MONEY

There was never no such thing as an ugly Ernie Banks card...

RELATIVES

Good: Scoring a copy of Stay Positive with the three bonus tracks.

Not so good: Finding that those three bonus tracks are formatted as one 11 minute track.

Great: My family coming home tomorrow after a month in Japan.

I'll be back on blog late next week.

MUSICIANSHIP

Just out of nowhere, I’ve started listening to Ships by Danielson.

I let this one go by a couple of years back. I thought Ship the Majestic Suffix was Schoolhouse Rock for cool kids, but when I hit the line “When life's got your goat now/By his tail or by his goat throat” in track 2, I cut bait and never looked back.

But now I’ve been listening to the first four or five songs every night before I go to sleep. And that line is still absurd, but it matters less…

MAC LOVING

So yeah, I picked up a copy of Rumours when I was in Charlottesville. Figured it was about time.

The frisson of the various mangled relationships is right on the surface, but what really stands out is the pure strength of You Make Loving Fun. This song got me through as much pre-adolescent shit as the ice cream man, and I can still feel its gravitational pull...

EASY TO FALL

If you took a belt sander to Wild Gift, you'd end up with Rumours.

Assuming you were really good with a belt sander, that is...

HALO

It wasn’t there.

You might have seen me if you were in the Albemarle Square Plan 9 on Saturday afternoon.

I was the one in a blue t-shirt and tan shorts, with black Mets Crocs. I was rocking a nascent goatee, brown under the nose and gray on the chin.

I spent several minutes in the V used rock CD section, a few minutes more than you’d rightly think anyone would need.

But it wasn’t there. And I couldn’t believe it wasn’t there.

It appears that somehow, the last used copy of Teenage Symphonies to God by Velvet Crush has left the building.

Now I won’t go so far as to say that the point of my two-hour drive down to Charlottesville was to confirm the continued presence of the disc. That would be kind of nuts. But let’s just say it was a side attraction.

My breath quickened a bit when I realized it was gone. I was disequilibrated.

And just as suddenly, I felt a sense of calm. I might have even grinned.

Because I realized at that moment what it is that I left in Charlottesville. And I realized as well that it’s waiting there for me.

I’ll let you know someday if I have the sense to pick it up…

BRAFF BAG

The other night on National Geographic they were showing Aftermath: Population Zero, which the program guide describes thusly:

“Envisioning what Earth would be like if all 6.6 billion humans disappeared.”

When I flipped by, an unfortunate theoretical poodle was getting owned by a pack of theoretical German shepherds. I hit the FAV button on the remote to move on to the next channel, which was IFC. Garden State was on.

This led me to envision what Earth would be like if all 6.6 billion humans disappeared.

Because, hey, no Garden State...

SOME STUPID WITH A FLARE GUN

Forgive me, gentle reader, for the gross indelicacy of today's post, but I cannot let it pass without note that I farted the first three notes of Smoke on the Water this morning. That is all.

NMEeek

I went to Neiman Marcus for the first time in my life yesterday.

I was looking through a rack of t-shirts when a salesman popped up right in my line of sight. He was holding a $70 Juicy Couture tee with shiny silver accents on the front.

“This is a nice shirt. I had someone come in last week and buy this shirt. He went out to nightclub and the, how do you call it, was, was catching...” Here he made a motion with his free hand, outlining the silver design with his index finger.

“Disco ball,” I said.

“Yes, the disco ball. It was catching the silver and lighting up. His friend, he liked it so much, he brought his friend in the next day and he got same shirt.”

“That is quite a shirt,” I acknowledged. “Quite... a... shirt.”

YOU'VE BEEN ERASED

It's very rare that a video is exactly what it should be. But here's one...

BRIGHT AND SHINY PLATTERS

There are very few discs among my all-time favorites that I’d suggest are essential to you.

Sure, I could point out why I think you should like Dots and Loops or Haha Sound or Wild Gift, and you might very well be nonplussed. That’s fine.

But there are three that I think you ignore at your own peril.

I’ve prattled on enough about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Just live with it for a while, and your soul will be a better place.

Another one is Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. It’s a bit harder for me to articulate the reasons why I think this is so essential. It’s visceral. That’ll do.

The third is Exile in Guyville.

Now, there was every chance that this one would not age well, that 15 years on it would feel like a relic of indie days gone by. But it still holds up.

It’s profane, and sometimes gratuitous. But so are you.

It’s sprawling and confused. But so are you.

It’s righteously pissed. But so are you.

It’s really kind of beautiful. But so are you...