Quaking In My Booths

The 9th floor of a downtown Richmond office building is a really shitty place to be when an earthquake hits. When ours hit, the building started rocking back and forth crazily, knocking picture frames over and making it really difficult for me to drink coffee without staining my favorite shirt.

So I power-slammed my coffee and jump-started my brain into Super Action Mode, which means that my thoughts at the time went more or less like this :
Fuck. I'm going to die at work. That's one of  my worst fucking nightmares, ever, and here it is, getting ready to happen. If I'd called in sick today, I'd be alive tomorrow. This sucks.

I mean, if you are on the 9th floor of a 15 story building, what can you really do? Hiding under the desk isn't going to help much- there's nothing directly over my desk except for a few acoustic tiles and six stories of concrete, steel and glass. The acoustic tiles aren't going to hurt me and my desk isn't going to offer much protection if the building collapses on top of me.

Flee? To where? If another quake hits and the windows break, you really do not want to be on the street below. A few people could fit under the handful of vehicles scattered about, but there's no parking on most of the block and not nearly enough cars for everyone to hide under. But I didn't want to die in the middle of a goddamned archiving project either ,so I stepped out of my windowless office and into the main corridor- everyone was up and moving about, but there wasn't any real panic...until the building suddenly lurched again. It only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like forever...was it going to stop or was it going to worsen?

It stopped and a quick , not-quite-panicked consensus was reached that we should evacuate the building as if it were a fire drill.  We all made it outside to our designated gathering spot but a quick tally showed that my co-worker, an elderly woman that I refer to as 'Grim' because of her humorless adherence to The Rules, was not with us

The Rules are something I openly mock and Grim hates it when I do so, which just encourages me, I can't help it- she once called me a 'scofflaw', which was meant as an insult but actually made my day...anyway, she was missing.  I told my boss that Grim was probably standing around in helpless confusion and that someone should go back in and get her.

My Boss looked at me with eyes full of helpless confusion. He obviously didn't want to go. Great.

The tiny force of Security guards were trying get people out and handle the crowd outside, so it was not hard for me to get back in -and by that time most of the people were already outside, so it was relatively easy  to run back up the stairs against the small current of evacuees.

Sure enough, Grim was standing in the 9th floor lobby, looking lost and confused.  

What do we do?

"You come with me and we take the stairs to get outside."

But it isn't a fire. Are you sure we should evacuate the building?

"No, I'm not. But why don't we go ask the Boss? He's outside on the sidewalk waiting for us."

By the time we got out, the Boss had decided to close the office and send everyone home early, just in case we had another shock or a gas line had broken or something...I still get paid, so I applauded his safety-first attitude and went home to check out Facebook and the web news. Once the initial phone congestion cleared, I got a few calls from friends and from my brother in Chicago- I assured everyone that I was OK and that there wasn't any serious damage here.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Until the next day at work, that is. Twelve  of our  national offices have been freaking out for almost two weeks trying to comply with a Directive sent out by our National Giant-Ass Boss. After being unable to figure out how to do what they were supposed to do, several of the offices were directed to call me, since I pretty much know how to do everything. I'm not boasting, I just do...it is more curse than blessing, trust me.

Anyway, I went over the Directive and it made no sense to me- I mean, I understood what it said, but not how it applied to what we do- until I read the entire chain of emails FWD'd to me by our client. The very first email contained everything I needed to solve the problem.

So I called the National Big-Ass Boss and was a bit surprised that he answered on the second ring.

"Hi NBAB, this Allan in Richmond."

"What do you want, Allan?", he said icily. (He hates me for reasons too long to explain here.)

"I'm looking at the original  email you got from the client and I think I found out why all the offices are so far behind on the Directive you sent them."

Then he had the gall to deny knowing what I was talking about. What email?, he demanded to know. So I gave the time and date stamp,  the sending party, the CC'd parties and then read his own response to the initial email back to him. Verbatim.

"Oh. Yes, I remember now. So what is the problem with that?", he asked.

"Well, you didn't read the sender's signature line. If you had, you would have known he works for a different division than the one you sent the Directive to. The Division you sent it to can't comply, they don't handle that line of business at all. And the client deadline is tomorrow."

There was silence on the other end. I could hear veins popping in his forehead but he said nothing.

After a decade or three had passed , he said "thank you for that information" and hung up without a goodbye.

Ten minutes later a new email went out, clarifying which Division was responsible for carrying out the Directive and informing them that the deadline had been extended one week. No one in that Division was aware they even had a deadline or Directive in the first place, so what they were really being told is that they had one week to do two weeks worth of work- with no warning at all.

Shortly after that, I got a call from my Boss, asking me what I did to make the NBAB so angry.

"I told him he's an incompetent dumbass."

"You said that?"

"Well, I phrased it as a passive-aggressive attack disguised as a business call, but yeah, that is pretty much what I said."  Then I told him about the mistake I found and  conversation I had with the NBAB about that mistake.

"Wow."  That's all that he could say. He said it several more times.

"Wow."

Thing is, they can't fire me. I'm the only one who understands what I do and if I'm gone, the client has flat-out stated that the account will be closed - and I was present when the client said it.
They never should have let me hear that because I have a meeting with HQ tomorrow and it is going to be a bit hard for them to discipline me when I have a client who is that strongly on my side.

The bosses keep promising me a promotion and I keep doing the work and I get a nickel here and a dime there but no new title or salary. Really, though why should they pay me more? I'm doing the work for what they are paying now, so why spend more?

Because they have to.

.

In Like A Lamb, Out Like A Texas-Sized Piece of Sharp-Horned Shit

Lately I have been feeling as if I were a small beanbag trapped inside of a pinball machine. Each morning I am catapulted  out of  the relatively cozy tunnel of my dreams and onto life's wildly uneven playing field, into a world stroboscopically lit and surrounded by cacophonous chaos, with me getting hit from all angles over and over again; thumped painfully from everywhere to nowhere, detachedly absorbing the impacts and changing shape slightly to accommodate the cumulative blows but offering little real resistance, all attention focused on a desperate attempt not to disappear into the dark hole waiting at the bottom of things.

Not that everything has been uniformly bad, just a bit fast, jarring and tilted. Stressful with Extra Balls.

Stress can hurt you. Last week my right arm started having muscle spasms that literally knocked me to the floor in blinding agony. I almost went to the ER once I was able to stand up but the pain soon settled down into a steady, constant ache and I decided to wait. In the morning I saw my doctor and he gave me a shot and some pills, including some steroids for inflammation and Valium to help take the edge off the steroid-induced mood-swings.

In hindsight, I don't think that was a very good idea, the steroids wreaked havoc with me emotionally; the Valium worked long enough for me to run a few errands and do my radio show, but by mid-afternoon a black and roiling cloud of uncomfortable misery had enveloped me and I spent the rest of the evening in a flummoxed, fumbling state of near-uselessness.  I was torn between the despair of irrevocable loneliness and the deep, dark fear that if I did have human companionship, I'd break down, collapse and suffocate them with the sheer urgency of my need to not be alone. 

At  other times I'd feel OK for a few minutes and put on my shoes, maybe open the door. I think I walked around the block once or twice just to prove that I could, but it is possible that I simply imagined doing so.

Due to some server issues, I couldn't even get my podcast to upload, which shouldn't have been enough to break me down, but was. My radio show is hard work and sometimes it feels like it is the only good thing I have to share with anyone and now some distant computer malfunction was going to cut the last pound of good flesh I had left- at that moment I felt that the collective malevolence of the Universe was funneled into a firehose and blasted straight into my face. Everything that exists, exists to torment me. Of course, in my head I knew that is utter rubbish-but when the miserables kick in, the intellect checks out.

That was a terrible feeling; it reminded me of how I used to feel when I drank. I'd often feel a desperate need to be with someone, to belong somewhere, but I didn't have anyone to be with or anywhere to go...well, that isn't entirely true. There were people who would have been glad to see me if I could have managed to sober up, but I always wound up turning my back on them and seeking the false comfort of familiar-strange drunks in familiar-strange bars. Underneath it all, I knew that I was too fucked-up to be around my real friends, but I didn't have the strength or dignity to care about what a mess I'd made of myself, so I’d usually choose the rather mercenary company of drinking partners over that of real friends-the kind of friends who might be concerned if they saw me in such a wasted state.

Anyway.

By Sunday I felt so horrible that I could barely function, every simple task seemed huge and complex and my short, comfortless naps never seemed to last long enough. I'd turn the computer on, hoping for...I don't know...something, anything that would help connect me with another person, cause or concept, but simultaneously dreading the overwhelming responsibility of communication. I had no words to write and no songs to play, yet I wanted a reader, an audience, a duet partner, a shrink -someone, anyone.

Anything I said could and would be used against me, so what to say?

What to do?

 Instead of counting sheep, I started reviewing every word I'd ever uttered and devising new and horrific ways to use them against myself.

I lay on my back all night doing this, eyes open, staring at nothing until it was time to get up and get dressed.  I lingered under the hot water, it felt really good on my aching bicep and the relief that came with it almost lulled me into thinking that  it might be a good day after all.

But as soon as I got to work, my boss really pissed me off by screwing up my paycheck and I was so strung-out on pills and no-sleep that I nearly went into a blind, terminal rage over it. I wrote him a pissy email explaining that money is the only reason that I have a job; remove it and I have no incentive to stay at work. Boss replied that it was too late to fix this payroll, but he’d make it up to me later.

Fuck that. Fuck you with a Universal Funnel, you fat officious prick.

So I powered down my computer, turned off  the lights in my cube and went home for the day. I didn't quit or say anything to anyone, I just left. Eventually my boss called and left a voicemail for me to call him "first thing in the morning".

Whatever.

My experience tells me that taking a principled stand at work is effectively the same thing as quitting, but my current job has been the exception. Our client loves me and if I'm gone a huge account gets placed at-risk, plus I'm the only employee who can understand the client's database, so firing me at this time probably wouldn't work very well. But I'm no longer satisfied at work and that bothers me, since I have to spend so much time there on account of not being naturally-born rich.

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Next: Fortune, Glorious Fortune

Famous Business Trips Pt. 1

I've been sent to Washington D.C. to help fix a File Room Emergency and I think my hotel room is haunted.

I'm not sure which is harder to believe: that there are ghosts in my hotel or that my company keeps having File Room Emergencies (FRE) that require me to travel. I'm not knocking it, but the reality is that you should never have an FRE in the first place. A file room is basically just a giant  horizontally-layered pile of alphanumeric order. It should never be a cause for alarm or last-minute panic- but I am learning that it very often is.That's where I come in.

The records clerk in this office is quitting effective Friday and no one else seems to understand the file system except him, so I've been sent to learn the system before he quits. They don't have a replacement for him yet, so I'll have to retain the knowledge until they hire someone, at which time I'll come back and train that person. To me, this plan smacks of ill-planning and desperation, but hey; it's in my favor this time.

I took the 6am train to get here and when I arrived, the guy who was supposed to train me had called in sick and my new boss was "in a meeting", so the receptionist ushered me into the file room where I sat and waited for my new boss to appear.

Strangely, I found the train ride up to be quite enjoyable, watching the sun rise while the train rocked steadily north had a certain  clean and timeless quality to it, but there was no such special quality to the file room. I looked around a bit and saw a lot of color-coded alphanumeric order, some dusty old computers and a few hand-held code scanners. Whee.

Eventually my new boss arrived and introduced himself. He was a fat, cheerless appendix of a man and I immediately disliked him. I don't like bosses in general and I especially don't like being told what to do by fat bosses. I'm the one who should be telling him what to do and what I'd be telling him is :stop eating food that has  passed through windows and start doing some fucking push-ups.

He explained that he didn't know how the computers worked ( duh) but he would call IT and see if they could help. I didn't tell him the computers were fine and I had been fucking around on-line for a couple hours,I was starting to cop an attitude and didn't want to save him the trouble of looking stupid to IT.

Boss had a brilliant plan. He would call Absent Guy and have Absent Guy train me via speakerphone. AG answered the phone accompanied by the sound of crying infants and Sesame Street  TV. Boss shouted his plan at the telephone and the telephone yelled back affirmatively. Babies wailed. Big Bird sang. Hope sank.

"OK, you're all set", said Boss, fleeing  the room.

"I see why you quit", I quipped to Absent Guy. "Are you coming in tomorrow? This can wait, we can't do phone training for this. Anyone with any sense would know that."

 "Tomorrow then."

This would be some easy overtime, I thought. Not much to do though...luckily my old radio pal Andrew lives up here now and we met for a long lunch and caught up on news, after which I got lost walking back to office and wound up wandering aimlessly around Georgetown. After a couple of hours it started getting cold so I hailed a cab back to the office. All told I was gone for almost five hours which wasn't quite long enough because I forgot to miss a conference call about some remote FREs that I imagine I'll have to go deal with soon. That's not so bad, really. I have job security because of it.

After the call I got bored and caught a cab to the hotel where I killed some time the old-fashioned way, which made me hungry so I went out for Mexican, carefully adding the receipt to my new but already impressive collection.

Including travel, it was an eleven-hour workday and I didn't actually do anything except sit in on a conference call that I could have attended in-person if I'd stayed at home. A great deal of money was spent, some of which I got to keep, but absolutely nothing got done. From a business viewpoint, it was a total fiasco, but from my point of view it was an all-expenses paid travel vacation day. Hooray for that!

Carping The Deity

We Need Your Prayers

No we don't. If God is truly omniscient and  omnipotent, then He already knows what troubles we've seen and  He doesn't need to have anything pointed out to Him by mortals. It seems a bit presumptive to try to tell God something that He doesn't know; it projects the human trait of ignorance onto the face of the Divine. It's like writing letters to George Lucas telling him that Princess Leia needs to be rescued. George already knows.

And if a prayer works as intended, doesn't it risk  diverting God's attention away from some other soul who might also need some Divine help?

That question could answered by: God is everywhere, all the time. He can multi-task just fine.

But if he is everywhere, why point out things that are already obvious to Him? He already knows what's gonna happen.

Around and around we go, all the way to Goldfish Heaven.

On Second Thought

 There are people who need all the help that they can get . These people typically work as remote-managing HR supervisors and near as I can tell, the only thing standing between them and Eternal Damnation is prayer- and maybe the  possibility that Hell doesn't exist. 


Today we got an email from our faraway HR boss stating that we- the five service contractors in the office- had to attend a "team building" exercise to "help build morale". This would be bad enough on any day, but HR Puffinstuff  had decided that  it needed to be done on a Saturday so as not to interfere with our office routine. I have a weekly radio show on a local station that I do every Saturday and it would be interfered with to the point of me needing a last-minute substitute DJ. I've been doing my show for four years and not much demoralizes me more than the idea of missing a broadcast, plus the first and only time HR  visited our lonely outpost, she didn't even stop by my cube to introduce herself. I didn't see that  as especially 'team-building'.

If I didn't have a show, I might enjoy the overtime pay, but I know that I'd be incredibly depressed and sullen if I was forced to forfeit  my radio show in order to attend a corporate indoctrination, so I went to tell my office manager that I couldn't make it.


He was a bit dismayed, but not at me. It seems that both he and our receptionist are moving that day, they've signed leases, packed up and reserved trucks.

"I can't believe I have to come in here on Saturday", said my boss "It'll be dark before I finish moving", he noted.  Our receptionist echoed his words, adding that she would have to find someone to watch her kids while she was in here getting her morale boosted.


"The idea of skipping my show and spending a beautiful spring Saturday listening to HR presentations fills me with team spirit", I grumbled. "I'm pretty morale-ified."

 Then I had an idea. 


"There are five of us, plus HR will be here , plus you each have two teenagers, that  makes ten people. With two trucks ready to go at 6am, and ten people, if we all work together and start at dawn, we should be able to move both houses and be done in time for you guys to listen to my radio show...and really, not much builds teamwork quite like moving refrigerators up and down stairs together. "


Everybody laughed, which was a team-building morale-boosting thing, but I was serious. I told my boss he could pass my suggestion along to HR on account of me being confident that she would see my plan was a worthy cause that would raise everyone's spirits.


"She won't come anywhere near here if she thinks she has to move furniture", observed my boss.


" Gosh. Hadn't thought of that." 

My co-workers thought this was pretty funny. We had a good laugh and shared a mutual bond over our shared dislike of HR.  

I'm sticking to my plans and boosting my morale by doing radio.

The Monday Machines CD ships April 17th. Stay tuned!

Chances Isn't

I spent some time this week traveling to the 'diverse' areas of town and leaving stacks of  recruiting brochures at as many cooperative  public locations as I could find. My first trip encompassed the 'leftie-weirdo' outposts, such as the radio station I volunteer at.

My boss, who is an ultra-Republican Marine, says the "arty people" can "smell the stench of right-wing on [him]" and tend to be unreceptive, so he sent me instead.( He does have the stench of "right" about him, but at least he has a sense of humor about it.)

Anyway, on my first trip , I hit coffeehouses and tattoo parlors near the local art school and  several strips of stores and restaurants, including a few blocks in my neighborhood.

My second day found me in an all-black neighborhood and I wound up doing a tour of the local barber shops. It is worth noting that I am white, have a clean-shaven head and was carrying a dubious-looking Federal badge, because  the first establishment I visited went silent on my entrance. Uh oh. Suspicion.

"Can I help you?", asked the barber looking at me sideways, eying my badge.

"Just a little off the top", I replied, waving my hand over my bald head.

The barber paused for a second and then he and his customers started laughing. Ice broken, I explained that I was trying to get the word out about jobs. After my spiel, I was graciously given window space for my pamphlets. I wound up using the same line at a few other 'tense' visits, always with a positive result. I enjoyed the glimpse into a world I don't normally see- the barbershop, black or otherwise.  (I haven't had a haircut since 2005)

My third excursion took me into a South Fallentown neighborhood that was part Hispanic slum and part redneck trailer park. Many of  the bodegas and restaurants flat-out refused to acknowledge my presence but some places let me place brochures next to the Lottery materials, which I found a bit ironic. I dropped off a few at the adult video store too, just for the sheer wrongness of doing so.

I had an internal interview today and I have every reason to be optimistic, since my credentials include holding the exact job that I interviewed for.

Three times this year I have been told : "Good work. Nice job." This is always the prelude to getting laid-off. No incident or criticism, just straight from "nice job" to " no longer required". 

During the interview, my potential boss complimented me on my "good work".

I'm doomed.

Words, Signs, Sounds

I saw this sign at a local gas station: "No Trespassing Without Permission."

Somebody tried to improve  upon the universally-accepted standard  "No Trespassing" sign by qualifying it with an additional phrase: "Without Permission"- heedless of the fact that adding  those words annihilated the sign's message.

I'm guessing that they got paid more money for creating  that sign than I am earning for commenting on it. It is not a comforting thought.

Perhaps I should take the advice of numerous friends and seek employment on Craigslist...I am surprised that I didn't think of that sooner- my forays into the personal ads and the 'musician' sections being so wildly successful and all.

Here's one that looks decent- Admin. Asst.(My Town).  Let's open it and see what it  says
[cut and pasted]:

"We ask that you detail your answers the following key questions when submitting your cover letter and resume:

1. How extensive was previous office adminstrator experience?
2. In what instances have you dealt with confidential work?
3. Describe what was your most difficult parts from your past employment or experiences? "


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They are asking me to "detail [my] answers the following key questions"...I am not so sure I understand that. Maybe the questions will clear things up:

1. Um, no. That isn't helping at all. What is an "adminstrator?" Doesn't craigslist have spell-check?

2. I am not telling you. I think that you are spam.

3.My "most difficult part"?  I am not sure what that means either. The 'getting fired' part, perhaps?

There are other ads:

ARE YOU FUN-OUTGOING-EASY TO GET ALONG WITH---DO PEOPLE REALLY LIKE YOU----DO YOU PLAY WELL WIT OTHERS:)

 No, no , no, no...please stop yelling.


Here are some especially galling job requirements from an Admin Asst posting, emphasis mine:

-computer experience is a huge plus, microsoft windows, e-mail mailings, bulk mailings to assist with business development and growth, web design ability or ability to learn is another plus
-are you able to accept directions without questions--this is required
-must smile and be happy

Computer experience is not a problem, but blind, unquestioning obedience is, and the emotional command that I must "be happy" is just a little too much to bear...at the end of the ad, it says it is a "drug-free work enviroment" [sic]. So much for faking the happiness requirement.

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There are certain words that I cannot get past. Some of these I encounter while browsing through virtual bushels of  electronic press kits from bands and PR firms:

-Lite Jazz. Also includes any permutation of Light, Soft, Smooth or Easy...one band self-described themselves as "Easy-Listening Blues", a description I found mystifying.
I mean, if it is 'easy-listening', it ain't Blues.

- Christian [anything]. Guaranteed not to rock.


 -Alternative. To what? Everything  today is alternative, so the word now means 'conformist'. To be fair, I still find some decent bands using this label...but much less so than in say, 1990. (Or 2008, for that matter)

-Adult Contemporary. Music intended to harmonize with comforting prescription sedatives.


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Of course, my musical instincts are sometimes wrong. Friday night, the station hosted a live appearance by salsa band extraordinaire Bio Ritmo. I was completely drained from a 12-day workweek and was actually dreading this show, a nine piece salsa band is a challenging audio set-up- but the group had a great energy and I felt much better after their 60-minute groove session than I did before- music can really be a wonderful restorative.

I used to play in a band with Bio Ritmo's founding member and despite our differences, I was a little peeved when I heard that they had kicked him out many, many years ago. I later heard that maybe that wasn't quite true...I really don't know what happened and it doesn't matter anymore, anyway. The important thing is that the band sounds about ten gabjillion times better now than they did back then.  Grabs at you in a good way.

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Two more bands to engineer before the weekend - one each on Wednesday and Thursday nights. It is Fund Drive Week at the station and its a busy one. Stay Tuned.

Back To Work

Nothing but the best for us Government workers.

The office was very tense when I arrived Monday morning...I was told that HQ was auditing every department, so the 'newbies' were shuffled downstairs into the training room where I used to hold my testing sessions.

For three hours , I sat and listened to my replacement tonelessly read off of the same training script that I used to read from...she was rattled by the bosses' presence and insisted on reading it all, painstakingly verbatim.  Agony.

As soon as we were escorted back upstairs, our local Office Boss made an announcement:

He stood on a platform and told the gathered staff that he had "been given an opportunity" and effective immediately, he was stepping down as our boss. He was leaving the office in a few minutes and wanted to thank the staff for doing such good work...his voice was cracking as he said that.

The office erupted into applause and cheers... "congratulations!"...they thought "been given an opportunity" meant he had found another job and was moving on to better things.

If that had been the case, there would have been notice given and the obligatory Friday cake/pizza event would have been held, along with the card that gets passed around for everyone to sign...the High School-type stuff that every office participates in to some degree or another.

He had his personal belongings in a copier paper box, all jumbled up like he had cleaned out his desk in a real hurry...the Mean Lady from HQ walked him out of the building and then came back to the office and started yelling at my boss...we work in one big, open room and sound carries everywhere, everybody got to hear her dressing him down for errors that weren't his fault.

She threatened to fire him and his whole staff, which would include me by default, a real morale booster for all of us...I was sitting three chairs away from this harangue, going "la la la la la " in my head, or so I thought, until one of my colleagues  elbowed my in the side: "Ix-nay on the ala-la-ay", he said, rolling his eyes in the direction of Mean HQ Lady.

Yesterday I experienced dental trauma that kept me out of work, but I'm heading back this afternoon, working the late shift again. I expect to be fired at any second and have absolutely nothing hopeful or optimistic to say about the job at all... the paycheck doesn't even count until I cash it.

Life isn't completely horrible, but work is.

Don't Let The Door Hit You

I got laid-off from my new/old job on Thursday, less than four full days since I re-started.

Ninety minutes into my final shift, the managers gathered up all the new clerks, announced that there had been a mistake and that we should not have been hired. Then they collected our badges, had us sign time sheets that they had already filled out for us, and escorted us out of the office and back into the job market.

It was unspeakably demoralizing.

First, they re-hire us and then, at the last minute, move the start day back by one week...then , when work finally begins, we get 15 hours of training,- spread over three days- and then we get laid-off on the fourth day. Before lunch.

But at least I still got this here radio show:

The New Breakfast Snob , Aug 22, 2009

Cary Grace- Tales of Brave Ulysses
UK-only release of classic Cream song, recorded by expatriated singer/doer-of-many-things Cary Grace , who may not be a citizen yet, but should certainly qualify for Siren status.
Note: This song made me want to re-read Joyce's Ulysses, so I asked a fellow DJ
(a known bibliophile) if he had a copy on him. No, he informed me, but he had one in his car that I could have. How cool is that?
Big tip o' the hat to DJ B!

Peter Bayreuther- Wild Roses
I stumbled across violinist/everythinger Bayreuther on the web and have been a fan ever since...and this song is part of today's Krautrock-based mini-theme. Be happy!

Chou Pahrot- Yaw Yaw Song
Major props if you know who this band is...my knowledge of them extends back as far as this morning. Sort of a cross between Jethro Tull, Can and the Cardiacs. But different.
(A big thanks to Cary Grace for this)

Can- She Brings The Rain
Hahahaha! At least one of you gets this!

Papa John Creach- Slow Groove
Despite having one of the cheesiest album covers of all-time, the former Hot Tuna/Airplaneshipwhatever fiddler has a few decent cuts on this solo outing...it's from 1976 and isn't disco or arena rock, so that's a plus.

Funkadelic- Baby I Owe You Something Good
Hurray! I am absolved by Funkadelic!

Ray Manzarek- Wake Up Screaming
Kudos for introducing a then-unknown Patti Smith to the world. Demerits for making her read Jim Morrison's poetry. Kudos for rendering it unintelligible with slappy delay. Kudos for the Joe Walsh slide solo. Demerits for thinking hissing cats make cool sound FX.

Ten Years After- Standing at the Station
Has a really long Arp solo. You don't hear that everyday.

Emerson Lake & Palmer- Are You Ready Eddie?
Recording studio in-joke done on a goof. I'm guessing it was done on a goof, anyway.

Stefanie Seskin- Chill Now
Skillfully sung good advice from talented multi-musician with shrewd observational skills.

Pere Ubu- Electricity
"I've checked in and I can't check out"

Velvet Underground- Train Round The Bend
Part one of my "Allan loses his marbles theme".

Tom Verlaine- Coming Apart
Part two.

Dare Dukes- Ballad of Darius McCollum
I draw the line at subway 'thrill-seeking'. I'll experience it vicariously via the excellent songwriting of Dare Dukes.

Skidmore Fountain- Earthquake
New and shaking.

Kelly Richey- Leave The Blues Behind
Hi there! I sorta expected your call, hope you enjoy this solid rock song about needing jobs, being poor, etc etc. My life, in other words.
(Minus the parts about kids)

P.J. Harvey- Long Snake Moan
A huge dark cloud hovered over the studio for the entire duration of this song. I could see it through the skylights...eerie. Is my voodoo working?

Gong - Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
Perhaps some psychedelic harmonica will clear things up.

Area 27- Wild Card
When in doubt, sing about being naughty. The worse, the better.

Barry McCabe- Rollin'
Non-psychedelic harp-driven rocker.

Daddy- Love In A Bottle
I keep finding links to other things, things that make me nervous ...how did I find this catchy and humorous bit of infectious twang? Internet is weird today.

Cat Dail- Conscious Mess
Sweet, witty and a little warped. I really like that.

Kaiser Cartel- Carroll Street Station
Upbeat song from happy couple on the rise. When I saw how happy they were, I tried really hard to not like this band. I failed. Miserably.

Astronauts of Antiquity- Breakthrough
Oops. Did I hit the 'hope' button again? Technical error.

Chrissy Coughlin- Big Log
Part three. Playing this song is like me rubbing my own nose in it for five minutes. Great song, hard lesson.

Green Man- Herringbone Sky
The DJ coming up next arrived and described the sky outside as "apocalyptic" as the
skylights went dark for the second time during my show. Brilliant and slightly menacing production on this understated cloudbringer.

Monacy - Orbit
Part four. Monacy are becoming one of my favorite bands, smart pop with a well-applied sense of humor and sweetness.

Garbage- Sex Is Not The Enemy
Thank Godzilla for that. I'd be at war with myself if it were. I hope I didn't say that on the air...

Monika Jalili- Biya Bare Safra
1940's era Iranian pop, re-done in a universally appealing way. Very interesting and listenable.

**************************************
Thanks for listening!

I now return myself to my regularly unscheduled unemployment.

Studio Tan

Sometimes I wonder if the radio station doesn't exist solely within my own mind, but usually when I start having those thoughts, I realize that I'm on-the-air and don't have time for Cartesian dilemmas...I'm about two minutes and five seconds (2:05) from complete disaster at any given moment...oh, make that 2:02...1:55...time compresses , expands and distorts while one is broadcasting...the last seventeen seconds of a piano note can drag on forever, but an eight-minute live track somehow barely seems to provide enough time to recycle coffee.

Curiously, new laws now make it illegal for internet radio and podcasters to post their playlists ahead of time...each song is to be displayed as it is played...there are other stupid rules - you can't play more than four songs by any one artist in a three hour-period; you can't play more than three songs from any one album or boxed set during a three-hour span...I think I'm mis-quoting some of the rules but I'm too lazy to Google them, and anyway, about the last thing I have to worry about is posting my playlist in advance...I once actually did a show where I carefully timed out every song and announcement and it was the dullest two hours of live radio I have ever done in my life!
(Talk shows not included)

All I did was hit play, move a fader, hit play, move fader, hit play- repeat...boring!

************************************************

Q: Do you know what an expander ratio of 8:1 set at a -30db threshhold sounds like when applied to dynamic narration ?

A: It sounds bad. Leave the knobs alone!

***********************************************
I start back at the Salt Mine tomorrow. Dread mixed with relief. I don't even know what my schedule will be...I hope it includes time for radio.

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB, AUG. 15, 2009

Steve Hillage 1988 Aktivator/Live Herald
King Crimson- Cat Food/45 single
Bedtime Story- In A Cage
Ace NoFace- Snakes/Toxic Charm

Megaphone- Write it Down
Cary Grace- Undertow
John Cale - Graham Greene/Paris 1919
Damien Dempsey- Patience/Shots

Garbage- My Lover's Box
Green Man- Glory Box

Ashlee Rose-Devil's Town
Arvel Bird- Native Lovers
Jethro Tull- Rover/ Heavy Horses
Cat Dail- Squeeze Your Play
Clara Bellino- Swordfish Trombone/Embacardo Love

Eleni Mandell- I'm Your Girl/Wishbone
Area 27- Intergalactic
Guiltless Cult- Have to Say?
Jeannine Hebb- Things Haven't Been So Bad Lately
Cecile Corbel- O Stor mo chroi
HuDost- Royal Mountain/Trapeze
Manda Mosher- Lay Me Down
Underwhelmed- Freak Like Me/Revealed
Monacy-Twisted

Richard Thompson- Mr. Stupid/Sweet Warrior
Norine Braun- I'm The One


88 Sundays-Way Back Home

Tangerine Dream- Catwalk

Celebrate

I'm not as Green as I look. I'm using the air-conditioning in my apartment for the first time in years. I feel just terrible about my carbon footprint, but I was having a hard time breathing the incredibly hot and humid outdoor air and I'm kinda selfish when it comes to oxygen- I want it now- future generations can deal with my reckless ecology after I'm gone.

*************************************************************

Last night the radio station received an award from the city on account of us being such good citizens:


The station sure has come a long way.

*****************************************
Me, I'm going back to where I was in 1999, sans hangover and impending Federal trial:

I got a call from the Bureau yesterday. I am to return to work on August 10, this time I'll be working in Field Operations. My 'new' boss is my old boss from 1999...I called him Monday morning and asked about work...he said : Well, I dunno...you know how it is here...can't promise anything, it's all up in the air right now, blah blah... etc etc.

A few hours later, my phone rang with the news that I begin training on Aug. 10. It'll be weird to be on the receiving end of training...I already know the job (I did it in 1999 and trained hundreds of people), and it's probably the hardest part of the whole operation...part of it includes visiting the city's ever-growing number of un-official homeless 'settlements' in order to count the people living in said camps.

Most urban dwellers probably are not aware of this, but almost any city with undeveloped, forested or otherwise inaccessible land almost certainly has it's share of semi-nomadic , neo-tribal homeless 'camps' ...in 1999, it was my part of my job to find these camps, which is a lot easier than you might think- all I did was ask myself this question:

"Where would I sleep if had no money, no friends and no resources?"

Answer: On an island in the middle of the river...in the woods bordering trainyards, interstates and shopping malls... in a particular row of abandoned warehouses...pretty much anywhere and everywhere. And that was during a time of national prosperity.

Luckily, it's a hypothetical question in my case. Sadly, I bet we find more camps than we did ten years ago.

Bubba Siege

I don't have much of a front porch, it's merely a set of brick stairs with a railing precariously attached and a pair of shrubberies providing enough privacy to make it a passable perch for the pleasant perusing of periodicals and publications.

Until recently. Over the last week or so the shrubberies surrounding ny building have been vanishing, one-by-one.



My outdoors cat used to love the shelter provided by the shrubs that aren't pictured here:
I have a bad feeling about this. I fear my landlord is planning some major renovation to the exterior of the building and that my apartment will be under Bubba Siege at some point in the very near future.

If you are a renter, you might already know what a Bubba Siege is. It's what happens when loud, vulgar and often drunken contractors set up a semi-permanent camp outside your apartment window while they go about painting/renovating/repairing the building in the noisiest manner possible. They never seem to go away and yet they never seem to make any progress towards their goal

Professional Bubbas are amazing. They can do in weeks what it would take a layperson hours or even days to accomplish, and they can do it at a decibel level rivaling that of a live rock band...if your town has a "classic rock" station ( i.e., one that still has Boston and Foreigner in daily rotation), the Bubbas will have it tuned in and cranked up. Remember Styx? You do now.

To make it worse, it looks like I'll be unemployed during the upcoming Bubba Siege- a Siege is not so bad when one has a day job, as there is no way in hell you can get a Bubba to begin work before 9 or continue after 5, so they have usually departed by the time one returns home, but a Siege will make one's home uninhabitable at peak hours. If one has no money, the library and the public parks will become indispensable resources , as well as providing valuable training grounds in case one is forced into homelessness.

Job in doubt? Spend money!

My new PC is not here yet, but I have already upgraded my monitor, having found a 20" LCD widescreen for $99...sweet!

It turns out that my old PC's CD drive was causing my woes.Windows wasn't recognizing it- I went into BIOS and disabled the CD and set the PC to boot off the hard drive first ( no A: drive in machine) and it worked fine- I temporarily installed a borrowed CD drive, defaulted BIOS back to boot off the loaner and it worked with no fuss, so voila , problem identified. But not fixed.

It's a drag , because I will have to find another way to move 25+ gigs of audio files from Old PC to New PC...a data-stick thingie comes to mind...it also shouldn't be hard to find/borrow an old IDE drive for free, so no way in hell am I buying a 50-buck drive for a PC that's two days away from being mothballed. There are a lot of ways to transfer files these days...might be able to FTP 'em...who knows?
Eh, cross that bridge later, right?



What game am I playing? Hint: You can get killed by pots and pans. My old PC can barely run it, but the new one should rock...I hope I can survive the virtual kitchen!

Lock-Down Clown

I was sent on a four-hour delivery run this morning, which was good because it was a beautiful day for a drive. I drove across/under the bridge-tunnel that spans the eastern end of the James River and marveled at the huge cargo ships and military vessels in the distance- even from afar, an aircraft carrier is an impressive boat. I wish I could have taken pictures, but the whole journey was via interstate and I was on a schedule.

Driven by a combination of ravenous hunger and desperate self-loathing, I stopped at a highway McDonald's in an attempt to poison myself. When I got to the counter,I was greeted by a surprisingly cheerful and polite young lass who happily took my order and sounded a tone of sincere regret when she told me no, they do not have lemonade. I was glad to settle for an orange-colored sugar drink. I was so stunned to be given good service that I probably would have accepted a glass of Guyana Punch...wow, they really care at McD's, I thought, dreamily.

Then I saw the sign hanging in the back of the McKitchen.

It was a hand-made and visually disturbing banner with the phrase "lock-down" painted on it in large, bright letters, with the hyphen in the phrase represented by a length of chain clutched in the hands of a sardonically grinning Ronald McDonald. Beneath the cruel clown was the command that all hands must be "on deck " during "lock-down" hours. Not only was Ronald a cruel taskmaster, he was also mixing metaphors. I don't think I could work for Ronald.

I tried to get a decent picture of the sign with my cell phone, but the light and angle worked against me:



Smiley Girl saw me taking pictures and came over to ask me if I "needed anything." She kept flicking her eyes at my chest and it dawned on me that I was wearing a cryptic-looking Federal ID around my neck. I took it off, pocketed it and told her, no, I was fine, but I wanted to get a picture of that sign because it was really freaking me out.

She smiled, weakly this time, and her expression indicated that she had her own opinion of the sign but wasn't allowed to share it with the customers. She obligingly stepped out of my way while I tried in vain to get a focused shot.

"I'm going to make one for my office", I explained. She looked at me in dismay.

"Just kidding", I reassured her.
She smiled.

It felt good.

Tough Times

We laid off 1,100 people this week. Some of them hadn't even completed training when they received word that they had been terminated. We had expected the operation to continue until mid-July, but the Field workers finished two months ahead of schedule so there's no work to do until July or August...or whenever. It changes all the time.

In any case, the office was filled with bustling gloom all day as sad-faced employees returned their badges and materials. At one point, I was given the unlikely task of "keeping an eye" on newly-unauthorized personnel as they stood in line.

Over the last couple days I have called the temp agency folks, but they didn't sound hopeful. One former boss is now answering her own phone due to down-sizing.

So I'm sitting here, feeling sorry for myself because I'm lonely, poor and facing some hard times, when I get an email from my DJ pal G.
He is caretakerof his dying mother and now he needs a substitute for his Saturday show, so I fear that his mom may have passed away. From what I understand, it will be a mercy for her and her family, but a family death is never easy, even when it's for the best.

I'd like to write about how my empathy and compassion for my friend and what he is going through have put my job problems and personality disorders in perspective, but that's not exactly how my brain works.

I sat motionless for (an hour?) a time, lost in melancholy thoughts about my own mother. I was the one who found her body and it was bad. My uncle S, who was with me, left me alone with her body while he went off to work on his own suicide, which came a year or three later. I try not to remember any of this, but I do anyway.

Waaah. I miss my mother. I really do.

Eventually, I snapped out of it.
G! His mother!
I wrote back and told him I'd do it. One good thing about my demotion is I have normal 9-5 hours again and will be able to do more radio-related work as a result.

I need to re-engage with life or I will never escape this depression. I have never been depressed on-air. I don't think it's possible...well, my voice was shaky after my grandmother died, but that was grief, not depression. Big difference. Grief can be healthy, depression cannot.

I don't know what happens next. Does anyone?

*************************

Recent News I Like:

I like the idea of mandatory high-mileage cars! Much too late, but better now than never!

I like consumer protection against lenders! About time.

And props on the $250 of stimulus money given to persons on fixed disability income. I didn't even see that on the news, a friend who received one of the checks told me about it. I guess good news doesn't travel so well.

Juvenile Humor and The Failure of Symbolism

I believe that part of me is stuck at the age of 15 and I thank Godzilla for that fact, because it lets me laugh at silly things like the Smoker's Pole. It was located, not coincidentally, in the smoking area of a local hotel where we were holding a Bureau training class. My mind saw this sign, inverted it and saw it as 'Pole Smokers' , which immediately caused me to giggle. I doubt if I'm the only one in our class who had a similar reaction, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who snuck out of class to take a picture of it.

I'm on a day-to -day basis at work, which is becoming more excruciatingly stressful each day, so I'm trying to find humor in whatever I can. If my unvoiced immaturity can keep me smiling, my superiors (which now means everybody who isn't me)) might get the impression that I am happy in my work and thus be more likely to keep me around.

Jobs are being cut left and right and it's largely a lick-spittle popularity contest, so my best bet is to keep smiling and do a good job. This hurts, because I always try to the best I can at whatever I do- it's a matter of pride- but I hate having to suck-up out of desperation.

My bosses are all women now, but if they had poles, I'd be smoking them (in a figurative sense), if ya know what I mean. The Office has come to that- scheming, vicious backstabbing and political machinations from all quarters, coupled with a desperate need to please . I'm trying to play as much CYA as possibleand let my record speak for itself, but I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by the amount of appallingly hurtful bullshit I'm willing to endure in order to keep a paycheck-any paycheck- coming. I'm training people who get paid far more than me to do less work-including mileage simply for driving to the office and back home. They were all hired before my department was abruptly shut down, so I can't be angry with them, but I missed the chance get one of those jobs because the Bureau told me I'd be working my old job until the end of July.

I'll probably get hired again in the Fall, once things get busy again. Both of the departments I supervised this year finished #1 in the Region , but all that really means is that we've finished early and worked ourselves out of our jobs, at least for a few months. The pride that I take in my accomplishments is poisoned with the knowledge that my success has brought about my (temporary, I hope) financial ruin. Not that there's much to ruin, but the damage to my psyche is priceless.

In any case, it was nice to be away from the office. It was my second day away; yesterday I drove to the Beach area to administer a skills test, which was actually a refreshing change, despite the pay cut.



I thought I'd make amends for laughing at 'Pole Smoker' by reading Kafka's In The Penal Colony
during lunch hour. I read it in the same hopeful manner that a spider spins a web, but fortunately, I lured no flies into my parlor.

This was the conversation I wanted to have, but didn't:

Fly: "Whatcha reading?"

Me: " Kafka's In The Penal Colony."

Fly: "Huh?"

Me: "Well, it's often interpreted- at least partially- as symbolic of the conflicts between the Old and New Testaments and their respective adherents, and it probably is; but to a reader such as myself, one who has no inherently religious framework of reference; it seems more of an allegory of the futility of, and the human toll exacted by adherence to (or opposition of), The System, i.e, the vast, petty and indifferent cruelty of bureaucracy.

In the end, the Traveler, who eschews his task of voting yea or nay in favor of The System, is the only character who escapes the desolate, unnamed setting of the story. I find it interesting that the Officer ultimately chooses his own death with his blind-faith submission to advanced technology, which is both timeless and prophetic , especially considering that it was written in 1914."

Fly: "Oh, right...I remember that one now. Using that analogy, the Soldier and the Condemned could be seen as representing the hopeless sense of disconnected resignation imposed by a rigid workplace hierarchy, with one laborer destroying another, not out of any particular avarice, but rather because it is simply his job to do so. It wouldn't surprise me if Kafka had something of the sort in mind- or maybe not. The guy was weird."

But that conversation never happened, because not many people at work want to talk about Kafka.

******************************************************

"Nothing, once you think about it, could tempt you to be the winner of a race."
-Franz Kafka, Reflections For Amateur Jockeys

Rock Blots

Yesterday I got laid-off. Less than ten minutes later, I got my job back, only with terrible hours- forty hours spread over six days per week - I now have a three-hour shift on Friday, a five-hour day on Sunday and four eight-hour shifts Mon-Thurs.

A few hours later I got wind that I was getting promoted and transferred to a nearby office- wait, no- I was getting laid-off, nevermind...it was about this time that I sorta accidentally said some rather loud and impolitic words which have either gotten me fired, promoted or back to 'normal'...I honestly don't know where I stand job-wise from one hour to the next.

It's wearing me out. I don't know how much longer I can stand it.

But I also have a fun new project that will mesh radio, blogging, patriotism and Rorschach blots in a lively and informative manner that is designed to draw attention to talented but underknown independent bands and musicians.

How's that work?

I'll send an inkblot to an artist that I like and let them examine it, after which I will speak with them on the telephone and ask them to explain the image, using one of their own songs to do so- after which, we will play the song for the radio audience and end with a few comments about what we just heard and how the audience can hear more - a well-deserved plug for the artists.

In reality, the inkblot is just an icebreaker- a way to allow the artist to steer the conversation towards something important to them (and get a song played). It also helps keeping me from having to ask questions like :"who are your influences" or "have you ever met Madonna?"

Where's the blog part come in?

I have started a new blog called Rock Blots (nuthin' much there yet) and it will feature the weekly blot in question as well as a transcript of the radio interview and whatever promotional links that my guests would like posted. Other than band links, there will be no advertising and no money will change hands, it's solely about the musicians and their songs- and all in fun.

OK....so what about the patriotism?

I have a radio show on July 4th of this year. I would like to debut my show's new interview feature on that date and feature a tribute to an artist from a different U.S. State each week for 52 weeks after that-one full year!

Yes, I know that there are only 50 States, but I got that little math-based bugaboo figured out, no worry there...in any case, I intend to prove that there are good American bands everywhere and that many of them are actually a lot better than their famous ilk- my opinion anyway.
(I'm correct on this, so don't bother arguing.)

I have a small number of artists that I have corresponded with and most of them have already agreed to participate- I expected to hear "wow...that sounds insane"....well, I did hear that, but in a good way...but I have four artists already lined-up after asking five- it's just matter of logistics and tech details from here on...the interviews will be recorded over the telephone at my house, then I'll edit them for airplay...I'm a geek and I'm not ashamed of it!

If you are in, or know of a band that I might enjoy (check my playlist label for examples) , let me know- there aren't really any rules except the band must be active (performing , recording etc) and they can't cuss on the radio. Oh, and no major-label artists. They get enough press already.

Storm Me

The snow has come and gone and I'm just now getting around to posting pics of it...this church is just down the street from me...the cannon is a relic from Civil War, during which time the building served as a military hospital. I find the juxtaposition of church and artillery to be disturbingly natural.

A brief reprieve from work...work has become the mind-killer. I know that our operation will be bad, it's only a matter of how bad. I'm trying to piece the picture together and what I think I know is this : the contractor who was originally intended to supply the Help Desk tech support is (for unspecified reasons) no longer supplying the support and it's suddenly on the Bureau to develop and implement it's own Help Desk to assist the field staff.
The field staff will be using hand-held computers for the first time and will need lots of Help- I finally got a chance to experiment with one of the Top Secret gizmos and I found it quite frustrating. For example, there is a tiny LCD keyboard that uses a plastic stylus to add text by tapping each key, but the keys are ridiculously small- it takes a steady hand to navigate it at all- and is laden with a half-dozen keys (123; ;;/;? etc) that the manual warns you to NEVER USE. Given the size of the keys, it is inevitable that users will press the "123" key. Who knows what will happen? I reckon we'll find out.

There is an actual sub-chapter titled: "DO NOT PRESS THE 123 KEY". Pressing any one of the keys listed in the manual will produce data errors that could wipe out an entire day's work...it would make sense to remove or disable the keys, but I work for the Bureau and the Bureau is resolutely senseless...we finally received some of the supplies that we needed months ago, but the Recruiting operation is already finished and a change in the Department of Homeland Security's I-9 Law will render the forms we have obsolete as of April 1st - no joke. We will never use those forms- they are already as good as garbage.
We will probably have to hire a contractor to dispose of the mountain of paper generated when the old forms expire and become useless.
We will then need a similarly-sized mountain of the updated versions to replace them.

In real-life, I'm having a hard time dealing with the transition to my new department- I have a full staff that have nothing to do and creating "busy work" is driving me into a palpable funk. One of my clerks told me he hadn't seen me smile for two weeks. That worries me. I haven't seen a ghost in over a month but I've been having nightmares instead, so I don't see much improvement on the mental health side.

On the upside, our job comes with a new hi-tech technology-based risk: The Proximity Flux Effect.

If a person is using a cell phone (to call the Help Desk, for example) and the hand-held computer transmits data at the same time and the frequencies go out-of-phase, there is a small but significant chance that the dual transmissions will cause a non-cybernetic biometric feedback loop known as the Proximity Flux Effect- which will cause the computer to essentially upload the user's soul into it's memory card, which will then auto-reformat itself, deleting the hapless user's essence. The victim then becomes an empty husk with an insatiable appetite for human brains. I've never seen it happen, but I've heard it's ugly. There's a lot of paperwork involved in an "incident report" already, but the PFE requires a form that no living human has been granted access to- for security purposes, clearance is only granted to individuals post-humously.

I said upside because I'm pretty confident in my ability to survive a zombie plague. Bureaucracy, not so much.

Hoopla

At work I am responsible for an electronic document. Should anything happen to the document, our entire department would come to a crashing, piled-up halt and would stay that way for days. The problem is, I am prohibited from saving the document onto a Bureau PC and am likewise forbidden from copying it or saving onto a CD, flash drive, email or other media. My job requires me to work on a document that I am not allowed to save, copy or transfer- in other words, the only way to fulfill my job obligations is to break rules that can get me fired.
The fact that our department is running smoothly is clear evidence of wrong-doing, because if we follow The Rules, it's not possible to accomplish our goals. It's as if I had a job delivering pizzas and the Pizza Boss followed me out to my car and slashed my tires as I was loading pies into my car. Seriously.

If we were following procedure, we'd have failed and been fired weeks ago, so our success is somewhat incriminating. If HQ understood their own system, they'd realize that it is unworkable, therefore anyone who is succeeding must, logically, be in disobedience of the rules.

But on the radio, I follow my own path, FCC notwithstanding. I don't have rules, per se, but I do have goals:

#1) Have Fun
I love music, so this part is easy. It's hard for me to find time to listen to music, so my show gives me a much-needed weekly two-hour fix.

#2) Do Some Good
If I can match a new fan up with a new band, my volunteer DJ work is worth it. Share, says I.

#3) Glory, and Lots of It
Um, right. Whatever.

The New Breakfast Snob, Sat Jan. 10

Cafebar 401- Damn These Blues
These guys are from The Netherlands and are remarkably versatile, taking some of the best elements of cool old progrock and blending them with straight-ahead rock-solid songwriting and a quietly effective sense of humor and fun. Highly recommended!

The Kinks- Rats
Best band ever. No one tells a story like Ray does.

Iridesense- Don't Say
Commercial, but I like it and will be playing more of them on future shows. Don't tell anyone.

Minimal Side Effects- Coming Undone
I have a soft spot for high-energy, semi-tight, simple garage rock. That's what this is and this
North Carolina band does it extremely well. Fun!

X- Drunk In My Past
X, the band, single-handedly pulled me from the depraved pits of Grateful Dead hippiedom and dropped me into the squalid, seething cellar of punk rock. It was huge upward step.

Norine Braun- Be Brave
Canadian and amazing! Braun is a musical shapeshifter of the highest-caliber and she's got some great musicians on her recordings. Worth investigating!

Damien Dempsey- Seize The Day
Did ya know I love me some Damo? Of course you do.

Fairport Convention- The Way I Feel
Gordon Lightfoot wrote this. It has some very nice, understated guitar work by Mr. Richard Thompson. More on him later.

Jethro Tull- Acres Wild
I bought this album back in 9th grade. I was still a virgin back then and had no idea what a sexy song this is. I think this album, Heavy Horses, might have been the last "good" Tull album. Pity. They were the best band, ever.

Green Man- Glory Box
Great band, masters of many genres, incuding the blues. Two ears open!

Richard Thompson- Tear-Stained Letter
Nowadays, one's tears are more likely to fall upon a keyboard than an actual letter. This jamming live version has one of the most amazing guitar solos I have ever heard- and I have heard a lot of guitar solos. My broken heart wept with joy as I listened to him go wahoo apeshit during the vamp at the end of this song.

Stefanie Seskin- Your Own Road
This is the only S.S. song I have but I want more. Great voice and production.

The Purrs- She's Gone
I was enthralled by the wah-wah guitar track that weaves in and out of the background of this great pop-rocker. Cool without being intrusive. I want more Purrs.

Blue Number Nine- Dig My Hands
I dig this; soulful and fresh. More!

Scratch and Bite- Wait
Industrial metal with muffled Tom Waitsesque vocals...there's a time and place for it. Somewhere.

Belt- The Night Of The Living Dead
I'm hoping for a Zombie Plague. My love life could use the boost.

Southern Backtones- Forever
I'm liking this.

Carrie Rodriguez- Infinite Night
I first heard Carrie while driving home from a well-needed vacation this summer. Been a fan ever since.

Atris- Conquer All
Love conquers itself but little else. Not that I'm bitter...in any case, this band is great.

Billy David Band- Not OK
This group compares itself to Dave Matthews. I really do not care for Matthews but I do like this band. Nice grooves and edgy rapping.

Joan As Police Woman- Eternal Flame
I played this right after a PSA for NORML featuring Willie Nelson, but this song isn't about that sort of flame. Haunting, layered vocals reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins but without all the extra reverb.

Taxi To The Ocean- Hold Onto Me
Another great Netherlands band that I have only recently discovered. More too come- I'd love to see this band live. Two ears open!

Iron Butterfly- Are You Happy?
Are you? The drugs must be working.

The Frames- Lay Me Down
When they break into "Ring of Fire", I get all goose-bumpy. Best band, ever.

The Duhks- Fast Paced World
The best "Americana" comes from Canada. Ask Neil Young or the Duhks.

The Love Kills Theory- Grey
Not the best band ever, but still a fave of mine. They might be giants but they aren't.

Tuxedomoon- 59 to 1
In high school, I was taking acid and listening to bands like The Residents and Tuxedomoon. I've been trying to find my place in the world ever since.

Thanks for virtually listening!