I was kind of surprised at what random New Yorkers were listening to.
May 2011
via youtube.com
This past week The Swellers released the first video off their yet to be released album. I can’t wait until June 14th when it comes out.
via youtube.com
It’s another great Garfunkel and Oats song, and it sounds like go kart rides are much better with girl parts.
My Grandma died yesterday. She had Alzheimer’s and has been going down hill for years. On Tuesday she had a stroke and was basically brain dead. We visited her on Wednesday to say our goodbyes. While we were there, a priest stopped buy. He read some mumbo jumbo out of the Bible, said a prayer, and starting singing while touching my Grandma’s head. I found it creepy and cultlike, but it seemed to make everybody else feel better, so I guess it was good.
People live and die. It’s very sad when we lose friends and loved ones, but that’s part of life — it ends eventually for us all. Maybe some people need to believe in a fairytale to make them feel better, but I don’t. There is no heaven or hell just like there is no Santa Claus, sorry to spoil it for you. When you die you are dead, gone, only a memory, and that memory won’t be around all that long either. That is the reason I try and enjoy every day, and live them to the fullest. Our days are numbered and I don’t want to take any of them for granted.
Goodbye Grandma. You will be missed by all, but I know where you are really at. You are in my memories, and will be there until I am just a memory like you.
After Jane’s Addiction broke up, Perry Farrell’s next band was Porno For Pyros. This video really brings me back to the good old days of 120 Minutes on Mtv.
If you are reading this, SURPRISE!, the Earth didn’t end yesterday. When are people going to stop getting their science from the Bible? Probably not in my lifetime I am guessing.
In reality the Earth probably has 5 billion or so years left. It’s demise will more than likely occur when the Sun reaches it’s red giant phase, and it’s radius will be extend into Earth’s orbit. Humans will be long gone way before that though. As the Earth gradually heats we will probably evolve into other life forms that can deal with the elements until eventually all the water evaporates and the elements become to harsh for any life forms to live.
Personally I’m not too worried. If lucky I only got 50 or so years left, and in 150 years everyone I ever knew will be gone too. The atoms that make up my body will probably make up many more things before they go back to where they came from, a star.
That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Lawrence Krauss.
“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.” – Lawrence Krauss
I fell in love with Soul Asylum the second I heard “Black Gold”. Little did I know at the time that they were from Minnesota, and just released their sixth album. I was a little upset that they latest album released in 2006 didn’t get any play because it’s a damn good album. Soul Asylum is still around playing a handful of shows a year. They are a great live band, and I try to see them every chance I get.
Three bands that I love and have been listening to a lot lately just recently released some stripped down acoustic versions of songs that I really love and thought I would share because you might not have heard of these three awesome bands.
First up is Punchline. I have blogged about them in the past before. I saw them play in 2004, and have been hooked ever since. I am surprised they haven’t gotten bigger yet. This song, “Whatever I Want, Whenever I Want”, is off their newest album that came out last year called Delightfully Pleased. Great song, great album, but a little too much background noise in the video, but it’s still good shit.
Next up is We Are the in Crowd. They are a relatively new band. They only have one album out, but it’s great. I predict they will be a household name soon. This video is a well produced acoustic version of “Never Be What You Want”, off of their album Guaranteed to Disagree.
The third band is Mixtapes. They have one album out and two EPs—all are fucking great. This song, “You’d Better Bring More Dudes”, is off their newest EP that came out earlier this year, Hope is for People. You can also check out more songs from this set here.
One of my biggest pet peeves is the thought that products that are “natural” or organic are better for you. I struggle with the word “natural” all the time. What does it mean? I see it on products like cheese all the time. How is any kind of cheese products “natural”? Doesn’t cheese have to be made and processed? So processed food is natural? Or does natural mean all the the chemical compounds are from living organisms? Natural is a pretty generic term used mostly for marketing, and doesn’t mean much. Anything on the planet could be natural, or not depending on your definition of natural, if you trace it back to it’s elemental form. And just the fallacy that natural is good for you is just wrong. Arsenic, mercury, poison ivy and even lightning are all natural, and defiantly not good for you.
Then there is the whole organic thing. There is little difference between organic and non-organic products. In reality, organic products probably contain more pesticides and fertilizers than non-organic products do because they have to use less efficient, organic pesticides and fertilizers. Brian Dunning’s latest InFact video explains the difference between organic and non-organic products, and he explains it way better than I can.
So this weekend I thought we were going to be able to finally get rid of our houseguests and three extra dogs. Now, they will probably be here until July. When my Wife’s Aunt was finally able to get to her house, her loser, homeless, drug addicted ex was squatting there. See tried to get him out, but since he is on the mortgage, she can’t really do anything. He insists he wants the house now. She has been wanting out of the house for a while now. Her credit is already shot, so she is going to let him have the house and all the bills that he won’t be able to pay. It’s only a matter of time before the bank comes after the house.
So this weekend we are helping moving all her stuff to storage until she can get into her apartment on July 1st. It’s going to be a long month and a half, but at least she will finally be out of an area that floods every year.
Another of my favorite songs from the 90s.
Today the new album from Farewell Continental, ¡Hey, Hey Pioneers! comes out. If you don’t know who Farewell Continental are, they are the side project of Justin Pierre, the lead singer of my favorite band Motion City Soundtrack. You can buy it here or here, and read all about it here, and watch their first video off the album below. You know you wanna buy it. All the cool kids are doing it, so you should too.
I don’t think I have blogged about our house guests yet, mostly because I don’t like to bitch and moan over things that are pretty petty in the long run. It’s been about five weeks now that my Wife’s Aunt and Cousin and three dogs have been staying with us. The road to their house has been under water that long. Their house is pretty safe. The overland flooding just gets wider and wider, but never really gets deep enough to reach their house, they just can’t get to it because the road is washed out. The water is finally starting to go down now, and as soon as they get the road fixed, they should be able to head back home. It’s been a little inconvenient for us, mostly because of the dogs, but what do you do? You have to help out for family when something like this happens.
Having the guests really brings out the OCD in me. Everything has it’s place, and when it’s not it it’s proper place it drives me crazy. After five weeks I am starting to get use to the mess. I hate stuff laying all over the place, but I am also not going to clean up after adults. For the most part it’s not that bad, I am just a little OCD about clutter.
They do a few other things that drive me crazy. They don’t shut lights off when the leave the room. Every light in the house is left on all the time. They also leave the TV on all the time. I like the house to be peaceful and quiet, but they leave the TV on all day, and all night. This first thing I do in the mornings is shut the TV off because it doesn’t need to be on when everybody is sleeping. Then there is the toilet seat always being left up. Well, they leave the seat down, but the lid up. When you are done with the fridge you shut the door, so when you are don’t with the toilet, you should shut the lid. The toilet paper being put on wrong bugs me too, but not as bad as these other things.
The worst is the weekends that I have had to work. During the week everybody goes to bed at a decent time, but weekends everybody stays up late, keeping me up. I bet I got two hours of sleep Saturday night. The last time I looked at the clock it was 2:00 AM and I hadn’t slept yet, and I had to get up at 4:30. I can’t fall asleep when there is a bunch of noise around. Once I am asleep, the noise doesn’t wake me though, so that’s good, it’s just been hard to get to sleep on weekends.
Thankfully this will probably be their last week here, and buy the weekend I should be able to get our house back is order. I didn’t realize how OCD I am about things, and how much they bug me.
I was never much of a Bjork fan, but this video takes me right back to the early 90s. It got some major MTV play, probably too much back then.
