On the west side of Los Angeles sits an infamous billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard above a YWCA. The billboard features a seemingly live digital numeric readout which displays the number of people who have died of smoking related illness and lung cancer in the United States of America. Every year on New Year's Eve, a group of Angelenos congregate beneath this sign and count down the seconds to New Year's Day as they all witness the billboard reset to zero. This video features their stories about what drew them to this location.
This billboard has been displayed and updated since 1987. The first story from this video mentions Eric J. Lawrence, the local Los Angeles KCRW radio music librarian and DJ. More of his story can be found here: https://www.kcrw.com/music/articles/eric-j-lawrence-memorium-remembrance-life-work
]]>People are still making new music and the new music is still good. Don't listen to the cynical oldheads. They literally don't know.
Link to YouTube playlist here.
Link to Spotify playlist here.
Militarie Gun - Do It Faster
Conservative Military Image - Shirt Tucked Aggression
BigXthaPlug - Badu Flow
Katy Kirby - Party of the Century
Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves - I Remember Everything
Tommy Lefroy - Dog Eat Dog
Maxo Kream featuring Bfb Da Packman - Fatt Blacc Twins
Ethel Cain and 1017 ALYX 9SM - Famous Last Words (An Ode to Eaters)
Diplo featuring Koe Wetzel and Kodak Black - Wasted
Searows - House Song
Harriette - Goodbye Texas
I was in the elevator at Apparel Mart and a person holding two coffees walked in. They saw me press "2" and asked me, "Can you visit my shop?"
I asked, "Where's your shop?"
"The end of the hall, in the corner unit. We're called BAD."
"Oh," I told them. "I'm already going there to see Tori."
They were excited. We walked into the store and they said, "I brought your friend here." I learned that their name was Francis and just opened up this physical store a month ago and today was the one-month anniversary party. I gave Tori a hug and we caught up, I probably haven't seen her in a year. She and I are neighbors now, we learned, and she caught me up on the gossip of who's canceled and which of our friends is dating which celebrities. I perused the inventory of the shop and was too afraid to touch anything. There were lots of new-old-stock vintage band tees, never been worn, and made in the USA, interspersed with the goods Tori was designing and selling, mostly lingerie. She planned on meeting up with me again so I could mold her teeth and make some grillz or a cap for her, she hasn't decided yet.
I told her that I was meeting up with a friend for drinks at the bar inside of a grocery store in Silver Lake and she was amused. I also told her that I was planning on going to a house show later that night for this indie-emo-revival band I had just learned about called Apperson. They sound something like the Get Up Kids, Texas is the Reason, and Clarity-era Jimmy Eat World. I showed her some pictures of them and sent her a song by them called Closer. She told me she loved how there was an emo-revival being fueled by teenagers on TikTok discovering these bands from the 90s/early 2000s, primarily American Football. I told her that I was slowly becoming obsessed with Apperson and I might want to put out a record by them. We'll see how it works out.
I took an Uber over to Gelson's to see Taylor. I was running late and, thankfully, so was she. I got there first and went over to the bar, which is right next to the grocery store entrance between the floral department and the prepared foods section. I looked through the menu and was stoked. $7 pints of all beers on tap and wine was around $8 - $11 per glass; they had a strict no-tipping policy.
Ireland Wisdom's first solo show, Best of Bone and Blood, is on view at Carlye Packer Headquarters (2111 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026 in Echo Park. It's close to our friends at Cosmic Vinyl, Taix, and the Lonely Oyster).
Ireland Wisdom is from Los Angeles and spent 3 years in Italy at the Florence Academy of Art studying oil painting. The particular style of classical European painting she practiced is one that not many people care for any more and even fewer people practice. The techniques she learned not only emphasized painting from life, but it was the only option she had. With increasingly high-quality imaging technology such as projectors, digital photos, and direct inkjet printing onto large canvases getting cheaper and cheaper every year, more and more artists are figuring out how to paint faster, more realistically, and in higher quantities. That's precisely the reason why the style of painting that Ireland practices is dying. She only uses live models who are required to pose for hours at time, often in multiple sessions. She had to figure out how to pull a motorcycle up three flights of stairs to her studio so she could paint the real thing and not a photo of it. She walks back and forth, away from the model and then towards them again, multiple times to "sight-size" the proportions of the body and face to ensure an accurate and life-like representation of not only how the subject and environment actually looks, but how we as humans perceive it. The lighting mimics the sun peering into the window of a dark studio. The proportions of the face and body are determined by the eyes of the painter instead of the curvature and size of the glass lens from a camera. This is the difference between a painting and a photograph or even a painting from a photograph.
I walked around the gallery multiple times, grabbing a beer after each lap, and noticed more and more details with each fresh viewing. There are muscles in your arms, tops of your hands, and calves that you can only see when your wrists, fingers, and feet are extended in a certain way. These muscles don't show up in most photos because they're so subtle and the lighting and shadows have to be cast in a specific way to notice them; you can feel them yourself by putting one hand on your forearm right below your elbow and wiggling your fingers of that arm, or just by looking at the tops of your hands and then opening/closing your hands into a fist. Ireland paints these details.
Not only does she utilize these techniques that are slowly disappearing to time and technology, but she also prefers to use similar toxic paints and mediums of the classical time period that are being phased out. In a conversation with her, I mentioned how I thought Gamblin's flake white replacement is a really great pigment, but she kinda made an "eh" face as she still prefers to use the real flake white made from poisonous lead. She also prefers the classic vermillion red that's full of mercury and sulfur. I don't use toxic colors anymore because I'm paranoid of poison (I don't even use turpenoid), but I think it's so cool that her paintings can kill you in the right circumstances.
]]>The best musical release of 2021 is Inbred by Ethel Cain.
]]>I was at Jumbo's Clown Room during the 2 weeks of June 2021 when we thought the pandemic was over and mask regulations were lifted. I showed up alone, but the place was packed. I chatted with the dancers whom I hadn't seen in over a year and dropped off some special hats at the bar that I had designed for the club before the virus. After a few hugs and drinks were thrown my way, a young blonde woman in a red dress came up to me and asked me what my deal was. It wasn't in a defensive or condescending tone; she was genuinely curious. I asked her if she could be more specific and she asked me what was up with my expensive-looking suit and why were dancers hugging me and why were the bartenders giving me free drinks. I told her the truth; my expensive-looking suit was legitimately expensive, the dancers that hugged me were my friends, and the bartenders gave me free drinks because I gave them some free hats. I'm a regular. Or at least I was, before the pandemic. I typically don't tell people the truth about me, but what the hell. The blonde woman and I bought each other some drinks and sat by the stage. We chatted in between pole dancing routines. I told her that I was at the seedy motel across the street for a couple nights and she was more than welcome to join me over there for a few minutes. We could finish our conversation in a place more quiet and with free mini-fridge Tecates. Surprisingly, she said yes. I didn't think that in 2021, a single woman would agree to go to a fleabag motel across the street from a strip club where she just met a stranger, but here we are. Social isolation lapses your judgement, I guess.
When we got to my room at the motel, I told her that I lived in LA but I spend a lot of time in motels and hotels all over the city for a couple days every month or two just to get away from the people around me. She told me she was on a tourist visa from Canada as she illegally interned at a very popular podcast that I had actually heard about. I opened my suitcase and pulled out some warm beers and exchanged them for the cold beers already in the fridge. I also pulled out a copy of Jon Lindsey's novel Body High which I had recently gotten in the mail, and reread the last paragraph I had finished. She asked me what the book was about and I told her it was about a sad, bummed out guy making his way around LA with his fucked up friends and his even more fucked up mind. After I said that, I realized that Los Angeles was one of the better characters in the book. The main character isn't a hero; he isn't cool and nobody would ever want to be him or be in his situations. It isn't romantic. I think that's what makes it so good. The 20th century had too many lovable losers and romanticized addicts. Getting smacked with reality is good for growing up.
...
Ethel Cain has been floating in and out of my YouTube algorithm for a couple of years now. I regularly listen to Lil Aaron and Wicca Phase Springs Eternal (both of whom appear on Ethel Cain's Inbred) and other artists associated with the GothBoiClique. A ticket stub from one of Lil Peep's last shows before he died is always sitting on my desk; it was the only time I'd ever seen him in person.
I listened to Ethel Cain's earlier releases from 2019, but never with much lucidity or even intention; the songs just popped on and I'd drift through it. Her demos and other releases from 2019 (under the names White Silas and Ethel Cain) were a haunting and calming mix of Aphex Twin's piano music, the black metal band Ulver's acoustic album Kveldssanger, Gregorian chanting, and graphic lyrics that are akin to DIY Xeroxed, low-circulation fetish zines you could find in the bathroom of a sex club. I think that's why Inbred struck a chord with me when I first heard it. It was infused with more pop, but still kept the creepy, graphic, and ethereal vibes with tasteful amounts of reverb that I associated with Ethel Cain's earlier music. The song I became obsessed with was Crush. I listened to it on repeat throughout the spring.
I don't know why I became so obsessed with this song. Maybe it's because it's a combination of so many of my interests that I never thought would intersect because it wouldn't make any sense, but here it is and it makes more than sense. The best way I can describe it is if Taylor Swift was born and raised around Southern gothic poverty, smoked cigarettes, and wrote a perfect love song about Tummler from Gummo.
]]>Before yesterday (July 19, 2021), there were only three Olive Gardens in the Los Angeles area: one in Glendale, one in Culver City, and one in Montebello. There wasn't an Olive Garden located inside the actual city of Los Angeles. Thankfully, the famed Italian restaurant is now open at the centrally located cross-street of Venice Blvd and La Brea Ave (4835 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019).
I originally planned to meet Tessa there at 4 but, as always, I arrived 20 minutes too early. I walked into the restaurant and asked if I could sit at the bar until my guest arrived. The hostess graciously walked me down past the dining booths with walls warmly decorated with framed pictures of the Italian countryside hung alongside rustic European-style porcelain dishware. The restaurant's music system was playing Michael Bublé at an appropriate volume.
The bar was very simple, yet modern and sleek. The countertop was marble and spaciously sized. The bar stools were made of wood and had backings and cushioned seats. The television played ESPN basketball. There were beer taps that displayed the restaurant's options for beers on tap, but as I was at the opening night of an Italian restaurant, I opted for the first Italian drink on the cocktail menu: the Italian Rum Punch. The bartender was very quick and very polite. He was even nice enough to give me a handful of Olive Garden branded chocolate mints, similar to the Andes brand, for absolutely no reason. The menu described the drink as, "The perfect blend of Bacardi Silver rum, amaretto and strawberry-passion fruit," and I couldn't agree more. It tasted like an ice cold Capri Sun so much, in fact, that I questioned if there was even any alcohol in it. My doubts disappeared a few minutes later when Tessa arrived and I almost missed my footing getting off the barstool and nearly fell into the next seat.
Our hostess graciously allowed us to move from the bar to a proper dining table and handed us two tastefully printed menus. The front of the menu contained appetizers and entrees. The back of the menu featured cocktails and desserts. Since I already had a cocktail, I only used the front of the menu. The waitress seated us and Tessa jokingly told her that we were celebrating our divorce, which explained why we seemed a bit overdressed compared to the other diners. The waitress laughed but I didn't think it was funny because I have been quite fond of Tessa for several years now. We had sex once, on the first night we met, but never again. I tried to hang out with Tessa more throughout the years, but she denied every single suggestion I ever gave her until 4 years later when I asked her if she would like to have dinner with me on the opening night of Los Angeles' only Olive Garden.
The waitress then asked if we would like some cocktails to celebrate our divorce and Tessa informed her she was sober. The waitress gently suggested the non-alcoholic Strawberry Mango Limonata, which Tessa gladly ordered. I hadn't planned on drinking any more alcohol, but after the woman I had been smitten with for years embarrassed me in front of our waitress, I ordered a Peach Bellini cocktail. In addition to the drinks, Tessa ordered us the Spinach-Artichoke Dip. I always believed that TGI Friday's owned the trademark to that specific recipe so I was surprised and delighted to see that it was an option. The Spinach-Artichoke Dip came with crispy flatbread wedges with a liberal amount of parmesan cheese. Our waitress asked if we would like more freshly shredded cheese on our flatbread and I politely declined. Perhaps after a few more cocktails I would have accepted the additional cheese, but I unfortunately only had 2 drinks so far. The Spinach-Artichoke Dip itself was fantastic. It was as if each bite were transporting me closer and closer to TGI Friday's.
When the time came to order our entrees, Tessa ordered the Eggplant Parmigiana. I asked our waitress what the most popular dish was and she told me it was the Chicken Fettucine Alfredo. I ordered that. As we waited for the entrees to come to the table, I tried to engage Tessa is some light conversation about how she had been since we last saw each other. She told me she had been fine since then and didn't say anything more. We sat in silence for a few minutes and I understood that she didn't want to continue the conversation. Thankfully, this particular Olive Garden had very fast Wi-Fi that I was easily able to connect to with my smartphone. Best of all, the Wi-Fi is free for diners at the restaurant.
Our entrees arrived in an appropriate amount of time and they looked fantastic. I asked Tessa if I could have a bite of her Eggplant Parmigiana and she said no. I don't know what it tasted like but it looked delicious. The pasta for my Chicken Fettucine Alfredo was cooked perfectly. Each strand was independent of the other. The sauce was simple with its sparse ingredients of butter, parmesan cheese, and cream, but extremely satisfying and familiar. The chicken was grilled perfectly with a crunchy exterior and tender interior. A light sprinkle of parsley on top made it look like a picture-perfect farmhouse meal advertisement straight out of Better Homes & Gardens Magazine or a comparable magazine.
The food was so abundant that Tessa and I requested to-go boxes to take the rest of our meals home. As we waited for the boxes to arrive, we easily paid using the tableside wireless kiosk system that allowed us to easily split the bill and leave a tip at the touch of a few buttons. As I was paying, Tessa put her meal in her to-go box and then quickly put the rest of my meal in her to-go box, as well, without saying anything to me. She then paid for her half of the meal and quickly left.
After a fantastic dinner, I can confidently say that Olive Garden is a fantastic addition to Los Angeles' vibrant and diverse restaurant scene. They offer impeccable service coupled with familiar and traditional meals that many non-adventurous eaters would find more than comforting.
Petrine TX is a professional writer and food critic currently based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Instagram.
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Fat Tony and I go way back. I've known him for half my life. He did a great mix of Neon Moon by Brooks & Dunn and Blow the Whistle by Too Short a while back and everyone loved it. I added a little bit more to it today and he said it was cool if I put it up. The belt buckle is available here!
]]>Simpsons Shitpost of Bart Simpson sipping lean.
When I was a teenager, I asked some people on a message board about a strange Simpsons-related phenomenon that would occur to me almost daily. I would be living my normal life at school or hanging out somewhere or at home then I would see a small detail somewhere. That detail would remind of a similar detail in an episode of the Simpsons, and then when I got home, that episode of the Simpsons would be playing on TV. I came across a handful of people across the country who suffered from the same phenomenon. Years after conducting this unscientific study, I realized that I had gotten it all wrong. There was no Simpsons-psychic-superpower that I and a few others across the country possessed. The answer was much more simple: we were just a bunch of losers who thought everything reminded us of the Simpsons.
If I see a lemon in a bowl of fruit on a dining room table, I can immediately think of three Simpsons jokes that can somehow be made about it. The first one is about how "all this talk is making me hungry" and then pretending to take a big bite out of it. Another is saying that it's a lemon-shaped rock. The last is saying Country Time lemonade doesn't have anything close to a real lemon in it.
If someone says the word "hamburger," I immediately think of the phrase "steamed hams."
If I see someone swinging a hammer, I internally tell them to "crack those atoms."
The average person probably has no idea what any of those examples have to do with anything, or maybe they can pick one or two out from an episode of the Simpsons, but this is what it's like to be a Simpsons-obsessed shitposter. The most innocuous, insignificant, mundane detail of daily life can be somehow related to the Simpsons. This actually isn't that hard, considering the Simpsons has been on air for 30 years and has easily satirized nearly every aspect of American contemporary culture and the ennui of living in the 20th & 21st centuries (though true Simpsons shitposters consider seasons 1 through 8 to be true canon, with seasons 9 and 10 to be acceptable for minor use, and everything after that to be shit). Though this encyclopedic knowledge of the Simpsons may seem like a useless talent, it is the most important skill to have in order to create quality shitposts through the use of the Simpsons shitposter's most valuable tool: the Frinkiac.
The Frinkiac Supercomputer introduced by Professor Frink from the Simpsons season 7, episode 23 ("Much Apu About Nothing")
Launched in 2015 and named after the supercomputer created by the Simpsons' resident mad scientist Professor Frink, the Frinkiac is an index of still frames from every single Simpsons episode from season 1 through 17. Each still frame corresponds to the quote that is said during that specific scene. This is the Rosetta Stone for Simpsons Shitposters. Like a hammer hanging on a pegboard in every carpenter's workshop, the Frinkiac is prominently displayed in every shitposter's bookmark bar in their browser.
However, technology can only go so far. There is only one way to accurately use this tool and it's not easy: you must watch every Simpsons episode and memorize as many lines and scenes as you can. That's it. That's the only way to use this tool. If you want to be a decent shitposter, you have to sacrifice time that could be spent at your job, at school, with family, with loved ones, and dedicate as much time as you can to watching the nearly the nearly 300 episodes of the first 12 seasons of the Simpsons with Rain Man-like memorization, accuracy, and precision just to use the tool necessary to make a shitpost. There are still other skills and knowledge necessary that you must possess, and those skills are photo editing, video editing, and pop culture knowledge.
Let's use the video at the very beginning of this article as the first example on how a shitpost is born. I created that shitpost a few years ago to prepare for June 27th, the annual Houston holiday celebrating the legacy of DJ Screw, the Screwed Up Clique, and the 35 minute freestyle released in 1997. How did I come up with it?
Codeine Promethazine fountain created for the solo art show "Carbonation" at Gallery HomeCORE in collaboration with Gallery HomeLAND in 2016.
I was in my house in Houston smoking weed and looking at the codeine promethazine fountain I had made for an art show and then later installed in my house. I had made some Simpsons shitposts before where Homer smoked weed, but I specifically remembered an episode of the Simpsons where Bart drank a Squishee out of a styrofoam cup (coincidentally, the same iconic vessel used to indulge in purple drank). I also know of a separate episode where Bart gets drunk and stumbles around. Then I remembered an episode where Homer pours cough syrup into a blender to make a Flaming Homer cocktail. With these images in mind, I'm thinking I can get a clip of Bart drinking a Squishee, change the Squishee from green to purple, add some chopped and screwed music after the "codeine" starts kicking in, and then cut in some clips of Bart walking around drunk and Homer making a Flaming Homer cocktail with cough syrup in it. Now all I need to know are the names of the episodes so I can get the video and cut the clips out. That's where the Frinkiac comes in.
Just by pure memory, I know the scene of Bart drinking a Squishee contains the line "That's good Squishee." I type that line into the Frinkiac and this comes up:
Boom, I got the episode name, season, and number. I track down that episode using various internet video searches, download the video, cut the clip I need, and save it into a folder specific for this particular shitpost.
Now I need the scene of Bart stumbling around drunk. I vividly remember the scene consisted of Bart looking into a news camera and saying, "What are you looking at?" Let's plug that into the Frinkiac and see what happens.
Bingo, we got another one. Now we can repeat the same process to find all the other clips that I need. After I get all the clips, I had to have learned how to use video editing software to splice all the videos together, replace some of the audio with the chopped and screwed Point Blank song "My Mind Went Blank" by DJ Screw (ft. a sample by Convicts), and then change the color of the Squishee from green to purple.
I watch a draft of it and it's missing something; it needs just a small clip of Bart looking cool with his eyes faded after sipping the lean. Thankfully, I remember an episode where Bart feels good about asking a girl out on a date and walks around like a pimp. He says just one word in the scene: "Strut." I type that in Frinkiac and see what pops up.
Perfect. Splice that into the video editing bay and this comes out the other end:
All that fucking work goes into making a 52-second shitpost video. All that effort for an enormous worthless and pointless task. Let's quantify it and see the specific skills needed just to make that ONE shitpost:
Remember, people like me know all these episodes from memory and that allows us to create these shitposts. We are not healthy. There's no reason anyone should have this kind of knowledge. But me and at least 121,000 other people share these skills; that's how many members there are in a popular Simpsons shitposting group on Facebook called Simpsons Bortposting.
This one is a Futurama themed shitpost about the infamous episode about Fry's dog. It's very simple and only required tertiary knowledge of Futurama, knowledge of the Simpsons to find the original scene of Itchy, Scratchy, and Poochy, some minor photo editing skills to erase the characters of Itchy, Scratchy, and Poochy from the original Simpsons frames, and minor photo editing skills to add Fry and Seymour the Dog.
This one required the most minuscule amount of relevant contemporary pop culture knowledge. Shortly after Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's released "WAP" in early August 2020 and then Ben Shapiro read the lyrics on video and admitted to the entire internet that he makes his wife's pussy dry as a Popeyes biscuit unless she has a vaginal infection, I immediately remembered a scene in an episode where Homer gets repulsed by a gay steelworker walking past him with a cauldron of molten metal while saying "HOT STUFF, COMING THROUGH!" I immediately got to work.
This is one is a classic type of shitpost called an amalgamation: combining two or more different jokes from two or more separate episodes to make one new joke. The base of the joke is the famous "Steamed Hams" joke from the vignette episode titled "22 Short Films About Springfield". The "Steamed Hams" joke is possibly the most shitposted Simpsons shitpost of all time with literally thousands of variations. This specific one I made required me to grab still frames from the original Steamed Hams clip, edit the photo so Skinner is crawling into the kitchen window from another episode, edit Skinner into ANOTHER episode where Bart makes a dog-food based, USA themed appetizer, and then edit that dog food joke back into a still frame the ORIGINAL clip about steamed hams. Three different episodes all cut up in order just to make one shitpost.
This type of shitpost goes in and out of fashion over the years and is called a sadpost, in which the creator attempts to be as sad, serious, and humorless as possible. This one contains still frames from 4 different episodes and minor photo editing to make Bart a ghost in the 10th frame.
I've made hundreds of shitposts throughout the years and have absolutely no plans to stop. In fact, I plan to hone my skills in photo and video editing in order to make more complex, intricate, and advanced shitposts; shitposts that are so good that the average viewer cannot tell if it is a shitpost or just a very strange episode of the Simpsons. Until that day comes, I just want every reader to know that there are Simpsons shitposters everywhere. They have trained themselves to blend in with society and resist every urge to say a Simpsons reference in every day conversation; these urges come to them multiple times a day. And if you see a stranger, coworker, family member, or even your spouse staring off into the distance, they may very well be planning out how to execute a Simpsons shitpost of their own.
]]>THIS CODE IS ONLY VALID UNTIL SEPTEMBER 13, 2020 FOR ORDERS OF AT LEAST $9.99
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Riley Gale from Power Trip passed away yesterday. All my social media accounts are flooded with love for him. Zach says that he was "a living legend, a folk hero." And he truly was. Anyone that spent even just a few minutes with Riley would immediately know he was the real deal living life in a way we dreamt of as kids. Who didn't imagine being in the coolest, heaviest band of your generation while partying with your friends all the time and getting to record a song with Ice-T/Body Count?
I'll never forget crashing this weird party in 2011 of someone I didn't know. When I got there, there were only a handful of people walking around, taking sips of beer. Then all at once, the door opens up and what seemed to be a cloud of weed smoke appeared and this group of people barged in making tons of noise. One of the girls in the group ran over to the stereo and put on Big Freedia and a bunch of them started twerking. Then Riley stepped out of the smoke, followed by the rest of Power Trip, and they made their way to the kitchen to pass multiple blunts around. It was some total Ric Flair shit, but it wasn't ironic or intentionally baller; that was just how they rolled. They were playing a show the next day at Mango's with Guilt Party and they somehow got word of this party. Someone ended up stealing the empty keg at the end of the night and the hosts couldn't get their deposit back. On top of that, they had no idea who any of us were since we were all party crashers so they weren't able to track anybody down.
There's a country bar in Brooklyn named after Skinny Dennis, the famous 7-foot-tall country bass player who died when he was only 28 and was immortalized in the Guy Clark song "LA Freeway." The bar runs an Instagram account called "Fingerbang Alley", the nickname of a corner near the end of the bar where people like to lean against the wall and makeout. They posted a photo a couple years ago of a couple making out and one of them was wearing a backwards hat with an illegible band logo on it. They asked if anyone knew what the hat said, so I chimed in.
Yeah, it was a Power Trip hat. I thought it was hilarious.
So many people have stories about hanging with Riley and it's a testament to how people aren't exaggerating when they say he was a living legend. The secretary in Ferris Bueller's Day Off said this about Ferris: "The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." Ferris Bueller seemed too cool to be real, but Riley Gale was the realest and that description fit him perfectly.
Listen to Manifest Decimation.
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I loved the music that Justin Townes Earle made. My favorite recording of his is this stripped down rendition of Mama's Eyes.
Harriet (played by Michelle Trachtenberg) makes a classic Wonderbread, mayonnaise, and fresh tomato sandwich before school as her mother derides her for eating the same thing every day for lunch. Well, her mom is wrong because this sandwich is awesome. I eat them all the time. If you wanna get it legit, ALWAYS use Wonderbread and NEVER toast it.
I've watched this movie all the time ever since it came out. The book is good, too, in its own way; Harriet is much more unlikable and offensive in the book. On the last day of school in 8th grade, my friend Sophie and I went to her place and watched it on VHS (the cassette tape was bright orange) on her 10-inch TV with a built-in VCR. I still talk to Sophie and her twin sister Sarah every once in a while, too. They rule.
John (played by Adam Sandler) is a big-time chef that makes this classic good-at-any-time bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich that he pairs with what looks like a nitrogen stout (the semi-sweet, low-acidity, coffee-like flavor of a nitrogen stout pairs amazingly well with a bacon-heavy sandwich like the one he makes). Specifically, the sandwich consists of buttered-and-toasted French country bread, melted Monterrey jack cheese, butter lettuce, tomato, bacon, mayonnaise, a sunnyside up egg, and a sprinkle of salt on top. I've eaten several variations of this sandwich, but the Spanglish version is definitely the best. It's hard to eat iceberg lettuce on a sandwich like this after eating the superior butter lettuce version.
I've seen this movie exactly one time and have absolutely no recollection of what it's about. However, I've rented the movie a few times just to watch the scene where he makes the sandwich. I've also read more than one article about the sandwich in addition to watching a video featuring Adam Sandler and the chef he shadowed for his role in the movie as they made the sandwich together. That is a testament to how fucking good this sandwich is.
Sam (played by Johnny Depp) moves into a house with mechanic Benny and his sister Joon after Sam's original host puts the burden of housing him in a poker game that Joon participates in (and loses). Sam does a bunch of quirky shit and a romance with Joon ensues. What's important is one of the quirky things he does is make a bunch of grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron and YOU CAN DO IT, TOO. You just need white bread, room temperature butter, Kraft American Singles, and an iron with adjustable settings. Be sure to spread the butter on the bread first and set the iron to RAYON (the "SILK" setting makes the bread too soggy and "COTTON" burns it).
Despite being endlessly mocked for multiple decades and openly shat upon by critics of fine film, Point Break maintains its status as one of the most watchable (and rewatchable) movies in American cinematic history, right after Goodfellas and the Sandlot. It never gets old. There's always something interesting on the screen or being said by one of the most mind-boggling mix of cast members that seemingly could only exist in an Ambien-induced dream; Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty, Tom Sizemore, and Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers are all in this one movie. However, the real star of the movie are these meatball sandwiches.
Agent Pappas (played by America's greatest actor Gary Busey of the Busey Family Acting Dynasty) says to rookie Agent Johnny Utah (played by Keanu Reeves) to go around the corner and get him two meatball sandwiches. He's very adamant that he gets TWO of them. Pappas claims that they're the best he's ever tasted. You can barely see the sandwich in the movie, but from what little you can see is enough for you to know that it truly is God's meatball sandwich. It wasn't fluffed up by some hotshot Hollywood food stylist; it's a real wax paper wrapped, soggy white bread, meatball-and-marinara sandwich that probably contributed to America's many health problems.
I live about 5 miles away from where the scene was filmed and I can assure you that there is no sandwich shop like that around there. That fact alone is the sole reason I debate with myself every night about whether or not I should leave LA for good and never come back.
The Breakfast Club was my favorite movie when I was 7. They played it on weekend TV movie-blocks all the fucking time when I was a kid, but they played an edited version that omitted the weed-smoking scene and the shot of Molly Ringwald's panties. It wasn't until I was a little older and got an illegal satellite TV hookup that allowed me to watch the uncut version on Starz and HBO (they played the movie multiple times a month for years).
Ally Sheedy plays a girl named Allison, but everyone in my 30 years of pop culture conversation always refer to her as "the goth girl", despite not participating in any goth activities in the entire movie except wearing boots (it would've been so cool if she was looking at a Cocteau Twins or Sisters of Mercy record instead of a Prince record in that one scene). Everyone I've ever known has agreed that Allison was incredibly hot and the makeover scene at the end of the movie was ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE and it would've been a perfect movie without it.
Anyway, during the lunch scene, Allison assembles a sandwich by deconstructing her Oscar Meyer Pickle-and-Pimento Loaf sandwich down to only the white bread and then pours multiple Pixie Stix on the bread, followed by a layer of Captain Crunch as a substitute for the lunch meat. I have no desire to ever eat this sandwich, but I put it on the list because goddamn, think about that amazing crunch of texture. Putting potato chips on a sandwich is alright, but the crunch is nowhere near as sadistically satisfying as Captain Crunch.
Dave (played by Frankie Cosmos' real-life dad, Kevin Kline) is an average Joe that moonlights as an impersonator/look-alike of the President and gets caught up in some scheme that involves him pretending to be the REAL President because the White House is trying to hide the fact that the REAL President ruptured a vessel in his brain while fucking his mistress. That probably sounded farfetched enough for a summertime comedy in 1993, but now that some guy who sold steaks on QVC and fucked a pornstar is now our Prez for real, the premise of Dave doesn't stray that far off from reality.
After agreeing to the scheme of pretending to be the real POTUS, Dave goes to the White House kitchen to make a sandwich for himself and his now-appointed body guard. The ingredients of the sandwich are never revealed, but the overhead and tracking shot from the movie gives us some clues as to what's on it. It looks like a hoagie/hero roll, mayonnaise, mustard, pickled sweet peppers, pimento stuffed green olives, spritz of lemon, bibb lettuce, turkey breast, roast beef, cured ham, spiral cut baked ham, one slice of white American cheese (Kraft "Swiss" cheese), one slice of yellow American cheese, tomatoes, white onion, cucumber, pickle spears, whole pickled peperoncini, and jullienned carrots. Though I've had many Dagwood sandwiches before, this one looks like it would be a pain in the fucking ass to clean after making it. I mean, imagine pulling out a whole roasted turkey just so you can carve a few slices of breast to put on your ridiculous sandwich.
But the fact that this sandwich seems incredibly inconvenient to prep and clean for leads me to believe that this is one of the greatest tasting sandwiches of all time. It's a shame that the real-life person who holds this actual political position and has access to these ingredients, kitchen, and cleaning staff will never make a sandwich like this and instead settle for two Big Macs, a few slices of Domino's, a few pieces of KFC, washed down with a 12 pack of Diet Coke.
Mermaids is one of the most underrated movies of all time and Winona Ryder is an American gem. Her favorite band is the Replacements and she's been wearing their t-shirts and sliding their name in interviews for over 30 years now. When I was 12, I had a huge crush on her character in the movie Lucas even though she practically looked like Conor Oberst in it.
Winona Ryder in Lucas
Charlotte Flax (played by Winona Ryder) is the daughter of free spirited and sexually liberated Rachel Flax (played by Cher, who also happens to maintain the greatest Twitter account of all time) in a small east coast town in the 60s. Charlotte's little sister is Kate, a young swimming prodigy (played by a 9-year old Christina Ricci). Despite being Jewish, Charlotte is obsessed with Catholicism and dreams of one day joining a Catholic convent as a nun. Her dreams of chastity take a turn when she starts getting the hots for Joe, the local maintenance man/bus driver who was also born in the house that the Flaxes just moved into. When Charlotte and Joe plan to go fishing on the weekend, she prepares some big ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard and mayo on white bread. She tries to make them as big and manly as possible to impress Joe, but then her mom comes by and "ruins" them by pressing them with a star-shaped cookie cutter. This is the main reason I've included the sandwich; you can never go wrong with classic ham, cheese, mayonnaise, and mustard (FROM A JAR!) on white bread, but you can DEFINITELY never go wrong if it's cut in the shape of a star. The star cutter also gets rid of the disgusting crust and makes useless outer scraps of oddly shaped bread and thin strips of excess meat that you basically have to throw in the trash, so for a moment you know what it's like to be a rich person that throws away food.
I watched this movie in the theaters when it came out in 1999. Because of this movie, every radio station that summer played "All-Star" by Smash Mouth every other hour and the video was constantly on MTV. The song did much better than the movie. And, in a twist of fate that proves there is no god, Smash Mouth made even MORE money by licensing the exact same song 2 years later as the theme song to the international blockbuster Shrek. Smash Mouth made tons of money AGAIN and they didn't even have to do anything except email a song that they recorded years ago to some movie producers. Mystery Men did so badly that this part of the article is supposed to be about Mystery Men and all I've talked about so far is Smash Mouth.
William H. Macy plays the Shoveler, a member of a team of rejected D-list superheroes who band together to rescue the city's most popular superhero who has just been captured. The team keeps getting the shit kicked out of them so they decide to give up, but the Shoveler makes an inspirational speech that includes the fact that his wife doesn't let him eat egg salad sandwiches because they're full of cholesterol. It looks like all that's in the egg salad is mashed up boiled eggs and mayonnaise. The reason I put this sandwich on the list is because the egg salad sandwich is one of the most ignored sandwiches due to its constant badmouthing in American media. Getting food poisoning from eating an egg salad sandwich from the gas station has become a Hollywood trope. The negative connotation has permeated itself in American culture so deep that I seriously doubt that you remember the last time you even ate an egg salad sandwich. Personally, I can't recall the last time I had one. But I DO think I should give it another chance thanks to William H. Macy's inspirational speech.
Songs of August was the acoustic side project of Nick Kirby, the guitarist in the amazing DC hardcore band 1905. The Songs of August album is OK, at best, especially when compared to the amazing 1905 album Voice, but I was obsessed with the song "Drop" as a teenager. I'd listen to it on repeat. The mostly spoken word song is from the perspective of an observer noticing the excess and indulgences of those who don't realize they have them. The line "I could live off the fat of their scraps" stuck with me for years after the first time I heard it.
]]>“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” - from the Persian Wars by Herodotus
More than 99% of all packages that leaves Saigon Drugs is sent via USPS. Service was nearly flawless until a couple of months ago when the goddamn Prez pushed for Louis DeJoy to be the Postmaster General (DeJoy was unanimously voted into the position by the USPS Board of Governors). DeJoy and his wife own millions of dollars of assets in logistics and courier services such as XPO Logistics, J.B. Hunt, and UPS, by the way.
DeJoy is obviously doing a terrible job as y'all have probably seen the delivery times for your Saigon Drugs orders have been all fucked up. Don't just listen to just me, though. There are actual USPS employees talking about how medicine is being delivered late due to these new changes. Even DeJoy himself admitted that his policies are fucking everything up. Decisions DeJoy implemented include removing mailroom equipment that sped up sorting so now mail is literally piling up in post offices in a bottleneck when they would have been delivered that same day.
It's pretty obvious that DeJoy's reign of terror is in a tailspin and, if things continue like this, it probably won't be long before people hit the streets because their friends and family die from late medicine shipments or their ballots, checks, tax papers, passports, and other important shit don't show up in their mailboxes. LUCKILY we can help speed up the process of getting DeJoy out of the fucking Postmaster General seat with a few simple steps.
1. The easiest is to buy stamps from the USPS website. I've talked about this before. The USPS receives no tax dollars and sustains itself by selling goods and services, such as postage stamps. They all sell clothes and toys. If you're into doing graffiti on miniatures for your Tech Deck setup, they have scale model mailboxes and and box trucks for sale.
2. Talk to your senators. They can advise the President and USPS Board of Governors on who the Postmaster General should be. You can use this form from the American Postal Workers Union to plug in your info and they'll tell you who to call. However, the bastards are on recess right now until September so this might not be the most effective way to get your voice heard so feel free to TWEET THE SHIT OUT OF THEM and BOMBARD THEIR FACEBOOK PAGES telling them how much they suck if they don't support a halfway decent person for the position.
3. Go to DeJoy's house and let him know that we all know where he lives and what he's doing.
4. Tell the USPS Board of Governors that we know they have the power to remove DeJoy and if they don't, what's happening to DeJoy right now will happen to them. (The USPS Board of Governors are a bunch of old white guys, by the way.)
On a more lighthearted note, the underdog song of the blog post is "Most Beautiful Criminal" by Discount.
Alison Mosshart is most well-known as one-half of the Kills and a member of the Dead Weather, but she started her music career in high school as the lead singer of Discount. Discount were a huge part of the Florida scene in the early 90s and they shared local stages with the likes of Hot Water Music (who they also toured Europe with) and As Friends Rust (who they also have a split with released by Good Life Recordings). Discount weren't predictable or simple, but they maintained a huge amount of melody and catchiness within their complexities. They didn't follow any particular punk formula and they sounded unlike any other Florida punk band from the 90s. Their albums "Crash Diagnostic" and "Half Fiction" still hold up. The track above, "Most Beautiful Criminal", is one of their few acoustic songs and has a criminally low 295 views.
Use the code CRIMINAL for 10% off your entire Saigon Drugs order until August 23, 2020.
]]>This punk band was a little too ahead of their time with this 2003 album called "Dismissed." An early release by legendary pop-punk label Whoa Oh Records (who release records by the Ergs!, Lemuria, and the Sidekicks), it's a perfect mix of pop-punk, clean vocals, screams, and incredibly depressing lyrics. The song above, "Commencement", is my absolute favorite song by them. "He wakes up the same time, depressed nobody wants his job. He wonders how and when he'll move on. One good day doesn't make a year when too many draining weeks find you still here. And it's easy to be down on me, lack of confidence and energy. There's got to be more to life than this. The compounding difficulty keeping morale up. The end of the week you know what you're worth. Face-value doesn't yield the things it should." Goddamn, these lyrics are fucking heartbreakers. And this song has an offensively low 20 views! Society should be ashamed of themselves for not loving this band.
]]>Well, now there is a second question I would like answered: why did Paris Hilton delete a video of her making banana bread from all of her social media platforms?
Before we get into the banana bread fiasco, let's start with some evidence that touches upon her interest in radios and my obsession with finding the truth.
(screenshot taken from the Red Wave Radio message board)
It all begins with this post on June 21, 2006 on a little-known amateur radio enthusiast message board. The post reads:
"Was that Paris Hilton at Hall of Science today enquiring for a ham radio license? ....However they were closed."
This may be the earliest evidence on the internet that Paris Hilton is involved in the world of amateur radio and it holds a few important details that may seem insignificant to the untrained eye. First of all, the Hall of Science is a science museum in Queens, New York that is also home to the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club (aka HOSARC). This is the most visible place to go in New York City if you want information on how to get a HAM license.
The second most important element of this seemingly insignificant message board post is the date. June is an incredibly important date to all amateur radio broadcasters around the world because of a single event that has been going on for over 30 years: the International Amateur Radio Exhibition in Friedrichshafen. This is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, amateur radio conventions in the world. Every June, people from all over the world flock to Friedrichshafen, a city in southern Germany with a population of around 60,000, to attend exhibitions, lectures, and buy/sell/trade radio equipment.
Going back to the post from the Red Wave Radio message board, the person who supposedly witnessed Paris Hilton inquiring about a HAM radio license saw her on THAT DAY he posted the message: June 21, 2006. When was the radio convention in Friedrichshafen in 2006?
(screenshot taken from Nigel's personal website)
Boom. June 23 - 25, 2006. The convention was held 2 days after Paris Hilton was allegedly spotted in New York City's most notable building for HAM radio heads. One can easily assume that she was on her way from her home in Los Angeles to JFK in New York City to then leave for Germany, but decided to stop in NYC for a bit to hang with friends and maybe get approved for a call sign to operate her radio that she planned on buying at the convention. But that would all be speculation. We need to know where Paris Hilton actually was in June 2006. Thankfully, I know where she was.
(screenshot taken from Getty Images and edited due to copyright)
The caption to this photo from Getty Images reads "Cologne, GERMANY: US socialite Paris Hilton, heiress of the Hilton Hotel fortune, poses during a press conference to promote her new single "Stars are blind" in Cologne, western Germany 27 June 2006." So we now know for a fact that Paris Hilton was in Germany in June 2006. But that could just be coincidence. The convention was in Friedrichshafen on June 23 - June 25, but we only know that Paris was in Cologne on June 27. It DOES make incredible sense that she purposely planned her stint in Germany to include a stop in Friedrichshafen for the convention first and then booked some promotional stops in Cologne after the convention, but we have no idea if she had even been to Friedrichshafen that June.
Actually, we might.
(screenshot taken from reddit)
This Reddit post from a thread titled "Nicest Celebrity you've ever met?" details an encounter the user had with Paris Hilton. This wasn't a typical run-in with Paris at the Grove that everyone here in LA has encountered. This person ran into Paris in Germany. Not only that, but according to the story, Paris mentioned buying "some old radio bits" at "some show in Freidrichshafen (sic)". The story also mentions Paris talking about going to radio and air shows across Europe in her spare time. Though this post was dated June 2012, the event at which it occurred may have very well occurred in 2006, or perhaps Paris has been going to these radio and air shows for years and the Reddit user happened to run into her on one of her European tours. Can this still be coincidence? Or does Paris really love antique radios?
I have explained a little about the world of amateur radio and some people's encounters with Paris Hilton in this post, but I haven't produced any evidence about Paris' personal life. When she's home, what does she actually do for fun? Is she actually sitting in a room with a headset on, radio on her desk with a microphone on its stand, and her hands turning knobs and pushing buttons? We may never truly know. Except maybe we can.
(Screenshot taken from MeanStars)
This screenshot taken from MeanStars, a celebrity gossip website, is dated 2012. A contributor who claims that their step sister worked for Paris added a reply with some points of Paris' personal habits. The first thing that they mentioned is the only thing I care about, which reads as follows:
"Paris has a room full of vintage radios from ww2 aircraft and the like. She restores them. When not 'socialising' she spends most of her time locked up in that room doing God-knows what to these radios. There is always a smell of burning coming from the room. Nobody is allowed in."
This reply was suspiciously dated June 2012, the same month and year that the previous Reddit post about meeting Paris in Germany was posted. But is it really that suspicious? Is it really all just an elaborate lie? Or maybe this is all still coincidence? I don't know. And it kills me.
But now, another puzzle emerges and kills me even more.
On July 6, 2020, Paris posted this video of her making banana bread across her various media platforms: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. In the video, she puts on a pair of gloves (which she calls "sliving gloves" from her latest invented slang "sliving," which means "slaying mixed with living my best life. I am sliving, sliving it, sliving my best life, sliving single," according to her interview with E! in 2019), cracks some eggs, smashes some nanners, and bakes the thing in her June Oven gifted to her from her boyfriend. (I want one of those ovens, by the way.)
By July 11, 2020, they were gone. All references to the video were deleted from all of her public accounts. But why? All of her other cooking videos are still online.
Like this one where she makes a burger.
Or this one where she cooks with Chef Ming Tsai.
Or this one where she makes lasagna.
But nowhere to be found is the video of her making banana bread. Was the video posted too early? Did she lose a sponsor for some reason because of it? Did she breach some sort of contract by posting it?
Like the questions I have about Paris' involvement in antique radio, these questions about her banana bread may never be answered. Deep down in my heart, I truly believe that Paris knows something that we don't know. She knows something about radios and banana bread and she's hiding it from us. And truly, if I could meet God and ask him one question, I just want to know what she is hiding. What are her secrets?
If you have any information in regards to Paris Hilton and her relations to antique radio equipment and banana bread, please contact me using this webform or hit me up on Instagram and Twitter. Any information helps. Thanks.
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]]>Rosa's last show at Sedition Books. Houston, TX. 2005. Photo by Petrine TX.
Before folk-punk became the self-parodying absurdist oogle shitshow it is now, it was a pretty fun thing to partake in when you were sick of whatever punk band you've seen or were playing in for the millionth time in a row. Most of the acoustic bands and musicians I remember seeing from around this time were pretty much using these folk/country projects as a way to take a break from their main bands (Chuck Ragan and Rumbleseat from Hot Water Music, Chad Price from ALL, the Saint Catherines moonlighting as Yesterday's Ring, etc.). They were continuing what groups and musicians like Billy Bragg, the (Young) Pioneers, Tattle Tale, and the World/Inferno Friendship Society laid down, eventually turning into even more nuanced and diverse subcultures with bands like Moldy Peaches, Against Me!, Mischief Brew, and This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb (bands that sound more like what you'd find if you typed in "folk punk" into YouTube now).
I don't know precisely when the subgenre started getting seriously involved with possums, Carhartt overalls, hobo gumbo, and meth, but I should have seen it coming. My estimate is that it began sometime around 2006 at Plan It X Fest when someone shit on the slide.
I talk mad mess on folk-punk now, but I'll be completely honest with you; these bands and albums from this era of folk-punk have had a more impactful effect on my adolescent-to-adult years than anything. Specifically, Against Me!'s acoustic EP, Share What Ya Got by Defiance, Ohio, and I Mississippi You by Rosa. These are the albums I listened to with headphones on at night and in bed when I was dreading the next day of school. Now, it's hard for me to imagine a time in my life when I was happier than at a Rosa show or Plan-It-X Fest, but with that said, you'll never catch me dead at a Days 'n Daze show.
Rosa was one of the fundamental bands that laid groundwork for the sound and ethos of the bikes-and-trains style of folk-punk that I (and several thousands of people) like to mock and dissociate with. I first heard them in 2003 via a message board I will leave unnamed which was a congregation of punks who made off-color jokes and pirated music with each other. I started listening to I Mississippi You and tried to figure out just exactly what was going on. It sounded like a bunch of children on a playground singing as they banged a trash can with a stick overlaid with some guitar, banjo, and fiddle. I was pretty close to being right. Rosa consisted of Emmalee playing a single snare, Brad on acoustic guitar, Kirke Campbell on washtub bass and mandolin, and Ben Wesley on banjo and fiddle. They had a philosophy of never using electricity when they played shows, which allowed them to play shows anywhere at any time like at Amy's Ice Creams or the Hazard Street Bridge. They never played on stage, either. They always played on the floor, sometimes right in the middle and surrounded by the crowd.
Most of them went to Lanier Middle School (the same middle school I went to, though they were all a bit older than I) and ALL OF THEM eventually worked at Amy's Ice Creams on Shephard and 59 at some point. When I was 17, I also started working there, though the only member left from Rosa was Kirke.
I vividly remember getting a tour of the shop on my first day and Airon, the assistant manager, took me to the production kitchen where I saw Kirke making waffle cones. I had recognized him from shows and album inserts, though I never formally met him before.
Airon flagged Kirke down and said, "This is the new guy. It's his first day."
Kirke put down his waffle cone tool and said, "Hey, I think I know you. You ordered a 7" right?"
I wasn't sure how he knew who I was, but I think it was because I was one of the few people that actually had taken photos of Rosa and actively put them up around the internet. The 7" he was referring to was the classic Texarkana Get a High-Five that Rosa had put out which contained the classic "Umm Like Yer Smile is Totally Ruling Me Right Now" that was eventually covered by Japanther (both Rosa and Japanther were labelmates on Plan-It-X Records).
By the time I met Kirke on my first day at work at Amy's, though, Rosa was long gone and everyone was doing their own thing. Kirke lived in my neighborhood and we'd hang out every once in a while for a while when he was singing and playing guitar in the power-pop band Teenage Kicks. He moved to Pittsburgh for a few years where he played in the band Crooked Teeth, and then came back to Houston where he and I played in the Edgar Allan Poseurs with John Sears. Before I left Houston, he was playing in the band Pearl Crush, in addition to working on his own solo music.
Everyone in Rosa, minus Ben, also played in the (electric) punk band Punkin' Pie during the same time Rosa was still together.
Ben had always been working on his own solo music (which cannot be defined by any one genre) and also played in the rap band Tha Fucking Transmissions and the all-bass band Basses Loaded.
Brad played in a bunch of bands after Rosa, but the ones I remember most are Fleabag and the impossible-to-google punk band Prince.
And probably most notoriously, Brad and Kirke were very young when they played in the emo band Die, Emperor! Die!
]]>
I started a new Instagram called @DiscoKroger where I post all the punk photos I took as a kid starting in 2005, mostly in Houston but with an occasional photo taken in Austin. My days now take place mostly in Los Angeles where I just drink, party, and pay invoices all day, but it didn't use to always be like this. When I was a teenager, I used to stay home and listen to music all day until I moved out in my junior year of high school and spent my evenings going to punk shows and my weekends hanging out at small bookshops and record stores. It was here where I made friends with the people I'd spend the next decade with.
These people worked at grocery stores and restaurants and museums and galleries during the day and spent their evenings playing in bands and throwing art shows. They taught me about all the cool bars and restaurants in town, where punk and party houses were when the addresses were purposely omitted from flyers, and the original sources from which bands would steal riffs and album art. Looking back, it was kind of inappropriate for me to be trying to hang out with all these people while my days consisted of me trying to survive high school, but I firmly believe that watching them drink and do drugs kept me off of certain vices until I reached an appropriate age.
Fire Team Charlie was one of my favorite bands to see. They truly understood what the late 80s and early 90s hardcore bands were trying to do. When I was 12 or 13 and too young to go out and see shows on my own, I honestly thought I wasn't missing much because bands I loved like Indian Summer and Rites of Spring were long gone. When I discovered that there was a worldwide revival of this type of hardcore around the world, including an incredibly active scene right in Houston, I knew I wanted to see it for myself. Fire Team Charlie was the first band of the genre I witnessed.
Fire Team Charlie had amazing, intricate guitar-work that perfectly balanced soft interludes and heavy riffs. They wrote lyrics about war, famine, and loss and screamed them from the gut. When I listen to songs like "Captain Fantastic and Boris, the Heavy Metal Kid", I can't believe that it was made from these kids in a barn out in Richmond, TX (a small town almost an hour outside of Houston). Growing up in central Houston, I imagined that Richmond was this weird small town that was home to strip malls and a prison farm. Casey, who sang and played guitar for Fire Team Charlie, made me believe that my estimation of his hometown wasn't far off. By sheer coincidence, he ended up taking classes at the community college right next to my high school and sometimes we'd hang out when we both had free time. After I graduated from high school, he and I started a Jawbreaker cover band and played a few shows around town (all of them headlining slots). A couple years after Fire Team Charlie broke up, Casey sold his record collection and we lost touch. I don't recall him making music (publicly, at least) after Fire Team Charlie. I see photos and him and his wife and kid pop up on Facebook every once in a while. He seems to be doing fine.
Use the discount code FIRETEAMCHARLIE at checkout for 10% off your entire order. This code is good until May 25, 2020.
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The first time I ever came to LA, I spent most of my time and money at Jumbo's Clown Room during the dayshift which started at 4 PM. It was the slowest shift of the day with the least amount of people, which meant there was never a problem getting a drink. There were usually only about 7 patrons there, max, and most of them were Hollywood type dudes in their 60s that had tan skin and leisure shirts and drove old sports cars with whitewall tires. It was way more chill than the evenings with people packed shoulder-to-shoulder. (Unfortunately, they got rid of the dayshift in 2019.) It didn't take long for me to realize that this small, weird, clown-covered pole-dancing club with only one pole and one stage is good enough of a reason for me to pack up my stuff and move to Hollywood.
Well, I settled in LA and I'm fucked now 'cause I'm stuck in the city and all the strip clubs are closed due to the COVID-19-related quarantine, in addition to the fact the goddamn government doesn't think they're essential businesses. In my newfound spare time, though, I hit up all the strippers I would see on the reg to make sure they're doing OK. I'll subscribe to all their OnlyFans and Venmo them $20 here and there every now and then, just to make sure they have enough to eat for a lil bit. A few of the girls miss Jumbo's even more than I do. Naomi misses Jumbo's so much that she started her own digital bikini bar called NaomiDrome, a live pole-dancing show shot entirely from her apartment and streamed onto the internet, viewable from your home computer or cell phone through a paywall.
NaomiDrome has almost everything Jumbo's had but from the comfort of your own home. This time, though, you have to bring your own drinks, tip via Ca$hApp or the in-browser tip option, and Naomi and her guests engage in banter and Q&A when they're not taking their clothes off and spinning around a pole.
Early webcasts of the show had problems in regards to muting audio due to copyright issues with the songs they dance to, but Naomi came up with the genius solution of taking submissions of original music made by users' bands and music projects and using that as the soundtrack to the dance routines. She chooses some crazy shit you'd never hear at a normal titty bar, too, like piano sonatas and ambient electronica and contemporary pop-punk. After the show, users get to vote on their favorite song and the artist receives the coveted Official Naomidrome Stripclub Certified Banger Award Winner in additon to all the users receiving an email with the entire playlist of the songs used on the show, including links to their streaming music pages, social media accounts, and money apps so they can get tipped. It truly is the Strip Club of the People. I highly recommend everyone spend their money there. It's for a good cause. The top tipper of every show gets mailed a Perfect Woman poster, courtesy of Saigon Drugs.
Here's the soundtrack from last Friday's show (I'm partial to the Chicago pop-punk act After the Fight):
_wazboi__ _- Co-Dean
AFTER THE FIGHT- Doesn't Matter Anyway
Colleen Green- Maybe I'll Get Hit By a Car Tonight
Forgotten Modern- The Way You Look
MaymungSweatshirt Ft. Mishii
Q. Uomo-suvir
Lazerdisk ft. Manus- Sip No Wine
XEROX- Data Corrupter
Shaki Tavi- Dunno
Opium Records- Fleeing The Swamp
WARGASM-LAPDANCE
Because you made it all the way to the bottom of the blog, used the code NAOMIDROME on the Saigon Drugs webstore for 10% off your entire order (this code is good from 5/16/2020 to 5/23/2020).
Petrine
]]>The USPS is in trouble right now for several reasons. One of their problems is being withheld a bailout from the federal government. Another is one is that the people working for them are dying from COVID-19. Like many people these past few weeks, I bought stamps online to support the US Postal Service (the "Little Mo" Forever Stamps), but also because I needed stamps. I've been sending letters regularly since I was a teenager.
Life sucked for me for the longest time...from around childhood until I was in my mid 20s. I was constantly living in one of several combinations of being broke, not talking to anyone in my family, working long hours for shit pay flipping burgers and washing dishes, and sleeping on a camping cot in a studio apartment with cracks in the floorboard that let you see through to the outside (sometimes I thought I would die in the winters). But I still managed to write zines, go to shows, take photos, make t-shirts, and record music. The only reason I did it was because I knew that people cared. People would write letters and email me and send me money just to get something I made.
I got three letters from Amanda throughout the years, always enclosed with photographs and cash to buy a zine. This is the last one she sent me. It came with $20 for my latest zine at the time. I think about this letter often because after reading her letter for the first time, I couldn't help but relate to her. I knew what it was like to work a shitty job and deal with shitty people and stare at my feet as I walked the sidewalks feeling sorry for myself. And it was so moving to know that she found $20 on the ground and bought one of my zines instead of keeping it for something else. If I were her back then, I would've used it for the burrito or to get drunk.
I would wake up and live my day hating my life for most days until I would check my mailbox and get a letter like this. It reminded me that someone cared. The fact that it was a stranger in some small hamlet on Long Island who I had never met before made it so much more important to me. The only thing we knew about each other came from zines and letters, inanimate words on a piece of paper, and those words were important enough to prompt her to put a $20 bill in an envelope and send it to me. Those words on a page were strong enough to help me forget how much I hated life and to write a response back, put a zine in an envelope, stick some stamps on it, and ride my bike out to the nearest blue USPS box and drop it off.
For the past month I've been spending most of my days at home due to the quarantine. Luckily, Saigon Drugs is doing good enough for me to pay the bills and buy groceries and markers. When I'm not checking reports and orders and responding to your emails, I'm writing letters to my friends who are in the same shelter-in-place situation as I am. Sometimes they're as close as Venice Beach and sometimes they're as far away as Brooklyn. I check the mail every day and when I get a letter back from someone, I get the exact same feeling as I did 10 years ago and I momentarily forget how much I hate my fuckin life.
Go buy some stamps and write letters to your friends.
Petrine
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