we just won't be defeated

a tale of two cities

Two (okay, technically three) artists whose work I enjoy and respect immensely originally hail from Minnesota.  It's possible you are not aware of their roots, though, because they don't come across as total doofuses.  Most of the time.  They have their moments, though, and while I won't say the frequency of those moments has anything at all to do with their current disposition toward their birth state.... uh, I don't know how finish that sentence.  Two videos which came to my attention yesterday prove illustrative.

For all his brilliance, Prince sure can be a humorless douche.  He covered "Creep" at Coachella a few weeks ago, and his nonchalance and blistering guitar solos simultaneously upstage and undermine the second most earnest and self-important band of our generation.  So it's highly ironic that he - the man who once sued his label for more artist control and appeared in public with the word "slave" on his face - is now dispatching an army of lawyers to scour the internets and delete videos of a song that doesn't belong to him.  But then, this is your typical Type-A, stressed-out, take-no-prisoners Midwestern attitude.  Prince still lives in Minneapolis.

Prince - Creep

(Sorry about the video quality.  I had a better one loaded from Youtube, but those cutthroat Minnesota lawyers got to it.  The audio, which is the important part, is still okay on this one.)
 
Joel and Ethan Coen, on the other hand, really seem to know how to live.  They left Minnesota at their earliest opportunity for the more down-to-earth environs of New York City and they never looked back.  After an unprecedented run of nine consecutive masterpieces to begin their career, they slacked off for a bit.  They released some mainstream Hollywood fare, did the occasional script doctoring, and basically chilled the fuck out for about three years.  It's all good.  They decided to resume their careers last year and did so with a grim multiple Academy Award winner which was one of the best in the year's strong field.  Now they're following up with what appears to be another typical coastal slacker comedy.  The redband trailer for the upcoming Burn After Reading simply exudes New York cool, with Brad Pitt hamming it up like a jackass, a cheap butt sex joke, and a few swears.

Burn After Reading

In conclusion, despite Prince's doofus Midwestern tendencies, he's still a genius.  I accept him for who he his and respect and enjoy his music just as much as I respect enjoy the films of the Coens.  I just wish he'd come to his senses, take a page from the Coens' book, and get the hell out of the flyovers.  And fast.  There's no question that's a decision he wouldn't regret.

the gauntlet

A solitary man straddles a stolen motorcycle in the middle of a mostly deserted boulevard.  His steely eyes peer into the smoggy haze searching for a sign - any sign at all - of a weakness.  The blockade stretches across the road half a mile ahead.  Jersey barriers sit in front of the parked police cruisers.  The bridge lies beyond.

The man shrugs and is about to turn away for good when he finally notices the crack.  A gap between squad cars aligns perfectly with a gap in the makeshift concrete wall.  A portly patrolman is all that stands between the two gaps and the open span.  It's a tight fit, but it's not impossible.  The man squares his bike to the small opening.  He clenches his teeth and revs the engine.  A thunderous roar accompanies the shrill screech of rubber on asphalt.

The man hits the gap cleanly and at speed.  The squeal of the traffic cop as he dives for cover is indistinguishable from the squeal of the bike's tires.  As he clears the barricade, the man hunkers down and opens the throttle.  He and his machine surge forward onto the empty bridge.  A slight grin crosses his face.

Out of nowhere, a National Guard chopper rises behind the speeding bike.  The man's grin becomes a grimace.  Up ahead, two more cruisers careen toward him, quickly closing the distance.  A SWAT van trails them, its occupants already opening fire.  The man brakes ever so slightly to maintain his tenuous control.  He swerves between the cruisers, and only barely dodges the skidding van.  More than one bullet has found its mark, but the man barely notices.  He is consumed by adrenaline and determination.  An armored FBI car pulls up to the second barricade just ahead.  Again he barely notices.  He quickly takes stock of the next blockade, which is looming ever larger.  The gaps between jersey walls and law enforcement vehicles aren't so neatly aligned this time.  A small army is crouched behind both, lying in wait.  The man's grimace becomes a sneer.

He speeds through the first gap, but the turn is too sharp and he's going too fast.  He slams into the cruiser and flies off the bike.  A sickening crunch fills the air as bone and pavement collide.  After an eternity, the man is able to regain his footing and stagger toward the mangled motorcycle.  A volley of gunfire greets him just as he reaches it.  He slips once again to the ground.  His body is shattered but his mind races still.  If only he had a second chance, he thinks to himself as the darkness engulfs him.  If only.  The next time he would make it through. 
 
 

I finally had an opportunity last night to play Grand Theft Auto IV for an extended period of time.  It's every bit as great as advertised.  It was quite the enjoyable experience, believe you me.

my favorite things

Jodi doesn't seem to know when to quit.  Not content just to send another pie to the east coast in Dabysan's "52 Post in 52 Weeks Challenge," and despite that she has yet to win any of our little wagers, she seems to think I'll be unable to manage seven measly posts in seven measly days about things I like and/or enjoy.  Well, I am up to that challenge.  The archive numbers around here may be thin of late, but this is just the sort of incentive I need to kick the blog back into gear.  It's on.

Look for my debut post - "The Gauntlet" - in this gripping new series later today.  Following is a list of items I enjoy that I will not be writing about in the next week.

Dog bites.
Bee stings.
When I am feeling sad.

raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

pseudonym needed

Congratulations go out to Sister #1, who is doing her part to balance out the nephew to niece ratio in the Unkie Hotrod equation by introducing another boy into the mix.  Nephew #2 arrived this afternoon at about twelve-thirty.  He needs a name, but I'm feeling especially uncreative today.  Maybe Steve?

ydnar described eternity

I'll be honest: yesterday's post was mostly filler.  I was marking time and padding the archives on the way to this post - post #504, for those keeping track at home - which was to be my review of the new Old 97's record Blame It On Gravity.  This confluence would have amused me.  (And only me, because I hadn't planned to mention it and I highly doubt even the other Old 97's fans among us would have registered the tenuous reference without some sort of cue.  Never let it be said I am not a huge nerd.)  But I find today there are more pressing matters.

The last few times Built to Spill has been through town, I've bailed on the shows.  I'm not proud of this.  I'm not especially sorry either, but still I am not proud.  That sort of behavior is mostly inexcusable regarding a beloved band.  However, I don't feel it's entirely unjustified.  One of the things I appreciate about Built to Spill in general and Doug Martsch in particular is their/his embrace of 1970's arena rock.  But it's one thing to name-check Neil Young; it's quite another to perform twenty minute covers of "Cortez the Killer."  Doug has become sort of an indie-rock guitar god - and rightly so - but I still don't care to stand through eons of wankery.

That said, there ain't nothing - and I mean nothing - that will keep me away from the 9:30 Club on September 23 of this year, when BtS is slated to perform in its entirety their masterpiece (and desert island record) Perfect From Now On.  I might even consider going to Baltimore to see them the following evening.  I mean, they're bringing the cellist with them on tour.  I haven't seen them perform with a cellist since they opened for Superchunk at the Black Cat back in '95.  And yes, I am fully aware that last sentence makes me sound at least thirty-aught-six years old.

And since I let the cat out of the bag, here's that tangentially relevant Old 97's song.

504

Old 97's

sketches of sydney pollack

So this guy Sydney Pollack died yesterday.  He's probably best known for his acting roles as a skeevy doctor in Stanley Kubrick's criminally underrated Eyes Wide Shut and skeevy lawyer in last year's sublime Michael Clayton.  But he was a director, too.  A few years back he made a boring documentary about a boring architect.

that is so stupid looking....

brave new world

The Beach and Pie Ride advanced today to a whole new level.

We got a bit of a late start this morning.  I pushed our nine o'clock meet time to nine-twenty, and then we got briefly sucked into the hedonistic world of Grand Theft Auto IV (it is the most beautiful game I have ever seen) when we swung by Daby's apartment to collect his bike.  So it was about quarter to eleven when we finally rolled into the parking lot of Lothian Elementary School.  As I got out of the car, I noticed the temperature was a little bit warmer than I had expected.

"Huh," I said.  "It's a little warmer than I expected."

"Yeah," replied Daby.  "You know, if you wanted to shave miles off of our forty mile ride to reduce it to, say.... thirty-five or thirty, I wouldn't object."

"It's funny you mention that.  I was just taking a look at the cue sheet."

The one.... problem isn't the right word, really.... challenge of the Beach and Pie Ride is the spatial relationships involved.  The beach is a certain (and sometimes significant) fixed distance from the pie, and both are some distance from those locations - schools, mainly - where one might be able to leave one's vehicle for several hours without arousing suspicion or getting it towed.  So in order to fit in both the beach and pie, one must commit to a bike ride of a certain minimum length.  And for many reasons, one may find oneself wishing that threshold was a few miles shorter.  That was the situation a mere six hours ago, when I had yet another of my many radical and groundbreaking ideas.

"Here's a somewhat radical and groundbreaking idea," I offered.  "We can ride down to the beach and beyond just as we planned.  But then, when we get to this point here at mile twenty-five, we turn left instead of right.  After about a mile, we'll come to this road here, which will bring us back to the school.  That will be about thirty miles.  Then we load everything up and drive to the pie shop."

That was when Dabysan called me a genius.  And under normal circumstances, that discovery alone would be enough of a paradigm shift to elevate the Beach and Pie Ride.  But there's more.  We set out soon after through the rolling and semi-rural landscape of Anne Arundel and Calvert Counties.  An hour or so later we pulled up to the hopping boardwalk of North Beach, Maryland.  Daby headed over to the nearby concession stand for a bottle of Gatorade and returned instead with a bottle of water and a sno-cone.

"It's Tiger's Blood.  I was reading through the available sno-cone flavors and I stopped when I got to this one.  How can you pass on a flavor called Tiger's Blo--  Sweet Mary, mother of Christ!  This is delicious!"

Well, that sold me right there.  I trotted over to the concession line, sweaty bills in hand, and experienced a bit of sticker shock when I saw that the list price for a hefty sno-cone was a mere two dollars.  Two dollars!  You can't buy anything for two dollars any more.  At that price, I can't afford not to buy.  I, too, purchased the Tiger's Blood sno-cone, and it was every bit as good as advertised.  It was an intoxicating mélange of flavors I couldn't exactly place, and though it was quite sweet - which I usually don't care for - it wasn't cloying.  Subsequent research shows that Tiger's Blood is either a mix of cherry and cinnamon or watermelon and strawberry with a hint of coconut.  Ours was the latter; I could taste the coconut.

So that discovery, too, drastically if not obviously, changes the stakes for future Beach and Pie Rides.  But there is more still.  On our detour back to the car, we passed another - heretofore unknown - elementary school approximately five miles south of where we parked.  The aforementioned constraints associated with distance have precluded - until now - some wonderful roads south of the beach on our casual rides.  I know them from the eighty mile version of Beach and Pie, and can even get to them on a sixty mile ride.  But they've been off limits for those lazy thirty to forty mile rides.  Plus, there was that issue of getting to the pie which we solved earlier in the day.  Taken individually, any of these three discoveries would be formidable.  In conjunction with one another, their ramifications are barely comprehensible.

I feel like the guy who discovered the earth is round.  All of a sudden, there is a vast world out there just waiting to be explored.  There are sno-cone flavors yet to be tasted.  Someday, historians might refer to 2008 as "Year Zero."

heavy metal thunder

FACT:  Tonight begins Rolling Thunder weekend.

FACT:  The weather is supposed to be fair over the next few days, and I have been looking forward to opening my windows to air out my dingy hovel.

FACT:  Those windows and my hovel are situated approximately one hundred and fifty feet from US Route 1 (Northbound) - the erstwhile number one (natch) north-south thoroughfare in the nation.

FACT:  My unscientific research shows that roughly eighty-five percent of all Harley Davidson owners reside in the southern United States.

FACT:  Harleys are loud.

FACT:  Many of those loud-ass Harleys coming from the south for Rolling Thunder weekend will make use of US Route 1 (Northbound), which passes one hundred and fifty feet from the open windows of my dingy hovel.

FACT:  After another long week, I have made exactly zero plans for tomorrow in the hopes of a full day of peaceful relaxation at home.

FACT:  Those loud-ass Harleys traveling north approximately one hundred fifty feet from my open windows will disrupt my peaceful relaxation.

FACT:  I hate Rolling Thunder weekend.

D

According to the counter to the left (and why would it lie?) this humble post is our 500th here at hotrod.vox.com.  Five hundred posts, and nearly all of them are like spun gold.  Wow.  We pretty much rule.  We're pleased to have lasted this long, especially considering that the numbers marking our more recent output indicate that we may be running out of things to say.  We're thinking we need to develop a new hobby like philately or spelunking or yoga.  Otherwise we might have to resort to composing thrilling tales about fish and other assorted marine life.  And we think it's safe to say that nobody wants that.

i ain't so bad

Believe it or not, I don't actually like perceiving the glass as broken and filled with poison.  And the subject matter of what I have chosen to write about has been, in general, pretty negative in tone for a while now.  Or at least, it seems that way to me.  So in the interest of tipping the scales, here's another song (or video, rather) that never fails to put a smile on my face.  We could quibble until the cows come home about why Van Halen gets such a bad rap for their post-DLR body of work when this is the sort of nonsense that Mr. LR left the band to record, but, well... hey, look!  Dave's wearing funny glasses!

David Lee Roth - Just a Gigolo