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Friday, March
12, 2004 at 10:08:27 (EST) |
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Morning has broken my will
I've complained before about my poor sleeping habits. Used to
be, I couldn't get to sleep until pretty late, and then I'd
oversleep through the first part of the workday, which sucks,
because everyone knows that first hour on the job nobody expects
you to get any work done. So I was sleeping poorly and missing
out on valuable zone-out time on the job.
My new sleeping problem: I still can't get to sleep early
enough, but I am now waking up at 6:45 AM every day. And unlike
previous premature waking experiences, I don't just go back
to sleep. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening, beyond
the possibility that this is one of those "I'm not getting
any younger" things, like how senior citizens wake up
at dawn and putter around in the den until the rest of the
world wakes up. The cats had no idea what to do with me. I
had no idea what to do with me. So I finally put together
a CD of all my songs not collected on my concept album to
send to Al in Ohio, something I promised him I'd send last
year.
Then I was out of ideas. So I started doing my job. This
is an ugly trend I do not wish to see repeated.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
March 11, 2004 at 11:46:55 (EST) |
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I had too much to dream last night
I am feeling pretty scatterbrained today (not to mention yesterday,
when I couldn't even get it together enough to post anything).
Here are some unconnected thoughts:
- I like how Howard
Stern's show has become 5 hours of politically-motivated
vitriol. Though I can't imagine it will happen, Stern is
acting like he's about to go off the air for good,
so he's taking every opportunity to bash the rich wimps
at Clear Channel and insist that his listeners vote Bush
out of office in the fall. He keeps saying, "I may
not be here in November, so don't forget: Anybody but Bush."
I can't tell if he thinks this is mock-martyrdom or only
quasi-martyrdom, but this new tack in his shtick
is way more entertaining than his usual palette of boobs
& funny noises.
- I caught some of Josh's
show last night at Pianos.
Josh regaled the audience with tales of his genital misfortune
(he actually has a whole library of such anecdotes), focusing
in one tale on his penile piercing. This reminded me of
the bass player in the long-defunct band, Granny's
Hole. Yes, a tasteful group to the end. I've written
about this guy before, but it still astounds me. My old
band played a few shows with Granny's Hole, who were from
Columbus. The bass player guy had the word "INSANE"
tattooed in big letters on the back of his neck. I guess
he had given up on his hopes of becoming an elementary school
principal. He also sported a "Prince Albert" piercing,
basically a big hoop sticking out of his schlong. I know
what it looked like because at every show he would get a
flunkie to yank down his pants while he was still playing,
thus exhausting the band's theatrical energy. Some months
after my encounters with the band, the pierced bassist lived
up to his tattoo by beating some guy to death at an after-hours
party. He went on the lam for a while, but I suspect his
highly-visible tattoo helped persuade him to turn himself
into the cops. Like Josh's stories, this tale too has its
lesson.
- My friend wants me to see his tax guy to do my taxes.
But I did a quick run-through on the TurboTax
website and it looks like I'm gonna get a hefty refund for
the first time in my life. So should I just submit my tax
return as is, or should I go see the tax guy? J wants me
to see him because he insists the guy is a "Deduction
Magician," producing write-offs where none appear to
be. But I'm really bad about keeping the kind of records
that buoy such deduction claims, so maybe I should just
quit while I'm ahead. Also, how much does it cost when you
have somebody do your taxes? TurboTax costs $20, and of
course doing them yourselves is free. I should probably
talk to the guy anyway about financial planning and other
such crap since I'm thinking about buying property in the
not-too-distant future, but between online resources and
actual humans, in this case I gotta go with the web-based
accountant.
- Leonard Lopate's 1990 interview
with Spalding Gray.
- My band
may actually have a show coming up! Details are not yet
finalized but try to keep April 2nd open, folks.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Hear
the Granny's Hole Theme Song! |
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Tuesday, March
09, 2004 at 12:37:22 (EST) |
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Pedal-hoppin' like a Dinsosaur J
 Craigslist
is such a handy resource. Not exactly news, but yesterday I
happened to browse the listings and saw some guy was selling
a Turbo
Rat Pedal for fairly cheap. Turned out the guy not only
lives in my neighborhood, he lives on the next block. So convenient.
I'm only reading the Brooklyn listings from now on.
 And
yes, I got another Rat pedal. The Rat was my first distortion
pedal, which I found in a black box theater at my old college.
I dutifully posted a listing in the school paper's Lost &
Found section, and when I didn't hear from anybody, I made
it my own. I used it until I bought my lovely Tube
Driver, which I think is a necessity for any solid-state
amp users out there.
But in preparing for my gig
next week, I am using my acoustic guitar. After seeing The
Sobs show on Friday (members of Stupid),
I got the idea from Matt to run my acoustic guitar through
a distortion pedal to add some weight to the sound. The Tube
Driver works all right, but I couldn't get much distortion
since it's an overdrive pedal primarily. Thus, I return to
the Rat, which provides it in spades, if lacking a little
character.
Anyway, I should know better by now, but I thought maybe
I'd recognize the guy I bought the pedal from when he came
to the door; I did not. Even with all the time I spend wandering
around a half-mile radius around my house, I almost never
see the same people twice. I've met the three other people
who live in my small apartment building, but I see them so
rarely I can barely remember what they look like. Every time
I go to the Alibi I hope to see familiar faces, and though
I do see some, the bar is usually full of people I have never
seen before. Yet I can still run into people
I haven't seen
in ten-odd years with ease.
So how many people am I missing on a daily basis?
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, March
08, 2004 at 11:58:27 (EST) |
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I didn't even know I couldn't put up
a fight
It has been confirmed, Jimmy Legs is going out in public. I'm
gonna play one of my old songs at the next Big
Blogger Reading, now a monthly event at PS122!
As they say at MRK's job, Going forward, this series
will be less huge than the historic Worst.Sex.Ever.
reading a couple weeks ago, but it will be more than just readings.
Well, eventually. This time around it looks like I'm the only
one not reading something, but it's a start. If you have a marginalized
talent of some sort (cat juggling, pantomime horse, spoons),
consider asking Chris
about signing up for a future event.
This month the theme is "Stories of Love, Friendship,
and Betrayal," and since I have written about a million
songs on this subject since last spring, I jumped at the chance
to embarrass myself in front of actual people. My problem
is deciding which one to do. Which of my songs best represents
the event's theme? Do any of my readers actually listen to
the songs I post on my music
blog?
The show is on March 17 (yes, St Patrick's Day)
at 7:30 PM and costs $7. You can get tickets online.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, March
08, 2004 at 11:42:29 (EST) |
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They lend me a problem with the language
Something I always loved as a kid was poorly-translated instructions.
Toys
from overseas and chopsticks
were the best bets for this, my earliest literary interest.
I bring this up now, as it crossed my mind while I was at Japunks
show last night at CBGB's, watching Peelander-Z as they shouted
in moderately coherent English.
Lemme back up first, I gotta mention Rocco's.
J was in town and to satisfy some weird celebrity pathology,
made reservations at Rocco's, which is the restaurant that
was the subject of the reality show "The
Restaurant." I never saw the actual show, but apparently
it was very cathartic for anybody who ever worked in the industry.
My restaurant experience ended some 10 years ago, when I was
a dishwasher at Denny's, so I guess I didn't feel drawn to
watching people live out service industry archetypes. The
restaurant is pretty big by my standards, though J was quick
to point out that on TV they made it look like it was twice
as big (also on TV the restaurant was always crowded; last
night it was mostly empty). I had read dubious reviews of
the food, so I stuck to the basics, spaghetti and meatballs,
the latter made by Mamma
herself, who we spied slugging drinks at the end of the bar.
The food was pretty good and they forgot to charge me for
the enormous whiskey they served me, so they receive high
marks from me. Honestly, I don't know how else Italian restaurants
in this town make themselves known without signing
up for a TV show. There are so many Italian joints around
they tend to cancel themselves out in my mind. Does anybody
know the statistics about the numbers of Italian restaurants
in the city? My guess is something in the neighborhood of
40%. If you count pizza places as well, the number jumps even
higher.
Back to the show. After our touristy dinner, we went to another
tourist spot: CBGB's.
We debated which was more touristy (Rocco's is known only
because of TV, but CBGB's has been drawing people for decades),
but concluded that the fact we shelled out $10 apiece to see
one band meant this was no longer tourism, but sheer dedication
to Rock. There should be some kind of law that gets you a
discount to the cover price when you show up at the tail end
of a long show. It's not fair! The Japunks
show is semi-annual line-up of punk bands from Japan and NYC.
We got there in time to see Peelander-Z,
who are described as "action comic punk rock." Their
press goes on to say "You would realize what it means
only when you finally get to one of their shows." Also,
"As they toured the U.S. a couple of times, they were
exposed and applauded in almost every major city in the country."
Now, is the poor use of English purposeful, reminding us
of the unintentional humor of industrial translations?
Or is the author experiencing the same trouble with the language?
I don't know, nor do I know how much of this theme was at
work during their set. But they knew how to translate "We
Rock."
I wish I had been more energetic for their set, cuz it looked
like fun. There were many costumes, much jumping around and
hanging from the rafters, handy cue cards for the audience,
plus the replacement of the entire band during a song. They
were playing a song and one by one they got members of the
audience to take over their instruments, apparently regardless
of musical ability (well, the guy who played drums was good).
Then the band members ran around the room, acting out some
kind of WWF scenario (they were wearing Mexican wrestling
masks, but I finally figured out what was going on when the
drummer produced a folding chair and waved it menacingly).
It was around this point when the line between funny and
stupid was crossed for J, as the lead singer (now wearing
a helmet) slammed into her, knocking her Rolling Rock to the
ground. Some may argue they did her a favor, but the bartender
gave her another anyway.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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So
Spalding Gray's body was finally