You'd Know What A Drag It Is To See You

So I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm going to New York City in a little bit. It's a very strange fact to get used to, for some reason. Last night I began looking online for record stores to visit. I'll probably try to hit a couple of different ones in search of bootlegs and deleted albums that haven't trickled down South. Speaking of which, I find it odd that I suddenly can't find a copy of Elvis Costello's "Blood and Chocolate" album in a proper cd store. Since Keith is the only loyal reader that I'm sure of, and he's heard me bitch about this before I'm repeating myself, but the first ten years or so of Elvis Costello's brilliant career (those being the actually brilliant years of his career) has transfered ownership, so I'm concerned that new issues are coming of his first 11 albums, replacing the bloody brilliant Rhino 2 disc editions, with liner notes written by Declan himself. At this point, Blood and Chocolate is the only one I'm missing from that run. I did find a cheap used copy of the two disc version of his Spike album at Schoolkids today, so I'm fairly content. I'm just a touch worried that all the copies of Blood and Chocolate have joined copies of the ninth volume of Transmet in limbo....

Tomorrow night is Sage Francis and Buck 65 at the Cradle. I've decided to bring copies of cds by both artists to try and get signed. Expect a write-up a day or two after the show, you non-corpeal, fantastic bastards.

Right now I'm slowly reading Philip Roth's novel "Sabbath's Theater" for the infernal book club, having finished Nabokov's Pnin earlier this week. Pnin was very funny, and I think I worked out what it was all about, but it's on a different strata from Lolita and Pale Fire. I think I'm probably going back to Nabokov after the Roth novel, either Ada or The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. I'm not sure which. And the big re-read of the entire Harry Potter cycle still looms before book 7 comes out in July. I'll probably try and wait to start around my birthday.

Sorry this entry is so dull, but I felt obliged to post something, and I'm not pissed off at much of anything at the moment...

I am NOT a Demographic...

So I was just listening to All Things Considered, waiting for a story about used CD stores, but first I have to listen to a piece on the lastest devious, insidious brainchild from the mental terrorists of Madison Avenue. Now, the bastards, not content with all of the evil they already unleash on television, radio, print, the internet, any public space they can find and within any other medium that exists, have begun hiring "Brand Ambassadors", collaborating, whoring bastards who travel around college campuses and other such places attempting to build word of mouth for corporations not content with the mindfucking already accomplished.

I couldn't listen to the whole report. It was much too much. So I retreated to my computer, put Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands" on, and googled (is the verb google insidious advertising? Probably. But google is only slightly evil)"Used cds", and decided that the story is probably about new laws demanding fingerprints of sellers of used cds to stores, in a classic heavy-handed attempt to deter the transfer of stolen goods. Which probably won't do more than hurt legit sellers of used cds, since who the hell wants to go through that while trying to make 20 bucks selling their old Zep cds. But I digress.

I found that story and concept so abhorrant, but then I got to thinking about the show I went to Sunday night, which was completely underwritten by whichever car company makes the Scion (you can see how effective that bit of "branding was) and the bag I gladly took and used today. Am I just another hypocrite? Almost certainly. But, in my defense, I would point out that at the show, there was only one mention of the car company, a rather off-hand and arguably slightly derogatory thank you from (I think) Dready Kruger. And the bag is quite nice, and the logo on it is quite small. I doubt anyone who saw me carrying it today noticed it. (Of course, the Carolina Hurricanes t-shirt I wore and am still wearing is another bit of advertising, when you think about it at all, but I think we can all agree that sports teams get the same pass as bands or movies we like and wish to use our shirts to communicate our appreciation for to others).


(Of course, anyone who wants to advertise on Obviously 5 Readers is welcome. Hell, I don't care if you sell child porn and dangerous drugs to puppies and Panda bears, a blogger has GOT to get paid...)

Y'all Don't Even Know: The GZA at Cat's Cradle

This was an interesting deal. You get to see the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA for free, but you have to arrive early to make sure you get into the show. So, Keith and I get show up at the Cradle at 8:00, an hour and a half before the doors are set to open. We're pretty close to being the first ones who finally get in- early enough to claim our own Scion bags, which are pretty nice for free swag, and come stuffed with a magazine devoted to the sponsoring vehicle, the most horrible t-shirt you ever saw, and a cd sampler that even has a few hip-hop acts I've actually heard of. But that's secondary- we're there to see the Genius of one of the more influential hip hop acts of the last fifteen years.

The first couple of hours feature no live music, just an Atlanta based DJ (disturbingly wearing a LA Dodgers cap) playing the same basic list of classic hip hop cuts that you hear at pretty much every show between sets. Which was fine. I was part of the group crowded around the television near the bar, watching the Cavs/Pistons game.

The first act was a live band called either "The Fyre Department" (the name that appeared in the promotional material) or "The Fire Department", (the name that appears on their myspace page, but the "y" spelling also is on the page). Wikipeida's entry for the Fyre Department is a spin-off of some sort from D12. So, I don't know. The myspace page informs me that they played on the Talib Kwali/MF Doom cut "Fly That Knot" (actually, Talib mentions them in the begining of the track, so it turns out that I had unwittingly heard of them). For what is apparently a studio group, they are a pretty good live act. Unsurprisingly for a studio band, they don't have a front man. They played some hip hop/rock jams, at one point breaking into a pretty good instrumental version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Their presence made more sense when it turned out the they were the GZA's backing group.

The GZA as a solo act is an interesting proposition. Clearly, most of the crowd at most of his shows is primarily interested and familiar with the work he did with the Wu-Tang Clan, but only one Wu-Tang track features him by himself (that I'm aware of anyway). So, he couldn't really stick to his solo material and still please the crowd, which forced him to take on other rappers' parts in songs. Which he was more than up to.

He opened with "Reunited", off of the Wu-Tang forever disc, probably to get the crowd to scream "It's Wu, Motherfucka. Wu-Tang Motherfucka". The next track was "Bring Da Ruckus" off of the Enter the 36 Chambers disc. He came out with his bottle of Champagne (Or, as he described it for the literary motherfuckers, "Sham-Pag-Nee") and with Dready Kruger (who I had heard on the Wu-Tange Meets Indie Culture album) as his hype man. I was pleased when, bantering with the crowd, he echoed a conversation Keith and I had on the way to the show, saying "This is the most undergroudn shit you gonna hear. This is Wu-Tang".

Mixed in with some presumably solo stuff I was unfamiliar with, he rocked some classics tracks like "Liquid Swords", "Triumph" (which just might be my favorite Wu-Tang track), "C.R.E.A.M." and then, as "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" (an ODB track) he brought out his special guest and made the show unforgettable. "Y'all don't even know" he said, as he introduced the legend himself, Big Daddy Kane". Kane, who lives in Durham, came out, and if you don't understand how cool that is, you never will.

The show ended on a markedly strange note, with a series of wagers that the GZA offered the crowd, betting that no one could produce a copy of the "Grandmasters" album he did with Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, and then offering cash to anyone who could produce a picture of the ODB (someone did, but I didn't see GZA make good on his offer). He announced a new Wu-Tang album, 8 Diagrams and began shaking hands with the front row. I managed to make it to the front and offered up my pen and my trusty notebook for the Genius to sign. He did, and wonder of wonders, I got my pen back (despite the asshoel who tried to grab it from GZA's hand).

Was it the best show I saw this past moth? Probably not. GZA didn't connect with the crowd like Brother Ali did, and he's simply in a different league than KRS-One, but the moments he was sharing the stage with the Big Daddy was undeniably special, and he worked harder than probably was strictly neccessary for a crowd that didn't pay a dime to get in.

This Month's eMusic Downloads (May)

Albert King, Born Under A Bad Sign- A Legendary Blues album

Big Star- Nobody Can Dance- A live album by one of my favorite neglected legendary acts.

KRS-One & Marley Marl- Hip-Hop Lives- Not much explanation needed, I think, if you read the blog at all.

RUN-D.M.C- Live at Montreux 2001- I'm very curious about this. I'm skeptical of how good it might be though.

Ice-T- Gangsta Rap- His latest album. It's been a good while since he put out something important or good, but I figured he deserved a chance.

Sage Francis- Sick of Waiting Tables- I'm seeing him in a few days. I would have downloaded the other mix tape type stuff, but I might buy some at the show. Unless Buck 65 has a bunch of stuff I need.

The Pixies- Velouria, Gigantic- A couple of individual songs to round out the downloads

GZA review coming soon, either tonight or tomorrow.

There will be no sodomy in iTunes

I was just playing around on iTunes, and it was suggested I might enjoy the second album by The Pogues, "Rum, S****y and the Lash". I understand asterisking (which I don't believe is a proper word) words like "fuck" or even "bitch", but sodomy? I can't be the only person who finds that strange...

Send Lawyers, Guns and Money....

Affirmation, baby. That's comment number two (thank you "Ken"), and once again, one from someone who I don't get a chance to harass about the blog on a regular basis. The masterplan continues to unfold.

I'm about to watch the final two episodes of this season's 24. I'm fully expecting to be utterly diasappointed. I missed them on Monday night because the power company still doesn't have it's atom-dancing act together and we suffered from blackouts here.

I have to man the office of the North Carolina State University Friends of the Library tomorrow afternoon, which I'm not happy about. I like my job well enough, organizing donated books, but I dislike sitting in an empty office answering occasional phone calls, ('cause the library doesn't have quite as many friends as one would hope for.)

For the members of my Infernal Book Club, I'm slowly reading Nabokov's Pnin, which is good. I'm also still working my way through the Billy Martin biography, but keep being slowed down by the fact that it isn't very great. One would expect more from a biography of one of the more interesting figures in baseball history. Actually, I'm kind of suprised there hasn't been a biopic about Martin. The problem, I guess, is that Martin's story completely fails to fit the formula for sports films, and has a most unhappy ending. Martin was an underdog of sorts, which is good for the formula, but was a violent, surly, paranoid
alcoholic, which is less great for the Hoosiers type mold.

I picked up a copy of Allan Moore's first volume of his run on Swamp Thing. The introduction Moore wrote is so good in and of itself that I found myself desperately wanting to con my way into a grad school ahead of schedule and start writing a thesis on Moore and his work.

The post title today is a reference to the great song by the wholy underappreciated and dearly missed Warren Zevon. Today, while I was watching The 40 Year Old Virgin on HBO I was struck by the admittedly strange need to change my cell phone's ring tone. It had been a NCSU fight song since I got this phone, and I grew a touch weary of it. There is no connection that I can think of between the film and the ring tone change, unless I subconciously think that Zevon will get me laid. While my ideal woman would obviously respect Zevon, it seems unlikely. I don't know. I saw Hot Fuzz the other day, and there was the trailer for Judd Apatow's new movie, I think it's called Knocked Up, and it looks like it might be really funny, like Virgin. We can only hope so. This summer is a wasteland of sequels and adaptations. (I say this, even though I know perfectly well I'll be seeing Pirates 3 and the Simpsons and Ocean's 13)

In other music news, on Sunday night it looks like I might see a show by the GZA at the historic Cat's Cradle. It's a very strange situation- the show doesn't have tickets for sale (some car company is picking up the bill- Scion, I think, Which is a model of some sort of vehicle, and a very strange car name in your narrator's humble opinion.) Anyway, no tickets, but you have to go online and RSVP at a website. Now, this does not guarantee you anything, apprently. You still have to show up early and take your chances. I'd rather just buy a damn ticket and know I'm getting in. Assuming I get it, expect a review of the show on Monday or Tuesday.

That's Telekinesis, Homes

Sopranos was intense last night. This season has been remarkable, and it looks like the showdown between Phil and Tony that we've been waiting for since Johnny Sack got pinched is finally about to start. This season it seems like each episode has kind of closed out one character- Janice and Bacala in the first episode, Johnny Sack in one, Paulie Walnuts in one, Christopher and Junior, respectively, and clearly last nights was A.J.'s. It still seems strange that they have so much to wrap up in two episodes, but who am I to doubt Chase at this point?

For all of you enthusiastic, ethereal bastards in the infernal book club, I've picked up the Bill Martin biography again. But you don't care.

None of you care. If you did, you would be reading this, but since you are not reading this...

Tonight is the season finale of 24. 2 hours long. I'm going to watch, mainly because I watched the first 22 hours of the show, and it's probably too late to start now. Tomorrow night is the last House of the season. Which is for the best, because the show needs to regroup after a vaguely mediocre third season. I'll finally be free on Monday and Tuesday nights, but it's not like I have anything better to do.

Which is vaguely depressing.

Those Wacky Freemasons

I didn't mention this before, mainly because the only reader I'm sure about was with me at the time, but the other day I went to Borders on a quest to waste some money. It turned out that they were having a deal where if I bought 3 DVDs, they would give me one for free. So, I bought Goodfellas, Casino and JFK and got Scorsese's Dylan documentary, No Direction Home for free.

Anyway, while I was watching Stone's insane, kinetic masterpiece for the second time in as manyd ays, I was slinking around Amazon and I looked at the page for the book "On The Trail of the Assassins", written by Jim Garrison- Kevin Costner's character, and one of two books that got "based on" credits for the screenplay. And this "review" of the book is too magnificent to pass up. The author is one Richard A. Salzer (Amazon assures me it's his "REAL NAME")

"The most important line in the book is the one
about how the FBI used the Masonic Lodge to
meet in 1960...laying the groundwork for JFK's
eventual removal by the 'Shadow Government...
Ask yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. America, is it
just a coinsidence that LBJ, Hoover, Major of
Dallas Cabell, the former Gen. Cabell, et, al
were Masons? I think not. Then they brought in
the Zionists, et, al and finished the job! "

I've heard the conspiracy theory that this was a Freemason job, but I was unaware of the insidisous Zionist conenction to murder. Or should I say COUP? (No, I shouldn't) I wouldn't be surpirsed if the shooters were supplied directly from the Mossad...

And who actually writes "Ask yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. America"? I mean, unless you are writing advertisements for 30s radio dramas....

(I love ending sentences with... leading you to connect the sinister dots yourself...)