X-Ray Nudes and Cliches.

Most of this stuff I stumbled upon via the Whitechapel “Around The Net” thread.

-  So at this French page there is a group of sexy X-Ray pictures.  Wondering what that would look like?  Here:

-  The Senate struck down the Udall Amendments 38-60 of the National Defense Authorization Act today.  The amendments would have “removed harmful provisions authorizing the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world”.  This is how they voted.

“The next opportunity to remove the harmful detention provisions from the bill will be when House and Senate conferees meet in conference committee next week.

If the conference committee fails to remove the detention provisions, President Obama should follow through with his veto threat. Today’s vote on the Udall amendment shows there’s more than enough opposition to these provisions to sustain a veto. Stay tuned for more information.”

-  FlavorWire has several visual representations of some of the most overused movie poster cliches in a neat little package.  Including this one (“There is only one color of dress for romantic comedies.”):

-  And here is 46 pictures from American cities in the 1970′s.  Pretty cool stuff in this gallery.  I like this one:

-Sonny

The Tossers @ the Entry.

After the craziness of the last month — yesterday was a month to the day — I got back to some sense of normalcy by seeing some live music this weekend.  The highlight (they wouldn’t even be a light; they’d probably be an old oil lantern dusty with a bit of that Jameson stick) for me was seeing The Tossers Friday.  Those fuckers can hold a room, man; oh my.  And actually it was very surprising (Saint Patrick day lover leftovers reheated notwithstanding) because the first and only other time I saw them was in their hometown, Chicago, and the crowd was into it then but not this into it.

Like I said, without a doubt some Patty’s Day spill-over.  I learned the hard way one year down in Kansas City (at a great venue called “The Riot Room”; I dunno, Mac Lethal frequents there… it seems to be the place to play in KC; shoulda asked Rob last night) when The Giraffes and Local H rocked my face off right down to the tendons, muscles, and fat.  Even taking that spill-over into account: lots of singing along and an amazing response from a capacity crowd that seemed to know the band inside and out.  “Capacity” being the word curve-ball there.  Anyone who knows — who’s done the shoulder to shoulder stumble through a very dark space, taking sometimes 5 minutes to get 50 feet — knows that a capacity crowd at The Entry, especially w/ copious amounts of drinking like Friday, might feel like it’s going on 3 or 4, but it can’t be much more than 250 people or so.  Okay, just looked it up; capacity in that space is 250.  I wouldn’t be surprised though if there were pushing 3 bills at this show.

Chicago Record Shops.

May, 2009 – Chicago

Spin, spin!  Spin the black circle!

Out of all the record shops in Chicago, apparently these two are among the top; if not the tops.  It hovered somewhere in the mid-70′s all day.  Naw, I don’t mean ABBA, “Blood On The Tracks”, or the Wailers and BM, all of which were available this Spring day.  We intended on taking the Blue, up Milwaukee to… uptown?  Not sure what they call it: short of Wicker Park.  Well- the mo’ fo’ was closed Northwest bound to O’Hare.  Of course we didn’t realize this until after ascending 200 feet to the toes of civilization in buried caverns of the Earth.  Back, back, back we go.  They, by “they” I mean the city at large (or the Transit Authority, pick ur poison) replaced the Blue Ox with on-going shuttles.  Free of charge at least.  I believe it took Grand over to Milwaukee before heading North(ish).  Our neighborhood came up fast.  Most folk on this ride seemed to be going all the way to the airport; meaning, we side stepped our way through locals and tourists alike to let the driver know we’re steppin’ off at Division.  And we did.

Now I know it isn’t likely what Townies call it, but this place felt real Uptown-y.  In a good way.  The light from above was rattling off our shoulders.  Bikers and dog-walkers were both out in full force.  It felt out of place, a little, being a MN-ite and whatnot: a good thing no doubt.  Ya know, this isn’t Memorial Park, or the Sears, or even Rush St.  A Saturday, the busy worker bee feeling was gone.  Instead replaced by a productive sunny weekend afternoon, still with some hustle and a smaller amount of bustle.  The intersection there, at Division, Ashland, and Milwaukee, is fucked up.  Really.  After taking a heater and finding our bearings we strolled.  South on Ashland.  Some tags of 10 foot size caught our eyes.  “A can of sky blue for the outline”.  This was cool, and if I had a photo-do-wobber I’d have documented it.  The first of many we’d see this day.  It wasn’t far, the first place.  Maybe four or five blocks down on the west side of the street.  That dusty black plate logo almost breathing in the Spring heat.  Put the arm back, I’m feeling some B-Sides.  In we go.

This place seemed extraordinarily organized.  Simple, subtle, clean cut, odd a titch.  The shelves in the main section were not actually on the walls.  There was about a 2 foot gap between the backs of the racks and the walls.  This likely was for shelving CDs and Vinyl face side up, but still seemed weird.  Now this placed specialized mostly in Soul, Funk, and Hip-Hop.  Some Jazz, even lesser Blues.  Some Rock and Roll, even lesser Reggae and Dub.  Though I did see a King Tubby 4 album anthology for about 30 that was very tempting to resist.  Not sure why I never got into making my own dub.  Dub-Dan?  Aynno Dub??  Honestly this was the most, and largest variety, of Hip-Hop I’ve seen.  The “new acquisitions” bin alone pissed all over lots of entire Hip-Hop sections at other places.  The vibe was incredibly relaxed.  A man came in with his two young boys.  For a long time I held in my hand a Tribe Called Quest album called “Beats, Rhymes, and Life”.  Complete with mind-bending artwork, and a middle finger to the East/West coast shit going on at the time.  One of the boys picked it up more than once and stared mesmerized with giant eyes.  In the end I came out with:

Ramones (Ramones), Vakill (Single), and El-P (I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead).

The next place recommended to me – by a guy from Texas who recently moved to the neighborhood, don’t worry he’s cool – was South quite a ways, then West quite a ways.  We stumbled across even more graffiti that somehow looked even cooler than the first batch.  I told Sonji we should have brought a can.  Even if it was just black.  A high school to the right.  A group of Latino dudes laughed and had good times sitting on a bench in front of it.  A girl, a white 20-something with huge black sunglasses, basically let her dog hump my leg in an effort to get my friend and I to talk to her.  We did for moment, nothing more.  In any other case, I would.  But this was a mission.  Besides, we were hungry too.  There was a pretty hole-in-the-wall looking Mexican restaurant on our left, right on the corner where we needed to turn.  Now this place was fuckin’ tiny.  Wow.  It probably held somewhere around 10 people or so.  6 or 7 comfortably.  The guys behind the counter were all very nice.  A large white woman, sweaty as hell, ordered food before us, and I knew we were in Chi when she looked as out of place as she did.  I consumed perhaps the best chimichanga of my life that day.  Nothing can stop me now.

Back to the street.  Westward expansion.  More Mexican restaurants.  A hot dog joint that looked like it served a MEAN Chi-Dog.  There was a man, thin and fairly weathered, sweeping the front steps of a shop.  There were two men sharing a cigar and a story or two in Espanol, backs to a brick wall in the Sun.  A broken bike, discarded in an alleyway for the cats to rebuild.  We talked about music.  About what to look forward to, and what happened last night.  We walked past a convenience store which seemed buried in the movement.  But the door was wide open and the man inside locked eyes with me as we moved past.  It still feels like somehow I made a connection with that man.  Light up a smoke, take a breather.  Calm those shins and calfs down.  There’s an amount of respect one finds in Chicago that isn’t prevalent in most major U.S. cities.  Well – maybe just not New York or L.A.  I’m sure at least once we discussed the paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago.  My God they’re astonishing.  Vast.  They pop.  We slowly came up to the next record shop on our right.  Stood outside for a bit.  Stomped out the cherries.  Walked into the second (of two) shop of the day.

The smell hit me right away this time, probably due to the size of the shop.  It felt a little bit cramped in there, but in a good way.  They had some Punk, if I remember right, blasting over the house speakers.  Which actually was a good change of pace.  Even considering I’m not the biggest Punk fan.  The variety at this place screamed to be credited.  Very impressive mix of vinyl.  Trance, Electronic, Experimental, Rock, Metal, Punk, Hip-Hop, Jazz, Blues, anything you could think of, they had at least a couple records in that Genre.  I kept accidentally running into a guy who wouldn’t leave the “B’s” section for whatever reason.  Pretty sure it wasn’t for Black Sabbath or Black Keys though.  Sonj and I were really surprised to see William Elliot Whitmore in this shop.  Seems fairly obscure.  The Metal at this place was off the watch chain.  Man.  They had some of the most obscure vinyl of the Metal Legion, most of which I’d never heard of or just never heard at all.  We kept surfing through the stacks.  I saw at least 8 or so I was debating purchasing.  But I gotta hold myself to some limits when I record shop.  Or I’m toast.  There was a beautiful girl working behind the counter who seemed to be DJing the house sound.  Which is cool.  On the way out I saw a Pavement poster I wanted, in addition to:

Fugazi (Steady Diet of Nothing), Death From Above 1979 (10″, Blood On Our Hands single), and Lamb of God (for my girlfriend).

Next time I go back I’m going to try to hit these again.  And the Mexican restaurant too.  Cha!  Cha! Cha!  What a great city.

-Sonny

Magic Wand In Chicago.

I was going to try to write one more piece of fiction while on break, but I’m not sure if it’s going to happen.  I’m heading to Chicago tomorrow in what should be a great little trip.  Especially because of THIS.  Anyways, I’m likely not going to get something else done.  Well, maybe.  I only want to do a tiny, TINY, flash-fiction writing and I’ve got about 3 and 1/2-ish ideas.  Maybe I’ll set it in Chicago… if that’s feasible.  And when I get back, I’m going to go to Soundset, which should be awesome too.  Anyways, at the very least I’ll probably be reviewing these shows next week sometime.  Before I go though I’m sure I’ll be putting up an MP3, or some wierd pop-culture picture, or ranting about something, or linking to something.  Probably tonight.

Until then here’s a story about how Microsoft just patented a Wii-like device called the “magic wand” for their next Gen gaming system…. X-Box Dimension 4???

-Sonny

Wall of Spy-Planes.

- Phil Spector, one of the most influential record producers in history (probably THE most in my mind), has been found guilty of second degree murder in the slaying of actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.  The whole “wall of sound” recording/producing technique was invented by Spector, who’s worked with Bob Dylan, The Ramones, The Beatles, among many others.  There would be no “Pet Sounds”, El-P, Flaming Lips, “Dark Side of the Moon”, Brian Eno, etc. without Phil Spector.  Crazyness.

- Holy crap we’re getting somewhere!  The Minnesota Supreme Court has finally come out with a verdict on the Coleman vs. Franken Senatorial Battle for the ages… uh, for the youngin’s.  My home state of Minnesota has been with only one Senator, Amy Klobuchar, since November.  This will inevitably be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States though; and thank God for that because our tax money couldn’t be going to a better cause!

- A whole plethora of information on the infamous Area 51 Military Facility has been finally declassified after some 50 years of secrecy.  Among this information is the “OXCART Program” from the golden age of secret military programs which researched stealth aircraft, fuel efficient spy-planes, and more.  In one story, an Area 51 test pilot is given “truth serum” to get the whole truth about a crash in the Nevada desert.  Apparently a group of people in a pick-up truck found the found the pilot with his ejected canopy in their bed; the CIA disguised the accident as an F-105 crash (a standard Air Force aircraft from the time), and likely forced the Nevadaians to sign waivers.  When the CIA brought the pilot home, he was so loaded with the drugs his wife thought he was drunk and/or taking recreational drugs.  Yikes.  Link:  The Road To Area 51.

- One of my favorite rock bands, Local H, is putting out a DVD of their last of seven back to back to back to back to back to back to back shows in hometown Chicago which showcased their ENTIRE catalog live to fans in chronological order.  Pretty cool.  The last night was the debuting/release party of their newest studio record “12 Angry Months” (a play on the classic film “12 Angry Men”) straight through in its entirety.  The DVD is a multi-cam, professionally shot and recorded, movie of that show.  Also with comments and behind the scenes stuff.  Cool.  Here’s the trailer (you can also see it at LocalH.com):

-Sonny