Travels in Oakland
LaSalle Smoke Shop, a rare breath of sin in the fun-free zone of downtown Montclair, was closed down by neighbors complaining about the smell of smoke. I hope each complainer gets hit by a bus and I'm there to finish off any scraps and light a fat one over their remains.

Recently, I wandered into Egbert Souse's to revisit past glories, and the place was packed- with brothers. We all had one of those freezeframe moments before I skipped out and they resumed the party.

Piedmont Avenue has the most depressing bar scene in this universe. I had an aging blonde legal secretary drape herself all over me and mumble, "I'm hammered and I hope you're having yourself a time." I was bellied up alone, Jackson Browne was on the jukebox, and her date just stood there. I plead silently for the annihilation of the human race and then left.

Hey, I had my best day at Amoeba in years. All of these were under-5-buck vinyl, and I had to halve my stack before paying. Somebody must have given up rock 'n' roll for God.

A-Frames- Black Forest
Cows- Orphan's Tragedy
Cows- Sexy Pee Story
Cows- Cunning Stunts
Cows- Daddy Has a Tail!
Drag the River- Live
The No-Talents- ...Want Some More
Gasoline- S/T
New Race- The First and the Last
The Rolling Stones- Goats Head Soup
The Swindlers- First Issue
The Lamps- S/T
The Fuse!- The Fisherman's Wife
Death of Samantha- Laughing in the Face of a Dead Man

Speaking of Hate (a Zisk production)...

“Beat LA! Beat LA!” chant the haters at PacBellCingularAT&TGoScrewYourself Park, and, while this is not uncommonly heard in the confines of these corporately sacred grounds, the expression of hate is a rare thing in the Bay Area, given how we hover above the earth on angelic clouds of enlightened tolerance and understanding for all things living. Except for Republicans, smokers and the Los Angeles Dodgers, we embrace the glory of all Gaia’s creation. But, like our progressively broad-minded European cousins who throw bananas at black soccer stars and give the boot to old commies dying on the public square, occasionally, we need an outlet for our primal desire to target an enemy and yell obscene things at him from the safety of luxury boxes. Here in the Bay Area, we’ve chosen young men in blue uniforms.

Ironically, while Northern Californians look down upon SoCal for its lack of aesthetic landscaping, troubled lack of appreciation for clean air, failure to embrace the bicycle as a symbol of smug self-righteousness, and celebration of superficial norms of objectified female beauty, southlanders rarely acknowledge our existence. It’s not so much that our ugly southern stepsisters ignore us; they don’t care that we exist. And that makes your average Bay Arean irate, like when you flip off the dude in the Hummer, and he does not deign to look over and acknowledge your superior and forward-thinking Prius. Because the Southern Californian refuses to recognize the better command we northerners have of the art of living, we need public rituals to show him who his betters are. Thus, at MamaBell Park, it’s quite common to see middle-aged, middle-management bankers buying their children Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream sandwiches, attired in Fuck LA t-shirts. No one bats an unadorned eyelash.

So, despite all pre-season predictions putting this year’s Giants squad on a par with a Jennie Finch U of A squad in a down year, I loaded my sons onto our low emission hovercraft and we floated across the bay Friday night to vent spleen. The Giants stunk up the sanctified grounds of Phone Park in their opening series against the Padres, but no matter. There is nothing like initiating your boys into the brotherhood, so I placed my framed Tommy Lasorda Weight Watchers photo on the rearview mirror of our craft, so we could meditate on his human failures as we zipped inches above the heads of the dancing dolphins in McCovey Cove. We parked our vessel and I turned to my eldest:

“Are you ready?”

“We will crush them like bugs. We are better men.”

“You are correct, young sir. Let’s proceed.”

We made our way through the throngs in search of strong drink- a couple of lemonades for them, an $8.25 organic Lagunitas IPA for me. Hate needs lubrication. We threw back some free range dogs and proceeded to our seats, bundling up against the heavy fog that was settling overhead and leaving drops of portent upon our brows. What was that eerily putrid smell emanating from the swirling fog?

“Batting third, and playing second base for the Dodgers, Jeff Kent.” Of course! What better sulfurous example of botched human enterprise than that wannabe cowboy with the cop moustache. Here was a traitorous villain who chose Satan’s own blue boys over good and strong men of honor and decency like Armando Benitez and Barry Bonds. Here was the perfect example of all I did not want my sons to be.

“Hey Kent, you suck!” I screeched, allowing my proud lads to marvel at these two models of manhood- that scum sucking Benedict Arnold smiling smugly from the dugout steps and their old man spilling 7% brew on his Cargo pants- when I was shockingly interrupted.

“How can you boo Jeff Kent?” came the shrill cry from behind me. “The man is a warrior, a Spartan- he’ll bleed for you.”

I paused to gather myself and to maximize the dramatic effect, then turned my head slowly to face pure ignorance.

“Excuse me, sir, but you are confused. He left the Giants for the Dodgers. I think we’re done here.” I smiled and turned back around, patting my boy’s thigh with a conqueror’s assurance.

“What the hell are you talking about?” The man certainly could bellow. “They offered him big dollars. What’s he supposed to do, stick around for less pay on a team he can see is on its way down?”

This blasphemy severed my left shoulder blade and sent shivering waves of incomprehensibility tingling through my lean, temple of a frame. I could smell his MGD breath around the back of my neck, and it was now clear that the devil often comes in disguise. I was on my own, with only my decency to protect me.

“Dad, why is that man angry at you?”

“Because he’s ignorant, son,” I whispered.

“Hey buddy, can you speak up?”

I was in a pinch. I did not want to embarrass my young lads, and clearly this intoxicated buffoon could not see reason if it were handed to him in a crystal PBR mug. I had to think fast.

“Sir, I appreciate that everyone has his opinion, and diversity does indeed make the world go around. But do you really mean to suggest that Jeff Kent does not deserve opprobrium brought down upon him?”

“What are you talking about? Look, Kent was a great Giant. The team nearly won the Series when he was one of its leaders. They haven’t been as good since he left. If numbers matter, he’s one of the greatest hitting power-hitting second basemen in the history of the game and belongs in the Hall of Fame. The Giants suck for not keeping him.”

Mention of the World Series That Shall Not Be Mentioned (oh dear Gaia where were you in 2002?), sent hot, oddly menopausal flashes through my solar plexus. Coupled with the mention of Kent and Hall in the same beery breath, his foul mutterings almost rendered me unconscious. But, like the mother who lifts the Monster Truck from the breast of her child after she’s fallen onto the dirt track at Anaheim Stadium, I conjured up all my parental powers to defend the true and the good.

“Jeff Kent is a Dodger, sir, ipso facto. He fell off a car wash. He wears a moustache. He speaks in a fake drawl. He raises beautiful cattle for food. He left the Giants for the Dodgers, can’t you see. He is wrong, wrong, all wrong.” Suddenly I collapsed in tears. The menace behind me had wriggled free the tight binds of my repressive chains, and something was wriggling its ways from the dark recesses of my unconscious. Just then, as I was mentally calculating the costs of doubling my therapy sessions and canceling Junior’s piano lessons, a roar exploded from the crowd.

“They’re fighting! They’re fighting!”

I shook my head as a dog shakes his fur after a swim in the sea, and my eyes followed those of others to ten rows above the third-base dugout. Could it be? Yes, under the Halloween orange of the Kragen Auto sign, two grown men were brawling. I wobbled my head slowly this time, closed my lids tightly and then reopened them. A thirtysomething man in a black and orange Giants jersey was pummeling a prone body on the steps. Blow after blow came down, and the crowd erupted with each strike. The scrapper seemed exhausted but still his fists came down. Where was security? Why didn’t someone stop it? Had we been reduced to this?

“What’s happening, daddy?”

“Oh, just some disturbance. Someone probably spilled his popcorn. Have some veggie bootie.”

I patted both boys lovingly on the tops of their heads, and focused intently again on the beating. Would the blows never cease? Were we descending into chaos? Fatigue appeared to be slowing down the ferocity of the attack, and finally, to boos everywhere, security personnel arrived and I could glimpse patches of orange and black being whisked up the stairs. I was relieved. Civilization was restored. I turned toward my sons, grateful that common sense and decency had prevailed, when suddenly, I spotted it. Emerging from the sea of black in the masses surrounding the area of battle, a flash of white. Then blue. Could it be? Yes, the pummeled man was wearing a Dodger jersey. His number was 12. As they carted his slumping form away, I felt a surge of boozy triumph surge up my esophagus, like the reflux of a 14 year old finishing a fifth round of upside-down margaritas.

I whipped around like the third turn on a Scott Hamilton triple axel and delivered the final blow to my nemesis: “Oh, you really suck, haha! There goes your boy, defeated. Look at them carrying him like a bloodied Spartan homo. We defeat you. We are winners. You can only taste our dust in this…”

After I washed the foul swill from my face and settled down my confused children, the game progressed. It was, of course, anti-climactic after our glorious victory under the Kragen sign. Yes, Pedro Feliz fielded a grounder with a man on third in a scoreless tie, froze, looked around for mama, and then threw hurriedly to the plate while some devil scored easily. Yes, the real Jeff Kent ripped an RBI single to right to drive in the winning run in a 2-1 victory for the Dodgers. These are mere details.

What matters is this- NorCal kicked SoCal ass, and Section 12B has the bloodstains to prove it. Sure, the Dodgers may slime their way ahead of the Giants in the official “standings,” but we know who won the real battle. And so do my boys. The day after the game, they begged me to sign them up for Taekwondo classes, and I readily agreed. Now, I’m assured that when they take their kids to WirelessEternallyConnectedDotDeath Park, they’ll carry on the tradition of sticking it to the men in blue, preferably from foot to mouth. We are a humble and gentle breed, we privileged searchers of higher realms of consciousness, but Giant fans still know how to take care of business. Keep that in mind if you dare enter our heavily leveraged crib.

It's been nine fucking years since the last one, and that one was pretty damn bad. Hell, nine years ago was two houses, three kids and two pant sizes ago. It's been a long time since the Beasts of Bourbon have graced us with a record, but here it is, Little Animals, on this blank cdr without cover art. Hey, in the diminished pleasure of the middle years, I'll take what I can get.

Which is pretty damn good, all things considered. I'm still digesting, but after five listens I'm gonna say not Axeman's Jazz or Sour Mash or In the Belly of the Beast, but solid butt rock, and for a few moments even great. I read an interview with Tex Perkins where he said they were going for a 70's hard rock vibe, which is pretty much what they got, with some minor exceptions. The opening track is the obvious single, with huge chunky riffs backing Tex's hatespew refrain, "I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore." Please don't watch the video, though, cuz those Aussie cock rock poses (these are men of 40+) are purty hard to take. That said, the riffs keep on coming, if occasionally light on the hooks, but I sure could do without the title track, a ballad about, well, either endangered species or a metaphor for the endangered rock man that is Tex Perkins. It ain't quite clear.


Look, I've loved these guys well beyond what their albums merited, but Sour Mash remains one of the all-time great hatefuck records, even if half of it is pretty mediocre. In the Belly of the Beast may be the greatest live record I own and arguably the best document of what these guys could do. The new one is as good as one could hope for, I suppose, but I would have preferred some more humor and more diversity. Whatever. If you're looking for driving music this summer, get on my Soulseek, mate. The Beasts are hatin' just fine.

RIP Rod Beck, one of the good guys...

Now that I've returned to Piedmont Ave., I'm finding myself tripping down memory lane. The Westall Sessions? Alfred Brown Mortuary? The Scerry House? Hell, I even had a dream about the King from Cafe Valerian last night. He looked fit. So I was lounging on the couch yesterday afternoon, perusing the new Modern Drunkard, when the synchronicity switch flipped and one of the great mysteries of that time done got solved- the identity of one Egbert Souse. On a street with horrible bars, Egbert Souse's was clearly the loser's champ. Walking into the Souse was like visiting your dying grandfather in a pub. You could feel the last semblance of spirit being sucked out of you the moment you opened those doors. If you couldn't buy a plane ticket to Florida, it was the next best place to go and die.

Anyway, I'm reading MDM's overview of the films of W.C. Fields, and there it is- Egbert Souse. Seems that was Fields' character's name in what the piece calls his best film, The Bank Dick. Souse is a small town layabout who "spends his happiest hours downing cocktails at the Black Pussy Cafe." Much drunken shenanigans ensues, including a sequence in which a hammered Souse slips a bank examiner a Mickey with the help of the Black Pussy's bartender, played by Stooge Shemp Howard. Wasted scoundrels, mucho misanthropy, and children kicking- I blame Disney and the Boomers, naturally, for the death of fun at the theater. And I'm gonna hit the Souse this afternoon and raise one to the Bank Dick. Here's to the Black Pussy Cafe.

Evidently, Voltaire didn’t kick Leibniz hard enough, because here comes Matthew Stewart to give that old corpse the boot. The Courtier and the Heretic follows Wittgenstein’s Poker in the growing tradition of brief and earth-shattering moments in the history of western civilization books. Here, Stewart claims a meeting between Leibniz and Spinoza so obsessed the former that his thinking was framed by it for the rest of his life.

The hero is Spinoza, and his hat is the purest white. Run out of his Jewish community for blasphemy with death threats, his “pantheism” could only be embraced by followers, for the most part, secretly. Caricatured as a hermit antichrist by his enemies, Spinoza, according to Stewart, was not only right about everything he wrote, but he was also well-loved in his new neighborhood. He was that rare intellectual who walked the walk. Leibniz, according to Stewart, most decidedly did not. His hat is a floppy burgundy. He is vain, ambitious, intellectually dishonest, and fat. Spinoza is strikingly handsome and Leibniz is a slob. The latter’s bald head bulged with some weird protuberance and he discharged some noxious gas at his death that gave the attendant a headache. Stewart revels in Leibniz’s failures, which is odd considering he calls him the “the last universal genius” and “one of the two greatest philosophers of the 17th century.” Little evidence, however, is given for those claims, and you can almost see Stewart’s sardonic grin as Leibniz’s inventions break down and his efforts at court fall short.

When Stewart sticks to ideas, the book shines, as he produces clear explanations of both men's work. He is so one-sided in his praise and attacks, however, that you can hear the ax grinding with each turn of the page. Nobody is as noble as Spinoza’s portrayal here, and Leibniz’s accomplishments, which are extraordinary, are poopooed as almost insignificant compared to his personal failings and obsession with Spinoza. There just ain’t the evidence to paint in these bold strokes. If, like me, you find Spinoza's prose difficult to penetrate, this is a good place to start. But poor old Leibniz- wasn't Pangloss enough?

I believe the creators of this ad should get the red hot poker- I publicly renounce my opposition to torture and capital punishment.

Tech Failure Part X

I tried to make a "Party Playlist" on my Ipod, and it came up with B.F. Skinner, Brainbombs and Morrissey in the top 15. Just thought I'd share that.

Slouching Towards Happiness
The bestseller lists are ablaze with folksy distillations of hard science, and I’m falling for ‘em despite the internal bullshit detector screaming, “Overstuffed New Yorker piece! Save bloated hours for intoxicated viewings of Deadwood, Season 2!” To no avail, internal sensor, to no avail. I’m not sure whom I’m supposed to blame. Malcolm Gladwell? How many Tipping Point Blinks has that afro sold? The Freakonomics nerds? I’m still not sure if that legalized abortion/18-years later reduction in crime theory is valid, but I’d like to believe it is.

If you’ve been paying attention, the glut on the market has been Happiness books, and they’re mostly descriptive to clearly distance themselves from their sad stepsisters on the Self-Help shelves. No prescriptions to be found here, no sir- we just tell it like it is in plain prose laced with quirky humor that’s just hilarious- to mom. Don’t mind those PhD’s after our names- we’re regular folks just like you, but because we have Chairs and Grants and Access, we’ll read those long boring studies and visit those backroom labs, sift out the relevant stuff, break it down into workmanlike prose afresh with aw shucks kickers, and start collecting the talk show gigs and paychecks those fucking academic albatrosses have kept us from (not to mention the fame we so rightly deserve).

And I gobble ‘em up like the sad sob nosed pinned to the glass at the Hard Rock pool party, desperate for that epiphanic nugget that opens the attitudinal doors to the pink clouds that will be my eternal pillow.

Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness has a huge black burb from Malcolm Gladwell on the cover that sports an upside down bowl of cherries: “If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me.” So, for all you swollen sacks of shit sucking on lollipops and the San Francisco Chronicle with no curiosity at all, go ahead and skip this once in a lifetime chance at the inner mysteries of human creation and see how you feel when your enlightened friends are glowing with revelation and dancing each and every moment on their own personalized insight beanbags. Trust me, because I have benefited greatly from desperate seekers before you who have coughed up the 14.95 it now costs for a paperbook book, looking for gems of sagacity or some brilliant sliver of light to help them make sense of the confusion meteors smashing down upon their aching heads. Look, I read every word of Daniel Gilbert’s book, and I woke up this morning with a black heart. My bowl of cherries was squashed and spat upon. I’m pretty sure I understood every word, too. After 250 pages of studies and homespun analysis of said studies, Gilbert says this: If you want to predict how you might feel about something in your future, don’t trust how you think you might feel, ask someone who is living right now your possible future reality. That person knows best, and that is the best advice you can hope for. So, don’t come here looking for the ticket to the happiness kingdom. But, he does sprinkle some diamonds along the way, especially about the way we make memory and how that process can negatively affect our decisions about the future. In plain language, be wary about what you think you remember to guide what you think will make you happy in the future. Your memories ain’t as photographic as you think they are and each day makes them less so, and he provides some compelling reasons for why that’s the case. He’s just not going to make you laugh in the process.
Steven Johnson’s Mind Wide Open gets a Steven Pinker blurb: “Mind Wide Open is a lucid and engaging travelogue from the frontiers of human brain science.” Now that’s less propagandistic than the Gladwell one, and it’s actually fairly accurate. Johnson visits a different study on neuroscience for each chapter, becomes a guinea pig for said study, relates area of study to his own life, and then closes with what it all means. Johnson’s big idea: we need to recognize the patterns of our minds as just that- patterns, and learning to recognize seratonin’s rejection-insensitivity and social confidence meters, dopamine’s “seeking without pleasure” agencies, oxytocin’s drive to make emotional bonds and adrenaline’s sudden lifts can allow us to nurture our natures, so to speak. The different parts of our brain are competing for our attention. The ego is not torn between two masters, a la Freud, as modern brain science has complicated that power struggle almost beyond recognition. As we begin to become aware of these competing claims, we can begin to make new emotional associations that can free us from the unhealthy conditioning of our past. Thus, get thee to a fMRI scanner, hook up to a neurofeedback machine, or just read a book about brain science (like this one, cheap at 15.00 for all the life-changing info inside its hallowed covers), and start the journey that’s sure to end next year, with my next book.

See you in the Psych section, suckers…

What Are You Listening To June?

Flaming Lips- lying in bed with a cold compress over my eyes and two pain tablets dissolving in my growling belly, I searched OnDemand for a diversion from self-pity and found it in a Flaming Lips documentary I never knew existed called Fearless Freaks, a name taken from a teenage football league the Coyne brothers, all five of them, founded to salve their urge to smoke doobage and hit people. Like the Lips' music, the doc is uneven, but it did drive me back to some of the early records and I remembered why the hits were so endearing- somehow these guys managed to straddle that very delicate line between annoyingly cloying "we're so wacky now love us" and "we're kinda wacky." I can't quantify it, but for awhile, they remained just this side of the latter. Pull out Oh My Gawd and tell me you don't crack a smile, or is it really all acid jazz in your house these days?

Cows- Cunning Stunts- hard to believe, but I popped my Cows' cherry last week. I remember that dude's hat and his bugle, but I never heard the music. I've played this about five times and I'm not sure if it's nostalgia for an era or my waistline I'm feeling, but I'm digging the trip back.

Hawkwind- I mentioned the pain pills, right?

Dinosaur Jr.- Beyond- I don't even remember the impetus for breaking a solid ten-year DJ hiatus, but all of a sudden driving those Oakland hills with "The Wagon" blasting tingled the old sensors, and perhaps midlife crisis centers should be alerted and beds readied. That said, this record stands on its merits, a freaking miracle post-The Weirdness. This is at least as good as Bug, if not better, and while you ain't gonna get the heavy quotient that made You're Living All Over Me that late-night, candlelight, make grown women weep via guitar solo skronk fest, you do get J ripping himself off in pleasurable ways and even ole Lou adding two to the mix that don't make you want to shake his scrawny ass side to side and punch some cheer into him. Boy, Fat Possum ain't just down the backroads no more.

Hey, it's 1987 all over again. Who's holding?

Wish me luck- I'll be under heavy sedation for most of next week, so feel free to enhance my experience with Moylan's.

Don't forget- McCarthy is on Oprah today. Jesus!

So, haters, everybody's favorite pompous, Pommy, alcoholic athiest is NUMBER ONE on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list this week with God is Not Great. Hate him all you want, but cut through the fog of your fury for a moment and ponder that fact. This former pinko, current Iraq war supporter, full-time drunk and slothful ex-pat has the number one book in the country. Yea, Al's book will probably knock him off this week, but does anybody find Hitch's top spot aggressively weird, or are books slamming god the new diet manifestos?

(from Tim Goodman's blog)
"Deadwood" fans, your heads are about to explode.
I've had the "John From Cincinnati" DVD for a while now. The first three episodes. But you know me, I'm never in a rush to watch something if I've got other things going on. You know, like life. And something inside - some inner warning system - indicated it might be a better idea to put off watching these episodes as long as possible. After all, I'm a huge "Deadwood" fan and the abrupt ending to that series still leaves me peeved. What if I watched and "John From Cincinnati" was bad?
If you don't know what's coming next, you don't watch enough television: "John From Cincinnati" is bad. I love David Milch and he's definitely a misunderstood visionary and a real character in the TV business. But this show is a total mess.
My full review doesn't run until June 10 - it's the cover of the Sunday Pink section. But I figured you might want to get a head start on the anger and mourning and those thoughts of retribution. You know, have your gods ready for blood and all that. No sane person can pretend to know what Milch was thinking. It's his right as an artist and, as I've noted, a misunderstood visionary, to do as he wishes. But HBO? A total blunder. You don't let one of the great series on all of television fizzle out for...uh, for what? And even if those two two-hour movies do get made, they can't make up for the truncated legacy of "Deadwood."
Sad. Really sad.

Wanna go to New Orleans for the Harry Potter convention?