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.

.

An eventful week for me:

On Monday I had the honor of being a guest on the multi-talented Lakota Phillips' thought-provoking radio program Breaking Taboo on New Dissident Radio. It was great to make a cross-country  connection with my fellow new media pioneers. From the NDR site:

Allan Coberly with WRIR 97.3 and America Revealed’s S. Paul Forrest join Lakota for a fast-paced, exciting show that cracks open the dissatisfaction Americans have with leadership in Washington and the current state of the country and the world. Why all the grumbling and no action? The riots in London, what they really reflect, as well as how they relate to similar unrest in America is discussed with some intriguing points that will make you go “hmmmmm.”

 Podcast downloads of this show and previous BT episodes are available from the link above.

On Wednesday I engineered and produced a live radio appearance by New Jersey trio  Screaming Females- video by Jim Nelson here:


Screaming Females on WRIR from Jim Nelson on Vimeo.

Thursday I stayed up way past my bedtime putting together the playlists below.

Friday I told my boss that I don't make enough money for what they expect, I am very discouraged and am thinking about quitting. Then I went on a second date with a beautiful woman who makes me smile...we had a great dinner and I gave her an autographed copy of The Screaming Females CD.

So.

Right now I have two major unresolved questions:

1) Do I still have a job?

2) Will I ever have a girlfriend again?

But all that had to wait, because this morning I had a four-hour marathon of live radio:

 I had the great honor of filling in for Buzzy Lawler on his fantastic Shake Some Action program on WRIR today- mostly 1960's and early 1970's guitar rock. The good kind- the kind they don't make anymore.

SHAKE SOME ACTION-NEW BREAKFAST SNOB EDITION: 8/20/2011

SSA Podcast here.

NBS Podcast here.

Sweet - Daydream

Sweetwater- Motherless Child

Pink Floyd- Point Me At The Sky

Flaming Groovies- Love Have Mercy

Humble Pie- Shaky Jake

Manfred Mann- My Name's Jack

Ten Years After- Sugar The Road

Taj Mahal- Take A Giant Step

Everly Brothers- Love Is Strange

Alex Chilton- With A Girl Like You

Small Faces- Sha La La Lee

Great Society- White Rabbit

Cat Stevens- I'm Gonna Get Me A Gun
Once and future Stinky Hippie Cat Stevens gleefully singing about going on a homicidal shooting spree , cheerfully exacting revenge on everyone who ever called him a Stinking Hippie. Seriously, even I couldn't make that up.

The Troggs- I Can't Control Myself

The Scorpions -Greensleeves
This is not the 1970's Scorpions, this is an entirely different band. I got yer other Scorpions on the next show...see below.

Gun- Race With The Devil

Neil Young -Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Fairport Convention- Chelsea Morning

John Mayall's Bluesbreakers- All Your Love

Rare Earth- Share Your Love

Edwinn Starr- 25 Miles
I got a caller during this show who informed me that this song was the very first 45rpm record he ever bought as a kid. It made me happy to hear that.

Wilson Pickett- Don't Fight it (Feel it)

Captain Beefheart- Here I Am

Atomic Rooster- Play The Game

Electric Sandwich- Devil's Dream

Fleetwood Mac- Heartbeat Like A Hammer

Jimi Hendrix- We Gotta Live Together

Emerson, Lake and Palmer- Are You Ready, Eddie?

Spirit- Morning Will Come

Electric Flag- Make Your Move

Funkadelic- Standing On The Verge of Getting It On


So, OK. That was one show down. Things were rolling merrily along until suddenly disaster struck- our webstream went down and I could not coax it back to life. WRIR was reduced to a mere broadcast radio station...but rather than skip a week of podcasting, I went home , used my under-appreciated telepathic powers to painstakingly re-create nearly the entire damn show by hand and then I uploaded the simulacrum in lieu of a recording of the actual program.

Why do I do this? Well...because...um...yeah. Or not.

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB 8/20/2011: Telepathic Upload Edition


Jeff Beck- Roy's Toy

Brian Eno- No One Receiving

Klaus Schulze- Weird Caravan

Caravan- Be Alright

David Bowie- Sons of The Silent Age

Jennings- Surrender

Lost In The Trees- Song For The Painter

Mavis Staples- You're Not Alone

Bird York- Punish Me With Kisses

Area 27- Wild Card

Manfred Mann's Earth Band- Messin'

Adriana Kaegi- When The Money Runs Out

The Kinks- Money and Corruption

Joan As Policewoman- Chemmie

Michelle Malone and Band du Soliel- Sitting In The Sun

Paula Cole - Hitler's Brothers

Norine Braun- Hanna To Hollywood

Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood- Some Velvet Morning

Kalliopi- Summer's Almost Over

Fruup- Prince of Darkness

Can- Full Moon On The Highway

Scorpions- Fly People Fly
This is by (the) Scorpions that you  have heard of.

Ray Manzarek- The Golden Scarab
Ray, along with Jim Morrison, was in The Doors. To my knowledge, Morrison never mentioned dung beetles in his lyrics...Ray does mention dung beetles in this tune. That might be why I almost never play The Doors but play Ray quite often. Or maybe I have other reasons.

Astronauts of Antiquity- Strangest Places

-----

One of these days, I'll actually do something...

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Sonics and Tonics

Sometimes I have dreams in which I still have a full head of hair. I call these dreams 'nightmares' because my life used to suck back in the days when I had hair. I've been shaving my head for nearly six years and my life has almost completely turned around since I stopped using shampoo.

I've had a weekly music program on our local non-profit radio station WRIR 97.3 FM for over five years now, but next Monday (8/15/11, 7PM EST) will mark  a radio first for me: I'll be a guest on another host's program:  Breaking Taboo, a weekly discussion program hosted by the redoubtable Lakota Phillips on New Dissident Radio.

From the BT website:

"Breaking Taboo is hosted by artist, writer, and erotic muse Lakota Phillips who kidnaps her guests from around the country, ties them up using only the softest shibari ropes, and forces them to explore our societal myths, stereotypes, art, sex, and taboos; but not necessarily in that order or all on the same show.  She’s considerate like that. The show delivers a huge dose of humor mixed with controversy on Pandora topics your mother never wanted you to know about."

Along with   S. Paul Forrest of America Revealed, we'll discuss the London riots and America's own dissatisfaction with our own government- are we unable to change our government or are we merely unwilling to even try? That topic and 'all manner of other controversy' @4pmPST, 7pm EST. Listen live here.

Wednesday 8/17/11 @7pm, I'll be producing a live in-studio performance by The Screaming Females, a hot trio from NJ who'll be appearing on Mike Rutz's WRIR Activate! show , giving us a preview of their 8/18 BFD show at Richmond's Bike Lot.

Friday night I have a second date...I think maybe, just maybe, we might sorta kinda like each other a little bit. It is really soon but I am optimistic. And charmed. 

Next Saturday I'll be guest-hosting Buzzy Lawler's Shake Some Action program at 11am and continuing on through my own show beginning at 1pm and running until 3, which means four consecutive hours of live radio. Bring it on!

_______________________________

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB 8/13/2011

Podcast:http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/53727

Goldfrapp- Crystalline Green

Gong- Gris Gris Girl

Liars- Scissor

Funkadelic- Some More

Mothers of Invention- San Berdino

King Crimson- Cat Food

Green Man- Do Bheatha 'Bhaile

Aphrodesia- Ayala

Steve Hillage- Electrick Gypsies

Ashlee Rose- Devil's Town

Cafebar 401- Blame the Villian

Amy Winehouse- Stronger Than Me

Joan As Policewoman- The Magic

Joni Mitchell- In France They Kiss On Main Street

Michelle Malone & Band du Soliel- Woman on the Floor

Richard Thompson- Crash The Party

mr. Gnome- Bit of Tongue

Adriana Kaegi- It Feels Like

Paula Cole- Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Sparks- Talent Is An Asset

Ray Manzarek- Boiling Rage

The Purrs- Big Black Wall

Bardo Pond- Wank

Deluka- OMFG


I'll be catching my breath now...a pizza may be called for. Literally.

The E=MC5²

Do you remember the days when you could get 10 free record albums just by writing a fake name on a Columbia House Record Club coupon and dropping it in a mailbox?

The card gave a  few choices of favorite musical styles. If I recall, I think the list was pretty limited, the choices being more or less : Rock, Soft Rock, Classical, Jazz, Country, Pop, R&B and maybe Disco, since this was the 1970's after all.

You pretty much had to go with plain-old 'Rock' back then. 'Soft Rock' would get you laughed at by your friends- they were way too cool to admit that they liked The Carpenters as much as you did.
Today is different. I'm a DJ and I'm almost terrified to discuss genre  for fear of seeming completely clueless. There are more genres than there are bands- and there are a LOT of bands!

Me: What kind of music do you play?

Coolster: Oh, it is combination of emo, crust-core, mixtape, shoe-gaze, twee metal and new rock, but with lots of  ambient darkwave 8-bit alt-folk elements, and of course, some spoken-word  psyche-salsa  beat breaks.

And then they'll play a song and it'll sound a lot like an old 1980's Casio playing the same beat over and over while a couple male voices yip and yap in the foreground and amplified guitars fall over and break in the background. And when I ask the Coolster how they got the neat  guitar sound, he'll tell me it was sampled from some old record he stole from his Dad...he thinks it was called Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Some old dude he'd heard about somewhere.

Aaargh. Don't kids today know anything about musical history?

I bet none of them remember  prototypical Math-OCD band, The E=MC5².


Formed at MIT in the late 1960's The E=MC5² was comprised of a rotating cast of students and professors who understood that all music is somehow math-based, even if the math is sometimes a bit faulty. They also took a lot of acid and talked far too much while they were tripping, and before long,  a now-unknown 'core' group found themselves undertaking the daunting task of converting the numerical value of pi  to music.


The band spent their formative years in an abandoned schoolhouse, surrounded by chalkboards, cheap guitar amps, lava lamps  and blacklight posters; members would drop in and out as academic arguments, exhaustion, intellectual misadventures  and heavy drug use took their respective tolls, but according to legend they persevered through all obstacles: switching to acoustic instruments  during blackouts, changing locales as as the authorities chased them from one condemned building to another, a haggard, bearded  and discredited physics professor slapping a bongo in 3.14 time while zealous students chanted numerical litanies in order to keep the song going until a new venue could be found.

The descendents of the original members are still playing , currently doing the latest in a decades-long series of farewell tours.  As of this writing, the The E=MC5² hold the unofficial World Record for the longest continuously performed musical composition of all time, with their trademark opus 'Pi-Eyed'  clocking in at an amazing 38 years, 6 months, 10 days, 11 hours and 12 minutes. Thirteen minutes now, since they are still playing!

Today's show will be a tribute to the madness that is the The E=MC5²: We'll hear a carefully selected two-hour excerpt from the decade-spanning classic 'Pi-Eyed' , including a fabulous moment in 2008 when the late Captain Beefheart came out of his hermit-like retirement to sing a nine-hour duet with Amy Winehouse, who wasn't dead yet.  Legend has it that Canadian rockers Rush are playing the background musical parts of this segment, but everyone present was either senile, wasted or currently dead, so no one will ever know for sure. A wayward guitar solo was once credited to Eric Clapton, but upon being asked,  he quickly assigned the blame to George Harrison, who had been dead for years at the time.

With some luck, there might be time to play some other songs, but you'll have to tune in to find out, won't you?

WRIR 97.3 FM...the fun starts at 1PM 8/13/2011.

Is My Moral Code Written In Invisible Ink?

I have often heard alcoholics talk about how their lives became "unmanageable" when they drank, which is something that I , as an alcoholic myself, do not really fully understand.

For me, the more I drank, the more 'manageable' my life became. Booze made all my decisions for me- except the ones the State made- and I pretty much knew what the goal of each day was- a blackout drunken fog. But that is a shitty goal and it'll kill you sooner than later. Unless you are lucky like me and don't stay dead.

Sober is easy. I'm not at all tempted to drink, no matter how rotten things become.  Not drinking is the easy part, it is what to do with all the sober time that gets tricky.

Take women , for example. Alcohol used to pick my girlfriends for me, and in hindsight it didn't do such a good job on giving me girlfriend-picking lessons. Some I had to learn on my own.

1) After a certain age, sex on the first date is not a good idea. I'm not saying it can't work, but personally I'd advise against it. Nothing lasting has ever started that way for me and the older I get, the more that I want things to last.

2) If your date agrees to a second date and then changes her mind- and then changes it again- things probably aren't gonna work out.

3) Don't date multiple women on the same weekend, even if they are just casual meets.  It is too difficult to focus and you'll just wind up massively confused, poorer and still single. Plus, you are kind of an old-fashioned romantic monogamist at heart...yeah, say whatever you want, but I know what's in yer head, buddy.

4) Don't expect a second date, period. Don't be mad, it just works that way.

5) If you meet someone you really like and you wind up talking while the restaurant closes around you, and that person is genuinely interested in seeing you again, then you should:

6) Cancel your date(s) with other women- honestly and as politely you can - and see how things work out with #5 above first . You obviously like her. She made you laugh out loud, in public.  Dude, you never laugh out loud. I bet you'd dance in front of people if she asked you to- go on, admit it. You would. I knew it.
I mean, you told her how you single-handedly ruined your Senior class high school Baccalaureate and she laughed with anarchistic glee. That is a good sign.

7) Seriously, if your biggest problem is trying to figure out how to cancel dates with attractive women without hurting their feelings, then maybe your problems aren't such problems after all.
Maybe you've actually got it pretty fucking good. She might even like you. If she does, you should be giving life a grateful A+ instead of complaining all the time and convincing yourself that no one likes you. Dumbass.

8) And if it doesn't work out, it really isn't that hard to get another date, is it? You just cancelled two, didn't you?  It's a big desperate world and not many people really want to face it alone, and really, no one should have to. You met plenty of pretty, perfectly nice and intelligent women, but face it dude, you are a little bit weird. Not every woman is going to understand you. (You aren't going to understand any of them, but that is normal, don't be alarmed)

--------------

So I just did 5 and 6 above. I hope it doesn't get to 8 again, but I've been there before and it wasn't fatal, it only felt that way. 

I hope I did the right thing. A lot of guys would probably be able to pull off two or three dates in a weekend...I have a female penpal friend (that I met on a date) and she will sometimes have two dates in a day...not for sex or anything, but still...that would be stressful to me.

I'm not good enough with names for that, for one thing.


 Well.




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A Head Full of Quandry and a Mighty, Mighty Thirst

                                                 I love my radio friends


There are many ways to cope with the lingering spectre of depression. One way would to stay up all night listening to six billion songs in a single evening, imagining to oneself how the songs will fit together,for example: how will the end of this Bird York song fade into the beginning of this Joan Wasser tune?

Pretty damn well, it turns out. If you don't believe me, download the podcast and hear for yourself. If you do believe me, download the podcast and enjoy it.

What I'm trying to say here is: download the podcast.




 THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB: AUG. 6th 2011
         (Originally aired on WRIR 97.3 FM. )



The Kinks- Preservation (Single)
This is a nearly-unknown Kinks track...a very un-Kinks-like  groove rocker with very Kinks-y timeless lyrics.

Booker T. Jones- Progress
You can get the awesome compilation CD that this soulful tune is taken from here, for FREE.

Joni Mitchell- Don't Interrupt The Sorrow
Ah, Joni. This song is nothing short of brilliant. The title of this post is taken from it.

Bird York- Bought A Gun
"By the time I'm eleven, I'll be a man"

Joan As Policewoman- Nervous
Had a couple callers on this one, they loved it and they should, it is awesome...I have been a huge Joan Wasser fan for years...why is she not totally fucking famous yet?

Sparks- I Can't Believe That You Would Fall For All The Crap In This Song
"And only you and only you, my love"

Of Montreal- An Eluadarian Instance
This band is better than a million circuses.

Kalliopi- Summer Is Over
She's from Greece. Things are tough in Greece right now, hopefully there's some solace in music.

Nouvelle Vague- Making Plans For Nigel
XTC cover. 

Tom Waits- Make It Rain
"Sharpen my knives on my mistakes"

Amy Winehouse- Fuck-Me Pumps
Add Amy to my list of unattainable post-mortem crushes; Voltairine DeCleyre, Clara Bow, and Amy Winehouse.

Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald- Frim Fram Sauce
Oooo tasty.

Rare Earth- Is Your Teacher Cool?
Depends on the lesson.

The Stranglers- The Sweet Smell of Success

Funkadelic- Funky Dollar Bill

Jimi Hendrix- Message of Love

Miles Davis- Spanish Key (single edit)

Michelle Malone  and Band du Soliel- Cortez the Killer
Awesome live cover of classic Neil Young song...Michelle Malone is the real rocking deal.


Jennings- Surrender
New album coming soon!

Manfred Mann's Earth Band- Cloudy Eyes

Atomic Rooster- Devil's Answer

Roxy Music- Three and Nine

John Cale- Taking It All Away

Brian Eno- The True Wheel

David Bowie- Blackout
Man, this song is about best thing that ever happened to my ears, ever.


Astronauts of Antiquity- Breakthrough


Misty Boyce- Be A Man
I like the way the title of this song doesn't say what you probably think it does...but if she was a man, she couldn't sing like she does. And that would be a bummer, 'cause she sings great.

How To Listen To The Radio In 2011

Podcast here...

THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB JULY 30 2011

Sparks- Intro/I've Never Been High

Amy Winehouse- Amy, Amy, Amy

Edwinn Starr- Who Cares If You Are Happy Or Not? (I Do)

F&M- Another Closing Number

Jennings- Surrender

Gong- Digital Girl

Steve Hillage- Searching for the Spark

Goldfrapp- Strict Machine

Bird York- Prozac Day

Area 27- Human Alien

Hawkwind- To Love A Machine

Pink Floyd - Summer '68

Jimi Hendrix- Sunshine of Your Love

The Fierce and the Dead- 10'x 10'

Jeff Beck- Loose Cannon

Green Man- Cold Blows The Wind

Clannad- Battles

Rare Earth- When I Write

Funkadelic- Super Stupid

Hot Tuna- Extrication Love Song

Joan as Policewoman- Furious

The Whispering Tree- So Many Things

Stefanie Seskin- Your Own Road

Misty Boyce- Razor

Garbage- #1 Crush

John Cale- Heartbreak Hotel

HuDost- Salome

How Failure Saved My Life

I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never paid any real notice to Amy Winehouse before her death. The first time I saw her image was in a series of caricature sketches that a long-ago penpal sent me, the drawings were of rock stars  and I identified most of them but couldn't place Winehouse. Is that what's-her-name from the B-52s?

My friend was surprised that I'd never heard of Amy Winehouse, after all she was  all over the press back then. Not for her singing, but for her personal life, such as it was.

So anyway, I listened to her music last week after my show. And I found that she was really, really good. At least for two CDs...two CDs doesn't exactly qualify one for Hendrix comparisons, not musically anyway, but the songs are good and her voice is amazing. I had expected some sort of electro-techno-disco glop, not soulful, heartbreaking and sometimes funny songs, songs largely played with real instruments. There was a lot of potential there.

I hate the tabloid media and the way they emphasize all the wrong aspects of an artist. I don't give a damn how much weight some actress that I've never heard of has gained or what kind of drunken voicemails some Hollywood clown leaves on some other Hollywood clown's phone.

Even things that I would normally enjoy-such as swimsuit photos of beautiful women- are ruined by bright red circles and highlights that point out the 'imperfections' on human bodies that any sane person would consider to be natural wonders: 

Omigod, is that a wrinkle on Suzy Creamcheese's face? Are her boobs sagging? Is that a trace of cellulite? Get her to a plastic surgeon before it is too late!

Can you imagine a young Joni Mitchell  being transported through time and marketed by a team of 2011-era Hollywood producers?

                                       
                                                  (still alive and fine)


Well, we'd better do something about that hair. Maybe we can salvage it...we'll need to add some weight in the right places too, maybe raise the cheekbones just a tad, they are not-terrible...lose the nerdy clothes and start  showing some skin, at least  once the cosmetic scars heal...oh, and try playing  something you can dance to, maybe guitar stuff that isn't so complicated, be more like Lenny Kravitz and less like Django Reinhardt, right? ...and stop using so many  words- I mean, can't you just find a hook and stick with it? Our producers will be handling  the songwriting from now on, ok? 

No one will be able to see your new tits with that guitar in the way, so we'll find someone to do that for you too, or maybe we'll get your stylist to design a transparent guitar you can wear like a bra...now go meet your personal trainer and start toning those skinny legs so's you can learn some moves fer your video...
 

Whomever said: "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" was a fucking idiot. If your fast-living kills you while you are still young, your corpse is not going to be a beautiful work of art- it is going to be a mortis-sculpture that  requires a HazMat team to clean up. Seriously.

Because chances are you've played with needles or slept with someone who has, and that makes your blood an upgraded potential biological hazard. And there's probably going to be a lot of blood when they find you. You would be unpleasantly surprised at the number of orifices that can bleed simultaneously. I sure was surprised when my time came.

So forget about the glamor of an early death brought on by a hard life. There isn't any glamor in being found dead in a congealing pool of your own blood, vomit, shit and piss. Fabulous!

There isn't any way that I can judge her strength of character or know if Winehouse really wanted to quit using or not but I will give her the benefit of the doubt. I have been there myself and I know how hard it is. It takes a long time- a lifetime- to adjust to sobriety and the first attempt doesn't always work. I know.

But what I can't know is what it would have been like to try to get clean if I had left the hospital and suddenly found out that I was rich and famous. That every detail of my life- real or fabricated- was uploaded to the internet in real-time as it occurred and viewed with obsessive fascination by people who really should have better things to do with their time.

And that I had piles of money and plenty of new 'friends' willing to help me spend it.

I have a very talented friend who desperately wanted to be a rock star when she was younger but never quite achieved that dream. This was a source of pain for her, but it shouldn't be, because if she'd become famous back then, she'd be dead by now and that would suck. I understand the desire to attain immortality through art, but the 'immortality' once granted to artists just isn't what it used to be. Most 'celebs' don't even seem to get 15 minutes of artistic recognition, their "fame" is all about their personal lives, not their art; they are lucky to get  a few hits, 140 characters of obituary and a Tiny URL for a tombstone.

I wanted the same fame for myself as my friend wanted, of course. I was sure that I'd be a rock star by 21 and dead by 30 and at the time I saw this as some sort of transcendental, darkly poetic and tragically beautiful fate. Lucky for me, I was a failure as a rock star, because I was a hugely successful addict and if I'd had a trainload of cash and a retinue of vampires for friends to go with that success, I'm sure I'd  be dead now.

It seems as if the public does not care about talent or skill , it is all about gory spectacle and prurient distractions..one person's escapism becomes that person's nightmare addiction and then that person's  nightmare addiction becomes the escapism of millions . Vicious.

I think the  gossip media must appeal to the same dark, reptilian part  of the human psyche that the ancient Romans tapped into when they forced slaves to fight to the death for the public amusement of a privileged audience. At least the ancient Roman had to show up and watch the death in-person and physically give the 'thumb up or down' life-or-death gesture. Today we have the 'like' button with  "lols" and 'smiley' emoticons to help add a passive-aggressive veneer of plausible deniability  to our otherwise murderous statements. Fuck off :) lol :)

But is being successful a good thing? Especially in the context of addiction? It seems like only yesterday that the nation was transfixed by Charlie Sheen tweets and rants. For me, the most immediate benefit that I realized when I quit using cocaine was not having to listen to crazy-ass cokehead bullshit anymore...many years later, people were actually paying money to listen to crazy-ass cokehead bullshit. Unreal.

Let's look at other forms of popular entertainment from the not-so-distant-past.

Death and torture:

Obviously, human beings have a perversely morbid fascination with watching other human beings suffer and die. Crucifixions, lynchings, hangings, beheadings...these are all huge crowdpleasers. Do you think humans have changed much since the photograph above was taken?

Think again.

 The only difference is now we can watch people destroy themselves and others from the safety of our own carefully filtered custom-aggregated electronic cocoons. We don't need to be physically present to  extend our condemnation of others, we can do it anonymously with the click of a single button or a  snarky text shortcut. We have violent videogames and movies like the 'Saw' series and Mel Gibson's S&M Jesus movie to satiate our bloodlust and morbid fantasies. It is only a matter of time until someone does a 'Faces of Death' reality TV series.
(If they haven't already).

Ultimately, it is up to the addict to quit.  I know this because I have done it, alone and without any formal support system. But I don't know that I could have done it if I'd been famous. I don't think I'd have survived my success.

But I was lucky. The only misery that I was addicted to was my own and my suffering wasn't public enough to be called 'entertainment'. I never made the Big Time but at least I lived to talk about not making it.

That's more than Amy got. She got success instead.


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Catching Up, Going Out

Things have been a bit hectic but the show must go on - and so must the podcast of the show.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have been invited to dinner by one of my recent coffee dates and I need to make myself presentable...that should take at least 10 minutes.

PODCAST OF 7/16/2011 SHOW

PODCAST OF 7/23/2011 SHOW


THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB 7/16/2011

Rathkeltair- All About You

Jethro Tull- The Valley

Apache O'Raspi- Hostal Simplex

Frank Zappa- Stinkfoot

The Whispering Tree- So Many Things

Misty Boyce- Be A Man

Cranberries- Zombie

Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield-Stop

Hot Tuna- Baby, What You Want Me To Do?

Good Rats- Reason To Kill

DOTMIG- Going To The Top

Israel Darling- Brilliant Plan

Triumvirat- The Walls of Freedom

Renaissance- Kiev

Area 27- Stereofab

NEU!- Isi

Manfred Mann's Earth Band- California Coastline

Sparks- No More Mr. Nice Guys

10CC- Sand In My Face

Beach Boys- Back Home

Taxi To The Ocean- I Live At Home

Crack The Sky- Suspicion

Ozone Player- Orange Apples

Early Bird Collages- Untitled #3

Love Kills Theory- Region of the Worms

Tiger- Suzi Slicker

Traffic- Memories of a Rock and Roller


THE NEW BREAKFAST SNOB 7/23/2011



Danny Kaye- The Maladjusted Jester

Pink Floyd- Echoes pt. 1 (Live)

Crack the Sky- Ice

Pretty Things- Cold Stone

Kalliopi- Fire and Sea

The Fierce and the Dead- Pt. 2

Neil Young- Don't Let It Bring You Down

Papa John Creach- The Janitor Drives a Cadillac

Speck Mountain- Twinlines

Gong- City of Self-Fascination

Billie Holiday- Nice Work If You Can Get It

Andrews Sisters- I Can Dream, Can't I?

Louis Armstrong- Lucky Old Sun

Flaming Groovies- She's Falling Apart

Suzi Quatro- Suicide

Carpenters- Superstar

Jethro Tull- Moths

Katie Lee- Something Psychological

Goldfrapp- Lovely Head

Rare Earth- Hum Along And Dance

Michelle Malone & Band du Soliel -Black River

The Tubes- Mondo Bondage

Hawkwind- Out Here We Are

Be Bop Deluxe- Shine

Stab My Back But Please Don't Shoot Me

Last year ended with the revelation that someone I loved and trusted had betrayed me, had been betraying me for months in fact, but their betrayal of my trust had kept them quite busy, so there hadn't been time to inform me of it until well after it was underway.

I couldn't understand it. I was emotionally amputated, damaged and reduced to rubble; there was a crater in my chest where my heart used to live and a family of knives had moved  into my spinal neighborhood. I was a mess and it took a long time for me to feel better, but eventually I did. I reached a sort of peace with my lack of understanding, and concluded that things just are. Deal with it, move on.

Much later, a casual slip of this person's tongue revealed the entirety of their plan to me- all five years of it-  and suddenly it all made sense. What I had been led to believe would happen was never actually supposed to happen, it was all part of a larger plan. I found it unethical and unsavory, but wholly understandable and I honestly can say that at one point in my life I might have done pretty much the same thing, had I had the chance.
The person who betrayed me is considerably younger than myself and values sometimes change, so hey...whatever. I don't agree with what they did, but it is very logical and to their advantage.

One confidante who is privy to the details of the tale used the word 'evil' in his assessment, but I disagree with him.

Unethical, yes.  Evil? No, I don't think so. I've partied with murderers and worse and my former friend is not like those people at all, not in spirit or in deed.

Nevertheless, they did betray me and as a result,someone who once filled my heart and soul is now just an internet buddy that I exchange greetings with when we bump into each other on-line. The anger is gone, but so is the trust and without trust, I don't feel like putting much effort into the friendship.

But this really isn't about that situation, I just used it to illustrate how I feel about betrayal.

You see, I consider our receptionist at work to be a close friend. This is a strictly on-the-job friendship and could never really be more that that, but we have developed a very close personal rapport that makes my job that much easier to deal with and I think she feels the same way.

So it bothered me a few weeks ago when she asked me if I had left a note on her desk and would I mind taking a look at it?  Sure.

It was partially typed and partially hand-written in what looked like deliberately messy handwriting...handwriting that resembled my own sloppy scribbling. The message itself was cryptic and  work-specific, it would make no sense to anyone not working in our line of work, but it wasn't profane or sexual- it was accusatory and unsigned. This stirred up a cloud of suspicion over almost everyone, my co-worker Dan said it looked like my handwriting...I volunteered a handwriting sample and was cleared, but still...who left the note, and why?

Meanwhile, my friend Dan has been slipping at work for sometime. Yesterday a Big Boss from HQ came down to speak with him and he called out sick, which really, really pissed her off. So she went around the office asking about him- among the things she learned about Dan:

-He told a short , elderly customer that he did not like her and would not help her. He was apparently slapping the palm of his hand with the backside of his other hand while he said this. The customer was, and is, terrified of him.

-He has told several people that he likes to drink , heavily and alone. 

-After receiving many complaints about his lack of customer service, he wrote back to a lower boss calling it "bullshit" and asking why he has to deal with people who keep entering his workspace. He works in the copy room, it is open to anyone in the office and his job is help them...he called this "bullshit" in an email. To a manager.

-He spends almost all of his workday browsing the internet.

-He looks almost exclusively at websites devoted to handguns and ammunition. He is not at all shy about his browsing habits, it is not unusual to walk into the copy room and see pictures of automatic pistols or  on-line ammo catalogs displayed on his monitor. Hours and hours spent staring at gun porn on the job...it has made more than a few people nervous, myself included.

-He told the receptionist that he recently purchased two guns.

- His Sunday Facebook post mentions buying ammunition at a local sporting goods shop.

The kicker is the video camera footage. It revealed Dan as the one who left the nasty, disruptive note a few weeks back. He tried to set me up.

Why? What was he trying to achieve? And why was he so quick to point the finger at me?

You see, I used to work with Dan at another job and I considered him a friend. In fact, I was the one who got him the job that he has lost as of today. They finally-finally- fired him. He won't be back on the job, not unless he decides to come back and start shooting people. Which is not beyond the realm of possibility.

And questions remain. Why has he been so bizarre lately, obsessed with guns and claiming that he likes to drink- a lot and alone...why did he leave that crazy note and why blame me?

I'm not afraid of him physically but he owns two guns, has some sort of unreasonable anger against almost everyone and he knows where I live.

I got him a job in a time of record unemployment and he betrays me by trying to frame me for his misdeed and then doing such a lousy job that I felt compelled to apologize for recommending him in the first place. That was humiliating, I vouched for him and he was a total fuck-up.

The whole thing makes me feel  crazy. Why do I suddenly have an enemy? We've never had angry words or any real differences at all, yet he tried to get me fired. Why?

Why?