New Species

Fascinating article in today's New York Times here about numeorus new species discovered in New Guinea. I love this stuff. It's so fascinating and makes our small world seem so much more vast and mysterious.

Found at Union Square Subway Station 2/6/06

What is the "value of fifteen minutes bodywork"? Is Marie upset she lost her certificate? Who's Samsuir and why did he give Marie this certificate? If I give this to Melanie and she pretends to be Marie, will they ask for ID? Marie, if you see this post, please e-mail me so I can get you your certificate back.

Birthdays

Today's post was initially about VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock," but then I noticed two very amazing, yet different performers were born on this date. Then I posted the other one anyway. Now, I'm finishing this before going to a reading at the 92nd Street Y. Hmm. Wonder what tomorrow's post will be about?

What can you say? One died before his prime, leaving an incredible body of work behind, yet also the sad realization that he could have done so much more.

The other was the voice of arguably one of the greatest rock bands of all time, a band in tact by name only, each year slipping by is yet another year that the band known as "Guns 'N Roses" stays silent.

I guess this post will be more about Axl. He owns the name "Guns 'N Roses" and, as their voice, the GnR sound. Sure, Slash has the guitar, but Van Halen was never true Van Halen behind Sammy Hagar.

Several years ago, in his book Fargo Rock City, music writer Chuck Klosterman joked that the GnR album Chinese Democracy might be released sometime in the near future. When Axl reformed GnR with a bunch of ragtag replacements, and performed some of the new material at Rock in Rio, and at the MTV Video Music Awards, and started to tour, there was hope for Chinese Democracy.

Fargo Rock City came out in paperback, with a new introduction, still bemoaning the long-awaited follow-up to the band's last album of original material. When Klosterman's new book came out (Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs), I asked him if ever thought Chinese Democracy would happen in our lifetime. He laughed. He said he hoped, but it didn't look good.

The rumor mill, now in 2006, optimistically predicts a late '06 release. Their official site, short on information, is hawking shirts at least, a sign of life. And the theme seems to run with the title.

I have heard a lot of the bootleg and unofficial cuts from the album. It sounds amazing, unproduced. Raw, live stuff, echoing studio recordings, amazing potential.

Happy Birthday, Axl, please release the album. Bob Marley's up in heaven, waiting with baited breath.

VH1 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock

This weekend, VH1 aired the "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock," a heavenly countdown of the best hard rock acts of all time, as judged by various musicians and music writers. It was our parental obligation to watch this with our children.

I remember when I hated VH1. MTV had real rock videos and VH1 was for old people. Now, in my 39th year, I'm one of the old people. But I still watch Fuse on occasion to keep in touch with what the young whippersnappers are into.

The complete Top 100 list is here. I checked and I am able to say that I've seen 17 of the acts in concert. It would have been 18 had the traffic not been so bad when my pal Tino and I drove to Irvine Meadows to see Metallica. We missed Faith No More opening up, although we did hear them wrapping up with "War Pigs" in the parking lot. Plus, I should get partial credit for seeing Eric Clapton (Cream) and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin).

Funny Benjie should mention Dokken in the comments on the last post. I saw them open for Judas Priest at the L.A. Forum.

Dan vs. Don (Warning: Adult Language)

Have you ever lent something to someone and it wasn't returned promptly? Or at all? I'm sure you have. It's universal. A bushman named Tchi!xo may quarrel over his fellow tribeman N!xau's delay in returning his pointed stick. Sometimes, we never get it back. A friend, to remain nameless, borrowed a book from me once. Those who know me, know that I do not lend books lightly. I received the book back, eventually, a paperback version of the hardcover I had lent, and lost. He's still a friend, but I would think twice about loaning him something again. And a book? As they say in my neighborhood, Fuhgeddaboutit!

My beloved wife spent a summer working at a resort in the early 1990's out near Palm Springs. She stayed with a friend, and left behind a wood case with dozens of cassette tapes in it, with the intent of picking them up at some point in time. She never saw them again.

Which brings us to today's find, in front of an auto dealership service area in Bay Ridge. I found this in two parts, each part containing two smaller parts, all of which I taped together. I found the part that said, "Dan I want," and went looking for the other section, which I found fifteen feet away. The end result is classic, frustration perfectly illustrated, for any of us who have lent and lost.

Feel free to comment on anything you may have lent and never received back. Get your frustrations out. Make a final appeal to the void.

Have a great weekend.

The Day the Music Died

February 3, 1959

I thought it was worth mentioning. Listen to "American Pie" by Don McLean to commemorate this event.

The Power of Three

Here's a meme that I saw on another blog recently. Reply in comments, if you like, otherwise, read it and sweep.

The Power of Three.

Three Names You Go By

Bill
Billy
Daddy

Three Things You Like About Yourself

My sense of humor
My eyes
My ability to occasionally move someone with a poem.

Three Things You Dislike About Yourself

My psoriasis
My grey hair
My bald spot

Three Parts of Your Heritage

Russian
Scottish (Graham of Montrose)
German















Three Things That Scare You

Extremists (Domestic and Foreign)
Plague
What teenagers will be like when my daughters start dating

Three of Your Everyday Essentials

My iPod
Starbucks Venti (with room) Sugar-Free Vanilla Americano
Distractions

Three Things You Are Wearing Right Now

Green and Blue Alfani tie
Gap Khakis from St. Jude Thrift Shop
My beloved Miu Miu loafers

Three Favorite Bands/Artists (at the moment)

Green Day
Pearl Jam
The Doors

Three of Your Favorite Songs at Present

Hawaii Aloha by The Strokes
Red Mosquito by Pearl Jam
Doesn't Remind Me by Audioslave

Two Truths and a Lie

Carlos and I killed a dove.
I am a huge David Hasselhoff fan.
I once dated someone who, as a child, had Karen Carpenter as a baby-sitter.

Three Things You Just Can't Do

Eat a tomato.
Kill a spider.
Run long-distance.

Three of Your Favorite Hobbies

Book collecting.
Riding my bike.
Going to poetry readings.

Three Things You Want to do Really Badly Right Now


Sleep.
Go back in time and stop Mark David Chapman from shooting John Lennon.
Win the lottery.

Three Places You Want to Go on Vacation

Samoa.
Costa Rica.
Paris.

Three Things You Want to Do Before You Die

Skydive.
Attend both my daughters' weddings.
See a game at Lambeau Field.

Back Issues

Finally getting around to some back issues of The New Yorker. The one I picked up today from December 12, '05, has a story in it by, you guessed it, T.C. Boyle. Haven't read it yet, but I'll let you know. Or, if you want to beat me to the punch, you can read it online here. The previous week's issue featured a story by Canadian author, Alice Munro. I did read that one and enjoyed it. Interested, check it here.

A co-worker brought me a clipping today from a local paper, a photo of scandalized author James Frey, with the caption "James Frey, your future human resources representative?". Nice plug for the H.R. profession.

Raising the Kids Right

Great piece this week in the New York Times Magazine about teaching your kids at an early age to appreciate the right kind of music (read: your kind of music).

Read it here.

It's a quick read. Our parenting philosophy: if a pop/rock personality doesn't play an instrument, they're not acceptable. Thus, Britney Spears and Hilary Duff are not tolerated, but Avril Lavigne is okay.

So far, from that standpoint, we have succeeded as parents. Jolee and Shayna like Green Day, Bon Jovi, and Guns N' Roses.

For a good time call....

I found this on the sidewalk in our neighborhood last Saturday morning. I did the blacking out of numbers before scanning. I guess it's not so interesting that someone would drop a note card with phone numbers on it. But I am surprised that then author had to spell it out so precisely on the first name on the list.

P.S. If this post offends anyone, I apologize. I haven't been the same since I've come to terms with the fact that I am addicted to oil.

Top 20 Books, #6

My #6 favorite book of all time is Water Music by T. Coraghessan Boyle. You've heard me talk about Boyle before, way back in the infancy of BillyBlog here (to see a photo with me and the author) and here (discussing his last novel The Inner Circle).

I believe the first Boyle book I ever read was World's End, but Water Music was second, and that one-two punch made me a fan for life. I try and see him whenever he comes to town. He's very prolific and, despite his gift with the novel, he's just as talented as a short story writer. Anyone who is a regular reader of The New Yorker should be familiar with him.

Water Music is grand. It's phenomenal. It is spectacular. This book actually began as his doctoral thesis, as legend serves, and took on a life of its own. I'll let the author himself describe it, as lifted from his website:

Water Music is my first novel. It was published by Atlantic-Little, Brown in 1981 (though it actually appeared in early January, 1982), and was subsequently published by Penguin in soft cover, now in its 21st edition. This is a wild ride of a book, the one that taught me to follow my imagination, and it consists of 104 chapters, each a story in itself. It was three years in the writing. The back cover of the current Penguin edition has this to say: "Funny, bawdy, full of T.C. Boyle's inimitable flights of imaginative and stylistic fancy, Water Music follows the wild adventures of Ned Rise, thief and whoremaster, and Mungo Park, explorer, through London's seamy gutters and Scotland's scenic highlands--to their grand meeting in the heart of darkest Africa. There they join forces and wend their hilarious way to the source of the Niger." I remember that when the book was half-finished at about 250 pp., both my editor and agent advised me to cut out the Ned Rise story, worrying in concert that the novel was getting out of hand; I assured them that I had a plan and that Ned Rise had to stay. I hope I was right. In any case, I've never looked back.

You can read an excerpt from the first chapter here.

Boyle is dark. And witty. And bawdy. And brilliant. He is very accessible to his fans, and his website is a fan's delight. At one point, there was a message board linked to the site on which Boyle would respond to readers' queries. He's a book collector's dream, as he is not only prolific, but he will sign books until the cows come home, if you should come to a reading with a cartonful of books. By best accounts, I have signed/inscribed copies of 18 of his books (not including multiple copies). He is firm is his stance on not signing advance reader's copies, or uncorrected proofs.

My copy of Water Music, alas, is not inscribed to me, but to someone named Marjorie. However, I am proud to have her copy, whoever she may be. A signed first edition of Water Music is a scarce item, although not as much as it used to be, apparently, based on a recent web search. A fine signed copy starts at $60 and runs upwards of $300, depending on the dealer and/or condition of the copy.

If you haven't read Boyle, start with this one. It's a wild ride.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

Not on my list of top 20 books is any title by George Saunders. It's not through lack of effort, however. I alluded to borrowing The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil from the Brooklyn Public Library in a post on December 19. I finally read the little bugger, not because it took that long (I started it on the train home on Friday and finished it this a.m.), but because I've been reading other stuff.

This is a wonderful, quick, little read. George Saunders rocks, and I recommend him to anyone who likes quirky, out-of-the-box fiction. He's not for everyone. He is the author of two short story collections, Pastoralia and Civilwarland in Bad Decline. It is safe to say that no one around is writing like this guy.

Here's a couple of quotes:

“An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”
–Thomas Pynchon

“Like the illegitimate offspring of Nathanael West and Kurt Vonnegut…Mr. Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it is also ferocious and very funny.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times


Ok, this book, novella, 130 small pages, is a morality tale with parallels to our world, but it is a strange place indeed. Here's what the book flap says:

Welcome to Inner Horner, a nation so small it can only accommodate one citizen at a time. The other six citizens must wait their turns in the Short-Term Residency Zone of the surrounding country of Outer Horner. It's a long-standing arrangement between the fantastical, not-exactly-human citizens of the two countries. But when Inner Horner suddenly shrinks, forcing three-quarters of the citizen then in residence over the border into Outer Horner territory, the Outer Hornerites declare an Invasion In Progress, having fallen under the spell of the power-hungry and demagogic Phil.

So begins The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. Fueled by Saunders' unrivaled wit, outlandish imagination, and incisive political sensibility, here is a deeply strange yet strangely familiar fable of power and impotence, justice and injustice, an Animal Farm for our times.

I'll let you all judge for yourselves. You can go to Inner Horner by visiting these sites: http://www.reignofphil.com or Saunders' fansite here.

For an excerpt of the book, click here.

Saunders frequents The New Yorker, and his last story there can be read here. All I can tell you is that you will either love him or think he's a paper-waster. He may not be everyone's cup o' tea. But unless you try a new tea now and then, you'll never expand your horizons.

Industrious Clock

UPDATE 2/8/2006, moments later...I found a variation here.

UPDATE 2/8/2006: I had this link bookmarked for several years and within 2 weeks of blogging about it, it has been dismantled. I hope I am not responsible.


Check this link here. It's a nifty little clock you can leave up on your screen when you're not working.

If that bores you, so be it, it's Saturday, and the job drained me this week.

This is a Justin Case Post, filler to sit here just in case and I can't make it back and post something else.

Challenge to Remember

The New York Times reminds me that today is the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. So many thoughts, so many memories. Some say that that, for my generation (X), it was the equivalent of the assassination of JFK, the "I remember what I was doing when I heard..." moment, although 9/11 trumped that, although by then we were in Gen-Y.

Anyway, 20 years ago today, I was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles. I had been one of the first students in my geology class to finish a test. I had turned in my work and was leaving Fowler Hall, exiting from the stairs at the North end of the building. The building was quiet, as classes were still in session. I ran into one of the geology professors, Don Woodhead. He looked like he had just seen a ghost. "What's wrong, professor?" I asked. "The Space Shuttle exploded." He may have said more, but those were the only words I heard.

My next class, I believe it was a 10 AM (PST) "core" class called "Collegium," a year-long melange of liberal arts core discussions covering multiple subjects. That day's lectures were to be held on the North end of campus, which was where I headed. I ended up in the lobby of Newcomb Hall, the dorm closest to the lecture location. Dozens of students had already gathered. I believe only a handful of students showed up for class. We were all glued to televisions watching over and over again.

A senior at Oxy named Bill Cochrane had been on a game show called "Press Your Luck." Bill was one of the chief attractions of the Occidental Yell Squad, and a very popular guy. Many of us had planned watching him later that morning after class. His episode never aired. He told me later that he was pissed off about that, but understood under the circumstances. He missed his 15 seconds of fame. He had been hit by an entirely different Whammy.

It seemed that everyone focused on Christa McAuliffe, the ill-fated school teacher who had been among the crew. Not to take away anything from Ms. McAuliffe's legacy, but for a small segment of the U.S. population, she was not the chief object of mourning. I know I felt a greater tug at my heart when I heard one of the other astronauts was Ellison Onizuka, the Hawai'i born astronaut. He was a home-town hero to the people of Hawai'i. We related to him because of where he was from, as I'm sure each of the seven astronauts had entire states and regions mourning especially for their own home-town heroes.

That term in college, Collegium participants had to complete "creative" projects. My friend Chris Konzelman composed an original piece for the piano called "To the Challenger." My project, called "Poetography," was a series of photos I took, about which I wrote poems. The last poetograph consisted of a photo of the administration building. It was a black and white shot. The flags on either side of the building fly half-staff, limply. A woman is sitting on the stairs, reading. The structure has two columns of white cement on either side. In the picture I took (not the one below), the white starkness of those two columns is

contrasted by a trick of light, or shading, or developing, two faint black images mirroring the white columns, rising vertically into the air.

The columns look like two black trails of exhaust, driving the building into the earth.

Entirely Unrelated Notes

A few weeks back, I bought an external hard drive for the PC at home, primarily to allow me to move more of my CDs onto digital storage which, in turn, gives the iPod a vaster library to pull from.

Late last night/early this morning, as I was taking a break from rubber-cementing Jolee's science project onto the cardboard display (Apple's Changing Colors: No Matter How You Slice Them), I added more music, surpassing the 9000 song mark with Living Colour's Vivid LP. My iTunes now surpasses 40 MG which means, in turn, my iPod is now 2/3rds full.

I know, whatever.

Anyway, the shuffle gave me an interesting mix this morning, and uncannily threw in a heavy metal song as I was standing in line at Starbucks realizing I hadn't heard any metal. I was going to list the songs, but I scrolled past the first selection and the shuffle reset, but I will tell you I had a healthy mix of jazz from Chet Baker and Bill Charlap, some Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix, a little Lucinda Williams (the only remotely "country" singer I truly enjoy), Jimmy Page with the Black Crowes, the aforementioned metal song "Poison" by the band Venom, and a few other selections.

The crowning moment came in the middle of the list with the full-length version of the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," which, as was recently reiterated to me in old friend Jeff Chang's highly-acclaimed book Can't Stop, Won't Stop, is the literal flash point for the mainstream acceptance of hip-hop. I still remember trying, as an adolescent and listening to KIKI, island radio, to write down the lyrics as they poured out of my boombox.

On an entirely unrelated note, I finished Nicole Krauss' History of Love (previously mentioned here) this morning. Overall, quite enjoyable and recommended, although I was left wanting more, despite knowing why I wasn't getting more. It seemed a little too dangly.

On another entirely unrelated note, I also finished the third installment of Patricia Cornwell's At Risk, a weekly fiction feature in The New York Times Magazine. Loyal readers may recall I posted about the inaugural feature, a story by Elmore Leonard, which ran from September through December. I highly recommend following this, either in print or on-line here.

And on one last entirely unrelated note, I found one of my old posts linked to another blogger's post, from way back in September '05, in BillyBlog's infancy. There's something somewhat validating about seeing your creation linked in another person's blog, especially if you don't know them. The post is here, and I am linked among several others in discussing the Best American Poetry series.

Things I Found on the Subway, Part 3

It's just a torn scrap, but it jumped out at me on the R train as we rolled into 95th Street Thursday evening. There are three key legible elements: first, my name, Bill. Then, the segment of sentence "that makes," and finally, "the wrong reason".

Its mystery will forever be unknown, but I thought I'd share anyway.

My Father Has Something in Common with Edward Van Halen

No, he doesn't play a mean guitar. It's his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Leon Cohen and Eddie Van Halen.

Work has been kind of hectic lately, so I am posting this early enough to not distract me from my humanly resourceful duties.

I have never met Mr. VH, but I have met David Lee Roth, but that's a story for another day.

Take a moment today to find a Van Halen song, preferably from Van Halen or Van Halen II. Listen to it. And by listening to it, I mean, filter out the bravado of David Lee Roth and isolate the guitar. Take a moment to appreciate the skill of Eddie Van Halen, and appreciate how amazing his guitar work was on those early albums, before his genius was watered down by the hundreds of imitators and emulators.

I still can identify the first Van Halen song I ever heard, way back on Honolulu's 98 Rock. Originally released in 1980, "And the Cradle Will Rock..." led off the band's Women and Children First. It still brings a smile to my face when I hear it.

In 1987, I played air guitar a la Eddie with friends Lance Friedman, Rob Cunningham and Roger Riviere in the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity's popular air band competition at Occidental College. We all wore spandex and I had a brown wig which was launched into the front row during our homage to "Beautiful Girls." My guitar was a broom spray-painted red with masking tape stripes.

We didn't win, but we had a rocking good time.

The Greatest Songs Ever

A co-worker subscribes to a music magazine called Blender and he passes it on to me when he's done with it. It's a nifty little publication and has a cool semi-regular feature called "The Greatest Songs Ever". They take a page to analyze a specific song and discuss its creation with the key players. The current issue on the newsstands discusses Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer."

Under the guise of having "the greatest songs ever" on my iPod, I have complied them in a playlist, with the exception of "Superstar" by The Carpenters, which has eluded me. I'm not sure if I'll let that one go or not.

Anyway, if you want to check out their archive of these articles, click here. If you're ever bored, just run over and read one or two of the pieces. It's quite interesting, such as the explanation of the brief atonal piano chord at the beginning of the song "Roxanne" by The Police:

“I was just about to sing the first line,” remembers Sting, “when I noticed a stand–up piano. I was tired, I’d been up all night, so I just sat down. I thought the piano lid was closed, but it was open, so I wound up playing this incredible chord with my arse. It was this sort of atonal cluster that went nicely against the chords we were playing. We thought it was funny, so we left it in.”

I had never noticed it before and when I went to listen after reading this, there it was, an aural blink of sound before that first note is sung. This fascinating trivia makes my day from time to time.

The archive runs from July 2001 and covers most of '03 and '04, with only one listed from '05, so I'm guessing it's not a "complete" list. Worth a look-see, nonetheless.

Aspen

I was hurting for content today and didn't want to borrow, so I unearthed this gem, which I don't really ever see a market for, so it will live a short life here, and then die an anonymous death. Comments are appreciated.

I believe I was playing the "give me a word and I'll write a poem" game, played most successfully by my pal Jill. This one, if memory serves me right, came from my friend Chris. His word was "Aspen". What follows is the bastard child born of that word:

A LIFE ENDS IN ASPEN

He kept his donkey in an ass-pen.
As a child, he would always
ask his mother for a children's Asp'in
whenever he had a headache.
He became famous in the wrestling world
for his unbeatable move
known only as "The Ass Pin."
He was always taking other people's cars
and going for a spin.
He was fond of poisonous snakes and
housed his favorite
asp in a giant aquarium.
He died one year in Aspen,
victim of a freak accident,
clutching an Oakland
A's pennant as pins
and needles dropped
on the asphalt
resulted in a blowout,
his car in a spinout,
asphyxiating
in the wreckage
gaspin' for air.

Chocoholism

Sometimes blogging is all about ripping off stuff from other sites. Those with BlogBlock surf a bit to get the blogjuices flowing and find interesting things. Today is one of those days.




Click here to play "Name that Candy Bar". It's not very sophisticated, but it's a fun diversion. You click on 1 of 12 photos of a cross section of certain chocolate candies. Guess before you click. See how you rate as a chocoholic. I scored 7 out of 12, not bad, I guess, especially because one is a total rip-off. You'll know it when you click it.




The true afficionado can click a link to a second page here to try some truly tricky ones. I got 1/12 but I gave up when I saw some truly obscure items. It helps if you frequent Great Britain or just spend way too much time in my family's favorite candy store, Dylan's Candy Bar.



For those of you who have never been to Dylan's, Ralph Lauren's daughter has created quite a nifty little candy shoppe here in NYC which is a must-see if you're up near Bloomingdale's. Although no longer available, this is what their "deluxe" $300 gift basket looked like:

Click on the photo to enlarge it so you can truly appreciate it in all its glory.