Dust off cobwebs.

The big news is that Rebecca came down from Baltimore for a playdate. As usual, a playdate with Jason included a trip to Polly’s Cafe for lunch and then a trip to DCCD to stock up on supplies — and when I say supplies, I mean rock n’ roll. We had old-skool day at the record store; I picked up the first Palace album, Black Flag’s Damaged, and Minor Threat The Complete Discography. Drag City has re-released the first Palace (Brothers) album under the title Days In The Wake which I guess was its working title or something. You know the one I’m talking about, with (Thou Without) Partner and Whither Thou Goest. It’s real good, and I think about Matthew Staton every time I listen to it.

Rebecca bought Ear-Bleeding Country: The Best of Dinosaur Jr. and the new Sonic Youth. That makes 3 people who have bought the new Sonic Youth on my recommendation. I am a tastemaker. Anyway, Rebecca and I spent the night listening to music, screaming Dinosaur Jr lyrics, drinking Maker’s Mark and looking at her wedding pictures. Part of me wanted to say, “Hey! I was there!”, but I learned along time ago that you don’t sass anyone who brings you whiskey. It’s just poor form.

You can file this next bit under: You Can’t Call It This One Thing if It Does This Other Thing.In the record store, this guy starts talking to me who was in town from Illinois for the International Poets Sympusium (sure, what the hell) with his friend. That’s one thing I love about living in DC — people come into town for shit like the International Poets Symposium. That kinda stuff doesn’t happen in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Anyway, this cat is standing there with this other guy (his friend I guess) and some alterna-hippie chick. Other Guy takes great pains to explain to me how they really didn’t know Alterna-hippie chick, but had picked her up in Wisconsin and she seemed pretty cool. Or something, to tell you the truth I really wasn’t listening — the store was almost bursting with the me not caring. That is why I don’t talk to people in record stores — I always end up talking to some scruffy nerfherder who wants to tell me about the anti-relationship he doesn’t have with some random girl he picked up hitchhiking on Route 19 in Ohio or some other stupidity. If you are in a record store with me, your job is to busy yourself with “shutting the hell up” while I go through the Used section. Unless of course you find a copy of Jawbreaker’s Dear You, in which case you are supposed to purchase it immediately and hand it over. This is all spelled out clearly in the handbook.

Anyway, I’m talking to Guy Number One about punk rock and we trade cards. So, I’m, checking out this guy’s website — precornerstone.tk for those of you who are interested — and it seems pretty cool. But at the same time it seems a little off. It felt kinda like how you feel when you are in a hotel in a strange city watching TV, and Jeopardy! comes on at 7:00 instead of 7:30. It was weird like that. Anyway, I was reading it (its all about these Illinois hardcore bands) and it finally hits me as I notice that he is quoting Bible verses.

This cat is totally about Christian Hardcore! You can’t have Christian Hardcore!. It’s a perfect example of You Can’t Call It This One Thing if It Does This Other Thing. It’s the exact opposite of Two Things At Once.

Let me explain. . no, it’s too much, let me summarize.

I’m not a big hardcore fan, but I understand it’s basic forms . . . you need blood and guts and crunchy guitars and New-Agey occult undertones and really nasty indecipherable lyrics. Christianity has none of that stuff, except for one guy getting nailed to a tree, but even that is supposed to have a happy ending. It’s so NOT hardcore! Christian Hardcore! It’s heresy. It’s worse than heresy, it’s blasphemy! It’s worse than blasphemy, it’s lying!

I’m winded.

As you should know by now, I am always on the look-out for coincidence, synergy, and Two Things At Once, but lately, even I have been suprised by how often one thing I’m thinking about intersects with some other thought-about thing.

To wit:

Michael sent me the book Commodify Your Dissent: Salvos From The Baffler. For the uninitiated, The Baffler is a leftist journal of literary and cultural criticism. The book is a collection of essays, rants and salvos whose topic, broadly defined, is how the Advertising Establishment has converged with, and in some cases, co-opted, the tenets of 1960s individualism and personal freedom — or more succinctly, how a species of “Nietzschean antinomianism has taken over the corporate mind”. The contributors take the usual potshots at the music industry (thank you Steve Albini), Microsoft, guerrilla marketing tactics, corporate street teams, and everyone’s personal favorite, Henry Rollins — who is the recognized posterboy for toothless castrated rebellion. It’s a pretty good read, if you’re interested in that sort of thing — which I am.

I took a break from reading about the commodification of dissent — something I’d been thinking about for awhile — and went downstairs to take part in a little revolutionary muckracking act I like to call “eating a tuna salad sandwich and watching Buffy”. Yes, I can do both things — no it’s not inconsistent. Buffy kills vampires and hangs out with lesbians and it’s no big deal.

In any case, I stumbled across ESPN/ABC sports coverage of the X-Games, which used to be called the e-Xtreme games, and before that was called skateboarding in your backyard. It came as no suprise to me that ESPN and ABC were covering the X games, when fifteen years ago you couldn’t see any of those sorts of sports on television, outside of the Bones Brigade’s magnum opus The Search For Animal Chin. After all, extreme sports are big business now, and the guys who used to get arrested for skateboarding are now held up as role models and are millionaires. Tony Hawk has not one — but three — video games named after him. Jesus Christ, I bet Lance Mountain is green with envy.

I see your Commodification of Dissent and I raise you a shiny Two Things At Once.

But the fates were not done with me yet, dear readers, not by a longshot.

During a commercial break — as if the X Games aren’t one big commercial break — who do I see hawking deodorant but Method Man and Redman from Wu-Tang Clan. Method Man and Redman hawking deodorant! Members of The Wu-Tang Clan rap collective — whose other members include Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Prince (The RZA) Rakeem, Raekwon, GhostFace Killah, Genius (GZA), U-God, Master Killa and Inspectah Deck — selling deoderant. Yeah, you guys are totally hardcore. . . hardcore like my Mom.

I see your plastic rap warriors and I raise you an-unprecedented Three Things At Once.

There must be something in the water.

I have landed firmly in the friend zone. Shit shit shit.

Yeah, So August 14th .. my birthday. I’m 26. Twenty-freaking six.

To celebrate, I went to the 9:30 Club to see Hey Mercedes, with Pierbald and Koufax. Ummm . . yeah.I don’t know which band was Piebald and which band was Koufax, but it really doesn’t matter, they were the same band — a generic emo band. It could have been The Get-up Kids and I wouldn’t have known the difference, therefore, I shall hence refer to them as Piefax.

It’s not that they were so bad, they weren’t. They were just so. . generic. It is as if they had read books about rocking out, seen other bands rock out, and decided they wanted to try this rocking out thing on for size. They could probably describe rocking out to a police sketch artist and rocking out would be immediately brought in and charged with a crime. . but they themselves could never quite get over the hump of playing guitar and nestle themselves in the valley of the rock. They played perfectly passable music, put on a good enough show — they did all the right things. Turned their guitars up to seven-and-a-half, jumped into the air at tbe appropriate moments, asked ohw the crowd was doing, pretended to wail on guitar solos. . the whole nine yards. . . I just wasn’t convinced that they were rocking out to the fullest extent of the law.

OK, this is it . .then I’ll shut up about Piefax. You know how Aerosmith used to really just play with total reckless abandon? Aerosmith wanted ot rock you until you fell over, they rocked themselves until they fell over, then everyone got up and rocked out more? But also there were bands like Extreme or Bad English, who you knew had been to Aerosmith shows, and wanted to do that thing but just couldn’t do it. Well, Piefax is just like Extreme. they have this air of studied cool, but are too worried about being hip to just let go and. . . lose it.

By the way, I really like using the phrase rock out.

Oh. Hey Mercedes played too. It was awesome as usual although the crowd was lame, like DC crowds always are. I just want to say, if you pay $12 to see a show, it’s ok to yell and scream and dance and go crazy. You don’t lose any cool points with your friends for smiling and enjoying yourself. My only advice to Hey Mercedes is. . . don’t play to the crowd. Don’t try ot pump us up. Just play your little midwest hearts out and if the crowd comes along. Remember what Gregg Ginn from Black Flag said, “you play with the same intensity to 10 people as you do to 1000 people”.

More on birthdays and rock and roll later. I gotta go to bed.

This just scans and scans for days and days.

I talked to Michael this week .. lots of news on that front. He is starting school at the end of the month. . going back to finish up his Psychology degree, which is just awesome. He and the little missus will be visiting Casa d. Hamrick (East Coast Version Mark II) sometime before then — flying in from the Big Bad Big City (West Coast Style) That promises to be a good deal of fun.

I told Michael about finding the Dark Globe flexi-disk, and he said “Yeah I know, I put it there to keep it safe.” He also told me that it belonged to Pam, which makes alot of sense. Some people would call that synchronicity, but I call it Two Things At Once.

Michael also told me that he enjoyed the Tattoo Story. He said that mom and dad had read some of this. . . drivel. . and were probably freaking out. Oh well. They were probably freaking out anyway, so at least now they have a well-defined set of things over which to freak. . . probably less worrisome than the fruits of their combined imaginations. It could be worse.

I spent yesterday at the National Gallery with Lara, exploring all the myriad ways of brush strokes, photographic emulsion, and bending metal to your will. Lara has studio experience — so she can talk about brush strokes and meaning — and I know enough Art History to talk about Which Dead Guy Did What. She talked alot about Roy, and I talked alot about Chuck, Mark, and Auguste ,and we both talked alot about why so many other people — the unwashed masses — had invaded our museum. The moral here is that when two unrepentant egomaniacs get together, It was a great day. Take that Nina Seribrennikov!

Last night I helped Caitlin (there you go) and Maya move into their new digs. There was an entire crew there, a virtual panoply of DC’s best and brightest. I told Maya and Caitlin about the day at the museums. Caitlin smirked and Maya flashed me a winning smile. I think the next time I see them I’ll request that they investigate sprezzatura.

After the heavy lifting, we all settled down and watched Vin Diesel’s star turn in Boiler Room. It turned into a weird night and I’ve spent most of the day today trying to figure it all out.

Yes. . there are parts I’m leaving out — and no they are not what you think. And no, I’m not going to tell you about them. . .hence the leaving out aspect of leaving stuff out. Jesus Christ. . it’s like working with chimps.

I spent today on the thinking, the writing, and the reading. Three months, four books and 3270 pages later, I have finished Tad Williams’ Otherland series. Gods Be Praised! now I can go read something that makes sense, like Advanced Particle Physics for the Devastating Clever.

I gotta go. . somewhere in syndication-land Buffy and Willow are gearing up to fight the Big Bad.

OK One last thing. . . remember what J says, “I’ve got no advice about anything, just fuck it up yourself”

OK. One last thing really. . now Polvo’s Fractured (Like Chandeliers) is playing. Good night Helen, where ever you are.

A ghettofabulous night with HT. It was movie night at Casa d. Hamrick, and tonight’s selection did not fail to disappoint. I was fortunate enough in my wanderings to pick up a copy of Are You Being Served?: The Movie — yes, the movie — an invited Holly over for a screening. Oh god, the endless humanity. . .

When I was a teenager, I went with my friend Pam Ashcraft to see Children of the Corn III. Yes, in the theater. Pam recoiled from the horror and watched the entire movie with her face buried in her knees. I felt like that tonight as I watched the once mighty Frank Thorton reduced to delivering toilet humor.

Here’s the plot in a nutshell — spoiler warning (sic). The Grace Brothers staff goes on vacation while the story being remodeled. Hi-jinks ensue, including a botched Spanish revolution and a “bedroom round-robin” in the greatest farce tradition. That’s it. That’s the movie.

There were two high points of note. The first was the appearance of Andres Sachs (’Manuel’ from Fawlty Towers) as the hotel concierge. The other was this line delivered by Mr. Grainger; “That’s what made the British great. . . stupid, but great”.

The rest of the movie rates two stars from even the most fervent AYBS fans. The humor was all low-brow toilet and sex humor, and not the clever, dry, sardonic humor usually on display from the British. . .and as it was basically a 90 minute episode of Are You Being Served?, the movie could have used a laugh track.

The final review from me and Holly. . . Mr. Grainger rocks, the movie is below average.

The other big news from the night. . I was filing away my Kids Incorporated soundtrack album — the original cast featuring Martika — and what did I find in the record sleeve but the R.E.M. Dark Globe 5 3/4 inch flexi-single from the January 1990 issue of Sassy Magazine when R.E.M. was on the Cute Band Alert.. Holy Unbelievable Crazy Luck! That’s like discovering nuclear fusion. . by accident. Of course, I spazzed out and blew my cool . .but Holly was a sport and let me freak out over it.Thank you and good night!
2

OK. Damn. I just picked up the new Jawbreaker album, Etc.. It’s a collection of outtakes, compilation singles, B-sides and whatnot from the eight years of the band’s existence. Basically, Blake had to pay off his loans, and JTB wasn’t doing it for him. I’ve had this song, Peel It the Fuck Down on repeat. I can’t believe it was an outtake from the Bivouac sessions.This song should have been on Bivouac, and PS, New York is Burning should have been an outtake. Whatever. I guess there is no second guessing the genius of Blake.

Lot’s of stuff happened last week. I bought a new turntable. Nicole moved out of her apartment, and apologized for being such a horrible hostess during my visit. So .. she’s forgiven. I talked to Jackie and Nita for the first time since January or so. I’ll tell the Jacki saga later.The short version. . . my first girlfriend is now a lesbian. You do the math. I wrote Robert Nanna from Hey Mercedes to find out the name of the hidden track on the Weekend EP. He actually wrote back. All Hail Robert Nanna. All Hail the Mighty Hey Mercedes. They are playing in DC on the 14th, and if you miss this show you’re a fool.

So, Mason has left the company, and we had a big send-off for him on Thursday. We painted the town red. The kids would have called it a humdinger, had the kids not been passed out in the bathtub. We all started out at world-famous Rock. in downtown DC. When I say world-famous, what I mean is. . . if you really want to get drunk in DC on horrible beer and watered-down liquor, but also require that the experience look. smell, and sound like a backwoods redneck dive bar, then the Rock is a better bet than say. . slurping down the contents of your average train station toilet. An evening at The Rock will make you want to cling to your sobriety in a way that your AA sponsor will be able to neither comprehend nor deny.

From the Rock, a few brave souls ventured to Lauriol Plaza for dinner and sangria. I honestly down know how we got from point A. to point B., but I seem to remember that it involved a stop at the office so Ivan could write obscene AIMs. He wanted the world to know that he was drunk.For the unintiated, going from The Rock to the Plaza is a rough transition to make. We went from bar napkin to white linens in 30 minutes flat. Truly amazing. The night ended with 80s Night at Club Heaven. It was actually pretty cool considering. . .well considering it was Club Heaven. Kathryn knew the doorman, so we got in for free.At the end of the night, I was chatting up this girl and gave her my card. She called me “easy”.

OK . . . I’m reading this blog entry. It’s really boring. So, I’m gonna leave you with something good. Sea Foam Green, from the new Jawbreaker.

A ‘63, 10,000 miles. What was I thinking? I drove myself insane. No small getaway. Asleep with both hands on the wheel. White knuckle weekend. Chewing ephedrine. Going to an unnamed end. Unending… We met in rain, you asked me in. Seemed like a good sign. Now I need a guillotine To get you off my mind. I brush my teeth until they break. Until I start bleeding. So when I smile I’ll know I’m almost good enough for you. And would you… Follow me to the end of the dare. Raise your eyes, return the stare. Become your words. Your words so becoming. On any Sunday I’ll be there. I tried to drink you off my mind. I just got wasted. It only made the pain that much more acute. But cute isn’t strong enough a word. Unintentionally gorgeous. An accidental charm. A graceful drinking arm. Disarming…