I'm not exactly batting a thousand here, am I?

I bought a stack of hilariously photographed Better Homes & Gardens Cookbooks at Room Service Vintage and have every intention of scanning and putting up here for all to enjoy. But let's see, I posted 5 times in July. Not even once in August, once in September and now it's October already. Month of Ashley's Wedding (see links to the left), my mom's birthday, and another Halloween where I'm afraid my grandiose scheme of dressing as a hot cop are quickly diminishing. At this rate I may have time to rustle up a "hot UPS guy" but it's not the same.

I have so many things to write about, too: There's this guy at the gym who wears half shirts and another who wears these hilarious headbands; the cookbooks (natch); the cat eating my iPhone headphones ($110 worth so far); and various and sundry random notes from our first Autumn in Austin. But alas, no time. I've been cranking on projects for work since I got back from SoCal and frankly, at the end of a long day of staring at my laptop, blogging isn't at the top of my agenda. I hear the weather is getting nice outside, but who can remember?

In fact, as I write this, my work inbox is filling up. Feh.

So until I can get to blogging in earnest again (not to mention the guest blog piece I want to write on the leather fetish shops of Los Angeles for the Cuddling on the Wild Side blog), you'll have to suffice with some videos. The new Ben Folds single was directed by Tim and Eric, who are geniuses. After that, as promised, it's video of me from February 2007 on stage so you can see how horribly fat I was. (Oh, and I made a new header for the site, but I don't know how it's going to look. Let's see.)



Here comes the chunk:


Oh, and here's a graphic I mashed up. If you're familiar with Spagett! then you get it. Although most likely you do not.

Okay, that's it. Back to work.

Until next time, Huzzah.

Tags: Ben Folds, Bad Design

And by Rated X, I mean "X" - as the Roman numeral 10.

10 years ago today, my life began to have meaning. It was 10 years ago, June 1st, that I went on my first date with Chris. We have been inseparable since, and I love him more with each passing day.

Even though 10 years is a gigantic milestone, we agreed for various reasons not to buy gifts. (Although, somehow, between the two of us, we managed to get a Wii and a copy of Super Mario Galaxy, but that was allegedly not anniversary-related so it doesn't count.

No matter, because I didn't buy my gift, I made it. And this gift is more valuable than anything I could've bought (certainly more than I could've afforded thanks to the Jeep cracking a cylinder). It features me doing something I H-A-T-E to do publicly... sing. I despise my singing voice for reasons that will be evident below. But I've wanted to do a rendition of this song for a while because it conveys how I feel, and I know that it connects to both of us. So, take it away, me:



There you have it.

I don't let my personal life blur onto the blog too often, because I'd rather eschew the naval-gazing for quality content. However, if it weren't for Chris, I wouldn't have a reason to blog, or do much else for that matter.

So enjoy this Halley's Comet of heartfelt sincerity among my inky-black space of snark.

And Chris, I love you.

-M

Tags: Sappy, Guitar, Ben Folds, Whimsical Gestures of a Hopeless Romantic

Is it possible that Rilo Kiley is the smartest band on the planet, or have they done something so insanely stupid that it could be mistaken for genius? And is “lite rock” the new “indie rock”?

I got a copy of Under the Black Light with my expectations set about where they’ve been since I first heard Rilo. Jenny’s pretty voice over some listen-able alt-rock melodies. With the exception of a handful of tracks I was never moved one way or the other by the Rilo phenomenon. One thing was certain, they had carved a nice little niche with their audience and didn’t effect anything resembling a difference.

From left to right: The Pretty One, The Plain One, The Twee Elfin One, and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan

Which is why Under the Black Light has thrown me for such a loop. It’s wildly overproduced with disco flourishes and moments of earnest 80’s adult pop sounds. Upon the first listening I thought it was some kind of avant-garde “fuck you” to their fan base, but perhaps what’s actually happening is Rilo Kiley’s bid to shift the alt-rock paradigm. Maybe, just maybe, they’re trying to change the flavor rather than placate the popular taste. It’s a bold move to be sure. Let’s face it, major-label indie rock is a horse with three broken legs. It either emerges soft and underdone (in the bad way, like a preemie, not the good way, like soft chocolate chip cookies), or wonky and inaccessible.

I can see how Spin magazine asked “Is Rilo kiley the new Fleetwood Mac?” I initially scoffed at the seemingly superficial comparison, seeing as how they’re a band rife with sexual tension and bubbling hurt feelings, but now I think I know what they really meant. The new album isn’t merely a nod to Mirage-era Mac with the Buckingham-esque layered vocals (Dreamworld), pad keys and lilting mowtown fades, instead it’s practically a cover-album of Mac B-sides that were never written.

Rife with 80’s breezy soft-rock riffs and runs, Under the Black Light pairs like a tawny port to pot roast with the Christine McVie solo album tracks I recently downloaded. Don’t believe me? Log on to iTMS and sample the tracks yourself.

The stand-out track for me is Smoke Detector, which flirts with a pretty insane concept of an indie rock song spawning it’s own dance. Something OTHER than just shoegazing. It’s easy to picture a precisely choreographed video to go along with the song where a whole dance floor of adorable Jenny Lewis clones wildly wave and blink “doing the Smoke Detector.” (Take THAT, Feist!)

If you love Rilo, then you’ll have to measure your response to the album and possibly refer to this chart gauging Jenny’s rising skirt hemlines to the de-listenability of the band. If you were numb to Rilo up until this point, but have a welcoming ear for the Buckingham-Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac oeuvre, then this may just be your time to jump.

The whole "mash-up" thing is totally three years ago in hipster time, so that means it's hitting its stride with mainstream middle 'merica. A good way to tell? When Madison Avenue tries to reach you with some viral video advertising. Usually mash-ups, do not improve any of the songs involved. Once in a great while, however, both songs benefit. As seen in the following clip. Britney's pedestrian dance tune mixed with Kelly's funny but weak on the production end battle cry for the teenage shoe-shopping youth. Check it:



Other times a crappy song can be made better thanks to a mash-up. Take for example the classic funk of the Tom Tom Club elevating the danceable shitstorm that is Fergie's London Bridge. I think it'd look a little something like this:



Once in a while someone will come up with a clever title for a mash-up and start from there. 9.5 times out of 10 this renders total crap. But sometimes if the stars align just right you can get something that's passably listenable, even if it's comprised from two real "vagina-festivals" of pop songs. Case in point, Every Car You Chase by The Police vs. Snow Patrol:



And sometimes mash-ups are a foregone conclusion, particularly when all the tunes involved are the same fucking song. Why Toni Basil isn't suing I have no idea.



And yes, sometimes you can mash up video as well, although the results are only going to be about as funny as this:



And if you don't watch the Office AND Lost, it probably wasn't funny at all. If you're like me and those are your two favorite shows on broadcast TV then... well, it still isn't really funny at all.

Okay... so ends the lesson for today.

Huzzah, kiddies.

Oh Britney... oh oh oh Britney.

(LOLBrit by me. Please don't hotlink and suck up all my bandwidth)

For those of you that aren't my myspace friend, or you just don't read the bulletins, one has been going around the last couple days about how the Ranch Bowl, an icon on 72nd street since the first time mullets were cool (and arguably mullets were always in style at the 'bowl) is being finally demolished to make way for the Wal Mart Supercenter that should further fuck up the already dodgy traffic in that area.

This is sad on so many levels for so many reasons that I can't begin to list them. But the myspace bulletin asked people to recount their Ranch Bowl memories. Here was my entry:

Marv - I saw so many spectacular (and quite a few crappy) shows at the bowl, not to mention some heavy drinking and light bowling. Some highlight shows: Jonathan Richman, the Barenaked Ladies before they broke huge, Matthew Sweet (three times), Jellyfish, the Ogden Edsel reunion show, Timbuk 3 and above all an intimate evening of holiday music with Mojo Nixon. He was touring with the Toadliquors on the Horny Holidays world tour and it was the night of a huge ice storm in Omaha. Being an ardent fan I braved the sleet and ice and saw a genuine rock n' roll maniac have a full-scale rockabilly freak out with about 15 other people in attendance. It probably sucked for Mojo if he got a cut of the door, but it was a wonderful intimate performance for me and the rest of the audience that night. Ah... sweet, skanky Ranch Bowl, you will be missed. To commemorate it, I'm going to drop a cleveland steamer in the parking lot of the Wal Mart they're building in its place. Truly depressing.

Complete Lunatic: Mojo Nixon

And it's true. The Ranch Bowl was filthy and hot and crowded and loud, but I saw some of the defining bands of my generation there. And certainly some of the bands that helped me define myself with their music.

Here's the fucking Wal Mart that will be built.
I'll be able to tell future generations of rocking out in that parking lot when it was a bowling alley.

I'm not one to get all gooey and misty over stuff like this, but I will forever have a smoky, dirty, sticky void in my heart that will be in the shape of the Ranch Bowl.

Huzzah.