What's Got Two Thumbs And...

I was sitting here this morning thinking about how shit the last few months kinda were, but then also thought of all of the things that I've learned through the various shit. It's minor things in the big picture: DUI, Benign Tumor, Bike Stolen. That's all I've got off the top of my head. I guess it hasn't been that bad. Irregardless, I've learned some things that I thought I should share. They are just some things that I use as a rule of thumb in certain situations and you could to.

1. The best way to determine if there is metal in an object - Put it in the microwave for like 25 seconds. You'll know if there is metal in it. I was wondering if there was metal in the little clip things that come on pounds of coffee. If you want to know. Try it yourself, but don't use your own microwave. Pro tip.

2. The best way to figure out if food is really expired - Eat it. Honestly. Some people are like "Oh, just smell it." Fuck smelling something. It's like the most unreliable of all six senses. It's more subjective than a high school English teacher with a hangover. It's an aromatic opinion forged from culture. Some people might like the smell of microwaved fish. Personally, it makes me pee a little and triggers a gag reflex. Anyway, the only way you really know is to eat it and see how it feels. Oh, people will talk about salmonella or trichinosis or botulism, but fuck it. They are just fancy words for diarrhea or a stomach ache. Also, side note, great excuses to get out of work for a day. No one questions food poisoning. Plus, like extreme weather, foodborne diseases only kill the elderly.

3. The best way to find out if your girlfriend is cheating - I haven't had a girlfriend outside of my DVR in a while, but my neighbor has been talking to me about his. His situation is a little more complicated than a normal situation since she is married and is, in fact, cheating on her husband with him and then in addition cheating on him with someone else. It's like some form of exponential or compound cheating, but whatever. Not my problem.

Based on my experience, however, on every side of the cheating coin that there could possibly be, if you think that your significant other is cheating, the horse has left the stable. The fact that you even think it displays a lack of trust on your part and an overabundance of insecurity; also on your part. The first inkling of this thought, and I'm very sorry, signals that you are pointed in the wrong direction. Yeah, you can probably salvage it, but the whole idea is to be able to trust someone to the Nth degree and never have to worry about something like that. The fact that you are concerned about something like that could be a character flaw, they could be cheating on you, it could be related to something completely unrelated to either of you and instead exists in your immediate environment, but regardless, it's not in the cards. If you are thinking it, even if you're wrong, you're fucked. Pro tip.

4. Best way to migrate an organization to greener methods of commuting - They just did this where I work and it's brilliant. If you remove parking places for cars. People will no longer drive to work. Why hasn't Al Gore said anything about this. I've been on a bike for two weeks now and am selling my parking permit back. Seriously, brilliant. Just as brilliant as banning smoking in parks to curb littering. Just as brilliant as taxing cigarettes to stop people from smoking and pay for smoke related illnesses that look a lot like heart disease built on a strong foundation of fried cheesecake bites from Sonic in the chest of some fucker with bingo arm.

5. Best way to deal with drinking and driving - Don't even think. Take a cab. I went so far as to pay for a cab for a soccer teammate the other night. Then, I kinda white lied and told her that I would pick her up in the morning and drive her to her car, but really it was her fault for keeping me up until four in the morning and peer pressuring me into drinking at all. This week, I'm just going to have to go straight home after the game because I don't want to be put in that position again.

6. Best way to watch American Gladiators - With the sound off. Way better. Also, you should DVR it because of the desperate ways that they edit it to create tension. Guilty pleasure for sure because the fact that it's on primetime television is further proof that we are actually in the hand basket and it is actually in hell.

7. Best way to watch Denise Richards' reality show - Don't. Seriously. It's like smearing dog shit all over your face and then going to a surprise party for a friend from work who is in the middle of an argument with his girlfriend over money when you yell "Surprise" amidst a gang of strangers. Then, when things settle down, the cute girl next to you looks at you and goes "Did you know that your zipper's down?" and all you can come back with is "Did you know that I have dog shit on my face?" Both uncomfortable and crappy.

Do Not Look Behind The Curtain...EVAR!

I just received the department wide email that is our call-for-entries/submissions to the annual company picnic cakewalk. I normally just mock it for being so incredibly lame, but immensely entertaining. I don't know what it is about watching half-drunk adults walk around in a circle while a live band plays Mustang Sally in the hopes of getting cake that is so great. This year I did some homework and looked up the origin of the cakewalk. I wish I hadn't.

Thanks Wikipedia. Here's the cakewalk origin. It is a traditional African American dance that was essentially a slave's chance to mock their owner by performing a funny dance in the hopes of winning some hoecake?

Regardless, of the origin, I think this year it is time to enforce the wacky dancing part of it. The people that I watch do it just kind of walk around in a circle desparately hoping for cake. Some of them probably just eat it on the way home, too, judging by their circus tent pants. It's amazing that they will walk around in a circle for cake, but rent wheelchairs at Disney World or the Diabetic Kingdom as we call it in my home with the "home" being more of an apartment and the "we" being me. Holy fuck. What if they put free cake at the back of Disney World that would only be available to those without wheelchairs or motorized assistance to heart failure devices? That could cure 20% of obesity in the United States alone right there.

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. The e-mail also was signed "The Cake Diva." In all honesty, it should have been signed the "Baroness of Bingo Arm." She took a whole turkey home for leftovers after a work Thanksgiving thing while a co-worker and I watched in amazement. Like when she eats a turkey sandwich, I bet there is a whole fuckin' turkey in between two gigantuge pieces of custom made bread from the store called "Shhhhh. No One's Looking" next to the Weight Watchers in whatever strip mall she goes to.

Fuck. Now, I've got to go donate ten bucks to the United Way before I get arrested again due to some karmic indiscretion.

Further Adventures of Cat People or How I Learned to Give Up on Life and Love the Bomb.

I have my mugshot this week and a full fuckin' beard that will be shaved down into some type of scumbag-worthy, mug shottable moustache. It's actually been quite a hindrance to carry around because it itches and is extremely irritating to your face skin. Regardless, it's on. I really wish I had a Big Johnson shirt to complete the look. The idea is to look nothing like it once this whole thing is all over.

The cool side effect of the whole DUI thing is that I can honestly say that I haven't imbibed and drove since the incident. I've drank, but I'm either on my bike or I take a cab and do the walk of responsibility the next morning, which is kind of nice on a Saturday morning.

Anyway, I was home on Saturday night and I was just kinda tired, so I was watching some horrible movies that I can't even remember the name of, but I assure you...Oh fuck, it was Buckaroo Banzai on demand. It was so horrible it was almost good. Peter "Robocop" Weller as a guy who is a neurosurgeon, particle physicist, race car driver, comic book hero, and rock star. He is battling creatures from the eighth dimension which exists in the matter of all the things around us. The thing is dog shit, but somewhere in there is the brilliance of the absurd.

I finished watching it and went on my "patio" to have a smoke. It's in quotations because it's not really enclosed. We had some single mom/single dad/nine year old kid/nine year old kid's friend/playdates super complicated and vague conversation that I finally figured out the next morning, but regardless...While we were sitting outside having a semi-white wine drenched conversation, I looked up at this balcony across the way from our apartments and saw something fall and then heard the bushes rattle below. I looked at the balcony and saw two cats on it and thought to myself "It must not have been a cat because having more than two in an apartment deems the inhabitant legally insane."

Single Dad Neighbor and I walked over to see what it was and there was a kitten just kind of freaking out. As I was trying to get the thing cornered it was running all over the place and jumping into sliding glass doors.

The lady who lived in the apartment finally came out and it was exactly who I thought it would be. It was the weird lady in sweatpants that uses a basket with wheels on it to carry anything to and from the parking lot and always uses the elevator. She also walks a little funny. She also is that lady behind you buying Lean Cuisines and Friskies with the pound for pound ratio going to the Friskies.

Her fucking cats sit up on her balcony all day dreaming of an escape even at the risk of a slow painful, drop-induced death while they look at the world outside of their cat lady cave dreaming of a better place. Well, at least one would hope they are doing that. That's giving the feline brain a little too much credit, though. They probably sit there waiting for her to get home and fall asleep so they can steal her Lean Cuisine, red wine and toothpaste tinged breath while she sleeps.

I had the kitten kind of cornered and The Cat Lady was on the other side of it going "Come on, Honey. Come to mommy."

The whole thing was making me kind of sick to my stomach with an overdose of cat ladydom, but I had nothing else better to do on this Saturday besides catch a cat. [Insert your own pussy joke here]. Plus, I had a soccer game the next day and wanted to get some sleep so I was good for the next morning. We caught the kitten and she grabbed her "baby" and brought it back up to her cat hive. Fuck, I bet it's just full of empty Friskies tins and Lean Cuisine boxes. Gross. Cat People.

All Yesterday's Birthdays

There is a weird relationship growing between myself and my neighbors. Single dad is being way cool and still keeps a cooler stocked with beers in between our apartments for just-in-case scenarios. He doesn't even drink beer. It's just to be nice. I always get a little skeptical of nice, but it's starting to stick and I'm past the fear of ending up in a kiddie pool with my shirt off posing for Polaroids. I loaned him The Grief Recovery Handbook and he was so appreciative it was amazing and I swear to god he has been different since. Even his kid has been a little happier because now single dad knows how to communicate and deal with the feelings that him and his son have been carrying since his wife passed away last year. We talk about it sometimes. That book is really awesome, by the way.

Now, the other neighbor has just started not bothering to get up off his patio and just shouts from his patio if he needs something from me and has just recently had me adjust my blinds so that he can watch my TV while he smokes and drinks beer, tequila or gimlets. I don't know how he remains so semi-functional and manages to juggle two girls while pursuing more girls. Of course, then he comes to me for dating advice, which is insane, and I just tell him that I'm not even in the parking lot of that supermarket, but tell him that a life less complicated is a life worth pursuing and you can really get to know yourself by abstaining from that stuff for a while. It really has helped me tons.

Now, together, both other neighbors have tracked the patterns and know the names of pretty much every female that is semi-decent looking to dudes in their 50s. They know what they drive, where they live, their hobbies at times, and they talk to them when they walk by. It's really weird, but I fear that I'm being linked to them by association due to proximity of my apartment to theirs. I also find myself occasionally attending an Art & Wine festival or other social events with them, but it's more for the kid. It takes a village, you know.

So, creepiness aside, I really like hanging out with my neighbor and his kid. The kid is great. I mean he says "Why?" a hundred times an hour, but he is just a really good kid. There is the normal shit like staring at me through my screen door, leaving gum on my patio, and asking me why I smoke, but he's just doing normal kid crap, right? We recently had a penis touching incident that we all had to deal with. It came down to playing lightsabers is totally cool, but you don't touch your friends lightsaber, ever. We don't see the kid who touched his lightsaber anymore and I think the problem is resolved.

Recently, he came over for his first babysitting session with me. I know, who the fuck would leave their kids with me?, but I've got tons of little brothers and sisters, so it's not that big of a deal. I was just kind of sitting around on a lazy Sunday and single dad neighbor asked if I could watch him while he ran to the store. I said it was no problem and ran back to my bathroom to stash a Club magazine that was in there in the closet. Neighbor Kid quickly turned into two and the other one had Crocs on, but I told him he could come in and play Xbox with us even though he had lame shoes on. I asked him to leave them outside in respect of coolness in my apartment. He obliged.

So, I introduced Neighbor Kid to Team Fortress 2 on Xbox Live and it was kind of hilarious. He didn't really figure out what was going on for a second. There were seven other people on the headset talking and it kind of freaked him out and he leaned over to me and said "They are saying bad words."

I whispered back to him that they could hear him, too. He got used to it and started talking back to them by asking them weird ten year old kid questions. He then started to get a little fragged by everyone else and said "Are they really trying to kill me?"

Apparently, some of the dudes were threatening him and I had to explain to him that he shouldn't take it personally and they were only talking about his dude. Actually, my dude.

So, his dad came back and he hung out for like an hour after that playing Xbox with me. It was kinda fun, but then I had to kick him and his friend out because that was plenty of kid time for a hungover Sunday.

Anyway. Yesterday, I went to his birthday by the apartment pool. There was pizza, tons of nutty, weird kids and even a magician. It was interesting and severely out of my comfort zone, but interesting. I talked with the disgruntled single moms about their unpleasant divorces and realized my ex was right. I live in the Bachelor/Bachelorette/Divorcee Arms apartment complex. There are Asian families to balance the singleness out, though. Otherwise, what children would attempt to drown in the pool when I lay next to it.

While my neighbor tried to throw some game on a single mom that was sweet as hell, but out of my weight class, I helped haul all of the presents back to my neighbor's apartment and clean up a bit. I see hitting on cute moms as a conflict of interest at birthday parties, but I swear watching my neighbor in social situations where there is any type of female involved is like watching the Discovery Channel during rutting week.

We were at a Chili Cook Off and dude was doing this look/stare from across this dance area in front of the band. The chick was gross. She looked like a catcher's mitt with lipstick on. So, ten minutes later he starts to push out his peacock feathers by doing some type of white-guy dance to a shitty WAR cover by the band to impress her. Apparently, this carried over to another Art & Wine festival that I did not attend and he even went so far as to dance with that girl's fat friend and flex around her tribal arm banned boyfriend. The whole thing just sounds exhausting to me, but it is somehow, super-entertaining.

The moral of the story is watching this behavior solidifies my choice to chill the fuck out. While I'm seeing all of this shit going on around me, he is only seeing "Fake tits,""Smokin' hot bodies," and "Cool drink of waters." I'm seeing camel toes, cankles, tribal armband tattoos, line dancetards and whatever else my social forest considers trees. It's much better to observe than hunt is all. I prefer to leave nature the way I found it and not bring anything home. Pro tip.

Trailer Trash

When you just can't find it in yourself to get going at work, grab a coffee, write a grocery list, adjust your calendar, fuck with the settings on your monitor or just play Peggle. OooooooooooooR, just watch movie trailers for like a half hour at trailer addict. I just did for a while. The new Bond movie looks OTC (off-the-chain) and Garden Party looks like the most depressing movie since Requiem For a Dream, but has Marissa's sister from the OC and a guy with a weird mouth and that super creepy dude that is in some TV stuff.

If that's not your thing, then go to KEXP and check out some of the music they have that you can listen to. There are some podcasts that are really good. I'm a music that matters guy. I love the show and usually find new stuff to listen to by checking it out. The live performances stuff is nothing to shake a stick at either.

So, anyway, kill some time today on me. You owe it to yourself.

Found It!

The worst shoe ever fuckin' made. EVER!

Here's the link: Worst Shoe

When I went to the link, all size eights were sold out. I now no longer trust people who wear a size 8 or people with surnames that sound like given names.

ShuffleLupAGus

Today's Pre-Independence Shuffle (Still looking for a pattern):

1. Def Leppard - Lady Strange
A less production Def Leppard is a good one

2. Sondre Lerche - On and Off Again
Faces Down is really one of the better albums ever created

3. Fu Manchu - Regal Begal
I used to live across a place called the Regal Bagel. I don't think they got the Three's Company reference

4. Party Ben - Insane, Medicated Hand (MashUp)
Queens of the Stone Age and Trent Reznor collaborating before they really did. Prophetic

5. Public Enemy - Bring the Noise
"Farakhans a prophet and I think you ought to listen to..." In the bible of hip-hop forever. I dream of the day that Chuck D storms into the Flavor of Love House with an S1W and pulls Flavor Flav out of there on the quest to regain street cred

6. Ted Leo - Me and Mia (Acoustic)
Shouldn't it be Mia and I? Suppose it would change the flow of the song, though

7. Switch - JDeville from Huckoff
Umm. I'm actually playing guitar on this one. Joel from Force Seven is also on there. So...

8. Joe Jackson - Introduction
It's just Joe Jackson introducing the band on Live in Amsterdam. Kind of unnecessary

9. Pinback - Concrete Seconds (demo)
Still waiting for Pinback to make a mistake. They are very very good

10. Goldfrapp - Human (Calexico Mix)
Had never heard this before. That's why shuffling is fun

11. Iron Maiden - Phantom of the Opera
Pre-Bruce Maiden. I used to be adverse to it, but I kinda like it now. It's more Ren Fairey, though

12. Ozzy Osbourne - Crazy Train
Did hip-hop samples and the NFL kill this song? I think it's clinging on to relevance

13. Wilco - The Late Greats (Live)
The new band that Tweedy put together is almost Steely Danish in their musical virtuosity. Steely Danish. HAHAHAHAHA! Sounds like a shitty pastry

14. Led Zeppelin - The Lemon Song
I broke down and put most of the Zep discography on my iPod the other day. They can't be denied

15. The Bravery - Tyrant
The Bravery is so much better than the Killers that it hurts to think about

16. Camu Tao - Plot for a Little
Def Jux in the house. RIP 6/6/77 - 5/25/08

17. The Dresden Dolls - Backstabber
Almost vaudevillian at times, but for some reason I like them. It seems like Amanda Palmer has something to say when she sings. I guess it's called "Dark Cabaret"

18. Built To Spill - In the Morning
I seem to be playing catch-up with this band because I missed them the first time around

19. Jim Noir - What U Gonna Do
He writes songs to sell Target products, Adidas and also makes you feel like you are in a children's television show when you listen to it. Amazingly calming like rays of sunshine in the morning

20. Frank Black - Llano Del Rio
One of the coolest shows I ever saw was Frank Black at a local community center. It was intimate. Watch LoudQUIETLoud

21. Neil Diamond - Beautiful Noise
Worst keyboard patch ever. It sounds like a digitized clarinet in a bucket of cherry Kool-Aid filled with pollywogs. Also, does a hand in a glove really make anyone feel good?

22. Franz Ferdinand - Do you Want To (Max Tundra Remix)
Holy fuck. This song just made me take my shirt off and put on gold lame short shorts and start dancing around in my office with pride. They almost lift the keyboards from Jump, but with the sheet music flipped upside down

23.Dangerous Toys - Ten Boots
Wow. This is kind of embarrassing. Quintessential hair metal. Saw them play with LA Guns

24. Ozzy Osbourne - No Bone Movies (Tribute Version)
It's about porn movies. The story is that Ozzy and Randy saw some weird porno and wrote about it

25. The Clash - Complete Control
Never got into The Clash like I should've, but they were really good. you hear them in so much of the music of today

26. M. Ward - Transfiguration #1
M.Ward never ceases to send me to a weird, good place. He writes the soundtrack to a bike ride in Bidwell Park after one too many beers when you are alarmingly aware that you only have four cigarettes in your pocket and no lighter. Those are your only worries at the time. Nothing else. Nothing

27. Ratatat - Party & Bullshit (Biggie Smalls)
This is better than the original. A straight-up barbecue banger. If your head doesn't nod when this is on, you may be dead or have a bad case of honky pox and need a Soul Vaccination. Get it free. Soul vaccinations will be covered by your insurance provider for the price of your regular co-pay

28. Run DMC - Runs House
Fuck! This song is still so sick. From the pantheon of hip-hop. This is the blueprint

29. Cowboy Junkies - Dead Flowers
A far superior Stones cover when compared to Wild Horses by anyone. I'll lay down the challenge to amke an interesting cover of Wild Horses to anyone. It's mislabeled as Townes Van Zandt on my iPod in my attempted assemblage of the Big lebowski Soundtrack. Whoops

30. John Waite - Missing You
This is on a GTA Vice City Compilation, but I have two fuckin' words for you: "Bad English." Journey and John Waite? SUPERGROUP!

31. The Decemberists - Grace Cathedral Hill
Literock. Not Lite Rock. Every song seems to tell a story. This song is so fucking sincere and so San Francisco. This band creates discussions between people. Hmmm. Maybe literarirock makes more sense

32. Donovan - Living for the Love Light in Your Eyes
No person is above getting their Donovan on. This dude was on some different shit, man. Nowhere and everywhere at once

33. Goldfrapp - Lovely 2 C U
Wow. That's a contrast to Donovan. I think it's the low-end of this band that draws me in. Remove the lyrics and just leave the bass line and the kick and the snare and I would be just fine

34. Neko Case - The Tigers Have Spoken
Her voice is so powerful it makes me want to either weep or melt like a Nazi looking into The Ark. If you are local to the Bay Area, this song should evoke a recent incident at the SF Zoo

35. Sonny Rollins - Misterioso
Maybe not the Heavyweight Champion, but the dude's still alive and is deserving of a postage stamp for what he gave to music. Will the US ever appreciate jazz as much as Europe? No

36. Queensryche - The Chase
How can you do a duet with Ronnie James Dio (RJD) and still get me to skip the song? I wanted Mindcrime II to be so fucking epic, but it was more disappointing than Spiderman 3. Duet with RJD!

37.The Avalanches - Tomas Bangalter - Turbo
Own whatever you can find by The Avalanches. They are super obscure, but really really incredible. I can't stress this enough. The coolest blend of samples to create something new since Paul's Boutique. If you like Girl Talk and Audiobytes for Autobots, you will love this. This is one of the original samples from When I Met You

38. Faith No More - Introduce Yourself
Pre-Mike Patton Faith No More. Goddamn, they made the Bay Area proud

39. The Mars Volta - CJ Pt III
One day someone will be able to figure this band out. As Sparta start to sound like U2, these dudes just keep pushin' the envelope. Engaging, disturbing, improverish...Just an amazing energy and always fresh on the ears amongst a monotonous soundscape of shit

40. Air - Dark Messages
This is probably some of the best poolside music you will ever listen to

41. Muse - Piano Thing
They are kind of Rush. Kind of prog. Kind of Radiohead. They are awesome. Should anyone ever fucking wear socks and flip-flops into the workplace?!?!?! Where the fuck am I? A Jimmy Buffet parking lot? I'm leaving early todday because of that. That's so fucking wrong

42. Gary Jules - Dtla
Just received this album recently. It's good. I pray at night that Gary Jules will replace Randy Newman as the unofficial musical ambassador of Los Angeles. If you mashed Gary Jules and Steve Erickson's brain together, I don't know what you would have, but it would be some brilliant tribute to Los Angeles with references to local shit that only the most LA of LA people would get

43. The Mars Volta - Cassandra Gemini III
Well, TMV has officially infiltrated the algorithm for the shuffle function on my iPod. I'm calling bullshit on the randomization. My iPod has a fucking agenda

44. Elliot Smith - Son of Sam
I started questioning everything in life the day I related to Elliot Smith songs. He was taken away way too early, but at least he is probably finally at peace. Him and Leonard Cohen telling each other to cheer up is something funny to think about. He got spotty sometimes, but there is no denying his brilliance and it's a fucking shame that he will never get a postage stamp

45. Ozzy Osbourne - Secret Loser
Ozzy has 3 out of 46 at this point? There are 9,000 songs in my iPod. this is not random. William Gibson is going to write a short story someday about the subversive marketing of Apple augmenting their shuffle to prioritize artists who pay to come up more in the shuffle function. Just like who-ogle?

46. Nikka Costa - Nothing
This song is kinda weak, but Everybody Got Their Something is a fuckin' jam

47. Spoon - I Summon You (Alternate Version)
A stripped down version of the album version that puts more emphasis on the vocal. Still pretty strong

48. Whitesnake - Give Me All Your Love
Hairmetal needs to write a retraction for lack of respect for the keyboard player because there was more keyboard tracking on the album versions of hair metal than a Thomas Dolby album or Switched on Bach by Walter/Wendy Carlos

49. Elvis Presley - Hot Dog
His 50s shit was so good. Diners and shitty bands named after car parts that play in public parks have kinda destroyed and cheesefied this type of rock, but the deep cuts still stand up

50. That 1 Guy - Dig
Mike Silverman is on wikipedia. That's fuckin' great. I still drunk dial him every so often. He's one of my own personal idols that I can't even aspire to aspire to. I (heart) him

51. Buckethead - Bloodless
A handful of people will see this association. That 1 Guy tours with Buckethead and the shuffle function played them back-to-back. I'm officially getting the gang together and calling bullshit on random. There is no such thing. I realized this when staring at a Keno screen in a bar looking for patterns. There is always a pattern. Always. Also, Buckethead is fucking rad. Where Satriani is otherworldy, Buckethead is in your trash can and he's snuck into your house to put your cat in the blender and leave a note written on Disneyland Hotel stationary. Sleep easy

52. Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By - Sex (I'm A)
A cover that stands on its own aside from the original and extremely erotic. It almost makes you forget about Mike Patton peeing in his shoe and drinking it or fucking a turkey carcass at One Step Beyond back in the day. Both probably hearsay. This song turns into phone sex near the end. It's kind of cool


Fuchit. I'm going to get some poolside in.

Two Tastes

That taste great together.

Radiohead covering Portishead. That means they are better than you.

Comin' Up Hughge.

Crap. I've been listening to too much Mr. Big in the last 48 hours. Too much being two spins of Lean Into It, 75% of a spin through Mr. Big, and one spin through that tribute album, plus two listens to the King's X cover. Was King's X good? I knew they were kind of god rock, but the guitar tone is good enough to eat.

Speaking of guitar good enough to eat, Paul Gilbert is the shit. Alternate picking, string-skipping badass. I had the prototype of his signature model guitar as my first real guitar (post-B.C. Rich Warlock). It was an Ibanez RG770 with a pearl sharktooth inlay (not that lame blue) and is becoming increasingly rare and expensive and just makes that fact that it was stolen a little bit harder to deal with. It even had my name airbrushed on it and a bunch of reflectors from the hardware store, but it played any style like a motherfucker just like Paul Gilbert. How suiting?

So, beyond that, I have a story.

About three years ago, I used to commute to work with my roommate at the time. We'll call it an extreme roommate in the eyes of the law. God, the eyes of the law, lately. I feel like Al Capone or Tupac when I see a cop now. I'm afraid to visit my own dad for fear of being arrested. Anyway, back to the roommate commuter. We would go to this Starbucks when I forgot to make coffee in the morning and there was this lady that was like meth crazy at 6:45 in the morning. It always made us wonder how someone could be that with it that early in the morning. So, that's the crazy Starbucks lady.

I get divorced and move out and move closer to work. I'm doing laundry one day and the Starbucks lady is at the washer next to me. I thought it was insane. So, that was three years ago and I had to text my old roommate and let her know. Communications were a little tense around that time, so a text was all that was suitable.

On my first birthday post-separation (divorce got hung up in paperwork forever), I treated myself to a bought-from-the-coffee-shop-coffee because I was either making it at home or making it at work since my commute was now just over 7 minutes to work. I walked in and there she was. So, that was two years ago.

I started going to the Starbucks on Sunday mornings and getting my crossword puzzle on for a while and getting back into the bought coffee thing while trying to drown out their fucking music with my iPod. This, in turn, lead to treating myself to a bought coffee every once in a while on the way to work. It's the Starbucks lady's shift in the morning on weekdays.

So, she started to recognize me from the apartment complex and then one day I talked to her and her husband by the pool after about a gazillion beers. That was six months ago.

Since then, she calls me "neighbor" when I go in and pulls me out of line to make me a Venti Non-Fat Vanilla Latte which is my weekend coffee because drip is for weekdays just like underwear is.

The other day, she stopped by my apartment to see where I had been and what happened to my head and was super nice, I think. She had an accent, so I may have misunderstood everything like how a dog responds to tone when you yell at it with compliments. Wait. I might be the only person that does that, but anyways. The other day she even left a pound of coffee hanging from my doorknob for me when I came home from work.

And the sun starts to break through the clouds with random acts of kindness from others as faith is restored in the human race. Hospitals and schools are experiencing budget cuts and layoffs as police are hiring in record numbers that only match numbers used to measure foreclosures in Stockton, but on my end, things are looking pretty good.

On top of everything, I got a temporary paper license to drive until my hearing date in August per my attorney and even found an old expired drivers license in my coffee table the other night so I have photo ID now.

I got a new book and some new music from D, who reads this blog.

I bought a new coffee grinder and some new really kickass underwear.

And my hair is growing back superfast.

To sum it up: Shit is finally comin' up Hughge. Yooge.

Have a safe weekend and trust me, take a cab. Handcuffs hurt.

Iron(y) Man

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been working on a new logo for one of our departments. It's mostly just for letterhead and business cards and crap, but they brought it to me a couple of Fridays ago because they didn't like the logo that the outside contractor did. The girl from across the street called me and said "I heard that you had a logo program and could change our current logo."

I replied "Yeah, it's kind of like that. It's called Photoshop. Did you need help with a graphic of some sort?"

She brought over the designs that the firm did and I lifted the fonts and prepared a mock up for her to manipulate and change that resembled the one that the firm did. Since then, we've been through ten to fifteen versions of the logo. Fonts and colors being changed a lot. I think I nailed it for them this morning, though.

The silly part about the whole thing beyond them taking it to the database guy is that it's the reorged eco department that needs the logo and I've developed a recycling-neutral lifestyle. The woman I'm doing the work for at this point, understands that, but we don't let it get in the way of the work on the logo.

I think I'm totally becoming agnostic towards recycling. I'm not down on it, but I'm not fist in the air about it. Like everything else, it is what it is. If you put a bin in front of me, I'll throw my recycling in there. I also recycle at home, however, get all weird about it and tell me to recycle a post-it and I'll want to kick you in the fuckin' teeth. Like your god, please keep your recycling and anti-smoking PSAs to your fuckin' self.

Days of Yore

I'll admit that I get trapped in the closet sometimes with my hair metal past. I was really craving the bad ass riff at the beginning of 'Green Tinted Sixties Mind" by Mr. Big, so I bought Lean Into It from the cyber cutout bin known as eBay for a dollar. Shipping was $2.95, but all together not that bad. The solo section of "Addicted to that Rush" is also nothing to be scoffed at. Dude, fuckin' Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert shredding with Makita drills? At the time it was mind blowing. Eddie Van halen had held one up to his Peavey guitar with Van Hagar, but no one was using it to just fucking shred riffs like that. Is Poundcake not like the shittiest song ever? A fuckin' travesty, man. Listen to Poundcake and then put on Panama and see how you feel. The difference is just paramount.

So the reason for the post is that I came across this album called "Influences & Connections, Vol.1: Mr. Big." It's some kind of tribute album from 2003, I guess. It's got some motherfuckers on there, though. The King's X cover is kind of awesome. Then, you have John Waite, Paul Rodgers from Bad Company and Free, and Richie Kotzen taking responsibility for the songs with guest spots from everyone. Stevie Salas, Matt Sorum, Marty Friedman, Steve Lukather, and Yngwie just to name a few. Those are some deep cut dudes right there. Anyway, the album can only be described as interesting, but it lead me to this record label in Italy that put this album out and uh, did you ever wonder whatever happened to the dudes from Circus magazine in the early 90s? They are in fuckin' Italy.

The label is Frontier records. They are keepin' the dream alive for dudes in El Caminos all over the world. If you are a man of useless music knowledge like myself, flipping through their releases will jar some memories. It's like a giant dollar bin, but with current releases in it. Umm, maybe you've heard of a band called White lion, but have you heard of a band called Tramp's White Lion? There are also solo albums by Mike Tramp from White Lion. There are Journey albums, Richie Kotzen, Toto, Great White, Halford, Night Ranger, Dokken, Kingdom Come...It's like a giant compilation of Day on the Greens from the days of yore. Like the yore of "Yore too young to go to an all day concert with dudes smoking reefer in tank tops while Kingdom Come jams out the hits at the Oakland Coliseum."