Been going back over my Jandek catalog lately and have settled on three albums that are really standing out to me right now. All from his late 80's period. This stuff is killer, makes me feel raw and clean. Check out the samples, then find the albums... i'm still trying to find Blue Corpse.

On My Way
Message to the Clerk (mp3)

The Living End
Janitor's Dead (mp3)

You Walk Alone
Quinn Boys II (mp3)

-------------------
Great Jandek Resource here.

A Star is Born

This week's Herb and Rose comic features yours truly; gotta say... I look goooood. I think their next episode should be completely illustrated by me as well, I draw a mean stick figure. This reminds me, keep your eyes open for Highgate's sister blog dedicated to a little comic project Eva and I have been working on entitled "How to Wear Your Tits"; which also reminds me, I got stopped on the street the other day by some random guy, he said he saw me on the TV, doing Ice Ballet... then he undressed me with his eyes, I felt dirty. It was exhilarating...

Fame it seems, is a double edged sword.herb and rose appears in Sevendays
under the I Spy section

My New Favorite Fetish

introducing

MIMIKAKI!
move over bukkake... There's a new kid in town!

All my life I thought I was strange... All I wanted was a nice girl, one that would jam her pinky as far into my ear canal as humanly possible, and while it was in there, dig out all that yummy waxy build-up. But alas, growing up here in conservative New England has left me feeling alone in my desires, ostracized. In recent years I've begun to wonder... "Is it just me? Am I alone in this world, is there no one who wants to vigorously jam objects deep inside my ear canal? Until now...

Alas, the sun also rises.

Mimikaki info:
This is the preferred ear digging device, most Japanese people have dry scratchy ear wax, as opposed to most westerners who have wet sticky earwax. I too, have wet sticky earwax.





There are even Hello Kitty Ear Wax Digger-outers.




Wikipedia has a little info on Mimikaki
And for those of you who want to see Mimikaki in action... here's a video.

Geek's Journal #5

This week I'm taking a vacation from Blogging and generally doing much of anything. Spring time is just around the corner, thankfully. If I'm staying in, than I'll be playing computer games (pushes glasses up on nose). If I'm outdoors, than I'll be taking long evening walks, sucking up all the magic hour light I can.

... Excuse me? I'm sorry... What was that you said.... Tell you about the games? Well, "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion", and "The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth". Both, of which happen to be produced by Bethesda, but were developed by entirely different teams. I've been waiting for Oblivion to be released for just over three years, that's right... Three whole years; This game is a (this) geekboy's wet dream, endless replayability, completely open ended story, 3d card killing visuals, totally tweekable (I spend the other half of my time on the forums talking to Modders...) and just downright immersive...

click for high res

Then on the otherhand there's Call of Cthulhu, which runs on a very dated 3D engine (can anyone say Halflife 1?) and is steers like it's on rails; but makes up for it with a seriously fun and creepy storyline and some interesting game design, where as your character becomes more excited/nervous as he investigates, say the Arkham cemetery, the screen will start to shimmer, and fuzz, and subtle and unnerving sounds will pop and buzz from the speakers, something might pop up on the screen for a second and then disappear, leaving you wondering... Did I see that? Good times.Between these two games, I've got my hands full for a little while, at least till I get bored with them or start feeling to guilty about completely neglecting real life. That probably won't happen for a while though...

Wikipedia to the rescue:
History of the Elderscrolls series
I: Arena
II: Daggerfall
III: Morrowind
IV: Oblivion

At the firehouse show, I mainly used and processed samples from a reading of Lovecraft's The Fungi from Yuggoth, I thought it was fitting since Greg was reading the cage text on shrooms. I'm sure most of you all are aware of Lovecraft's peculiar style of the Macabre, and if you happen to be a fan, I strongly suggest downloading this Mp3, popping it in your Ipod and giving it a long listen to while you take a walk around dusk some evening; it's the reading in it's entirety (a little over an hour) by a man named John Arthur, and accompanied by Mike Olsen, who does an admirable job adding eerie synth washes and drones to Arthur's weathered retelling. As far as I could find, there is no CD available of it, but was issued on Cassette tape in 1987. I especially enjoy the long pauses between the paragraphs where Olsen gets the spotlight, eerie stuff, and a lot of fun to take and manipulate. Enjoy!

MP3 Here (21 Mb)

Here I am again, at 3 in the morning, spilling for the sake of my own clarity. I haven't been spilling much here lately, and it's not because I haven't had anything to dish, more so, I'd say than in previous months. It's just that I like to have a healthy distance from whatever it is that I'm posting, (from most everything it seems...) a little clarity, a little objectivity even, at least, perceived objectivity. I've felt so thrown in, so buried lately that I haven't had the time or conscience to blog proper. This last month has been a heavy for me, leaving the band has left me tangled up in the significance; I don't think I've made my mind up yet as to whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I think in the end that answer is completely up to me and whether I let it become a bad thing or not. I would like to choose not.

Eva Asked me the other day "Do you ever feel like the world is out to get you?"

and I thought about it for a second and said;

"No, I think the world is completely indifferent to me, I think though, that I'm definitatly out to get me."

I remember a Buddhist friend that I have great respect for, told me once that it's very important to make yourself a safe place for yourself; and frankly this self, is looking like a crime scene lately.

All that aside; I am excited to work on new music, challenge myself in some new ways, I'm looking forward to getting Reason 3.0 and Ableton Live; there's a whole world of pure unfettered sonic texture out there waiting for my ears, and I can't wait to take all these grinded headteeth and all this fixed dissonance and shit it out violently, possibly cathartically.

Tonight Todd and I were waiting with all the Drunks at KKD, and this chick says "Tonight was the best day ever." Then this kid showed us his gunshot wound.

Playing with Nest Material has been some of the best times of my life so far; I've actually been able to experience a few transcendental moments, and coming from a musician of not-so-begrudged talent and ever present over-self awareness, that is a serious statement. But Whether or not I can convince myself of this, I'm sure there will be more beauty moments, and places where I'll get to disappear for a while in it.

In the meantime, I'm taking a vacation from obligation, and time off is sounding so nice right now. I've got a bunch of books i need to read (thanks brooke, Eva.), many neglected pasttimes, spring is coming and I want to clear out all this winter and shake out the chill. This is New England, and there are so many tombstones that arn't mine to recline against.

-----

Tonight @ The Firehouse

Nest Material and Greg Davis
Starts at 8:00 pm
3$ Suggested Donation

Come on down to the Firehouse Gallery at the bottom of Church, We're gonna be bringing the Sonic Pain, and Greg's gonna be texting on Cage's Mushrooms. This also is potentially my last show with the Nest, so I plan to make it a memorable one. C-ya all there!

Battle of the Ipods

Tonight at Pearls me and DJ Wake up Birds (ben H.) went all out in a head to head, back to back, patented spin wheel to patented spin wheel, Music Library to Music library, gigabite to gigabite, black gloss finish to white gloss finish, battle of the righteous music nerds; taking it all the way to the point where there was no one left in the bar, and the bartender told us to go home. it was around 12pm. What'd you miss? Have you ever heard, mmmm.... No Neck Blues Band, mixed with... Madonna's Hung Up? No? Well... you missed it. How about Caravan, backed up by Gary Numan... Your loss buddy.

Hell, We even go paid, i got five bucks and two gin and tonics, for free! So Thanks everyone for coming, you know who you are... and i can list them all right now.

Eva, Margot, Abbie, Angela, Michelle, Emily, Kyle, Chris, Molly and Todd.

Thanks guys. without you all there to support us in this challenging artist endeavor, we may not have made it through the night. Cheers.

Picture of the day:

What's this Baby thinking?

And speaking of old lady death. I've gotta stop reading this stuff after a certain hour, it's no good. Strictly Garfield Comics and Sitcom reruns after 2am.
or, maybe just sitcoms.

S is For Sunday, Y is for excruciating pain, and

Eva and I went and saw V is for Vendetta tonight, I wasn't expecting much honestly, I've only read pages out of the original comic and though I found it interesting, I really wasn't expecting it to translate well; not to mention that Natalie Portman has never really impressed me much, except in Beautiful Girls. I was very pleasantly surprised, the dialogue was snappy, the production was top notch, I didn't even mind that his mouth didn't move, infact I rather it like that; Most importantly I was very impressed that they didn't pull any punches in regards to the main theme, manipulation and oppression by a increasingly corrupt and fascist government vs. "the people"/anarchy/human nature, what have you.
Given the current events going on in our world I almost expected "V" to shy away from making any obvious references to Blair/bush etc, but instead it goes straight for the throat, making very blatant references to things like; color coded threat levels, curfews, the Reichstag fire (911 *cough*), racial profiling, suspension of civil liberties under the guise of protection, and so on.
Even more significant though, was that the protagonist of the story was, and is even more so in the Comic, an anarchist, a capital "A" Anarchist; I found this delightful and ballsy, he didn't want reform... He wanted to blow that shit up! Though of course; I wonder what effects this is going to have Anarchism's credibility... I'm always fearful when Hollywood co-opts an ideal or cultural phenomenon or lifestyle, it's castration; if ever you want to render something impotent; simply have brad pitt star in it, or play it on the 6 o'clock news.... Then suddenly it's mearly "entertainment."

"But look mommy, it's on the same pages and Jessica simpsons new titties, it can't be all that bad...."

Reichstag fire 1933 and Redux

One thing that I am sure of however; I am out of shape! Or at least very inflexible (my body that is; my mind... Is like a great cat.); today was my first official Yoga class with my personal Yoga instructor; the lovely and versatile Eva Sollberger. (the crowd goes wild.) She just recently started me on this new regiment that apparently includes Sleeping in on Sunday mornings till 1:30; laying in bed till 2:30 blogging and reading news, then getting up and eating a healthy meal including McKenzie maple smoked bacon, coffee, and her special recipe Mango blueberry pancakes! (ancient Chinese secret hu...) Then, after waiting for her to finish answering her fan mail, she got me fitted up with a spiffy "Yoga suit" that was remarkably similar to the PJ's of a 11 year old girl, and fit me about as well.
The rest of it I'm still unclear of; I think I may have blacked out during my 10th "Proud Warrior" or was that the "Hanging Dog"... I remember at one point, I think during the "Samhadi Surprise", huffing, puffing, and shaking like a smack head asking, "What is this!? I thought I said no advanced techniques!?" and Eva saying... "Well... Actually honey this is a relaxation pose."

But I stuck it out; my groin (muscle) is killing me right now, and tomorrow I may not get out of bed. But it felt great to move my body like that it was so invigorating, no joke! And, as a bonus I thought I felt like I was high for about two hours afterwards; technically I probably was, considering the toxins all that stretching probably released into my bloodstream. Sweet! I have to say that Eva is a superb instructor; she's very supportive and makes good small talk, plus I get to pay her in kisses, bonus!

And last but not least The Deadbeat club, now has an official Vlogsite, so check it out here, book mark it, read it, watch it; love it! you can even subscribe to it, cause i setup up the RSS feed!

Tonight at The Radio Bean
Nest Material is Bringing the Accoustic Army.
sometime between now and midnight.

Happy "do we really need a reason to get stupid drunk" day.

The Brick Testament / Gd + KfW OmFg!

Deuteronomy 25:11
'...and the wife of one man rescues her husband from his assailant by grabbing his testicles...'

Follow the above picturelink for more wisdom from the bible; Lego style.more lego action


Gd+KfW OmFg!

Tonight was a special treat; got to see Greg Davis and Keith Fullerton Whitman, doing that thing they do. Totally killer head melting tones from Keith, starting out in the low end; sliding into a wet pulse with stray frequencies; and finally growing into laping gauzy waves of brainfuzz. It cut out at the very end, leaving us with some totally righteous free tones; crumbling distorted completely wrecked, killer. Then Greg takes it into a totally nother direction; reading John Cage, reading Henry David Thoreau, Naked Lunch style - For the first hour of it i was digging on it; i went into Zen mode and just let the words wash over me like watching french Canadian television; just sounds, no meaning other than what i give them or they give me; occasionally my mind would slip and i'd hear "Bird" or "Italian walks into a town with an organ..." By the time he was done, i had to think for a minute what language i was supposed to speak. Luckily the voice in my head spoke English, it sounds alot like me as well.

Chinese Gold Farmers

When I was in Highschool, one of my best friends "B" got sucked into a game known as "Ultima Online". Most people didn't understand how he and others could spend hours upon hours at there computers running around in a virtual game world, repeating actions over and over again in the attempt to amass some kind of Virtual prestige; nights would be spent chopping at trees in order increase virtual strength, hours spent firing virtual arrows into virtual targets, to increase the archery skill. Clans formed and the requirements often meant that it's members would have to login at late or early hours to participate... It seemed almost cultish.
At the end of B's time with Ultima Online, he advertised his Account on Ebay, and suprisingly enough made a large sum of money for it. If I remember correctly, over 1000$, I was shocked... In the years since Ultima Online, many more competitors have come along, even more addicting and exciting, currently the MMPOG (massive multi-player Online Game) world is split between two camps, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars, Both hugely popular in the gaming world, there is even another one marketed towards a more adult crowd called Second life, where your real world money is transferred over and can buy virtual items, which can be traded and bought just as they can in the real world. Scary hu? Now check out this documentary, about Chinese "Gold Farmers", Basically, it's a business that revolves around playing these games round the clock, buffing up a character, and then turning around and selling the account for big bucks to fat rich Americans who don't have the time to actually play the game and get good themselves... I don't even know how I feel about this one. But I bet it's a way better job than working in some factory making all that other shit we buy.

Check out these articles related to World of Warcraft:
World of Warcraft community page
Gamasutra article on what WoW teaches us
C|net News: business Lessons of WoW

My Jade Tree has Tiny Little Flies in it

Ah Wednesday. My day off this week as i'm in the middle of a work schedual change - nothing do, (no where to go-oh...) A good day to chill and recover from this strange cold/flu/bad mood thing that i think i may have successfully fought off, the last few days i've been feeling like i got beat up, my body's been all sore and achy, which is probably what prompted me to think about my run in with Burlington's finest (more on that in a bit.) Todd and I chilled out, drank coffee and Orange juice respectively, and watched the DVD of the latest Deadbeat Club, which is one of my favorites so far.

Last night me and Todd were temporarily out of doors, as we had lent Sin*a*gog to an friend for personal use (don't ask.) Which came at a sort of bad time for me as all i wanted to do was go home, take a long shower, grab a book or a slice of blogo-sphere, and then later a movie and a Cuddle with Ms. E. As it turned out, i ended up first at the OP with Todd, we had a couple really tall cans of beer, and did our utility Bills, meanwhile an old girlfriend, "SL" (shudder.) came sidling over, and re-introduced herself, and when my disinterest in talking to her at all didn't get through she proceeded to continue telling me all about her new life in Chicago...

me: "But, than what are you doing back in Burlington?"

SL "uh..... did you see my arm...."

me: "Looks like you broke it."

SL: "Yeah... Kung Foo."

me: ".....What?"

SL: "It was a Kung Foo accident"

Awkward Pause.

me: "Ok. whatever."

SL: "Alright bye."

I think that made me drink more, then Todd went out to meet Frankie, and i went over to JB's for a while, but he was heading to bed so i ended up wandering around downtown, getting really drunk, running into Herb and some of his lady friends (i lose track of their names... he has so many...) and before i knew it it was 1am, and i felt like an ass cause i was supposed to meet Eva at like 9:30. Nuff said in that department... I confound my own sensibilities at every turn.

On the whole "Maced for no good reason front" I got a reply email from WCAX, here it is:

Greetings Tanner,
I do know exactly the footage you are referring to, and I have re-watched it, it shows a girl and a young man walking with hands in pockets towards the police approaching the bonfire. One officer tries to stop the young man and unfortunately that's when the camera turns off. Our photographer turns the camera back on again when he is a lot closer to the scene where the young man is now on the ground and the girl is telling everyone that he can't breath, and that he has been maced.

Our News director has agreed to sell you a copy of this video clip at our regular dub fees. Can you remember what you were wearing that night, so I can make sure your purchasing the correct video... OR you are more then welcome to come into the station and view the footage if you want. Just call me and make an appointment.

I have attached to this email our "Copy Request" form and our "Credit Card" form (if you choose to use it): below is listed some of the information you will need to fill them out. Once we receive the form back from you with shipping information and payment, your copy should reach you within 8-10 business days.

-----------------------------------
STORY TITLE: "red sox riot"
STORY DATE: 10-21-04
Description: field tape #573 / Time code: 12:37 to 15:08 / see Diane for tape.

----------------------- VHS Dub Fee: $30.00 each DVD Dub Fee: $40.00 each PLUS: (6% VT sales tax) unless tax exempt. PLUS: $4.00 for shipping ------- VHS Total: $35.80 DVD Total: $46.40
|||||||||||||

So as it turns out, they got it on film, but not the good stuff... Chris tells me that he's heard from other people that the Police confiscated alot of footage, probably under the excuse that they needed it for evidence, and of course, they havn't given it back yet. I also heard that a bunch of students filed some sort of suit, and were basically silenced with threats of expulsion and fines. For the record, the whole riot was retarded, i mean - the Sox won something or lost something, i dunno, and so you have a riot... that's stupid, riot about a livable wage, riot about genocide in Africa, riot about fucking the price of cigarettes, i don't care, hell, just riot for the fun of it, but please... not for baseball. On the other hand i could chalk it up to a much deeper undercurrent of civil unrest and frustration at the state of the world and specifically our nation... but that might be stretching it, either way if you wanna fuck some shit up, don't do it to a School... even if it is UVM.

46 bucks!? christ. That's alot of money to get footage of myself getting beat up. i'm sure there's someone out there that'll do it for free... And on the subject of Gestapo like acts of opression, Chris sent me a link to this Live Journal blog dedicated to Nazi-Popculture, he found it checking out the "40 most recent uploaded photos to Live Journal".

wook at da cudwee widdle knit Hitwer wid his teeny weeny little ding dong!click for more outrageous shit.

Injustice! can you believe it?

So about a Year and a half ago i got totally mauled by a bunch of cops acheing to trying out their fancy new riot gear (i think my taxes helped pay for that... oh the irony.) it's been a while since then, but i still think about it here and there. Recently, i've been thinking about it more and more; and finally today i wrote a letter to WCAX asking for the footage that i know they took of the whole incident since the next day every one of my relatives was calling me up all worried. (The best was my Dad... "What'd you get up to this time Pooper...")

Anyway, i'm completely inocent, i was just minding my own business, ask Sara-Paule. Here's the Email i sent to WCAX, hopefully i can get the tape and then go from there. I'll keep ya'll updated on what they say.

Hello,

My name is Tanner McCuin, I've been a resident of Burlington for around 5 years now. In the fall of 2004, as you might recall, there was a riot @ the UVM Campus having something to do with a Baseball championship, i hap pend to be on campus as the time visiting my girlfriend at Slade hall; at one point during the rally/riot, we decided we'd go out and see what all the hubbub was about since neither of us were sports fans. We walked around making sure to keep a healthy distance from what was obviously becoming something more than a gathering, and we noticed that there were police standing around nervously. We walked away from the main gathering and up over behind a building, where we noticed a bonfire going on, realizing that it was something possibly set on fire we decided that things were a little out of hand so we turned around promptly and headed back to the dorms, besides we had dinner in the oven. As we turned, a group of police officers in riot gear came over the little knoll, and seemed to be showing interest in this same fire, they weren't in any kind of formation and were spaced out rather casually, as they approached me and my girlfriend kept walking, my girlfriend and i parted momentarily to pass by the officers when all of a sudden two of them closed in from either side of me pushing me quite forcefully, my immediate reaction was to keep myself upright and i brought my hands up to steady myself and grabbed onto whatever i could, i was quickly knocked hard onto the ground, and before i knew what was happening someone had ahold of my face, prying open my eyes and another person was spraying copious amounts of Mace into my eyes and mouth.

The next five or six hours was a blur, at one point i couldn't breath due to my throat swelling up, other times i was curled up w/ pain and shaking while EMTs tryed to open my eyes to dump water in to flush them out. I didn't get my vision back properly for a few days, and missed work on top of that. When i contacted the chief of police and told him about the incident, he asked me politely what he could do about it, i said, ideally, two things 1. An Apology 2. compensation of some sort for pain endured and money lost. He responded with "Well, you're not getting either."

Long story short; i gave up on the whole thing. But this is where WCAX comes in, I understand that your camera crews were on duty that night and i remember hearing from different people who said that they had seen footage of me being assaulted on the channel 3 evening news. If this is in fact the case, is there anyway that i might be able to purchase or somehow obtain a copy of this event? If there is any other information you might need from me, or if you'd like me to come down to the station to fill out some paper work, just let me know. I'd really just like to see for myself what happened. Thanks for your time,

Sincerely,

Tanner McCuin

----------------------------

And let me also just say, that getting a full dose of Mace in my face mouth and eyes is a pain i hope i'll never have to experience again... the closest thing i can liken it to would be getting slapped in the face with a porcupine, a porcupine who's quills are tiny invisible barbs of redhot agony. Fuck Burlington Cops, right in their stupid asses...

----------------
Linkonceivable!

rrrrrrrar.

You're Brigitte Bardot!


What Classic Pin-Up Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nasty Material

Saturday night we played the Langdon Street Cafe in Monpelier, Todd and I having worked till later that night showed up just before we went on, and given that we decided as a band to just go ahead with some completely unplanned noise making, it was probably the best way we could have aproached it. For me at least, i thought it worked out the best; Getting out of work, driving home, loading up the truck real quick, stopping for a few minutes to go next door and tell the fourteen year old mother of three that one of her brats, not more than 3 year old, had opened up a window, kicked out the screen and was currently dangling out of it like mogley in a diaper, yelling little kiddy insults at me "Go away! HEY! hahaahaha Weeeeeee, Poop Poop on you! aaaaaahahaha...."Getting the truck loaded, and then Todd getting himself loaded all the way down to montpelier, rocking out to Guns n' Roses and the Boredoms, then getting there, loading in, pounding some Rare Eagle in the truck, quick setup and then bwamo. Magic time.

This time around we tried out a few new things, JB did a great job allowing for more space in his drumming, and for the better part of the first half, everyone was taking their time, and space - letting things come around at a more relaxed pace; Instead of playing the keys I started on the Bass, something i hadn't played in a few years - it was quite nice actually, and i felt right at home laying down a plodding accending/decending rhythm, doom and gloom being my two sign posts, i had the bass running through my Korg, and adding a bunch of reverb, slight distortion and oscilation which gave it a sort of Southwestern tremelo effect ala "once upon a time in the west" but on muscle relaxers, JB doing a great job keeping the sound both sparse and held together; Everyone else seemed to be on similar pages as well; playing loosly and with a certain restained venem. That number faded out, and another one took it's place almost instantly this one slightly more uptempo with Todd pondificating about what sounded like Gastronomical freedom, though i couldn't make it out, i don't think it really mattered much anyway, between him and ben they put on enough of a show for two nights, crawling aruond on the floor, throwing things, stomping, shaking, wearing tamborines like necklaces, and just generally making a lovely scene. And again, i was enjoying my Guitar parts, Drop D and alot of reverb, i was feeling it more than normal i think and i was enjoying myself for the first time in a while, pounding out some heavy rythms and randomly breaking in with random scree and discord.

After that number we all switched up a bit, JB took over Bass duties, and i took up the drums, in hind sight probably a bad idea, concidering that in my vast repitoire of instruments i don't know how to play for shit, the drums are probably in the top 3. That part of the show actually ended up sounding pretty cool to me alltogether, minus my extremely minimalist (that's what i'm calling it.) drumming 1/8 notes on hi-hat and kick, for 10 minutes straight, my right thigh was one giant knot, Todd did some nice psych-guitar, and everyone was following suit nicely as well. We end the night with the Pulse, which is probably my least favorite part of the evening, but it was a fitting way to end the night reguardless, a quick rocking bang. Then we headed home...

I won't get into to many details but lets just say that Todd can hold vomit in his mouth longer than anyone else i've ever known. It's amazing, his head was almost twice it's size, his cheeks ballooned out like a vomit filled puffer fish, and then he can spit it out of a moving vehicle with almost mathmatical precision right at the feet of a bunch of Bro-dudes, and in that very same breath, scream at them "Fuck you ya fucking baby Fuckers!"

Priceless.

It's a dirty dirty world....

Showered with Golden Sunshine

Chick: Today is such a good day; my class was cancelled, it's sunny, I'm so relaxed.
Guy: Yeah, and I fucked the shit out of you.
Chick: Yeah, I love you.

--7th & B

Overheard by: meme

Geek's Journal #3

The Last two days off have been exactly what I've been wanting; do nothing days with only slight interference from minor obligations. Gotta love em; and on top of that, they've been rainy days so staying indoors has been doubly enjoyable. Aside from going out for a Caramel Latte, a drive (w/ ipod on random.) and a cigarette or three, I also stopped into Algebar's the new(ish) Computer gaming spot on Church street; I've walked past the placard they have outside many times and I've always wonder what it would look like on the insides, all I could think of was dusty cubicles and beat up old pentiums under ugly bright fluorescent light, snotty geek-boys guzzling jolt cola and half of my time spent just figuring out how to logon to the damn things. Why does this sound so familiar...

(hey don't I work in a dusty basement, w/ fluorescent lights, and spent all day long guzzling caffeine and generally being a douche? ....naw)

So having a five spot in my pocket and time to kill I headed up; boy was I impressed, as I walked in through the door, sporting their slick logo, I was greeted by who I can only imagine was the owner, he spoke with what I thought was an Australian accent and when I asked he said "New Zealand" I quickly apologized and he laughed and informed me that he didn't believe in flag or boarders. (quick little fun fact: When a New Zealander says the word 6 it sounds like Sex. hahahaha.. ehem.) which was cool. The next one to greet me was his Golden retriever, I can't remember the pups name but he was super cute and was all about just hanging out and watching people play games, occasionally coming over for a nudge and a hand kiss. God I want a Dog... so bad....

The Room was spacious, clean and extremely professional looking; after a quick account setup which was simply giving my real name and a screen name I was free to go find myself a spot wherever; I could even take my latte with me; the desks were setup in pods, circular style, at the far end of the coolly lit room were two leather couches and a big screen TV; a man was relaxing and working on his laptop while watching some prime geek cinema, I could tell what it was but I swear I heard someone scream "Protect the Shire!" The Computers were amazing, Alienware setups, and though I couldn't tell what there configurations were do to very nicely implemented propriety software, after running Call of Duty 2 I figured they must all be super high end with very nice video cards. Everything I tried (and they have ALOT of games.) ran as good or way better than my PC. The Chairs were Comfy and the desk clean and the monitors large. I couldn't have asked for a better setup, I was in geek heaven.

Being in a room with other geeks, geeking out is a strange thing, I come from a background where I was for the most part the only computer geek I knew, growing up all my geeky activity ended up being a private affair, late nights after everyone was asleep surfing around on the new fangled interweb, staying after school to mess around in the new computer lab (that was purchased, believe it or not, by the Grateful Dead.) or Even getting my dad to let me and some friend rummage around in his hardware store afterhours, where we tried and succeeded in getting Quake_test (geeks will understand that one.) installed on the barely adequate network.

So sitting in this hip, friendly, geek environment was a little disorienting for a few minutes, I have to admit I felt a little uncomfortable gaming in front of complete strangers. It's like I was in my middle school gym class locker room all over again, and it's shower time...

Even though no one really spoke to anyone else, there was a sense of socialization, community perhaps, that was shared. I rather liked it. After a while I settled in, started playing "Battlefield 2", the current "it" game in the FPS genre, (i'm a COD fan myself.) and once when I got sniped last minute trying to capture someone's final checkpoint I let out a nice healthy "WTF!", a bit startled at myself I looked around to see if anyone noticed, all i recieved were either knowing smiles or total indifference, most of them were to busy with whatever they were doing, headphones on, lost in their fantasies. Smiling sheepishly i turned back to the action, Sweet i thought, I could get used to this.

Narthex Freakout

Here is Eva's Deadbeat segment from the Nest Material/Cush/friends late night freakout at the Narthex last weekend; enjoy!

Shoes hurt my feet today

The last week has been a long one. This month feels overly hectic, Nest material having four shows, the DJ set and now with a new work schedual. Last night i announced to the band my intentions of quiting after this months shows. That sucked. I'm not going into the details of why here cause the people that it would matter to already know, but i will say that it's been a long time coming, and that it has nothing to do with anyone other than myself, and changing interests musically. Not to mention my general disinterst in playing in live situations... i'm a studio boy all the way. But for all those Nest Material fans out there, fear not i'm sure the Nest will continue to rock on.

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It's hard out here for a... oscar performance?
or, Hammering in the last nail on the coffin.

Casey Ray, what have you been up to lately? (totally not worksafe.)

This movie, totally blows... thanks for nothing Herb.

Nick cave, has the coolest Hair ever.

TONIGHT!

Everyone tune to Channel 15 tonight at 9pm and catch the latest episode of the Deadbeats club!
This week's Episode is their two year aniversary and features include Episode #2 of The Offasty; Stollen Yogurt! and a super secret, late night @ the Narthex. stoned out jam session between members of Nest Material and The Cush, don't miss it!
Update: Emy Lou was there too.

On another note; my Digital Camera was stollen at the show Friday night; in fact, i don't even want to asume that; rather that it was found and then misplaced into someone elses bag for safe keeping. if someone out there happened to be at that show and found a Cannon digital camera in a blue camera pouch; let me know, i use it alot for blogging and just in general and i concider it one of my prized possessions; also on that list, my computer, my keyboard, my Ipod, my guitar and my truck stereo (also stollen recently.) I don't have much of a disposable income so i don't forsee getting a new one anytime soon; so my blog content may not be as "dynamic" for a while; infact i'm going to observe a week of no photos in blog posts starting tommorrow, in honor of my dear departed Cannon A520.

Also, check out the upcoming DJ sets at Pearls; Electrodynamic Underground. Everyone should be there for these tuesday nights; it's gonna be killer. Ben and I are going to be going head to head on the 21st, raining down the psychedelic pain w/ fists of lightning quick Krauty precision but before that, Brodie's starting it up this tuesday (7th) with a lush space pop/lounge set and Greg Davis will aparently be bringing the Rock (Steady) the week after (14th). It's gonna be a gooood time.

Nest Material @ the Narthex!

Click the Flyer for directions from downtown.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy

By Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Ultra-Condensed by David J. Parker

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The Illuminati are a secret society that (DRUGS SEX DRUGS) control everything in the world (SEX DRUGS SEX) including all governments, financial institutions, and (DRUGS SEX DRUGS) intelligence agencies. No, they're not. Well, yes they are but not really. (SEX DRUGS SEX) They originated in Bavaria in 1776 (DRUGS SEX DRUGS). No, actually they go all the way back to Atlantis. No, (SEX DRUGS SEX) Atlantis never really existed. Yes it did. It's not just one society (DRUGS SEX DRUGS), it's a whole bunch of them (SEX DRUGS SEX) together. No, it's just one, and they go all the way back to Atlantis, which never (DRUGS SEX DRUGS) existed, oh yes it did. They've had an uninterrupted existe nce since 30,000 years ago (SEX DRUGS SEX) -- no they actually only go back as far as the 1800s (DRUGS SEX DRUGS). Fnord.

THE END

Boosh!

My lovely Co-worker and Arch-Enemy Herb Van Der Poll invited me over to his home after work this evening for some "British Comedy" and a little "Horn Swaggling." Intriqued, i agreed - even though i knew i'd have to sit through hours of mindless poms slanging on about the washing up and "bummers". Wasn't i suprised however, when he put on a BBC series (Region 2 only, sorry girls.) Called "The Mighty Boosh", I had never heard of it; and i always figured, if it ain't Everybody loves raymond, than it must be proper shite.

I was BLOWN away. Seriously, i can't even begin to describe the style of humor, other than this: If Wes Anderson was British, and 14 years old; tripping on some bad acid that Jim Henson mixed up for him, there's no way he'd be able to come up with something, nearly as self aware and self referentially absurd as this series.

you follow? no... well, here are some clips of some of the musical numbers they break into at a moments notice; as well as the first episode in it's entirety; if you have more than 20 minutes i seriously recommend viewing these; it's some of the most original comedy i've seen since, well Peep Show. The Horn Swaggling was nice too.