halftime show would've destroyed polite society as we know it? (If the Russians had just infiltrated Up with People back in the seventies, we'd all be harvesting beets on a collective farm in Andropovgrad (formerly Nebraska) right now.) Public nudity is now de rigueur, and the old standard friendly greetings have been replaced with expressions like "Nice bag, Ted!" and "Your areola's looking especially radiant today, Janice!" One can hardly walk the streets without tripping over young people engaged in sexual acts of varying natures, their once restrained passions now unlocked by the brazen display of sort-of nudity seen by millions last Sunday. And the networks have just made it worse - first there was random, casual toplessness on "Yes, Dear" and "According to Jim," then Stone Phillips' full frontal during Friday's "Dateline NBC", then Fox pulled Saturday's Cops in order to run "Teenage Vixen Slumber Party #7"... and rumor has it that next week, "American Idol"'s judging system will be replaced by a fellatio contest.

If only we could turn back time and replace Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson with wholesome, upstanding performers. Even Britney Spears, who seemed controversial in those naive pre-Super Bowl days, would've been a better choice than the evil mastermind Justin and his evil harlot Jezebel Janet. How could we have been so blind to not see that their entire rise to fame was built for that one moment, to purposely introduce the breast to the national viewing public! Only our government can save us now. I pray that George W. Bush will have the wisdom and the courage to jail exposers of the flesh and mandate that women are forced to wear bodices and several layers of undergarments at all times so their dirty, dirty bodies will never again see the light of day.

Hard to believe, but today marks the one year anniversary of the first post on this blog. (Please do not actually go back and read those first entries, as they suck even more than the usual fare here.) Over the past year, we've laughed a little, cried a little, and learned a little something about ourselves. And this humble little web-thing has grown from a semi-regularly updated site that no one reads but me to a sporadically updated site that no one reads but me. My thanks to anyone who reads this site. Whether you're killing time at work, you kinda sorta know me online, or you came here via a Google search for "+paris hilton +sextape +donkey," I appreciate your patronage. I hope that this site has provided some amusement, or at the very least not made you cringe with embarrassment on my behalf too often. (And I promise that in year two, the self-deprecation that is ladled over this entry will be kept to an acceptable minimum.)

This would be the natural time to walk away, to stop this project before the updates become even more sporadic and half-assed and keeping a blog becomes even more unfashionable, a pop culture relic of the early aughts. But I've never let common sense, regard for quality or self-respect keep me from achieving massive public embarrassment. So, onward we march into year number two, fearlessly continuing to boldly flog the same obscure half-jokes and cultural quasi-commentary in the face of public indifference. May God have mercy on us all.

As year one of this enterprise draws to a close, here's a sign that this site has finally made it: a coveted link on coolworthy.com's "vitamin b bipolar and the Hidden Weight Loss Connection" page. So, for all you web searchers looking for information about the Negative Calorie Diet, here's the real story: Researchers at the Institute of Cosmetic Science in Piscataway, NJ have discovered that several foods previously thought to be poor dietary choices actually have "negative calories" that, when consumed in enormous quantities, stimulate accelerons in the body's digestive system that actually eat away fat! These foods include, but are not limited to, the following:

- double cheeseburgers
- hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream and cherries
- fried chicken skin (the meat is irrelevant for the purposes of this diet)
- beef liver
- barbecue pork rinds (NOTE: pork rinds MUST be barbecue flavored, plain pork rinds will not work)
- hog renderings

"Respected scientists" have scoffed at our discovery, but remember that these so-called experts are all in the pocket of the gigantic so-called "health" food lobby. Big Celery doesn't want you to know the truth about weight loss, which can be found only in our new pamphlet, "The Negative Calorie Diet - Gorging Your Way to Social Acceptance," available for $49.95. Also, for only $69.95, you'll receive a two week supply of our new wonder drug, "tlc-tags," which speed up the accelerons in your body for even speedier weight loss! And they're even chewable, mint-flavored, and come complete with a handy portable dispenser! Please send cash, money order, or access to an offshore holding company to:

Negative Calorie Diet
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"Eternal Flow" by Amon Duul I, a haunting, moody piece of guitar-bass minimalism. It's also the only thing you really ever need to know about Amon Duul I, whose other recorded works are incredibly annoying strum-und-chant that proves that German hippies were actually more annoying than their American counterparts.

Good evening, supporters of my campaign. As you know, we did not win tonight's New Hampshire primary. In fact, we placed ninth. Somehow, I finished with fewer votes than Al Sharpton, Dick Gephardt or write-in votes for Martin Sheen. Not even Josiah Bartlett, the president character that Martin Sheen portrays on The West Wing, but Martin Sheen the actor. Clearly, the people have spoken, and I would like to announce my resignation from the presidential race.

I would like to apologize to my supporters, who wasted valuable time and money on my hopelessly inept campaign. You spent hours away from your friends and loved ones, all so I could finish with one percent of the vote in a tiny, insignificant, homogenous state. In particular, I'd like to apologize to the college volunteers, who could've been enjoying illegal drinking and casual sex at their respective campuses instead of stuffing envelopes or having doors slammed in their faces in the streets of Concord. Our campaign's bitter failure will no doubt leave you disillusioned and will cause your complete withdrawal from the political process, and for that I am truly sorry.

I would also like to apologize to all of the voters of New Hampshire that I personally annoyed and bothered over the past month with my fumbling, incompetent attempts to garner support. In particular, I'd like to apologize to Nancy Fulton of Pelham, to whom I inadvertently blurted out the comment that she "sure had a lovely chest." In my defense, I only had three hours of sleep and was juiced up on some combination of dexedrine and Mexican over-the-counter stimulents given to me by a young campaign worker. Still, my comments were indefensible, and I apologize.

Most importantly, I'd like to thank my lovely wife, whose barely restrained disgust for the rigors of campaigning has caused an undoubtedly irrepairable rift in our already strained marriage. I can only hope that she'll continue to be the same classy, elegant figure during our upcoming public divorce proceedings. I'm also sorry that the Manchester Union-Leader ran all of those pictures from her high school yearbook, before she lost all the weight.

I leave you with a story. When I was a young boy, my mother told me that I could grow up to be anything I wanted to be, even president of the United States. Throughout my life, my mother's words gave me inspiration and made me believe that I could make my dreams come true. Obviously, I was wrong. In fact, I have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to do this. God, I'm so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

(bangs head repeatedly on podium)

Well, I'm told that the Merrimack Dodge dealers need the room for their annual "Rev Up the Sales" pep talk, so thank you to everyone for showing up. And please don't take all of the snacks on the beverage cart, I don't have enough spare change left over to buy breakfast.

MP3 is the second track from the Cambodia Rocks! compilation of Cambodian garage rock of the late 1960s. I don't know the artist or title, as the liner notes and documentation are scant for this particular series. It's rather fascinating to hear the weird transmutation of (probably bastardized) traditional Asian music and rock music being piped in from next door. Also, this song was prominently featured in a dream I had a few nights ago. Come take a quick listen inside the dark world of my subconscious, won't you?

So, with the new iPod, I've been re-listening to a lot of old stuff from my collection during work. Nothing livens up examining bank reconciliations or cancelled checks like listening to William S. Burroughs read from Naked Lunch, the Birthday Party or Albert Ayler. Here's a few random observations on stuff that I've taken another listen-to via the iPod. (I realize most of these topics have been beaten to death by the music criticerati, but what do you want for free?)

- I like the Jefferson Airplane (not a popular opinion in many circles, admittedly), but man, is their recorded output ever divided equally between brilliant songs that still hold up and dated, stupid stoned crap. I still love "Comin' Back to Me," "Wild Tyme," "3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds" and the like. But "Lather?" "Have You Seen the Saucers?" I guess that's better than fucking we built this fucking city, but still.

- Spirit, on the other hand, holds up as well or better than any band of that era except for the dumb lyrics here and there. Consistently great songwriting by a tight band that judiciously used their instrumental breaks to build fully developed pieces instead of the pointless noodling that mars so much late 60's rock.

- My review of Pop Group's Y from a few month's back wasn't sufficiently laudatory. It's a great, classic album, and "We Are Time" is one of the five best songs ever by anybody.

- Love's Four Sail is an underrated classic, and almost but not quite as good as Forever Changes or Da Capo. The absence of Bryan MacLean hurts, but the songwriting is as consistently excellent as the more famous prior albums (although lacking a standout like "7 and 7 Is" or "Alone Again Or"). Check out "Robert Montgomery," one of the best hippie-bashing-squares songs ever.

- I still love Zen Arcade, but damn, is it ever emo. Now that I'm a quasi-adult without the aimless adolescent rage or all-encompassing self-pity and moodiness, it seems kind of over the top. We were really that angry and/or sad once?

- I think I've finally settled the debate that has torn families and friendships asunder, pitted brother against brother, and contributed to the breakdown of polite society. Neu! is slightly better than Neu 75, and Tago Mago is better than Ege Bamyasi. There, it's settled. Now let us never speak of it again.

The seemingly unending ads for Comedy Central's reruns of MAD TV bill it is as "TV's riskiest sketch comedy." I'm not sure how continual parodies of Kenny Rogers qualifies as "risky," but in any case, I'm willing to restart my failed career as television showrunner and create a real, live, risky sketch comedy. It'll be just like the other sketch comedy shows (catch phrases run into the ground, limp parodies of showbiz figures, etc.), but every sketch will be performed inside a piranha tank or on a live minefield. Also, you'll love our wacky new character, Eddie the Hyperactive Spree Killer, who'll randomly fire several shots into the live studio audience during each appearance on the show. (He'll shoot to maim, not kill, but hey, who knows what'll happen?) And since the American viewing public is so jaded, we'll work around the clock to personally call each viewer and create personalized insults guaranteed to offend even the most unoffendable! Damn you, Comedy Central, this is the cutting edge risky landmark groundbreaking extreme television that will dominate this decade! Will you not answer my multitude of increasingly unhinged and threatening phone calls and e-mails?

The week in spam:

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Also, something from "Bored HouseWives." Christ, ladies, I've taken to reading my own spam recently, so don't look at me if you want someone to alleviate your boredom.

It's time once again for blog filler, the all-cereal, content-free look at the world around us. (And by "us," I mean "me.")

- John Kerry? Well, I hate to drag the infrequent political commentary here down to Maureen Dowd-ian levels, but will America really elect a man who looks like the kindly-but-serious apothecary from a Washington Irving novel? Kerry would've made a great president in the 1880s - just slap on a long ZZ Top beard or a set of burnsides, and he'd fit right in next to Rutherford B. Hayes or James Garfield - but it's undeniable that public image is nine-tenths of the law in the television era.

- Richard Gephardt? I blame it on Michael Bolton. This is, of course, not the first time Bolton has ruined a political career - from the candid snapshots of Bolton on Gary Hart's lap in 1988, to the infamous cadre of senators known as the "Bolton Five" who swindled the Isley brothers out of millions of dollars during the savings and loan crisis, to the Boltongate scandal when former president Clinton received a Bolton-like mullet haircut in Air Force One while blocking the runway - but you'd think that someone as experienced as Gephardt wouldn't have made the same mistake. Especially when Rick Astley was available.

- The Vegas tourism board's slogan is "What happens here, stays here." OK, that's good, although I'm guessing that the massive credit card debt, alcoholic relapse or crippling gonorrhea will not actually stay in Vegas. But I wish they had gone with "Your pitiful human 'morals' have no place here." Or "Y'know, Clorox and a little industrial solvent will get rid of those blood stains."

- I bought an iPod last week. (No better cure for the whole crisis-of-meaning thing than a completely unnecessary consumer purchase.) I don't mean to turn this into an unsolicited gush (especially since Apple isn't compensating me for my endorsement), but it's pretty damn awesome. The interface is slick and intuitively sensible and the sound is surprisingly good, even in the tiny earbud microphones. And this is coming from someone who hates the Mac OS and generally thinks that Apple's much vaunted "ease of use" reputation is highly overrated. My main qualm is with iTunes for Windows, which is a resource vacuum that doesn't work particularly well with my two year old PC. I'd also prefer a longer lasting battery (mine lasts about 8-10 hours, which is about par for the course), even if it made the player larger. But those are minor complaints - overall, I'm very pleased.

"Piano Fire" by Sparklehorse, from 2001's It's a Wonderful Life. It's about the importance of fire prevention when dealing with keyboard-based instruments, a concern that just isn't addressed enough in modern song lyrics. But it's also got great Mark Linkous/P.J. Harvey harmonies and a melancholy minor chord progression.

So, yeah. I haven't been updating this blog with any sort of consistent regularity this year. This is partly due to working on other writing projects, partly due to lack of inspiration, but mostly because of work. I'm in public accounting (auditing, to be specific), and this is the busiest time of the year. It's also the time of year when I am even more tired, irritable, listless and sluggish than usual. So, please indulge me for a brief round of pointless and ineffectual complaining, and regular programming (such as it is) will resume shortly.

Tax season will drain the livelihood out of the strongest, sturdiest individual. Long lists of deadlines to be met, neverending hours of work that cut into whatever free time is left over at the end of the day, all taking place in a cold and miserable winter that puts a bleak landscape behind the whole pointless and tiring agenda.

Making matters worse, I live and work in suburbia, which is finally starting to inflict full-on ennui on me after about a year and a half of residence here. I'm originally from a small rural town, so the novelty of not having to drive 20 minutes when you want to buy something held sway over me for a while. But now, the thought of spending the rest of my lifetime in the neverending, undifferentiated stripmallTGIFridayschurchdiscountsuperstorehousingassociation Pangaea that is American suburbia doesn't seem like much of an improvement over the dead end nothingness of a small town. The isolation of the suburbs is suffocating - from the endless commute, where the knotted mess and pressures of space and time turn total strangers into mortal enemies to be distrusted or feared, to the drive-thrus and ample parking and residential islands that serve to make social contact optional, to the sheer difficulty of finding likeminded people in an environment where despite the population density, people are scattered to the four winds.

You might think that auditing, which at least allows you to work in different offices, might provide some relief from all of this tedium. But it's just like tempwork - all the different offices are essentially the same, all blending into one gigantic undifferentiated mush. The same bleak industrial parks or sterile commercial office zones, floating out in space connected only by interstate highways. The same lukewarm coffee and routine banter. The same spare desks or conference rooms where they place you, separate from the rest of the people working there. This doesn't bother me too much during the rest of the year, when the job is manageable and I still have enough free time to pursue other interests, but it's unbearable during tax season. I accept that you have to make sacrifices in life, etc., but it is wearing at times.

(OK, I know - I should quit my job and move if I don't like it. I've run a cost-benefit analysis on this, and I've found that periodic complaining is cheaper, easier and more fun than massive life changes. I realize that my work could be far worse and I should note that eight months of the year, I don't mind my job and the liabilities that come with it. But tax season bites hard, so I think that one rant a year on its suckiness isn't asking for too much. OK, enough already. Back later this week with more stuff on more interesting subjects.)

Oh, man, greatest spam e-mail text ever:

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Although I'm also fond of this one from a couple weeks back:

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"Hot Metal Dobermans" by Brainiac, the leadoff track on 1994's Bonsai Superstar. A perfect encapsulation of their spastic rockmaroll - this particular song takes the chord progression from the Cars' "My Best Friend's Girl" and twists it 180 degrees, throwing in a high-pitched, sing-songy white R&B chorus and theremin/keyboard squiggles to boot. Also of note is the late Timmy Taylor's penchant for inspired Dadaist lyrics; you have to love a song that includes the line "silence! That's what my girlfriend says, when she's kicking out the teeth of some guy who thinks he's president."

As you're no doubt aware if you follow the NFL or live in the DC metropolitan area, Joe Gibbs is coming out of retirement to coach the Washington Redskins. To give you an idea of how the media has reacted to this announcement, here are some actual headlines from the past two days of the Washington Post:

Joe Gibbs to Coach Redskins, Commissioner Declares Redskins Champions of Next Six Super Bowls

Style: Interviews with Everyone Who Has Ever Known or Met Joe Gibbs

Fan Reaction: Eight Pages of Grown Men Gibbering Like Little Schoolgirls

Editorial: Bush Should Resign, Name Gibbs President-for-Life

With Cryogenics, Cloning, Gibbs Can Coach Redskins Forever

Gibbs More Popular than Jesus? Most Theologians Say Yes

60% of DC Population Killed in Massive Fireball from Space (see page A6)

(The Vitamin B Glandular Show will resume after this brief public service announcement.)

Hi, I'm Hank Williams, Jr. For years, as the voice behind the Monday Night Football theme song, I've been asking viewers if they're ready for some football. Unfortunately, it seems as though my simple question has gone unheeded. Last year, over 3 million Americans suffered from injuries related to inadequate football preparation (IFP) - everything from couch cramps to sprained remote finger to the dreaded Musberger's Rash. And IFP doesn't discriminate - people from all walks of life have fallen victim, from the president to all my rowdy friends.

That's why I've founded the Hank Williams, Sr. Memorial Clinic for Football Preparation and Rehabilitation. It's named after my daddy, who suffered a near-fatal blockage of the larynx brought on by hot dog inhalation during the 1949 LSU-Tennessee game. It's a place where those stricken with football spectating injuries can work towards their reintroduction into society, as well as a sanctuary where viewers can prepare for watching football in a caring and supportive environment. Together, we can stamp out the horrors of IFP, so our children and our children's children can watch football without fear or pain. I'm Hank Williams, Jr., reminding you to get ready for some football - the life you save may be your own.

Part deux of the retrospective on 365 Days begins…now!

The Space Lady, "Major Tom." The Space Lady is a San Francisco-area busker who's made a career of sorts out of odd, sparse covers of space-themed songs accompanied only by an ancient Casio keyboard. This version of the 80s Peter Schilling synth pop quasi-classic is a stark mini-masterpiece - the Space Lady's eerily clear and emotionless vocals combined with the minor key Casio vamping add a lonesome, ominous edge that's missing from the original's chilly, mechanical distance. It's the aural equivalent of watching a low budget 50's sci-fi flick late at night - sure, you can see all of the wires and gears, but it captures the essence of the vastness and distance of space that has been a human fascination for millenia.

The Ken Nordine Group, "Six Commercials In Search Of A Client." The inimitable Ken Nordine - poet, commercial voiceover announcer, voice of the Chicago Blackhawks - stars in this recorded pitch for mass mailed soundsheets. It's like an advertising pitch meeting on acid - you can imagine Nordine turning the lights down low in the executive boardroom and passing around some "special" brownies and coffee. Nordine's voice is so lulling yet authoritative that it makes you believe in the power of soundsheets or the real lives of the color spectrum or whatever else he's babbling on about at the moment. He missed his true calling as a charismatic cult leader.

Ford, "It's The Going Thing/Warranty Rock/It's The Going Thing" and Chevrolet, "An Exciting Thing/Grown-Up Baby/Man-Made Laws." You can trace the decline of the American automotive industry from these two songs, which use a 1960s middle aged marketing executive's idea of the crazy rock and roll music the kids are listening to - essentially, edgeless middle of the road Association-lite pop that wouldn't sound out of place on one of those "beautiful music" stations that used to be ubiquitous. As music, it's disposable (although "Warranty Rock," which sets warranty legalese to music, is sort of amusing), as a chronicle of how far the marketing of cool has come in four decades, it's an interesting curio.

Yaphet Kotto, "Have You Dug His Scene." Most of the horrible, terrible, no-good examples of celebrity singing on the 365 Days project can be filed under "seemed like a good idea at the coke party." But this is actually pretty good - Kotto does a poetry reading (which is more reminiscent of Beat leftovers from the 50s than anything else) over a repetitive, sorta-but-not-really jazz background. Substantively, there's not much to hang your hat on, but Kotto's delivery is commanding and convincing enough to warrant attention.

Shakin Jake Woods, "Baby Love/Closing Statement." Shakin' Jake Woods is a street musician from Ann Arbor, Michigan who (judging from this sample) specializes in a sort of manic, uptempo folk-blues interspersed with mini-monologues that only last a minute or so but nevertheless manage to ramble far afield. It's infectious as hell, and Woods' enthusiasm is enough to make you overlook the fact that the song is just one guitar chord strummed ad infinitum.

Christmas Gathering 1947. One of the greatest things about the gigantic library of media resources available in this day and age is the ability to reach into the past for nuggets like this - a recording of a holiday party circa 1947. OK, maybe the presence of a microphone inevitably changes peoples' behavior, and the audio fidelity is poor to say the least, but it's a window into one of the seemingly long lost, ephemeral moments that make up life - as close to time travel as we're ever likely to accomplish. And it's somewhat comforting to know that some things never change - the uncle who never stops making really bad jokes will endure throughout eternity.

Let's kick off 2004 on a positive, uplifting note - here is "Inspiration Information" by Shuggie Otis. It's about as happy-and-optimistic-without-being-syrupy-sweet as music can get, which is possibly the hardest songwriting feat of all to pull off successfully - there are a ton of mediocre talents who've managed to write great angry and/or depressing songs from time to time, but quality songs that are genuinely upbeat are few and far between.

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)

Thanksgiving is once again upon us, a time to once again spend one day of the year pretending to be grateful for our miserable lives before returning to our usual daily bitching and moaning. In no particular order, here are a few of the things I am thankful for this year:

- I am thankful that my turn on the national waiting list to get a reality show is down to the low seven figures. In 2035, America’s favorite TV celebrity will be a embittered middle aged white guy who complains about his back and about how today’s kids just don’t appreciate electric guitar feedback.

- I am thankful that George W. Bush pardoned at least one turkey this year. I am disappointed, however, that he did not grant the pardon of a retarded turkey convicted on three counts of manslaughter.

- I am thankful that the screaming, colicky baby in the apartment down the hall can only physically yell for 19 or 20 hours a day.

- I am thankful to have such kind, caring and supportive people on my parole board. Thanks, guys. You've turned our "hearings" into "dearrings."

- I am thankful to live in a country where one man can rise above such limitations as abundant stupidity, academic mediocrity, the inability to express himself clearly, and receiving fewer votes than his opponent to become the nation’s chief executive.

- I am thankful that I have no moral objections to eating animals, so I am not forced to choke down the abomination that is tofurkey.

- I am thankful that even though life is fleeting and devoid of any real meaning, and death stares us blankly in the face every day, threatening to wipe out our tenuous existence into the dull gray void of eternity, this is some damn good pie. Did you use real pumpkin for this?

MP3 - "Gideon's Bible" by John Cale, off of his first solo album Vintage Violence, which I rambled about way back in this blog's infancy. Unfortunately, the massive wave of renewed interest in Vintage Violence that I had anticipated after posting that rave review failed to materialize, so please enjoy a free MP3 of the best song from that excellent album.

The greatest rock critic blog ever.

(Note: If you haven’t seen the final episode of season 2 of The Office, spoilers abound in this entry.)

Well, holy shit, that was depressing. The final episode of The Office (barring the two special upcoming Christmas episodes) paid off the series’ central theme of the isolating, soul-numbing drudgery of modern white collar life in spades. Admittedly, it was a somewhat sharp shift in tone from understated, subtly satirical comedy to heartbreaking pathos, but I don’t think it could’ve ended any other way. Tim’s noble charge at the end - giving up settling for a slightly better position and a perfectly acceptable but passionless relationship for a shot at the brass ring - was doomed to failure from the start, but you have to admire someone momentarily standing up from the gray prison of the office and doing something, anything, to redirect the course of fate. David Brent’s breakdown after his firing was handled brilliantly, forcing the viewer to feel momentary pity and sadness for the poor lug before pulling it away with one of his typically moronic monologues at the end. Brent doesn’t learn anything from his experiences, and one has to figure that he’ll land elsewhere and find an entirely new set of wage slaves to condescend to and irritate. At least Tim has finally shed some of his illusions - David Brent will probably still think his underlings adore and respect him while they mock him behind his back or fantasize about his death.

What set The Office apart from a normal sitcom is its unflinching eye on all of the vagaries and indignities of the modern office, the types of things that most of us would rather not focus on as we try to cheerfully muck through our day-to-day lives without turning to booze, pills or total escapism. The final episode brought that point home with a vengeance. The moral of the series? Not everyone can do or get what they really want, and sometimes the best you can do is shuffle papers under the charge of a unctuous failed comedian and unrequitedly pine for the cute secretary. That’s a pretty harsh piece of truth to swallow in the guise of a situation comedy, and it’s a credit to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant that they were able to put together one of the most searing, indicting bits of social satire of our times while also providing some of the most flat-out hilarious moments in the history of sitcoms.

NEW SADDAM TAPE FEATURES CALL FOR RESISTANCE, SEX WITH PARIS HILTON

A new videotape aired Sunday on the Arabic news network al-Jazeera is believed to show deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein issuing a strongly worded message to American forces in Iraq and having sex with millionaire hotel heiress Paris Hilton.

"I urge all of my countrymen to resist this illegal and immoral occupation. Until the Americans withdraw from our nation, we cannot peaceably accept a new government. A true government can only come from the will of the Iraqi people," stated Hussein.

Hussein then received fellatio and had sex in several positions with Hilton, apparently in the back seat of a military vehicle.

The tape ran 18 minutes and was interrupted several times for cell phone calls from Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond, Jr. and former RCC Vice Chairman Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri.

Despite her apparent ties with the former Iraqi leader, American officials have no plans to question Hilton for any knowledge of Hussein's whereabouts.

"Let's be honest, here. Odds are she was so coked out of her mind that she didn't remember anything, anyway. I mean, we can't really expect her to remember much about any of the guys she has sex with," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a Sunday briefing.

Rumsfeld refused to comment on the persistent rumors of another tape featuring Osama bin Laden, Nicky Hilton and male model Jason Shaw.

The weather has turned cold in this area of the world, so that means it's once again the perfect time of year to listen to sad bastard music. This is "Western Sky" by American Music Club off of their excellent (and lamentably out of print) 1988 album California. Mark Eitzel is one of the masters of writing depressingly beautiful songs without drowning in self-pity or resorting to cliche. "Western Sky" is a damn-near-perfect piece of musical imagery - it evokes empty, wide-open skies and solitary drives down barren stretches of highway in the American west.

CBS recently opted not to air its miniseries about the presidency of Ronald Reagan after charges of bias from the Republican National Committee and other conservative pressure groups. What wasn’t reported was that the RNC proposed several re-written scenes to make the program more hagiographical - pardon me, “balanced.” The Vitamin B Glandular Show has obtained a few pages from the RNC’s version of the Reagan miniseries, which we present to you now as a worldwide exclusive:

(SCENE: Summit meeting, Reykjavik, Iceland. President Reagan and his advisers are sitting face to face with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev.)

GORBACHEV: We are willing to discuss a 20% decrease in short range and intercontinental ballistic missiles over the next five years, as well as increases in the amount of food sales between our two countries.

REAGAN: Forget it, Mikhail. We demand that Russia dismantle its military, get out of Central America and Eastern Europe and convert to capitalism. What are you gonna do about it, huh? Heard of a little thing called “Star Wars?” That’s right, we have the technology to shoot down your entire nuclear arsenal.

GORBACHEV: Let me discuss this with my comrades.

GORBACHEV (in Russian): It’s over, gentlemen. We cannot defeat this brave and dignified leader.

RUSSIAN ADVISOR #1 (in Russian): Damn this missile defense shield! It is impregnable! We will never defeat the Americans now!

RUSSIAN ADVISOR #2 (in Russian): If only Walter Mondale were in that chair - then we could crush the Americans. But we will never defeat Ronald Reagan. We must surrender on their terms.

GORBACHEV: Very well, Mr. President, we accept your demands.

REAGAN: Oh, yeah, one more thing - say I’m your mama.

GORBACHEV: (sighs) Very well. I’m your mother.

(REAGAN high fives James Baker and George Bush)

(SCENE: The Oval Office. REAGAN is flanked by senators and congressmen from both parties.)

REAGAN: I am proud to sign into law this budget for 1987 which will provide the United States of America with a record $100 billion surplus. This administration has succeeded in completely wiping out our national debt while cutting taxes for everyone. We have also wiped out poverty and created untold economic growth through supply side economics and capital gains tax cuts.

TIP O’NEILL: I just want to apologize to you, Mr. President, for ever doubting your economic policies. I was wrong - giving tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans is the only way to improve the economy.

(Former President Jimmy Carter enters the room.)

JIMMY CARTER: I know I wasn’t invited to this press conference, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to say what an incredible failure I was as president, and how thankful I am that Americans elected this wonderful, visionary leader instead of me.

REAGAN: Thank you, gentlemen, but we can never rest as long as there’s an industrialist or Wall Street bond trader who has to pay a nickel of his hard earned money to the IRS.

(SCENE: Bitburg Military Cemetery, Germany. President Reagan is about to lay a wreath in a cemetery containing the remains of Nazi stormtroopers.)

NAZI #1 (in German): The American president is about to glorify the dead of our fallen war heroes.

NAZI #2 (in German): Surely this will bring great glory to our cause!

(REAGAN tears off flowers on wreath to reveal a Thompson submachine gun.)

REAGAN: That’s what you think, Fritz! Eat lead, Nazi scum! (REAGAN mows down a line of Nazi soldiers, then turns over a Nazi tomb to reveal a hidden fortress. Several dazed American prisoners of war emerge from the wreckage.)

REAGAN: Come on, men. Follow me…to FREEDOM! (An army helicopter swoops down to lead the men to safety.)

POW: Thank you, Mr. President. However can we thank you?

REAGAN: I’m just doing my job, soldier. That’s why the American people elected me - to lead the nation, cut the red tape caused by those bureaucrats in Washington, and kick a little Nazi ass.

This blog shall rise from the ashes with new updates in mid-November. In the meantime, please enjoy these fine web-based products:

- Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs and Incidences by Daniil Kharms.

- Some great streaming radio stations from Live365:
This is Radium Crass (a mix of skewed pop, experimental noise and comedy)
Left of the Dial (alternative/modern rock/indie/blahblah)
Radio Club 870 (pre-/no prefix-/post-punk)
Turn Me On Dead Man (psychamadelic/garage freakouts)

- The 365 Days Project - an MP3 each day of outsider music, weird religious tracts, celebrities embarrassing themselves, and other aural curiousities. (More, oh much more, on this when I return.)

- If you haven't yet, check out the sites linked on the right. Lots of smart, insightful, funny commentary inna blog style.

Haven't posted a new MP3 in a while, so here's the MP3 of the fortnight or month or whatever unit of time it's been since the last one - the original version of "Dazed and Confused" by Jake Holmes. This version is actually better than the more famous Led Zeppelin version, in my opinion - it's more tense and builds dramatically through the song with a seething intensity that's missing from the great but overwrought Zeppelin rendition.

The Continuing Adventures of Ralph Pruitt, The World’s Last Honest Man

“So, Ralph, how was your weekend?”

“Miserable. I spent all weekend sobbing profusely and drinking Tanqueray straight from the bottle. At least I blacked out for most of Sunday, but when I awoke, I resumed my constant screaming, pleading for the release of the death that will not come.”

“Oh.”

“How about you?”

“Oh, pretty good. Watched the game yesterday, saw ‘Veronica Guerin’ with the wife.”

“How was that?”

“Better than you’d think, actually.”

A few impromptu thoughts on the base-ball matches of the past week:

- It goes without saying that Grady Little is a dope. I watched the fateful 8th inning unfold with shocked disbelief, amazed that Little would let Pedro Martinez die on the mound as Yankee after Yankee pounded his movement-less breaking stuff and dying fastballs all over the stadium. This is an old Red Sox tradition of stupid managerial decisions - from starting Denny Galehouse in the 1948 playoff game to Don Zimmer mismanaging the pitching staff in 1978 to John McNamara not putting in a defensive substitute for the immobile Bill Buckner in 1986. That's why I hate this "Red Sox are cursed" business - when you keep bashing your own fingers into a pulp with a hammer, no sensible person blames it on "The Curse of Home Depot."

- The Steve Bartman incident just goes to show you what White Sox fans have been saying for years - Cubs fans, by and large, are more interested in grabbing souvenirs and downing Old Styles than actually following a winning club. Maybe a near miss like this will finally shake Cubdom of that whole goofy "gosh, they're losers, but we love 'em anyway" thing, but I doubt the Tribune Company would want to let go of a marketing technique that has served them well (and allowed them to duck responsibility from fielding a competitive club). And yes, I did indulge in a bit of schadenfreude over the Cub loss. Pathetic, maybe, but when you root for a team that last won a playoff series 61 years before your birth, you have to take your thrills where you find them.

- That "God Bless America/Take Me Out to the Ball Game/Cotton Eye Joe/Oye Como Va/New York, New York/Afternoon Delight/Nights in White Satin" medley they play at the 7th inning stretch of Yankee games - could that be a little more self-indulgent, please? Could we get Rick Wakeman to do a 19 minute keyboard solo? Maybe an interpretative dance salute to Kevin Maas? There's no better way to express your patriotism than by having a huge, expensive masturbation session in front of 57,000 people. It's like measuring someone as a true American based on the size of the novelty hat they buy on July 4th.

- Thanks to the miracle of constant commercial repetition, I now have the following phrases etched into my memory:
"Standing on the corner, watching all the guys go by."
"And now for ze best part, he's reeech!"
"It's OK, I had Subway."
"His father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!"
Long after I'm permanently ensconced in some cheap, fly by night nursing home and I've forgotten my name and the names of everything and everyone around me, I'll be muttering those phrases over and over again.

Issue #2 of the High Hat is up and ready for your perusal. Lots and lots of smart, witty, thoughtful, original pop culture commentary and analysis from some damn fine writers.

And, lest I forget this blog's chief mission of endless self-promotion, here's my contribution - an interview with underground pop-funk legend Gary Wilson.

(With all apologies to the Onion.)

Election of Schwarzenegger Causes Californians to Lose Smug Superiority

Tuesday’s stunning victory by Arnold Schwarzenegger in California’s gubernatorial election has already had an instant effect on the psyche of Californians. Overnight, California residents, particularly in liberal enclaves such as San Francisco and Santa Cruz, have been forced to abandon their traditional sense of smug superiority and self-satisfaction over the rest of the country.

“I used to make fun of my cousin in Nevada for living in such a backward state full of rubes. But now, what can I say? The people in this state just elected a incomprehensible movie actor with no experience and no clearly defined plan besides ‘I vant to clean up Sacramento,’” said Elaine Strauss, a social worker from Alameda. “I guess I was wrong - people in this state is just as dumb as they are everywhere else.”

“Ever since California became one of the largest, most important states in the country in the early 1900’s, the sense that California is a special place filled with people who are more unique and intelligent than the rest of the country has become a huge part of this state’s definition of itself,” said Robert Milton, professor of sociology at UCLA. “It’s a tremendous blow for people to realize that California isn’t really the center of culture and progressive leadership that we had thought.”

“Governor Schwarzenegger,” he added, muttering under his breath. “What the fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?”

Even defenses such as irony or self-mocking humor have proven unsuccessful at warding off the shame and humiliation felt by non-Schwarzenegger voting California residents.

“I tried to make a joke about it the other day at work: ‘Governor Schwarzenegger? What’s next-’ and then I stopped, because I literally couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous,” said Alan Walker, a San Jose computer programmer. “I’m already looking for real estate in Seattle or Vancouver. I don’t think I can take another year of lame fucking Schwarzenegger impressions.”

Nevertheless, Californians continue to soldier forward and hope for the best.

“We survived Nixon and Reagan, so we can survive this,” said Strauss. “But it’s going to be irritating to be the butt of every cheap joke in America for the next year or so. I never thought I’d say this, but I really miss Pete Wilson now.”