Fuck You, Mountain
Somehow I doubt The Shamen will be involved:
Semi Random Music (in Two Acts)
Semi-Random Friday Music
WHEREBY Your Montag traverses the myspace music scene, follows the trail of comments from one page to the next and picks out the song I like best from each artist. (This edition and prior examples of this endeavor can be found by clicking over to the category.)
Clicking the red text is to experience the anticipation of crossing a musty threshold and descending grungy stairs to some place, below street level, in the old downtown district, with thick arched foundations crafted from ancient brick, where secret societies once conspired for control of local commerce, which now serves a different purpose: as the artist’s myspace music page.
- Surfer Girl — Fabs (Scotland) — This music has a certain, as the French say, “I don’t know what,” which make me nostalgic. (Maybe it’s that their list of influences reads like my personal music collection.) Not what I hear in my mind’s ear when I think of “surf” music, but I’m wouldn’t say their self-description: “indie surf pop” is a misnomer.
- Paul Oh — The Chi Chis (Scotland) — This music is either: 1. Quirky funny party music good for some raucous cutting loose… Or, if this group were to catch on commercially and assault you 15 times a day on the office radio: 2. Inane novelty songs that make you want to gauge your ears out 15 times a day… “Come and dance with The Chi Chis! The Chi Chis got a new song!” No, wait. Upon a second listen: it’s just number 2.
- Red Lights Stage — Gara™ (Japan) — Japanese Hair Band! After this, if this group were to catch on commercially, you would chuckle with glee 15 times a day because you’d feel like you were in on an elaborate cosmic joke from the beginning. [Pictured.]
- My Number — Girl (London, UK) — Rock band that I didn’t know of when they were active from 78 to 82, nor until just now. Good one for Land of the Lost: The London Early Hair Band Scene…
…and there I stopped— what, a month ago? —when I set out to compose this list.Rather than continuing today down the path to Hair Rock Proper, (or Butt Rock, whichever you prefer,) let’s follow another hot tip from TNG regarding the construction of world stomping robots…
- Building A Robot — Robot Makers (New York) — Like a cleverer Jack White with more of a Kraftwerk sensibility. (It’s worth it to bypass the myspace music player and go straight to taking TNG’s further advice to “check out the video for their song Building A Robot.”)
- Dick Around — SPARKS (Los Angeles) — Listed as a big influence to something as awesome as Robot Makers made me feel like I should know them beyond a vague recognition of the band name… these guys were putting out work over the duration of the formative years of my musical tastes and I missed it. [Pictured.]
- Ces Chiens Gtr-Solo… — Masahide Sakuma (Yokosukashi, Japan) — Unoffensive, sleepy guitar strumming sounds. And perhaps a mandolin or something.
- Yellowcake — Kaki King (New York) — Very really quite nice.
- PS Thanx For Nothing — SPUTTERDOLL (San Francisco) — “Cheering up emo kids one show at a time.” Yeh.
Your Montag’s top four for those of you who just don’t take enough time for yourselves, and won’t stick around long enough for all nine: 5, 6, 1 and 8.
Suggestions? If you know of, (or are,) a myspace music artist that might value the exposure that a glancing mention on a D-list blog can bring, leave a comment here or correspond with me via electronic mail.
Bonus Awesome Video: By way of Our Own Fehlleistungen, here is Pistol Valve:
Yes! [End transmission.]
One of Those Everyday Days
What I did over my summer vacation:
“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.”
“What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, that’s messed up.”
IMDb: Office Space (1999) – Memorable quotes
Also in the world today: Amazon.com emails Your Montag to tell there’s a sale on the CD-ROM “New Classic Edition” of Orwell’s 1984.
[Emphasis (i.e. links) added.] Product Description
Orwell depicts a gray, totalitarian world in which privacy does not exist, news is manufactured according to the authorities’ will, and those with unorthodox ideas are brainwashed or put to death. Orwell’s 1949 nightmare vision of the world we were becoming is still the great modern classic of negative Utopia. [Amazon.com: 1984: New Classic Edition]
What “negative”? I for one embrace our future totalitarian overlords.
The Proles are Not Allowed to Have Things of Value
It’s the same principle as the You Bought Your House Years Ago and Paid for It In Full but Your Property Value Increased So You’re Now Obligated to Pay Taxes You Can’t Afford Principle:
The 21-year-old New York man said Tuesday he had no choice but to sell the ball — several people told him he would be taxed on the souvenir just for holding on to it.
“It wasn’t hard. It was simple math. I’m upset by the decision I had to make,” Murphy said. “I wanted to keep it. I’m young. I don’t have the bank account. … It would have cost me a lot more to keep it.” [Associated Press: Bonds' 756th ball going to auction]
UPDATE: Now that I have said that: is it true? Are the “several people [who] told him he would be taxed on the souvenir,” correct? Or is this story malarkey?
What Happened at the Brig
“What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind.”
[Democracy Now! An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla.]
Even if he really is guilty of filling out an Al-Quaeda job application, what We did to Jose Padilla is wrong.
- Princeton tops U.S. News rankings, again — …the magazine has responded to one complaint: that the rankings punish schools for enrolling low-income students. For the first time this year, U.S. News is factoring the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants into its calculation of a school’s “graduation rate performance.” — “Punish schools for enrolling low-income students”? Cry me a fucking river! Here’s some violin music. — Is this to say there is something inherently wrong with low-income students that disadvantages schools that let too many in? How about this: the rankings stop punishing schools that fail their low-income students, or schools that can’t/won’t root out certain forms of elitism. — [Dartmouth College was either punished or not punished enough to earn a ranking of 11th.] –(0) ¶
Deer Mr. Congressperson & Ms. Senators,
Does you think OFFAL lacks either the colossal wrecking balls of recklessness, or the sublime stubidity of dumbnessness required to carry out that-which-iz-implied in thist artickle?
No?
Well, I told you to fucking do something about it. MOAR THAN ONCE.
Sincerely,
Your Constituent Montag
- 1. [Mattel] …Lead Paint Hazard Recall — Do Chinese toy manufacturers make their own paint? I assume not; so here is a question for somebody with the ability to find out things of this sort: Who still makes/still stocks lead paint? And: WTF?!
2. Did Gonzales Lie to the Senate?
3. The Whitehouse Coup — The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters . . . believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. — Something to listen to later.
4. Dog Day Carnival — New Carnival of the Liberals! –(0) ¶ - [UPDATE: Instead of this, go read Neil Shakespeare's post on the same topic: FOUR AND A HALF DAYS IN IRAQ]
The roles government plays:
1. Safeguard and Protect: My thoughts are, of course, with the family and friends of the people killed in the Minnesota bridge collapse. But I am also struggling to wrap my thoughts around what I heard this morning: that the bridge had been classified as “structurally deficient” since the mid ’90s, and the incongruence of that with what I heard yesterday: that there were no weight restrictions in place for that bridge, and that there was a general lack of concern about the bridge structurally. (“I don’t think anyone anticipated breach of the levees.”) And this news article, inexplicably headlined: NTSB Chairman: Accident an ‘Anomaly’ — At least 73,533 of 607,363 bridges in the nation, or about 12 percent, were classified as “structurally deficient,” . . . according to 2006 statistics the Federal Highway Administration. — All of which reminds my thoughts of something else I read recently: When Infrastructure Attacks!
2. Discipline and Punish: Cops crack mystery of litter of loose change — The driver was issued a citation for failure to prevent a leaking load. Lee said the situation merited some sort of penalty. — What hazardous material was the truck driver failing to prevent from leaking, and endangering a whole city of people? . . . Quarters. (Yes, the currency.) $8,000 worth. I’m sure the guy is in a boatload of shit at work over the incident, as they are a “security” company and concerned with “security” and all. But why must the police issue a citation for an honest mistake that harmed— as near as I can tell —no one? –(0) ¶
Original text and images: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
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Randal Graves
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