ODE: THANK YOU FOR NOT KILLING SOMEONE TODAY (YES, YOU)
I keep thinking about how incredibly beautiful you all are, waiting for something meaningful to happen while you stare at your screens. I wonder if you're thinking about the same thing, or even something similar, like how elegant the last person you saw before you sat down at your terminal was, or how lovely some piece of music you heard this morning felt, or how good that person on the bus smelled when their pits swished past your face.

I believe in how great things are with you. Or at least, I believe in how you'd say so. How are things? Oh, fine, great, never better, pretty good, not bad, can't complain, even if you could, really, why? I'm not the politest guy anymore, especially since I moved here I've lost a bit of that veneer of niceynice that kind of irked me about some Torontonians, myself definitely included, at least now I get and give straight answers a bit more often these days and it works out better, or at least more clearly.

But that said, It's the middle of a relentlessly hot stinky summer in a relentlessly hot stinky town, and people here are making do, trying to accommodate the other eight million swelterers as much as they can, and as I watch people snarl through their days, taking deep breaths of either seriously conditioned stale processed corporate environment fumes or blow-dryer hot rotting outdoor stench, counting backwards from a hundred, hoping their rage level goes down before they kill the person beside them because they just feel the need to kill someone and hey this idiot'll do, I find myself admiring the restraint of most people here. I'm still not used to this environment, and the people who are, no matter how otherwise addled they may be, sometimes just awe me.

WHO SAYS LUTHERANS CAN'T HAVE FUN?
Hey everybody, lookit what Kelly Sue useta do in Bible Camp!

The nerve!

I have many stories about Kelly Sue back from when she lived in town. (Unfortunately, most of them are clean.) But the main reason I'm posting this link is that I'm thrilled, proud and a little in awe of what she's been able to do with her writing. I have met no shortage of really good writers since I moved here from Toronto, and she's one of the best. She's fearless and eloquent, and to say I'm happy her stuff is finding an audience understates things by half.

That's my keep-writing pep talk for today. Seems I've been needing them a lot lately.

USE ONCE AND DESTROY
I glanced at this on the weekend, and only now went through it with a scratch pad: 100 Albums You Should Remove from your Collection Immediately.

Can't tell if I should own up to this or not, but -- I have 21 of these albums. Twenty-one. Which might reveal me for the trend-sucking dilettante I surely am, and it's true I haven't pulled out most of those in a long-ass time. Really, though. Trout Mask Replica? Tim? Come on. Paul's Boutique, fergawdsake? I swear, I listen to Zen Arcade at least once a week, like some people drop acid, y'know, for medicinal purposes. No way I'd lose this.

If I had access to all albums by all people, maybe I'd forego some of these a bit quicker. But I'm not going to go slogging through every Built To Spill tribute act and collection of Chemical Brothers remixes in the remote hope that there's something I haven't dug up yet that might be worth shelling out for. Please, though, recommend something if you got something in mind. I sure will.

And hey, if anyone wants some of my unused albums, let me know and we'll work something out.

STEVE EARLE'S BLUES
So I'm reading the New York Post and the Daily News (no, I don't read the Sun, but neither does anyone else) yesterday, and apparently Steve Earle's coming out with a new record soon. This is great news. He's been a songwriting hero of mine ever since forever ago, and he's one of the very few people about whom I can honestly say his new stuff is even better than his old stuff. (Train A Comin' might be the best antifolk record ever to come out of Memphis, and I Feel Alright, El Corazon and Transcendental Blues are as soulful and well-written a triptych of righteous and human American music as you'll find anywhere.) So I'm thrilled that the Daily Outrages saw fit to mention his new release.

Anyway, on this new album, Jerusalem, there's a song about everyone's favorite traitor, John Walker Lindh, which is causing some kind of to-do among people who, really, should know better. The lyrics, along with some really rich quotes from some irony-challenged DJ, are here. My current personal favorite:

[Earle is] "pushing the edge of the envelope to attract attention, but it's the wrong subject at the wrong time. He's been going nowhere fast for a long time, and while this may draw fleeting attention, it won't save his faltering career."

I can't frankly see a better time. If we're supposed to be a nation of understanding people who have fought repeated wars over centuries to allow the freedom of expression of sometimes unpopular ideas, then "John Walker's Blues" should be celebrated. By sticking our fingers in our ears and ignoring the allure of the rebel mentality (which is inseparable, might I just hammer home, from the tradition of country music itself), then instead of one lost & misunderstood kid out of how many flying off to join the alleged Other Side, next time there'll be tons more, and no song is going to help any of us then.

That DJ wants all of us to vote with their wallets. Well alright, then. I'm gonna buy a half dozen copies of Jerusalem and give 'em to all my friends. I can't think of a more patriotic thing to do.

Also, faltering career, my ass. The day Steve Earle needs some dicknose corporate stuffed shirt DJ in Nashville to tell him when his record's doing well is the day I start listening to nothing but Pet Shop Boys and Spacehog. Steve Earle's place in history is already assured, and no threat of a boycott is going to faze him. He's seen way worse than this little shitstorm, and he'll tell you all about it if you'll only listen.

A SCOOP
Antifolk Online bills itself as a fansite, but it's clearly a bit more than that. Brad Willis is a cat from the Carolinas who happens to dig acoustic songwriters, and has trained his eye (and ability to organize and keep up a website) on those who could shurely use some love.

I mention this not because there's an interview with me that went up there over the weekend. Nor even (even!) that it's the first place to see a sample chapter from the book I have been writing. (I'm not convinced that this chapter is going to make the final draft, but it's a lovely argument about Katrina and the Waves and acid.

Um, all the usual first-draft disclaimers apply, but I would love to know what you think.)

No, I mention the site now because it's clearly a work of love done by someone who knows what they like, and if you're complaining that there's no good music anymore, then this is yet one more place I can tell you to go as irrefutable proof to the contrary.

(The fact that Toby Goodshank of the Moldy Peaches also happened to use my name in a mad-lib on the site has nothing to do with all the other stuff. But this week, my star is actually on the rise a little bit. Nice.)

PS - There's a direct link to a page about me on the site too.

SUMMIT
Notes on the Blog Meetup thingy at the singles coffee bar Drip tonight:

1. I got there late (of course; work would have made me late anyway, but I went home to change into my last Evil Twin Theory t-shirt from when it was the name of my band; this turned out to be a mistake as I got to the place looking all dishevelled and billboardy, while everyone else looked comparatively human and shevelled), and there were, let me think, maybe ten people, easily recognizable by the fact that everyone else in the place was on a date. Two by two, everywhere, all buffed and polished in a style I can't help but think of as "Uptown Desperate," but maybe I was just jealous. Apparently I just missed a ribald and rather kinky conversation about everyone's sexual habits. Well, we-all can share later.

2. Conversations ranged from livejournal-bashing to hiding workplace politics in a public forum, from Italian, British and Canadian culture to discussing how wrong it is for a mother to take her daughter to this pickup joint and look through the singles catalogs, pointing out likely candidates. (The consensus: what is this, 18th Century India or something? Still, if she's accepting the help, then maybe she feels she needs it, which means she does.)

3. The door to the washroom, whenever it opened, made a sound like a woman screaming. I had to remind myself what it was every time.

4. Though everyone, it seemed, brought cameras, very few photos were taken. After a few drinks and an order of smores, the lights kept getting lower and lower, and by 11:30 or so we all had exchanged airkisses and dispersed. I had had a few beers tonight, but I felt more sober and awake when I left that joint than I had all day, maybe all week.

5. I swear, the above had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that on the way home I landed in a pothole and wiped out in the middle of the street. It wasn't till I got about a block away that I figured I'd go through my bag and make sure everything was still there, at which point I realized I had to go back and get my wallet, which was sitting, patiently, right in the middle of the street. I have a couple of nifty bruises. I feel like a dork.

Nightie nite.

FULL DISCLOSURE
Now might be a good time to correct a message I might be sending to all the little kids who are watching this space and taking their cues on how life among the normal folks is supposed to be. Let me say, my day gig is not all bears, naked guys jumping over nets and mambo on Mondays. I mean, sure, it is those things, but that's not all. I do have to dress up and deal with all the normal tyrannical crap any drone working for a major multinational corporation has to deal with.

But there is the view, which is lovely. And I have never really gotten around to telling you about the monkey wall.

Yes, we have a wall of monkeys too.

I don't know if you remember or care about this, but a few months ago there were a few stories in the news about monkeys behaving badly. A gang of monkeys in Japan were terrorizing farmers and tourists, breaking into moving cars and stealing food. A monkey ran for mayor of Hartlepool, England, and won. Another horde of monkeys in India rampaged through a library, destroying books and causing havoc. In Rio de Janeiro, city officials were offended at a Simpsons episode depicting their city as being overrun by monkeys. Chimpanzees were implicated in thefts and ill-doings from Texas to Ohio to London. In Nigeria, a group of chimpanzees kidnapped a toddler and raised him as their own for over a year until they were discovered. A study was published showing that monkeys act a lot like people when under the influence of alcohol. The Anaheim Angels credit their spectacular success the first half of the season to Rally Monkey, their hyperactive simian mascot.

There are lots more. I could go on. I probably will. But there were enough stories this Spring about primates acting out in various places that as an office, we decided to start clipping them and starting a monkey wall. Kind of a blog, except minus the whole internet thing.

Anyway, the stories have continued (it's amazing how many there are - maybe now I'm just noticing them), but now other things are starting to find their way on there. Many excellent postcards, a photo of Chet Baker with a chimp, some frames from comics, a couple of New Yorker cartoons, a label from Monkey Brand Black Tooth Powder. It started out on the front of a filing cabinet, and is in danger of spilling over onto the windows in one corner and rendering the cabinet itself unpassable.

And as it has grown, the scope of what belongs on it has grown too. What started out as a chronicle of poorly-behaved primates has become a celebration of our simian cousins, and all the positive and negative ways they have found (often with little or no help from their human relatives) to express themselves in a world that sees them as little more than comic foils in Kurt Russell movies or visual puns of one kind or another.

I just wanted to share the fact that such a place exists, and I hope it's clear how proud I am that my humble office has become a haven for this kind of knowledge.

PATRON OF THE ARTS
Yes, there is in fact another addition to my office. Turns out Bob Kommel told so many people about his Brooklyn bears picture that his reputation is off the skids and he's back on the steady climb to the Penthouses on Easy Street, and I ain't complaining, because I'm now getting more traffic to this site than Yahoo and naughtyhousepets.com get to theirs combined. Hey, I'm generous, I ain't complaining. It's just money.

So now Bob got his first commission, to do a piece on the Wimbledon Streaker from last week, and I hereby proudly present his sublime and deceptively simple work to you, for a limited time. (See it all blowed up big.)

KISSING YOUR SISTER
So they called the Major League All Star Game after 11 innings, and everyone at the stadium freaked, and the sportscasters are all tut-tutting about it, and I really don't quite get it. Am I missing something? It was an exhibition. These people are paid substantial amounts of money to play for their real teams, not risk injury playing deep into extra innings to decide an exhibition game that does not matter, except to those players with appearance bonuses in their contracts.

Sure, it might have been handled better, and maybe the contingencies of the two managers running out of players might have been better thought out in advance, but there was 11 innings of apparently* riveting, spirited baseball. I'm a pretty competitive guy, but I'd be happy with how things played out tonight. But hey, if the pundits want to make a mountain out of this, fine. We all accept that blowing meaninglessnesses up into 128-point headline crisis is the real national sport. Booing Baseball Owners or watching Stock Cars crash or making fun of reality TV hosts or ignoring federal politics, these wonderful activities are all little more than sands through the hourglass. Massively meaningless molehill manipulation is what has made America the Great Nation it is today (or what passes for great these days), so I guess if it ain't this it'll just be something else. The Great Baseball Tie Fiasco it is, then.

*I admit it - I didn't actually watch the game. I was watching the WNBA and my new favorite team, the Seattle Storm, lose to the Houston Comets. (My only explanation? I didn't realize how much men at the college and NBA levels have outgrown the current size of the basketball court until I saw the women play a smoother, smarter game on the same court. Oh, okay, that and Lauren Jackson. But really. What's not to like about a 6'5" Australian who can consistently sink the three and would have no compunction about punching you in the face if you tried to stop her?) It's their last televised game of the year, so there'll be no World-Cup style TV addictions here. It's safe, really. Also, I justified this couch potato night by writing a difficult bridge and new ending this evening to a long-unfinished song about Elvis and Kraft dinner, and by god does it ever flow beautifully. Tomorrow I'll record it, and hopefully it'll still sound good. It will.

I am so protesting too much.

KOOKING KORNER
You know what I did in this apartment today for the first time since the end of March when I moved in?

That's right. Cooked. After an entire season of eating out, I have finally decided to take my oral needs indoors.

See, here's the deal. (I love that phrase, here's the deal. It usually precedes an annoying sales pitch or a poorly thought out lie. That being said, um, here's the deal.) It took this long for the landlord-appointed microwave to finally arrive (sheeit, I'da brought mine own in outta storage myself if I'da known - it's a good thing I didn't wait for a shower head, else I'd be funkier than a Nike ad by now), and so my kitchen became less of a food-preparation place and more of a drop-off point for mail, wallet-droppings and Mexican food menus on my way in and out the door to work or rehearsal or breakfast or dinner or whatever. So when the aforesaid microwave finally arrived, I decided to do what was way overdue: go out and buy some pots and plates and stuff, and go a little more domestic. (Also, anything to save some money - take out is cheaper than dirt in this town, but nothing but nothing beats home cooking).

So I trundled down to the Amish Market and bought some vegetables and a little pasta and made my staple, my specialty, and now the vaguest actual recipe you will ever find online: Pasta con Caca.

Pasta Con Caca

Ingredients:
- Any kind of macaroni (enough for at least two servings; you will be tupperwaring leftovers for later)
- Some vegetables (I like broccoli, red or green peppers, carrots, mushrooms and onions, but whatever floats your boat), cut to bite size
- One (1) can of soup (I prefer cream soups or chowders, but really, it's hard to go wrong with anything, even that crappy pig consomme that looks like it's been on the supermarket shelf since 1962. Probably.)
- Salt (If you're the type to salt your pasta water; otherwise never mind)

Directions:
In a big pot, boil some water (salt it if you wish). When the water is boiling, add pasta and any vegetables that might take a while to cook (onions and carrots would fit into this, as would oh, I don't know, turnips, but not eggplant, zucchini or mushrooms. Add those closer to the end of the boiling period.) Once pasta and attendant vegetables are finished, drain and open soup into empty pot. A little butter or oil is not a bad idea to throw in at this point, as are any spices you have handy and think might work. Add pasta back into pot and mix liberally. Serves as many as it serves. I recommend a Chardonnay, or if you're in a pissy mood, Dos Equis.

You can vary this in any way you like: beans & legumes work equally well (if you're using dried ones, throw 'em in the water to soak for a while before you turn on the heat), you can take out the soup and just add a little oil for something lighter, ohfergawdsake, let your imagination run wild!

So with all this culinary prowess just a-bubblin under like a metaphor for my everlasting love for all the peoples of the world, why oh why oh why have I not been snapped up by some forward-thinking chippy yet, eh? Eh? I ask you.

DREAM MAKER & BUILDER OF VIRTUAL WORDS OR SEXY MAN BEAST?

Let me add my (ego-boosting!) entry to the latest fad (I heard of it from Chuck, but I've seen Jim and Randy and lots of others with it by now, and really, I'm hopelessly late, but well, indulge me).

The Google game goes like so: you search for the phrase "Tony is" (including the quotes) except you put your name instead of mine. If you left mine in, you'd find the following out about me:

Tony is a lightweight XML parser and pretty printer.
Tony is the one for you, he can rock as well as swing!
Tony is much to humble to admit this but I can declare his playing to be at the mastery level.
Tony is a tough private eye for Wallen & Wallen
Tony is blind, autistic, and has Savant Syndrome.
TONY IS VOTED THE CLUB'S GREATEST PLAYER OF ALL TIME BY FANS!
Tony is Right for Your Bureau.
Tony is a keen recreational angler
Tony is a bit of a gadget freak regarding Camera's
tony is god.
Tony is sexy man beast.
Tony is still very active nowadays.
Tony is busy writing and producing at his studio in Mallorca, Spain.
Tony is fine& saw willie on lifetime.
Tony is my coach forever. ... Tony is even better than I was told he would be". Hattie Moore, Nurse: "Tony is the best!!!"
Tony is also a direct donor for two of his friends at the University of Maryland Hospital Center
Tony is the dream maker, the builder of virtual worlds.
Tony is definitely an eighties man.
Tony is an actor
Tony is Mr. Handball.
Tony is grrrreat!
Tony is stuck.
Tony is hard at work on the all-new Target Training 2000 infomercial
Tony is an honor roll student with a wonderful disposition
Tony is a member of the Humanities team.
Tony is widely recognized as an entertaining personality, and most importantly, the preeminent produce expert in the United States.

Understand that if the results were not so laudatory (and so very not me - I'm not a very good angler, between you and me and the lampshade), um, I'd take them more personally.

SEE, I HAVE A NEW TOY.
In an early show of midlife crisism (gawd, please, no), I took the plunge and bought myself a digital portastudio for my home. It's a cheap one (burglars take note), a little Korg jobbie, but that's fine because I have a lot to learn about recording, mixing and engineering, and this'll be my tester, my beater, my '78 Gremlin.

It came home on Saturday night, the cost of one night in the studio, all gleaming and new-oily-plastic smell. I bought this model because it's as close to idiotproof as I could find, and I've had it for about 30 hours now, and it's already paying dividends. See, I've finished my first song on it.

It's possibly the title track for the new record. (I needed a title, and hated not having one.) So the song (and maybe the LP) shall be called Earthquake Blues.

Although I'm not naturally predisposed toward anything using clouds or water or natural stuff like that as an overt metaphor for the human condition (it's so easy, so overdone - how many songs can you name that have "rain" in them, in 10 seconds, starting ... now), I like the title because it kind of applies, and it's not a blues song, which makes the word "blues" okay. Right?

Right?

When titles are wielded properly, they both describe the contents of the song (or movie or book or whatever) and make you want to check said art-thing out to find out what it's for.

Actually, you know what? Maybe you can help. If you have any ideas about a title that fills the above criteria and might describe an album of "love songs" that are really about coming to the States to seek one's fortune, let me know. I am an inveterate (and invertebrate, and even a little inebriate - it's bedtime, I think) control freak, but whatever glory I could possibly bestow would be yours somehow if you have a good idea.

But I can live with Earthquake Blues, at least for starters.