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Friday, September
03, 2004 at 13:36:56 (EDT) |
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Pretty close to the edge
Ah, what a good show last night at The Knitting Factory.
It was Oneida's long-awaited (by me and at least one other
person) return to New York, and for once they weren't the
headliners. This was a little weird as I'm so used to just
going home when Oneida finishes their set. But this night
they were opening for Trans Am, who have been around forever,
though this was my first time seeing them.
 The
first band, Good
Morning, had a lot of really interesting stuff going on
in their music, which was all instrumental. It's a benchmark
for me when seeing bands if I feel a spike of jealousy, in
that "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" way, and
I was feeling it with these guys. But halfway through the
set I realized that the band was actually more of a jazz fusion
outfit, and then images of Spyro
Gyra filled my head and I couldn't concentrate the rest
of the set. I found out later that guitarist Eric Emm (far
left in photo) was one of the many bass players in the original
Don Caballero!
 Then
Oneida
whipped us up into a frenzy (well, as much frenzy as I can
whip up anyway). They played at trying to resist speaking
about the hoo-haa going on over at MSG last night, but did
pull out a lovely version "Snow Machine" as commentary
on Bush's acceptance speech. Then Bobby went back to shouting,
"No child left behind! Yep, the kids are all comin' with
us!" It was interesting hear how some of their standard
tunes had changed since the tour, most notably my fave rave
"Up with People" which always seems to have something
new in it every time they play it. For god's sake, put it
out on a single already!
 Hey,
since when does the Knitting Factory put that screen down
in front of the stage between bands? I haven't been there
since my band played there (and we sure didn't get no screen
separation!), at any rate I've never seen them use it. Before
Trans
Am they were showing a Devo video, which was actually
a pretty good appetizer. I was prepared not to totally dig
Trans Am, as I feel more and more like I'm getting tired of
synths in rock bands these days (note: I say 'synths' and
not 'organs' or 'pianos' or 'harpsichords'). I know, it's
my problem, I'll deal with it. I just don't always understand
the need for them. But Trans Am used them very well, so I
couldn't complain.
They're such a strange band, much of their material is sort
of ironic commentary about certain genres, like 70s guitar
rock and such. But they play that stuff so well it's hard
to remember they're sort of making fun of it. These guys have
been around forever so it's no surprise that they perform
flawlessly with each other.  I
loved everything they played until they got to this one song
in the middle of the set. It was like a radio-friendly nu-grunge
song, beginning with a quiet guitar line that builds to this
mid-tempo chordy thing. It was instrumental, had there been
lyrics its intent might have been clearer to me. But for a
minute I suddenly thought I had been dropped into some K-Rock
cheesefest. It was harrowing. But now I'm starting to think
that song too is a kind of joke on that sort of watered-down
grungepop. . I'll say this for them, they know how to use
only a couple of chord changes to elicit the exact sound of
a prefab radio band, and for that I'm impressed. It makes
me feel better about "Home of the Buzzard," Motico's
instrumental tribute/parody to Cleveland, another song I'm
never sure if people take the right way. It's supposed to
be funny, people!
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
September 02, 2004 at 11:53:15 (EDT) |
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Misery loves company, that's why everybody
loves me
 Let's
take a cat break. So Toby's apparent brother keeps hanging out
in the next yard over. Recently he has taken on a protégé,
in the form of a small kitten. I've never seen this sort of
thing before, a male cat adopting (or at least tolerating) a
kitten (whose sex I can't determine) out in the wild, where
food comes at a premium. I can understand such cats bonding
inside a home where both want for nothing, but out on the street
I'd think it would be a different story.
Here you can see them napping together in a crate. I tried
to get their attention but that just sent the kitten running
to a nearby brick.
 These
pictures are kind of blurry as I had to shoot through the
screen window to get them. The cats are really skittish, bolting
at the sight of humans. Which is weird since Toby always came
right up to us, while his brother usually makes a break for
it (or keeps his distance).
The little kitten is painfully cute. I'm a little freaked
out by the fact that it highly resembles Pinky from last summer,
except this cat has blue eyes.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Thursday,
September 02, 2004 at 11:26:57 (EDT) |
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Fake contest
This article in the Times
is pretty depressing, saying that for all the hubbub with protesters
this week, little of the dissent has interrupted the momentum
of the convention. Worse, it discusses the "pre-emptive"
tactics police have been employing to stop demonstrations before
they become disruptive. It's a totally bogus way of dealing
with the protests, baldly kowtowing to the RNC while massively
inconveniencing citizens of this city. Governmental oversight
led to New York getting attacked; why are we still being punished?
Brian Lehrer is discussing how Cheney mocked Kerry in last
night's speech by making fun of his declaration of being more
"sensitive" in the War on Terror. People are calling
in with previous quotes from Cheney and Bush in which they
have said exactly the same thing, right down to liberal use
of the word "sensitive." But again, it obviously
doesn't matter what they actually say (I mean, Gov. Arnold
got huge applause for saying how much he was inspired by President
Nixon), the agenda is clear, keep the People quiet and
go right ahead with business as usual.
It's not just this week here in New York. The Bush administration
has been altering our entire culture over the past few years
to suit its needs. Have you noticed how people who take exception
to the status quo are met with such disdain in many parts
of the country? It's a major red flag to me that the lessons
we've learned since September 11th are "Be afraid, be
very afraid" and "Just live your life as
you normally would ... but if you could buy some more stuff
too, that'd help." No wonder Bush is as popular as he
is, he's giving Americans an excuse to do nothing differently
and yet somehow feel they're helping to protect us and improve
our global standing. That's fine for him, he doesn't want
average citizens questioning anything, he just needs us to
keep silent while he continues to cram corporation-pleasing
capitalism down everybody's throats.
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Wednesday,
September 01, 2004 at 11:28:24 (EDT) |
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Was that your celebrated summer?
Some days are just full of suck. So I drag Toby over to this
vet who participates in the low-cost neutering program only
to find that he's running a pretty high fever. Forget the fact
that he has absolutely no symptoms, that he's eating like a
horse, that he's almost totally healed up from his earlier injuries.
The vet noted that he had not been tested for all the big bad
cat diseases, nor had he been vaccinated for every one of them.
And he reminded me that diseases like Feline Leukemia can take
several weeks to show up on a test, so he could be harboring
any number of potentially fatal diseases. Great. And he's been
living in close proximity to all my other cats all this time.
Oh goody.
So they charged me for a visit and prescribed some other
kind of antibiotic to give him for a week. Then we'll try
again. But now I'm all paranoid he's gonna infect the other
cats with whatever's wrong with him, or maybe he already has.
Bollocks. I mean, it'll all probably turn out to be nothing,
but now my head is full of worst-case scenarios and whatnot.
Public Enemy #1?
Then, while waiting for another expensive car service to
take us home, I run into Dana
who is on her way to Central Booking to retrieve Michael,
one of hundreds of people who were dragged to jail yesterday.
Cops had a field day with A31 (which was probably their own
fault for publicizing it so much but whatever). Like many
people arrested in the past several days, Michael was
innocently and legally filming some of the demonstrations
when he found himself penned in by the police. With this brilliant
tactics, the cops can fence in hundreds of people and then
shout, "You're ALL under arrest!" So masked anarchists
throwing rocks at delegates are arrested along with some schmoe
who was just trying to cross the damn street. It's all just
so fucked up how the city is falling over itself to make the
RNC feel like it has the right to feel comfortable here. They
wanted to have this stupid circus here, they should be prepared
for the reaction it would provoke. That's another thing that
pisses me off about all this, the way the Republicans have
a way of foisting the burden of proof on those protesting.
Like it's the protesters who decided to make up all these
things to be mad about. Everybody's just getting more and
more polarized, nobody's coming together. The RNC rolls on,
with speech after stultifying speech, full of hypocritical
messages about "compassion" and "unity."
And how do they get away with it? If asked, they would just
say, "Be glad we're at least giving lip service to nice
ideas about freedom and patriotism. It really doesn't matter
what we say since we're running the show anyway."
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Tuesday, August
31, 2004 at 16:17:32 (EDT) |
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Cut off in his prime
This picture isn't the only thing to be cut off around here
...
Buzz and Sylvia are off to Cleveland, so I'm alone with several
hundred cats. But tomorrow the stray cat Toby will be taking
a little field trip down the street to have a very special
procedure performed. That's right, he'll soon be a gelding
like all the other felines around here. I hope this will mean
an end to the several unpleasant aspects of having an unaltered
male cat in the household. It smells kinda funny around here,
and Decatur has been AWOL for weeks due to the unwanted attentions
of a randy cat. So I'll be glad to put all that to rest. At
any rate, all of this is still easier than raising kittens.
And cheaper! If only I'd known about the Muffins'
Pet Connection Certificate Program last year. They sell
vouchers that are honored by a number of vets around the city
(but alas, not my overpriced local vet) for spaying and neutering.
For male, the cost is only $28, all inclusive. I don't even
wanna think how much I paid my regular vet to spay Pinky last
year. If you've got a cat that needs the Big Operation, I
highly suggest looking into this. In fact, it's so cheap I'm
thinking about just grabbing cats off the street and getting
them the operation, whether they need it or not!
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Tuesday, August
31, 2004 at 09:59:49 (EDT) |
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Others conquered love but I ran
From an article entitled, Republicans
Show Compassionate Side in New York:
Republicans hope to show voters a softer
side on the second day of their convention on Tuesday, with
first lady Laura Bush and movie star turned California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger taking center stage.
I can't wait to see Governor Schwarzenegger's softer side.
Perhaps he's a closet poet?
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Monday, August
30, 2004 at 11:16:01 (EDT) |
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Voting with their feet
The GOP
Protest March was a pretty good time, considering the occasion
and the oppressive heat. Still I guess I prefer that to the
last big protest I went to a couple years ago before the war
started, where it was freezing and the cops wouldn't let us
move at all. This was much better organized. I met up with Dana,
Michael
and Julie and proceeded to mosey a long course around the city.
I realize now that one of the reasons I like participating in
these things is the feeling one gets from being surrounded by
so many thousands of other people who all agree about a basic
premise: something's really wrong with the way the country is
being run, and we need things to change pronto. Despite the
possible divisiveness of the myriad groups present (most bizarre
example: a sign declaring, "Think you can be a meat-eating
environmentalist? THINK AGAIN!" Uh, what's the Bush connection
again?), overall people were all there to support this very
simple idea that things ain't right.
By the same token, while marching around with all these like-minded
individuals, it kept reminding me how unlikely this was to
Play in Peoria. Living in New York I often mistake our popular
attitudes for what the rest of the country thinks. Most of
the time there's quite a rift between our views and much of
the rest of the US. It's just too bad we can't find a better
way to make them understand. Because hey, we're right after
all.
During the march I ran into Sam,
who I almost didn't recognize without the Korean BBQ cart
I have come to associate with him. After the march I found
Kristy in Union Square Park, dazed from all the sun exposure,
so we went to a subterranean bar to regain our bearings with
some apolitical beer.
That's a big inflatable pig: "Piggy Piggy GOP"
Communists
for Kerry appear to have the support of Fidel Castro
There were a few suits at MSG, but who knows if they were
Republicans
Pro-Bush anti-protesters. Brilliant slogans like "Right
is Right, Left is Wrong," "Kerry Approves of Baby
Killing," "Islam supports John Kerry"
Billionaires
for Bush seemed to be having the most fun, they even had
a marching band
Posted By Jimmy Legs
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Archives
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Week of August 29 - September
4, 2004
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Hey
folks, the spelling bee story is up on the 