In case you asked, these are the best GBV records, in order.

1. Alien Lanes
2. Bee Thousand
3. Propeller
4. Vampire on Titus
5. Same Place the Fly Got Smashed
6. UTBUTS
7. Isolation Drills
8. all the rest...

Prettiest girl ever gets her box set

Post the ~$100 spending spree over the last three weeks that has left me with about 70 new records, I gotta say that Fleetwood Mac's Tusk is winning. Holy fucking shit this record is pretty goddam outstanding. There's a new voice on every track, and the production is just what this GBV come lately dude needs. I hated the idea of this record when I was a kid, and the overkill the title track got on KRQR nearly left me batty, but quality wins out at the end of the day (or the middle of a life - whatever you fucks wanna call it). I'll take Lindsey Buckingham over just about anyone today, and that includes you, Elvis Costello, ya twat.

So it looks like post Harry Potter the next book the dim hippy masses will be carrying around is a 50 year old tale of travel and excess called En El Camino (Spanish version) Read all about it here. Meanwhile, fans of PKD can celebrate the Library of America's new version, edited by the elevated smart guy Lethem, who hasn't done it for me since Motherless Brooklyn. That fey insight is available here.

Maybe all you should want in life is to be big in Dayton, OH - and you can. From a picnic last month. Fat and happy indeed!

Shoot me before I buy vinyl again. Black Sabbath Vol. 4? Got it. The Pretty Things' SF Sorrow? Uh huh. Raven's The Pack is Back? For the love of God, get the man some help. My only consolation is that I've lost the last nine Ebay auctions, and by a considerable margin. Clearly, I'm not in these fuckers' league. 102 dollars for a scratchy Townes Van Zandt record? Crawl out of your cyberhole little mole and let me blast a cassette of Unsane directly into the aural section of your scrotum. You'll quickly reassess your purchasing decisions and call me your master. Let's talk, babe.

I'm firmly convinced that the best Rolling Stones record is Aftermath. Don't try to argue with me. You'll just embarrass yourself again. Especially you Let it Bleed hangers on. Jesus.

Oh, I'm supposed to provide reasons for my opinions? OK, Leffe and Affligem.

Why do people write about Russell Banks with purple prose? I've made it through Continental Drift (solid) and failed miserably with Rule of the Bone (oops, I mean he failed miserably), but I don't see it. Anybody got a rec for the jaded, besides Cloudsplitter (I've done my John Brown time, thank you)?

At this very moment, I'm listening to the Original Sins play "The Party's Over Now" and feeling sorry for myself. I missed the Stork show and the Owen/Mosher shindig due to middle-of-the-night illness. If only I had leeches on my nightstand.

Ana Ivanovic. Go to youtube if you're scratching your head.

Six more days of vacation- any suggestions? And Rein, your cds are in the mail.

For some dumb reason I feel like seeing a movie tonight. There is nothing out there that interests me - it's all shit. I'm tossing a coin b/w Stardust and the Simpson's Movie. These are fuckin kiddie movies. Where's the adult shit? Where is Hustle and Flow or Dreamland? Where's that new Denzel where he plays Frank Lucas, the baddest motherfucker ever from Harlem? Movies suck ass.

We are with you in your anger...

In response to the announcement of James Wood moving to the New Yorker and most literary criticism of the theoretical schools, I give you Mr. Cioran, again-

"I like to read the way a chorus girl does: identifying myself with the author and the book. Any other attitude makes me think of dissecting corpses."

SAN FRANCISCO—A sellout crowd rose to its feet and exploded into ecstatic cheers Tuesday night as Barry Bonds completed the downfall of America's most revered sport by hitting a thundering 435-foot shot into the right center field bleachers for career home run No. 756 and tainting baseball's most beloved record.

Celebrations broke out throughout AT&T Park and thousands of flashbulbs went off as Bonds took his ceremonial trip around the bases, his arms raised in a jubilant gesture of triumph as he completed his desecration of baseball. Fireworks filled the night sky to mark the utter destruction of the national pastime, a scramble for the infamous baseball broke out in the stands, and the game was interrupted for 10 minutes in the bottom of the fifth to mark the shameful occasion.

Mike Bacsik, the pitcher who made the difficult and admirable decision to pitch to Bonds as if he were a normal player, and who will forever be known as the man whose fastball was sent out of the park along with the last remnant of baseball's self-respect, could only watch. Bonds would later present Bacsik with an autographed bat.

Moments after Bonds crossed home plate into the loving arms of his family and the eventual judgment of history, he addressed the fans, thanking them for their support on his long, hard road of perverting baseball.

"Thank you very much. I got to thank all of you, all the fans here in San Francisco. It's been fantastic," he said to his deluded and complicit home crowd as his godfather Willie Mays, a fading symbol of what baseball once was, stood at his side.

As soon as Bonds completed his self-congratulation, a self-conscious gasp could be heard as a videotaped message from Hank Aaron was played over the video screen, sending surprise and a fleeting moment of uncomfortable self-awareness through both the crowd and Bonds himself.

"Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years," said Aaron, whose legacy of persevering with profound personal dignity through racism and persecution to become the all-time home run leader will hopefully not be tarnished by public acknowledgment of Bonds.

"I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historic achievement," Aaron concluded, displaying infinitely more grace than Bonds, baseball fans, and perhaps even baseball itself had any right to ask of him.

Bonds then presented his helmet, gloves, and bat to a steward of the Baseball Hall of Fame for shipment to Cooperstown, where they will be enshrined forever, allowing fathers and sons to come and stare at them glumly as they bear mute witness to baseball's diminished glory.

The Nationals won the game, 8-6.

I've been out of town for several days and I come home to the news of Lee Hazlewood's death. I saw nothing in the Tahoe papers so when I got home I dug around online and found unfeeling blurbs. This upsets me. I knew he didn't get the attention here he deserved but I had no idea his death would be met with near total indifference. I scoured the news sources and found mostly single paragraphs. NPR did a relatively nice piece but nothing was deserving of the man's stature.

Lee moved to Sweden because America didn't get him, and it's times like these that I have to put down my Euro-attack card and call the continentalers superior. They got Lee, and we didn't. Fuck us.

There is so much to ridicule across the pond, but sometimes they get art in a way we miss. Dead Moon plays to thousands over there, and even Thin White Rope conquered Belgium. I go to the Stork Club to see Bob Log and twelve people show up. Over there, they declare a BLIII show a national holiday. It makes you wonder. Of course, they embrace their share of shite, but still.

So Lee is dead. And I am sad. Aside from Townes Van Zandt, Lee has dominated my turntable more than anyone else for the past three years. Lee was a product of a different era, in which beautiful women were goddesses, Scotch was mandatory at 4:00, and work was what you loved and then put aside for drinking. Lee made hits for money and then music for laughs.

Very few "celebrity" deaths hit me, but this one did. I'm not gonna mourn the man by playing his music because I've already been doing that for years. Tonight, I'm gonna sit outside on my deck and look at the stars (the next best thing to a hamick), and I'm gonna think about a girl named Phaedra. We all know her. And I'm gonna raise my lust to Lee.

This one is even better. Halen, dude.

So I'm about 3 days shy of the deadline for this Flaubert piece for this norcal rag and I cant come up with anything. The way it's going it's gonna be about his short story A Simple Heart and how it relates to Silkworm's Blueblood ("It's nice to hear I'm not cold as ice"). Thank god for wikipedia, where all morons converge. Supposedly Flaubert said this:

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

Methinks this is the thunderbolt.

Thank you, stupid internets!

I was doing my morning penance, sweating out impurities and finishing up Sideways, the novel (not bad, by the way), when I glanced up at one of the TV screens. The local newscast was doing a piece on Murdoch buying Dow Jones, and because the sound was off, it had that teletext spelling itself out at the bottom of the screen. At some point, the text stopped and one word appeared in the left hand corner: "Sinner." It stayed there for about ten seconds before the words spilled again on the page with the first word of the next sentence being "synergize." Inquiring minds want to know: coincidence or intent?