Apparently there exists a black and white video for Radiohead’s “We Suck Young Blood,” shot by director P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia). Here are the details, from Thom Yorke:
”Paul Thomas Anderson came into the studio and he brought this
…
Archive for 2004
12.29.04
Detroitfunk on the Maccabee Building
(I’m there for work a few times each week)
Oh man, a snowstorm closed work today, so I got to lay in bed and watch cartoons (The Venture Brothers and Tom Goes to the Mayor Xmas specials) until I was sufficiently awake. I found one more MP3 to post …
12.19.04
- A good christmas music forum.
12.19.04
12.19.04
(Available thanks to the miracle of blogtorrent.)
12.19.04
(Crank-operated cat cranks crank-operated cat…)
12.17.04
Autobiographical Chris Ware strip in this Month’s ‘Esquire’ magazine.
“What I’ve Learned,” 2 pages.
12.17.04
New Chris Ware character debuts (?) in this week’s New Yorker.
“Dick Public,” 4 pages.
Oh man, who wants to hear an angry story about the Post Office? Oh, everyone does? Then I’ll tell it!
This holiday season the loose musical collective in which I participate tried an experiment. We offered to mail out a …
12.14.04
Chris Ware special on french television in January.
Someone in France needs to record this for me. Or put up a torrent.
12.14.04
More Antonio Prohias intrigue.
Spy Vs. Spy was originally an anti-Castro strip.
12.14.04
Even MORE Antonio Prohias (audio) intrigue, from NPR.
I’ll stop now.
12.11.04
12.11.04
Great gallery of vintage paperback covers.
A goldmine for flyer material.
12.10.04
New Mars Volta record is 77 minutes of seamless prog goodness.
Most songs have multiple ‘movements.’ I can barely contain my glee.
I lied. Here are a few (emphatic) christmas music recommendations. My friend Jason sent me a link to Pledge Drive’s “X-Mas Rhapsody” (Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ reimagined as a christmas carol). Totally good. Here’s a link to Pledge Drive’s site. …
Eagle-eyed Abigail recently posted a comment on my previous entry about Adrian Tomine’s New Yorker cover. In her comment, she offers a very strong candidate for the identity of the book both characters in the illustration are reading. Below is …
For the past three years I’ve been involved in an annual effort to get local members of a growing Michigan(ish) music community to record Christmas songs. Getting 20 plus part-time music-makers to agree to contribute a Christmas song is one …
With this entry, I’ll be continuing my recent habit of only updating this website when I spot the work of an artist I like in a place I’m not expecting to see it. I was in Borders today and noticed …
Having fallen embarrassingly behind in the maintenance of Acmenoveltyarchive.org, I thought I would make an attempt at bringing the following item to people’s attention before its too late:
Cartoonist Chris Ware and ‘This American Life‘ Host Ira …
I can’t be the first person to come up with this idea, but I’m amazed it hasn’t actually been executed yet. Maybe it has and I just don’t know it.
FADE IN: CUBICLE.
BORED EMPLOYEE (ON PHONE): Yes. (LONG PAUSE)
…
11.23.04
“I’m not entirely convinced that any of this is real.”
Nice quicktime movie juxtaposes Popeye (The Sailor Man) with various anime stereotypes.
I finally got my hands on that functional japanese gramophone model kit thing that I wrote about here. What follows is my review! Get excited!
I’d previously been thwarted in my efforts to order it through Amazon Japan. …
11.21.04
11.19.04
Wow… Just – WOW. People got paid to record this in an expensive studio. I’m amazed there hasn’t been a flash video for this in a b3ta newsletter yet.
RIYL: People sticking their heads in your room and saying …
11.9.04
- ask.metafilter answers yet another of my ridiculous nostalgic questions.
11.9.04
More behind-the-scenes photos from ‘The Island’
- A sci-fi movie that wisely uses the city of Detroit to approximate the gritty metropolis of the future. These props are probably the closest we’ll ever get to public transportation. Thank you auto industry!
11.9.04
- Tinfoil Hat firmly in place. Crap.
Adrian Tomine did this week’s New Yorker Cover. Just in the past few months, Seth and Adrian Tomine. The only complaint I can possibly come up with is that they inexplicably don’t offer these ‘cartoonist’ covers through their reproduction site…
Speaking as a person who has done some programming, the following bits of information are troubling:
- Instances of computer errors in Bush’s favor (In Ohio) have been confirmed (Link, Similar story in NC).
- “One thing that is …
Back before I started ‘updating regularly’ again, I wrote a big piece on obscure Canadian 70′s rockers Klaatu (There was a persistent rumor that they were the Beatles re-formed). You can read it here. Jamie Vernon, the man responsible …
11.4.04
Official Venture Brothers Website Live
- From the creative team behind The Tick animated series.
11.4.04
Venture Brothers Creator’s LiveJournal
– with behind the scenes goodness!
Fox has already called Ohio, CNN maintains it’s still too close, and I’m going to bed. Meanwhile, people are still voting in Ohio (link to first-hand account). I really hope Kerry stands his ground and waits for each …
11.2.04
the only show I watch religiously – begins its 6th season on November 16th.
In the past few weeks I’ve been finding some great stuff in the ‘Dollar Racks’ in the front of my local Target store: dollar DVD’s.
Just before Halloween I managed to pick a few schlocky 60′s horror double-feature discs (One …
10.31.04
- A short story by WIlliam Faulkner. Somehow I made it this far without knowing that this existed, while simultaneously loving the shit out of the Zombies song of the same title (which is loosely based on the story).
10.30.04
- Cherry Ginger Ale (Scroll Down).
Those of you who might be interested in boring stuff like the behind-the-scenes bits of minutiae dealt with by Fantagraphics Books as they assemble their ‘Complete Peanuts’ series: HAVE I GOT THE POST FOR YOU! All sorts of unnecessarily thorough …
10.29.04
Phantom Planet portrays The Zombies
this Sunday on NBC’s ‘American Dreams.’
10.29.04
Only $300.
10.27.04
. It might not be a bad idea to have a few of these handy on November 2nd.
10.25.04
at craftster. [Thanks Sasha!]
10.21.04
The best halloween mix ever (The torrents are currently down).
Though it occurs to me that my idea of ‘cool looking’ is the rough equivalent of most people’s idea of ‘hard to read.’…
10.15.04
I made a special trip to Chicago this past weekend to see a performance by the remnants of my 2nd-favorite british invasion band, The Zombies. Singer Colin Blunstone and Keyboardist Rod Argent have assembled a backing band and taken the …
Hey friends.
I’ve been MIA for the last month or so, so I figured I’d drop a line here to keep you posted on the excitement that is my life.
After another round of fruitless second interviews, I find myself …
9.30.04
9.24.04
My favorite result of Self-Googling:
”Kempa, Adam of Detroit, Wayne County, Mich. Independent American candidate for U.S. Representative from Michigan 1st District, 1960; Independent American candidate for delegate to Michigan state constitutional convention from Wayne County 5th District, 1961. Still
…
Have any ipod users noticed weirdness since the last firmware update? All my radio shows (large files) are only playing the first 30 seconds or so, then cutting to silence. It will play through the whole hour in silence if …
Marvel comics have released a series of edible mosaics, called “Snerdles.” Anyone who knows me knows four things:
- I love mosaics.
- I love candy.
- I love comic books.
- I love the shit out of combinations of things I like.
Based …
Looking for an easy way to amplify the signal from your iPod for under $2.00? Not finicky about sound quality? Sounds like you’re in the market for a NUBY GC-7, only $1.85 from All Electronics! Operates on a …
My bottlecap mosaic is mentioned in the Fall 2004 issue of Venus Magazine (Le Tigre on the cover). The mention is on page 73, in an article discussing craftster.org. Site originator Leah Kramer chose some of her favorite projects …
I know almost nothing about this song, besides the fact that it is a lyrical palindrome (Not a musical palindrome, as I initially typed. I’m sure that some composer must have explored palindromic music, and if you are better informed …
One of my current places of employment, the Ann Arbor District Library, had a pretty great event this past Saturday. As part of their Axis Teen program, they’re sponsoring a five-month long Mario Kart Double Dash Tournament. Tournament …
Fun on The Jellyfish mailing list:
”We are in the process of digitizing all our CDs so that we can share ‘em all over the house via the wireless hub. I was reading in [the liner notes to] The
…
I was grocery shopping a few days ago, and I happened upon a bin full of “Dinosaur Eggs.” Clearly, these were not actual dinosaur eggs, but some weird crossbreed fruit, renamed to attract the fervent interest of five year-old boys. …
Busy week. Job interviews, recording, programming. Here’s a recently finished MP3 of a song featuring me on drums. WATCH OUT FOR THE TRIPLETS. Recorded by the eloquent John Krohn at Deep Deep Pink studios.
Andy Thompson is an insanely talented pop mastermind who used to live in Ann Arbor and recorded the last Pop Project album for a pittance. He now lives in Minneapolis, where he writes songs, symphonies, and plays live. This …
More Caps
Chris, who wrote to me about his own bottlecap mosaic in progress after I posted the writeup on mine, has finished his.
”Hey man, it’s more or less done, still looking to put a protective coating on
…
”…also when you made me a copy the New Pornographers cd, you wrote ‘New Porn’ on it… and I just realized people must think I’m a perv when I leave that laying around here [work].”…
I’ve updated the Acme Novelty Archive pretty heavily in the last couple of days. New design, new search capability, and new database-driven content. Nearly everything that’s been submitted since I started the site is now in there, the only thing …
For people who are obsessed with music and the process by which it is recorded, filesharing is the greatest thing ever, as it offers easy access to session tapes. Session tapes, for the uninitiated, are generally recordings of a band …
A few years ago, I read ‘Double Fold‘ by Nicholson Baker – an enraging look at libraries destroying back issue newspapers and replacing them with often defective microfiche. In the book, Baker discusses both the alarming frequency at …
Kempas Edible Oils. Mmmm… edible oils!
A bizarre German site featuring a giant downloadable zip file containing photos. The photos appear to be from some sort of camp / gathering / party circa 1978. This one …
Log Hat
This hat is great for confusing people. It has an illustration of a log on the front, and the word ‘LOG’ on the back. It was part of the ‘Ren and Stimpy‘ merchandising juggernaut.
Wu Eezer …
A Beatle, a Monkee, and Harry Nilsson.
My friend Zach Curd recently unearthed this bit of trivia on one of his frequent excursions into internetland – Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was hired as a spokesman for Japanese …
Kim Stahr, the person whose copy of Shellac’s ‘The Futurist’ LP recently sold on EBay for $810 emailed me the other day. You can read about the reasons this was percieved as significant in my previous post. Kim wrote:…
The best magazine cover ever:
Gamorrean Guard + Beach Ball = Awesome.
Seriously, how has no one yet made one of those spraypaint stencils out of DARTH VADER HOLDING A MASSIVE BOOMBOX?! I’ve already done the hard part. Email me …
I moved to Ann Arbor. Also: I’m playing three shows this week, and the rest of my time will probably be spent ‘settling’ and ‘sleeping,’ so… come to the shows and check back here next week. Details:
WEDNESDAY! July 7th! …
I’m in the process of moving this week, hence the silence. In the meantime, please enjoy this recording of Canadian harmony group The Sands of Time The Tokens and Steve Sawyer paying tribute to the Beach Boys (by lyrically name-checking …
Last summer, when I only had one fake job (I presently have 2), I briefly entertained the idea of submitting writing to the local “weeklies.” The other night while “tidying” a disused hard drive (Hey baby, wanna come over and …
…presenting yet another addendum to my series of vinyl trivialities.
Alternate playback methods
I’ve turned up (and had suggested to me) a number of interesting variations on record playback whilst ‘researching’ vinyl oddities. On the ridiculous audiophile end of …
A few items of interest spawned by my bottlecap mosaic post:
An article in Readymade several months back pointed me in the direction of canstruction. A brief description:
“Canstruction combines the competitive spirit of a design/build competition
…
I came across the following in a post on the craftster message board:
”There’s a building on my old campus (western michigan university), that spells out WMU (or something like that, I couldn’t really read it, lol) in [binary
…
When I was in high school, one of my art teachers showed us a video detailing the creative process of painter Chuck Close, and I was completely blown away by the way he dissected and reassembled images on a large-scale. …
Attention Michigan folks: We’ll be having our FOURTH annual barn show in just over a week, on Saturday, June 26th. We’ve been having these shows each year as a fundraiser for the Christopher Kempa Memorial Art Scholarship Fund, which has …
With the sport of dodgeball soon to be immortalized in Ben Stiller’s new movie of the same name, I figured I’d confess. Dodgeball always seems to get a bad rap among the ‘less than athletic’ circles that I am a …
I got some great anonymous non-fan mail yesterday:
”Your descent into madness is slow but sure, as evidenced by the turn for the worst your website has taken.”
Come on now, really? A descent into madness? Isn’t that a …
The first panel of Sunday, May 23rd’s ‘Mutts’ strip (by Patrick McDonnell) was a subtle homage to Yoshimoto Nara‘s work (inset):
The rest of the strip is fairly unremarkable. I just thought that was interesting.…
In a recent conversation with my girlfriend, I was accused of playing a video game called ‘Bonkers Robot 2.’ While this is clearly an awesome name for a videogame, no such game exists. I made the following images in photoshop:…
Hot on the heels of Entertainment Weekly’s assertion in 100 pt. type that the lyrical aspect of songwriting is without merit (“DUMBER! Must make the public DUMBER!”), I’ve become obsessed with a specific lyrical technique: pop songs that artfully employ …
Todd Rundgren – ‘Cool Jerk’ From: A Wizard, A True Star (1973)
After having Todd Rundgren’s ‘A Wizard, A True Star’ recommended to me twice for wildly differing reasons, I finally bought it this weekend. The second side features a …
In mid-2003 I started making an effort find the name of an animated special I remembered from my youth, via the friendster network:
”I’ve been searching for the title of a longform (I think) animated special that I remember from
…
Amazingly great 80-page transcription of a hybrid conversation / presentation held at the University of Minnesota by ‘This American Life‘ host Ira Glass and Acme Novelty Librarian Chris Ware. (pdf format).
Ira Glass: One of
…
Toys
It was pointed out to me in the comments for my article on parallel grooves that one of the most ingenious uses of this technology is in children’s toys, the classic example being the See & Say – a …
Every so often my ancient Barnes & Noble stories get linked somewhere and I get a burst of sympathetic email from fellow booksellers. I got some good feedback from Kara a few days ago, reaffirming the weird public sexuality / …
While looking up articles for the Acme Novelty Archive from my last post, I found the following piece from the July 9th, 1999 issue of Entertainment Weekly:
Double Takes
Comic-book fans have been buzzing about a certain familiarity they’ve noticed
…
A few years ago I saw a ‘Peanuts’ tribute strip by Chris Ware somewhere. This past January, when I wanted to find it again, I couldn’t remember where it originally appeared. I figured there would be some easy way to …
I had this conversation with a friend over AIM about a year ago, and saved it. I just found it again a few days ago.
Me: I just had a great idea for a band
Me: and i need to
…
Five years ago (!!), I wrote this (fictional) article about entering Steve Malkmus’ conciousness, ala ‘Being John Malkovich.’ A few days ago I found this site, where someone has translated it into Japanese. Totally weird.…
A Perfect Circle – ‘Diary of a Lovesong’ From: Live MP3 (2000)
I’d forgotten this combination of Ozzy’s ‘Diary of a Madman’ (verses) and The Cure’s ‘Lovesong’ (chorus) even existed until I found it on an old CD full of …
I recently finished reading ‘Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism,’ the latest book from former McSweeney’s contributor and Collins Library figurehead Paul Collins. ‘Not Even Wrong’ is a perfect melding of the styles of his previous two efforts …
In the past few years I’ve read in a number of places that Robin Williams is a flagrant comedy thief. What I’ve never come across are specific incidents of this occurring. So I decided to delve into the vast resource …
…I’m currently obsessed with ‘Comic Art Magazine,’ primarily because it’s exactly what I always wanted The Comics Journal to be – historically minded, analytical, and in full color on glossy stock. To be fair, the interviews in Comics …
Chris Graves checks in with the following:
”Since no one ever actually eats them, I had a feeling there must be a better use [for peeps]. Use a knife to cut a slit in the top. Add one minute, start.
…
I am looking for a person who lives in an area with a ‘Giant Eagle’ Supermarket. What I would like to do is send this person some money, and have them purchase the four limited edition Warhol-label Campbell’s Tomato soup …
Have you ever stumbled upon references to someone or something so frequently that you feel like you’re unable to avoid it / them? I don’t mean in the ‘hype’ sort of way, where you’re bombarded by advertising – I mean …
This might be old news to everyone, but there’s a really great flash video of someone constructing a song using only windows sound recorder and the default windows sound effects. It’s fairly long and really starts to evolve in a …
I started an Ask Metafilter thread on the quadratic equation songs I wrote about the other day, and got a few more submissions. In case you’re keeping score at home, so far I’ve been told of versions sung to …
Another half-baked idea that I may or may not follow through on is to put up a new MP3 every week and write a little bit about it. Here’s the first installment.
In case you’re into both comic books and music, there’s a good conversation from this past February on the Comics Journal message board, dealing with album art done by comics artists. The thread is rife with the requisite message …
Scene: a ginormous department store on the Saturday before Easter. A father and 5-ish year-old son are examining the flower selection.
Father: How about this one?
Son: That’s not a Chomper!
Father: I told you, none of these are chompers…
…
A few months ago I read somewhere that Mozart had written an algorithm to compose music automatically. This, of course, fascinated the shit out of me. I did a bit of googling and turned up the following:
”Music publishing was
…
I was reading Entertainment Weekly last night and happened upon an interview with David Fincher regarding the forthcoming recently released THREE disc special edition Panic Room DVD. Anyone who’s into seeing behind-the-scenes filmmaking via DVD special features knows that …
When I was in 7th grade, my algebra teacher, Mrs. Berry, taught us the quadratic equation to the tune of the Notre Dame fight song. In discussing this with other people years later (I’m a “Sit around and discuss the …
I’d imagine most people who read this site don’t have a Gameboy Advance, but I do, so that’s what you get to hear about.
Around christmastime, I saw a little blurb over on slatch.com about flash memory for the Gameboy …
- There’s an archive of live Elliott Smith shows available in mp3 format at the Elliott Smith Mini-Repository. A long time ago (Sometime in 2000) I downloaded a solo Elliott show recorded somewhere in France that was really great. I’ve …
In a post last week, I mentioned that I sometimes remove entire sections from song when putting a mix together. A few people emailed asking for examples of songs I removed parts from. I usually do this because I …
I somehow stumbled across a bit of questionable trivia regarding NBC’s audio “logo” – that the three familiar notes are “G-E-C”, in honor of the initials of NBC’s one-time parent corporation, General Electric Company. I also found a mention of …
A year or so ago my girlfriend Sarah asked me to ‘acquire’ some songs for her with the aid of the internet. One of these songs was ‘Stagger Lee’ by Lloyd Price (mp3). When I heard the song …
The Weezer DVD: Video Capture Device was released on Tuesday, and having watched all three hours or so of footage over the past two days I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Weezer has always been a big deal to me, the …
When I make a mix CD, it’s always a ridiculous production, which is probably why I’m so behind on CD’s owed. In addition to agonizing over the selection of enough songs to completely fill an 80 minute CD, sequencing them …
I recently started reading ‘Playback: From the Victrola to Mp3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money‘ by Mark Coleman. As the title implies, it covers the innovations that have allowed us to record and playback sound over …
One REALLY COOL trend in the video game world right now is to record yourself completing a game in the fastest time possible and then post the resultant video file on the internet. The best sites to visit to truly …
The ‘Vinyl Data‘ post got linked over at slashdot and boingboing, so useful information is coming out of the woodwork. Most significantly, a few people have pointed out Joey Headen’s site. Headen was the guy who …
On March 20th, The Charles M. Schulz Museum will be unveiling its newest exhibit: ‘Mad about Peanuts,’ showing some of the many Mad Magazine parodies of Schulz’s work that were published over the years. I just thought people …
Somehow, I managed to not see any advertising for MTV’s ‘I Want a Famous Face‘ and just accidentally stumbled into watching the first episode last night, without any idea what I was about to see. I was flabbergasted. …
While researching hidden code in commercially released music, I ended up turning up tons of references to albums containing morse code. For some reason, this didn’t seem ridiculous enough for me – it seemed too obvious. I’ve since looked …
Enter: 40-ish man who looks like a suburban high school teacher. Not dorky enough for math or science, possibly social studies. Also: Could play ‘The Father’ on a prime-time drama. He quickly gathers a stack of ‘dance’ vinyl and asks …
1.) Absolutely Insane Japanese Television Show
….which is about as redundant as an ‘orange orange,’ but I digress. I found this link last summer and misplaced it until now, so it might be old news. It’s a great site recounting …
One strategy that major record companies have been employing lately to deter downloading is adding bonus computer content to new CD releases. I recently discovered that this technique is not unique to CD’s, but had in fact been practiced in …
Do you by chance remember that game where you make your thumb and pointer finger into a sort of pseudo-circle and hold your hand below waist level, and if someone looks, you get to sock them in the arm? I …
For awhile there, no one was making pinball machines. Thankfully, Stern has once again started cranking ‘em out. For their (relatively) recent ‘Monopoly’ machine (as seen at the Lager House in Detroit), they contracted Pat Lawlor, famous among real …
Response to the vinyl manufacturing saga thus far, from Sarah:
“Get a room, man! ENOUGH’S ENOUGH.”
With that in mind, I present yet another installment.
Another fun trick that can be employed while cutting the master plates for a vinyl …
I’ve been collecting these little wind-up automatic instrument-player guys called ‘Knockman Family’ since I recieved two of them as christmas gifts. From left to right in the photo above is the ‘Banjo player,’ who actually strums his three tunable strings; …
I got my hair cut awhile back. The person who cut my hair was using english in the ‘I barely know what I’m saying, my inflection is all off’ sort of way. Which is fine. Three highlights from my haircutter …
I’ve had the same alarm clock since I was 14, so I’m in the bad habit of ignoring the alarm completely. My first solution was to have the radio turn on at full volume when the alarm went off, but …
I’ve been writing about interesting vinyl manufacturing anomolies for the past few days. Tuesday I covered Flexo Records and flexidiscs, and yesterday I wrote about parallel grooves. Today’s bit is about ‘Lock grooves:’ grooves that feed back into …
Will Yates writes:
”I was watching Jimmy Kimmel at home tonight as opposed to having a life, and the comedy act for the end of the show was something like Hertzfeld and Klein. (I forget the exact names.) Kimmel introduced
…
Some of the more interesting variations that can occur during vinyl manufacturing occur while the master plates are being cut. While a normal record’s grooves consist of one continuous spiral, the only strict limitations on how the grooves can be …
In addition to the regular procession of unrelated entries, I’m going to try and do a sort of ‘theme’ every so often. The point of this is to force myself to post bits of larger topics that my brain usually …
Remember about a year ago when everyone was telling you to sign up for the ‘Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement?’ Well, I’m not sure if this is old news or not, but I actually got …
Found in emergency info / barfbag pocket, on flight from Laguardia to Metro Airport:…
How to record your favorite Radio shows for convenient listening: A narrative tutorial in unnecessarily explicit detail.
I am obsessed with late night talk radio show ‘Loveline,’ hosted by Adam Carolla and Board Certified Addiction Medicine Specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. …
The reviews from the current Zombies tour featuring singer Colin Blunstone and keyboardist Rod Argent are starting to come in. This one was pulled from one of the mailing lists I’m on and sums things up pretty nicely. Naturally they …
I didn’t come up with this (Zach did), but I did laugh at it.…
There’s a two-page Chris Ware strip in the issue of the New Yorker that’s on stands right now. Ware also did a cover for the New Yorker in 2000. I looked up the credit to see if that might have …
Over the Christmas holiday this past year, my girlfriend and I visted Chicago. We thought it would be a really good idea to go to all the museums and such – neglecting to consider the fact that there would be …
I should preface the following story by explaining to anyone who doesn’t live in Michigan, New York, Oregon, California, Iowa, Delaware, Massachusets, Connecticut, Vermont, or Maine that in these states we pay a deposit on every can and bottle we …
A Reunion of Sorts
Edward Miller pointed out this messageboard thread which details yesterday’s apparent reunion of Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo with original Weezer bassist Matt Sharp. I checked the Official Weezer site and it is indeed true, there are …
One of the many ‘projects’ that I used as an excuse for not updating this site for almost a year was researching the history of Wurlitzer Stereo Guitars (I put my findings here). In doing so, I became intimately …
I have two questions that maybe you know the answers to?
1.) Mysterious Video
Sometime in the middle of 2003, I saw a video on VH1 Classic’s afternoon request show. It was completely insane, so I memorized the name of …
In the Winter of 1997 I got into the habit of bringing a cassette recorder and a little microphone with me to shows. Only once did I have any problem with security – at the release show for the Enclave …
A few months before Christmas I read ‘I Bought Andy Warhol‘ in a variety of hospital waiting rooms. The book revolves around author Richard Polsky’s quest to own an Andy Warhol original, and by extension his experiences as …
Three things dealing with the name Kempa:
One:
Krmpa.com is one easy typo away from kempa.com – the ‘E’ and ‘R’ keys are right next to each other. The reason this is notable is that krmpa.com is the website …
One of the benefits of having a girlfriend who is a librarian is that you can say: “Hey, would you see if you can find out about this ridiculously obscure thing for me?” Sometimes, I don’t even have to ask. …
I took my dog, speck, through a ‘Manners’ class. He got ‘Most Improved.’ This is his graduation photo. Note the books in the background – ‘Fetch,’ ‘Spot: A True Story,’ etc.…
I just had this vivid dream. It’s important to note that I recently got a job as tech support at a library.
For some reason, I was working as a reference librarian at Alfred Noble Library in Livonia in the …
This month’s Wired Magazine has a profile on internet superstars the Minibosses, who cover only music from classic Nintendo Entertainment System games. The thing with them is – they refuse to do Mario music. Now if you ask me, …
If you weren’t already aware, you’ll probably be happy to learn that Topps is offering a brand new series of Garbage Pail Kids, including artwork by original GPK artist John Pound. Official site here. Garbagepailkidsworld.com also appears to …
I bought this at a rummage sale: Upside-down Coke glass = 7-Up glass (ie ‘The Uncola’).…
I was first exposed to Paul Collins in the fifth issue of McSweeney’s, which published his essay on Solresol – a functional music based (as opposed to word based) language. This essay was eventually included in his book, ‘…
Last year I discovered Emitt Rhodes’ self-titled first album, thanks to an article in Tape Op. It’s a masterpiece of fuzzy early 70′s pop songs – all instruments played by Mr. Rhodes in his home studio. A friend of …
In case any of you were wondering about the Chris Ware mystery I described in my last post (March 2003), I’m happy to report that I have an answer. But first, since it’s been almost a year, I’ll include a …
Among the wealth of great video clips available at yesmuseum.org, I found a GIANT .mov file of Yes performing Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘America’ live in the studio in 1972. The file is around 33 Mb, and appears to have …
When I was working on redesigning this page I made this icon but didn’t end up using it. I was really happy with how it came out, though. So I guess the point of this post is that I totally …
Names Changed to protect the innocent.
Them: yesterday at work I found a package of herbal pills outside the bathroom
Them: and I cant remember what they are called, but they are to make you poop. and I was like …
I was walking down a long, damp, stone passageway, and came to a heavy wooden door guarded by Todd Rundgren. Todd Rundgren smiled broadly at me, saying nothing, but maintaining his smile. I motioned towards the door and he opened …
Everyone who was a real cool dude in the 90′s knows about the arcade classic Street Fighter 2. Capcom’s less famous original Street Fighter game gets mentioned every once in awhile based simply on its historical interest. I recently read …
MP3: From the Monkees ‘Headquarters’ session tapes: Mickey Dolenz (drums) emphatically scolding Peter Tork (Guitar) for screwing up a live take. GOLDEN MOMENTS.…