The folks over at 3QuarksDaily went back to an april Article on Bush's iPod contents so they could juxtapose it with the playlist of a Clinton CD coming out.    Their implications are obvious:

Songs found on Bush's iPod (according to the BBC):

John Fogerty: Centerfield

Van Morrison: Brown-Eyed Girl

Stevie Ray Vaughan: The House is Rockin'

The Knack: My Sharona

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings: Swinging from the Chains of Love

Songs from the new "Bill Clinton Collection: Songs from the Clinton Music Room," the first in a series of CDs (again from the BBC):

My One and Only Love - John Coltrane

Harlem Nocturne - David Sandborn

My Funny Valentine - Miles Davis

The Town I Loved So Well - Phil Coulter

Summertime - Zoot Sims

Chelsea Morning - Judy Collins

I know this is like comparing apples in oranges but still, the inference is unavoidable: Clinton is a poser.    

Bush uses his iPod while Mountain Biking,  a sport he picked up as an alternative to the knee-busting running he loves. One of the big contrasts between  him and Kerry was then Bush would ride his mountain bike balls-out and invariably end up doing  a faceplanting in the  texas scrub brush.  He's pop back up grinning and let the photographers take pictures of his bloody face.    Kerry, on the other hand, would dandy around in his lyrca speed suit and then blame his falls on the photographers. Dork.

Bush's Brown Eyed Girl does raise an interesting hypothtical:  If you're at a Party AT THE WHITE HOUSE, and that Song comes on, do you have to leave?     I think you do.   Politely though:  You can't pitch your guiness into the trashcan across the room and do the Walter-hands-to-bridge-of-nose-headshake-of-disdain as you walk out, like normal. 

Oh well,  it will probably never happen.

 

 

 

 

 Saturday day, I jumped rope for 45 minutes trying to master Double Unders.   Over the years I had picked up the habit of alternating: Single, Double, Single Double.  After 20 minutes I had worked it out. That’s enough rope talk.

 

Saturday evening I shot out of my hovel like a Aardvark, butt first and head low, but this time I turned east instead of west,   dropping into North Beach.    

 

No one told me that Impala took the old Black Cat and Blue Bar space.   No one told me that the waitresses at Impala dressed like Doc Holliday’s wife, either.    Well, the Sacred Heart meets old-Mexico-brothel design works when you’re sitting at the bar, and the enchiladas verde were tasty too.  There was even football on above the bottle-capped tequila-Alter .     Impressed, I  walked downstairs and was not disappointed. I miss the Blue Bar, and Impala seems a bit forced, but it could all be worse. Take Jitney’s for instance.

 

 On the way back I stopped into Sip for one.  They had Sex in the City on: the one where she falls on the cat walk.    It’s a classic.   I was asleep by 12. (The jump rope talk was more exciting, I know)

 

Sunday I played an hour of Frisbee, an hour of Soccer, and an hour of Basket Ball. The basketball victory was most sweet (3 way 21 by ones, over a short asian, and a black tennis player).   My shoulders are in a perpetual clinch right now, dunno why.   Got beamed  in the eyebrow by the Frisbee.  Let this be the historical record, cause if it goes black I’m telling people it’s a boxing accident.   

 

Just now, I googled “The Kid”, as I am wont to do after I play Ultimate.  I found the micky mouse picture of him. 

 

And these Hippo Pictures!

I don't know who this Isaac is, except to say that he is a very lucky man.   The beautiful  Mrs. Phoenix  is engaged to him.  ‘Beautiful and incredibly smart’, I would have said, but apparently she fell for the 'look how good of a roommate I am, we should get married' bit.    Who is he? Can I google him? I know some girls who can tie him up and interrogate him for us.  

 

Well he must be incredibly sexy and have great taste. Caring, original, funny, sophisticated, and great speller too I bet.  Unless this is one of those opposites attract things, cause she is all of those things and more.

 

To use the parlance of our times: I love her show.  

 

Congratulations Phoenix, we wish you both the best.

 

love

Sean

I told you these guys were going places!

Learn more about it at the website. You can also put together nice little B-Sides CD from the free mp3's they are offering here.

Speaking of great touring bands, there is a nice little behind-the-scene's footage of the Tragically Hip for download at thehip.com.  I have never been able to turn any friends on to the hip. I thought once the the Mix-Tapable Sacred  with its WWI historical alusion might do the trick for Alex, but no, I think the battle of the Hip has become [insert WWI reference important battle-line here].  Alex, by the way, is doing great work in the comments pages.  You might just appreciate listening Gord's recitation of his poem, here.  I can't help it, I love these guys.  

I don't know who comes up with this shit
but, I wish they'd stop saying;
'it's not the band I hate, it's their fans'

You can't hate "fans".
You must narrow your hate
You can't hate huge, hate sprawling, hate the wild,
unfocussed hate hates itself,
pick your victims. specialize
find the good n' unaffiliated, the heir-not apparent, the everyday outcast,
the weirdo with the heart of gold, infiltrate the hoser elite.
Find the ribs-showingest rock n roll stray dog
That ever pushed melodious air
howling against vivisection in the uncompartmentalizeable
night.
and, then hate

or go to a show - look down your row.
the lights are on - find people you know.
There's AnthemSinger standing with his arm
around DarklyNurturedDream.
and Ol'Quintessential listening to HigherThanACBCGuest say;
"I haven't read them, but I understand them."
And there's BrainOfAToaster (he knows when things are done)
next to that girl, CradlingHerKeyCard, whispering,
"this might be my last show, come."
Check it out! There's HoldStill and Gently - together again for the very first time.
and MyDoctrineHasFailedMeButMyMusicHasn't
next to ColderValues, next to FeaturelessButFree.
Hey, even TheEmperorHasNoHook is here and IDon'tWannaTalkAboutItHowYouBrokeMyHeart, she's here too.

make the jump for more.

He's done that before, replaced proper names with sentences.  Its original, and yet almost of the defninition of poety. You're trying to get as much out there is as little space and possible, and names are so inefficient.   See this verse for an example in one of his songs.

We hung around til the final band
called 'Escape is at Hand for the Travellin' Man'
you yelled in my ear this music speaks to me
they launched into 'Lonely From Rock n Roll'
followed by 'They Checked Out An Hour Ago'
closing with 'All Desires Turn Concrete'

.....

I walked through your revolving door
got no answer on the seventh floor
elevator gave a low moan
the pigeons sagged the wire with their weight
listening to the singing chambermaid
she sang 'They Checked Out an Hour Ago'

 

That's good shit

Pitchfork has the goods on the Dinosaur Jr.  reunion:

 

The You're Living All Over Me material resonated most: The anthemic trudge of "Sludgefeast;" Murph's miniature drum fills in "Kracked"; "Little Fury Things" would be a hit today. Their encore rendition of "Just Like Heaven" was a little surprising-- it would seem like Mascis would've gotten over the joke/tribute of the song by now-- but the death metal breaks in its chorus still kicked total ass. When a band proves they can still bring it, it isn't just nostalgia you're feeling but exhilaration refueled.

more here

Pho, I suggest McCammon's "Boy's Life" which I loved but none of my friends have been able to get through. Everyone loves his "Swan Song" which has a similar premise and theme as "The Stand". 

 They're not a similar as Point Break the The Fast and the Furious though. Wow. 

The opening track of Riviera, Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ Sixth Album, is sure to strengthen the notion that it’s not front man Todd Park Mohr’s Knopfler like guitar heroics that power the band, rather it’s his soulful blues singing.  This is an opinion that was bordering on cliché a decade ago when Big Head Todd was at their height of popularity.  Of course, At the time no one knew that the band popularity was at its peak:  It looked liked the years of constant touring the college circuit in a dilapidated conversion van were about to yield huge dividends:  The Album Sister Sweetly managed to stay on the charts for over a year and its hit single “Bittersweet” had become an instant classic. But ten years and two disappointing albums have freed the band from any expectations save to perpetually tour for a loyal ex-frat fan base.

 

This lack of expectation makes the invigorating Riviera, and its sultry follow-up album Crimes of Passion, that much sweeter.   Neither album goes anywhere that Todd hadn’t been before, but the surprise in their ability to succeed where past efforts have failed.     While some Critics will note that neither album contains a “Bittersweet” on it, they may fail to notice that both are the bands' most complete.  Rivera’s single “Again and Again” has many of the same elements as earlier hits. It contains a smooth delivery paired with a simple, catchy and repeatable chorus, “I want to leave you again and again, but I don’t want to leave you Again”. 

 

However, this time around the band has forsaken extended length songs to instead establish a momentum that makes these albums more listenable than any of their predecessors. This restraint, which works so well on Riviera, suffocated Strategem, the album that was supposed to build upon the success of Sister Sweetly.   Meanwhile, robust numbers like “Secret Mission” and “Runaway train” and “Come On” lay to rest Todd’s own fear that the three-piece band needed help filling up the stage, a concern that seemed to have led to the clumsy amalgamation of keyboards and backup singers that was their fifth album “Beautiful World”.  The differentiating ingredient in the latter two albums, insofar as it’s not simply ‘better songs’, is a laid back approach.  This mood is evident in Riviera’s second track, Freedom Fighter, which contains this swipe at activism chic:

 “The world has come undone, yeah whatever, dang chains look good on you”. 

 

Riviera stays the assumed demise of Big Head Todd and the Monsters by correcting the mistakes of Strategem and Beautiful World.   Crimes of Passion continues the redemptive trend by successfully traversing blues, funk, R&B, classic rock, and folk of Beautiful World, this time without sacrificing their honest three-man rock sensibilities.   All of this put Big Head Todd and the Monsters in the enviable position of having survived an artistic malaise to arrive at their artistic peak after 15 years of recording music.  Courage, REM and U2.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.php?e=bubbrubb.wmv

I had this Idea today to start a crossfit-eque gym.  What is crossfit

 

In 100 words:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.

 

On the difference between health and fitness:

Many authorities (e.g. Mel Siff, the NSCA) make a clear distinction between health and fitness. Frequently they cite studies that suggest that the fit may not be health protected. A close look at the supporting evidence invariably reveals the studied group is endurance athletes and, we suspect, endurance athletes on a dangerous fad diet (high carb, low fat, low protein). .......

(As a note of interest, Mel Siff PhD, whom we often respect and admire, holds his atherosclerotic disease and subsequent heart attack as anecdotal evidence of the contention that fitness and health are not necessarily linked because of his regular training and “good diet”. When we researched his dietary recommendations we discovered that he advocates a diet ideally structured for causing heart disease – low fat/high carb. Siff has fallen victim to junk science!)

 

On weights:

Why the deadlift, clean, squat, and jerk? Because these movements elicit a profound neurodendocrine response. That is, they alter you hormonally and neurologically. The changes that occur through these movements are essential to athletic development. Most of the development that occurs as a result of exercise is systemic and a direct result of hormonal and neurological changes.

Curls, lateral raises, leg extensions, leg curls, flyes and other body building movements have no place in a serious strength and conditioning program primarily because they have a blunted neuroendocrine response. A distinctive feature of these relatively worthless movements is that they have no functional analog in everyday life and they work only one joint at a time. Compare this to the deadlift, clean, squat, and jerk which are functional and multi-joint movements.

on Gymnastic

The starting place for gymnastic competency lies with the well-known calisthenic movements: pull-ups, push-ups, dips, and rope climb. These movements need to form the core of your upper body strength work. Set goals for achieving benchmarks like 20, 25, and 30 pull-ups; 50, 75, and 100 push-ups; 20, 30, 40, and 50 dips; 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 consecutive trips up the rope without any use of the feet or legs.

At fifteen pull-ups and dips each it is time to start working regularly on a "muscle-up." The muscle-up is moving from a hanging position below the rings to a supported position, arms extended, above the rings. It is a combination movement containing both a pull-up and a dip. Far from a contrivance the muscle-up is hugely functional. With a muscle-up you’ll be able to surmount any object on which you can get a finger hold – if you can touch it you can get up on it. The value here for survival, police, fire fighter, and military use is impossible to overstate. We will in future issues be covering the details of this great movement. The key to developing the muscle-up is pull-ups and dips.