we just won't be defeated

lump sum

My favorite record of the year (thus far) is the debut - at least under his current moniker, Bon Iver - by Wisconsinite Justin Vernon.  I had an opportunity to see Bon Iver several months ago, not long after the album's indie-label release.  But I'm moody and difficult, and I decided on the day of the show that trekking way out of the way to the Rock and Roll Hotel would be less satisfying than going home to be alone in my dismal apartment.  The record had just come out and he'd certainly be coming through town again fairly soon.  I'd catch him the next time around.

So, I've been aware for a while that Bon Iver would be bringing his particular brand of melancholy indie-folk to the far more accessible Black Cat tomorrow night.  I'd like to blame my hesitation to purchase a ticket on practicality.  It's true that I need to be in Nokesville, Virginia by seven o'clock Saturday morning for a fifty mile bike ride.  It's also true that the Black Cat's tendency to begin its shows fairly late (the first of two opening acts is to take the stage at nine) gave me some initial pause.  But the real reason I find myself without a ticket is good old-fashioned forgetfulness.

It was on a fall-season concert ticket buying spree last week that I learned that the Bon Iver show was now sold out.  I've debated since then about what to do.  I'd like to see the show.  And yes, the next day would be unpleasant, but it's hardly the first time I'd ever have to ride on little sleep.  On the other hand, procuring a ticket at this late stage seems improbable.  The Black Cat is much smaller than the 9:30 Club, and not once have I ever encountered anybody hawking unwanted tickets at the door.  But sure enough, as the likelihood of actually finding an available ticket decreased, my interest grew.  Finally, yesterday, after a week of contemplation, I decided I probably ought to at least check Craigslist to see what was available.  I could cope with the ride when the time came; I'd been waiting five months for this show.

So, needless to say, it comes as a bit of a disappointment to find nobody offering tickets and - as of now - fifteen people seeking tickets.  And many of these fans are driving hard bargains.  For example, there is (presumably) a woman who is offering double face value plus a glimpse of her rack.  How am I supposed to compete with that?  There's no way I can compete with that.  I mean, sure, I'm willing to match her offer, but no one wants to see my tits.  Chicks get all the breaks.

for emma, an hour ago

Went to see Big Country.  Didn't play "Big Country."  Balls.  Pure balls.

she was drinking whiskey sours at the bar

Oh sure, I could bitch and moan about the set list.  They didn't play "Salome."  They didn't play "Melt Show."  They didn't play "Wish the Worst" or "Doreen" or "Four Leaf Clover."  On the other hand, they spared us "Victoria," which I ordinarily wouldn't mind, but I don't need to be reminded every single time that it's about a girl from DC.  And they played "The Other Shoe" and "Over the Cliff" and "If My Heart Was a Car" - none of which I believe I have ever seen live before.  And they also played "Stoned" which I think I'd only seen once - the first time I saw them almost ten years ago.

I found myself wishing more than once tonight that I could go back and see the Old 97's again for the first time.  But then I remembered that I wouldn't be able to sing along with all the songs and I got over it.  Tonight's was the best and rockingest 97's show I've seen in a few years, and they've never been slouches about showing up to play.  That paragon of music criticism - the Onion AV Club - said of their most recent record that they seem content to churn out decent enough studio material and make up the difference with their ass-kicking live sets.  I'm totally okay with that.

this is vanna's fault

Since she brought it up, here's a track off of Grassy Leafy Lowcountry Feel, the debut album by Evil Petting Zoo.  That's Nick Hawkins on axe and vox.  Yes, THE Nick Hawkins.  The very same Nick Hawkins who will never ever be invited to Karaoke to the Death.  Ever.  We need to maintain some semblance of parity.

Melissa

Evil Petting Zoo

touché

Well played, Buckeye fans.  Well played....

oooh, that's a burn!

protect your junk

Dave Zabriskie is a time-trial specialist for the Garmin/Chipotle cycling team.  Yinz will no doubt remember them as the team for which I am rooting in this year's Tour de France, but Dave Zabriskie is not riding with them.  He's sitting out this tour after crashing and fracturing a vertebra on the second stage of the Giro d'Italia last May.  Ordinarily, missing the world's premier cycle race might be a bit of a disappointment for a professional cyclist, but in this case it's offered Dave Zabriskie the opportunity to pursue other interests.  Like developing his own chamois cream.  I gotta hand it to Dave Zabriskie: his marketing slogan - the title of this post - makes the name of his product seem downright subtle.

DeeZ Nuts

if i don't die, or worse, i'm going to need a nap

Most people, when invited to a Saturday evening wedding in New York City, might make a weekend out of it.  Not me.  Now to be fair, until yesterday I was supposed to spend tomorrow riding roller coasters, but somebody (let's call him, oh I dunno.... D. San.  No, wait - Daby S.) fell down playing his hippie frisbee game a week ago and is still bitching and moaning about it like a little baby.  My original itinerary was to leave this morning around eight, and drive back home tonight after the reception - getting here around three or four in the morning.  I could get a couple hours of sleep, and nap in the car on the way down to Williamsburg.  It was to be a couple of long-ass days, for sure, but not completely unreasonable.  And ever since I talked myself into the ridiculous notion of making the wedding a day trip, it's been difficult to contemplate alternate courses of action.  Even considering my now-cancelled Sunday plans, I went to sleep yesterday thinking that I'd be back in my own bed the following night.

Now I don't know what to do.  I'm up way too early.  By which I mean: I'm up at the same time I usually wake up.  My plan hinged on sleeping in until about seven.  Under other circumstances, those two and a half hours might not matter.  But staring down a potential twenty hour day, those two and a half hours could be the difference between making it home safely or ending up in a ditch along the New Jersey Turnpike.  I suppose, should things go sideways, there is a hotel room available to me, but that brings up a whole nother mess of issues.  Like, what the hell would I do tomorrow?  Does anybody know if there's anything to do in Manhattan?

true confessions

[Editors' note:  Sheesh!  We retire to bed and our Vox site retires to bedlam.  And an unexpected meeting this morning means that we have only now - just shy of noon - discovered this little security breach.  But rest assured, order has been restored.  As for the content of the breach, we have discussed at some length with our Board of Directors and we have decided that while we do not condone Jodi's shenanigans, we appreciate her candor.  We wish she would have chosen another outlet for her confessional, but we will let it stand.  We sincerely hope this will be the last of this sort of outburst, and we wish Jodi all the best in her struggle with the inhalants.]

As you may have noticed, Hotrod made fun of my avatar so I changed it.  What you didn't know is that I have been in cahoots with Vanna, and she's given me the password to his Shell account.  Yes, Hotrod is such a fool.  He seriously misunderestimated me.  And to prove this is really Jodi, here's a few things I've been meaning to get off my chest.  They're lazily bullet-pointed;  that's how you can tell it's really me.

• I hate writing.  I really do.  I only started that charade because I thought it would sound way cooler to say that I am a writer than to say I work at a bowling alley.  Now I have to pretend to make stuff up all the time, which hurts my brain, because I really just want to watch television.  I don't even like to read.  Seriously.  I just like people to think I am smart.
• Pie is AWESOME.  Who on earth would like brownies?  Nobody, that's who.  I can't believe that idiot Hotrod actually thinks I like that shit.  He's so fucking stupid.
  
• The Replacements are terrible.  There, I said it.  Their early records are juvenile and banal, and their later records - though much better (especially the somewhat underrated Don't Tell a Soul) - are boring.  Sometimes I wish they actually did write the Friends theme song, because that would ensure that my useless favorite band won't be completely forgotten.
• I agree with almost every opinion Hotrod has.  Dabysan too, to a lesser extent.  I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't entered my life when they did.  I was beginning to think I had no purpose.  It's safe to say that they saved me, and I am eternally grateful.
• Deep down, I know I am a Post-Ironic Hipster.  One day I will have enough courage to move to a coast where I belong.
• Apple sucks, and has conned many, many idiots into spending more than they need to on a computer.  I use a Dell.
• I sniff glue.  That's why so many of the things I say are so deranged.

Whew!  That was cathartic.  ("Cathartic" is a word Hotrod taught me.  I might have just said "cool" there.)  I'm glad I could finally clear the air here.  I've felt like such a fraud for so long.  I hope we can still be friends.

Yours truly,
Jodi

get. out.

Once upon I time, I made coffee for a living.  It was the best job I've ever had, and I was really fucking good at it.  I knew most of my regular customers by name, and those few I didn't could at least count on me to get their order right without being asked.  Many of them waited until I was free to order.  "Hotrod's got it," they would say to my co-worker.  I could tell you the difference between a Full City roast and a French roast and why the people who really take their coffee seriously prefer the Full City.  I could go on about the subtle differences between the Tanzania Peaberry and the Ethiopia Yrgacheffe.  I could describe in detail exactly why Starbucks is utter shit.  Still can, as a matter of fact.

But the very best thing about that job was that I basically had carte blanche to be an asshole.  We took our coffee seriously, and we didn't suffer fools lightly.  My favorite question was when people asked me "what flavors we serve."  My response was always:  "We serve coffee-flavored coffee."  They'd protest, of course.  They always did.  "That's not what I meant."  I was unflappable.  "Oh, I know.  We serve coffee-flavored coffee."  We dumped our drip coffee if it sat too long, we timed our espresso shots, and we didn't offer flavored syrups.  Our regular - our tipping - customers knew not to ask for a blueberry latte.  As for everyone else.... well, there was a Starbucks just a few blocks away.  I gave directions on numerous occasions.  If they protested, I was authorized to invite them never to return.  It was bliss.

So it may be easy to guess where I come down on the issue of iced espresso.  It's an abomination.  The customer is not always right.  In fact, the customer is often wrong.  And in this case the customer is too stupid to realize that the barista in question is doing him a favor in trying to educate him about civilized coffee etiquette.  This is the level to which our society has devolved: a dedication to craft and quality will get you nowhere because some yuppie jackass will scream more loudly.  I just wish I had thought back then to threaten to punch my more belligerent customers in the dick.

christian bale might not be acting

Last weekend, when I was in Pittsburgh, Vrabel and I got to talking about movies.  That's no surprise; we always do.  One of the films that came up was Rescue Dawn, the Werner Herzog picture about Dieter Dengler - a German-born Navy pilot who escaped from a Laotian POW camp.  The story obviously resonates with Herzog, as this was the second movie he has directed about Dieter.  Little Dieter Needs to Fly was a documentary; Rescue Dawn was the dramatization of the same story.  Christian Bale was cast as little Dieter in the not-quite remake.

Now, Rescue Dawn had been on my rental short-list for a while.  I remember hearing about the movie when it was filming (one of the scenes in which the stars eat bowls of worms was apparently not faked) and it was fairly well reviewed.  The Video Vault tagged it as one of their best of 2007.  So I was a little surprised when Vrabel remarked that he could barely finish watching - that he figured it must be a spoof.  (These opinions were later verified and echoed by Vanna.)  Without going into too much irrelevant detail, it was determined that I must watch the movie as soon as possible, because public opinion was both divided and emphatic, to the point that we wondered semi-seriously if there were two different versions of the movie out there.  My email to Vrabel after last Monday's screening said simply: "Why did Christian Bale choose to play the part as if Dieter was retarded?"

So Bale's appearance this morning on the Today Show might shed some light on the subject.  To wit: maybe it isn't Dieter who is retarded.  If anybody can offer an explanation as to what the fuck is going on with this accent, I'd like to hear it.

succinctly speaking

In other celebrity news, my dream girl - Sarah Silverman - is now single.  And it's about goddamn time.  I suspect it won't be long before she and I are making amusing viral videos.  People often confuse me with Matt Damon.

what the holy hell?

Return to Supermans

The punchline here is that this.... whatever this is.... is better than the latest Superman movie and the latest Spiderman movie put together.  Meanwhile, The Dark Knight continues to garner rave reviews and generally capture the collective imagination of the populace.  It's safe to say once and for all (as if there was still any doubt) that the great superhero debate is officially over.