Closings due to snow

My friend Fred sent me this link: Click here. It snowed last night, and today there were plenty of closings and delays. I guess hackers hacked into Carolina Newschannel 14's system last night and typed in their own closings and delays. Check it out. It's so funny. My favorites are: "B. Lo Mi Dry Cleaning Inc. Closed Friday until 12. Pick up at noon. Johnathon (sic) Holmes or Baua Lo Mi for more." and "Bring Em Young. Closed Friday. Contact R. Kelly for more details."

New records and CDs

No work today meant record shopping! Another difficult time sorting through what to buy and what to pass on. Passed on at the last minute (so sad): Arthur Russell - World of Arthur Russell (Soul Jazz) - I will buy this next time, dammit; Dizzee Rascal's new album (used); Trojan's Upsetters Singles Box Set; Stark Reality - Now (Stone's Throw); and V/A - Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos (Afrostrut).

Bought: Amps for Christ - The People at Large (5RC) - my favorite album of the year thus far; V/A - Wooden Guitar (Locust Music); Oneida - Secret Wars (JagJaguwar); Kanye West - The College Dropout (finally my very own copy!); and New Hope for the Ape-Eared: The Best of Scharpling & Wurster on the Best Show on WFMU Vol. 2 - SO FUCKING FUNNY!

Tar Heel Funk and Soul

Jason Perlmutter, WXYC DJ and station manager has what may be the world's largest collection of soul and funk music from North Carolina, 99% extremely obscure. I believe he has over a thousand soul and funk 45's in all, and many of those are North Carolina singles.

Anyway, he's doing tonight's Thursday Night Feature on North Carolina funk and soul, all from his personal collection. I'm listening right now, and it's great. If you're reading this and it is between 9pm and midnight Eastern Time, I strongly recommend that you tune into 89.3 FM if you're in the Triangle or click on the links above to listen over the internet.

By the way, my next show is Wednesday night (3-3) from 7pm to 9pm. Eat a dick.

Kick ass

Me: "What should you do if a boy or girl much smaller than yourself starts to fight with you?" [I'm expecting an answer something like, "Don't fight back," or "Ignore him," or "Tell an adult."]

7-year-old boy with ADHD: "Jump over him and punch him in the back!"

Awesome. That has been the highlight of today, my hangover-filled day.

What Tim Burton movie are you?

I am: A Nightmare Before Christmas. "You are easily bored with what you live with, and want more adventure, something completely different. Sometimes, when you can't find it, you lock yourself up and do very morbid things (writing, singing, listening, etc.) When you do find adventure and take it the wrong way too quickly without listening to the advice of others, you soon find that your good old life wasn't really that terrible after all."

The first two sentences are sorta accurate. The last sentence isn't. I'm not sure what that description has to do with A Nightmare Before Christmas, though. Haven't seen the movie.

What Tim Burton movie are you?

Can I use your mouth as a urinal?

I wonder if anyone actually has one of these.

New York Driver Nabbed While Watching Porn Movie

Note to self: When in New York, don't watch porn while driving.

The Perfect Album

I'm a huge Billy Murray fan, and when Lost in Translation came out in the theaters last year, I knew I had to see it. Little did I know that it would turn out to be arguably my personal favorite movie...perhaps ever. Its story of a new friendship and deep romantic connection mixed with a sexual tension that shouldn't and isn't crossed along with disillusionment with one's life is something I can understand completely, and I wish I wrote the script. I'm simultaneously envious of Sofia Coppola and a great admirer of hers. I get the same feelings watching this movie as I do listening to Cat Power.

Okay, enough of this touchy-feely shit. The reason I bring up Lost in Translation is that I just saw it again on DVD, which my sister bought for me for my birthday last month. Kevin Shields (of My Bloody Valentine fame) contributes four new songs and his first real material since the days of MBV. Also on the soundtrack is MBV's "Sometimes" from Loveless. So this past week I've been getting back into My Bloody Valentine, listening to Loveless nonstop in my car to and from work all week, including today. As I listened today to the whole thing, I started thinking of perfect albums, albums that have absolutely no weak tracks or songs I (almost) always skip over when listening to them, are in perfect order, and starting from the first track, I don't want to stop until the album is done. In that sense, Loveless is perfect.

I started thinking of other "perfect" albums, not including "Best of's", compilations, and live albums. And I had a lot of trouble thinking of them...which was surprising because I could name hundreds of albums at the top of my head that I absolutely love, but most have one or more songs I almost always skip over. (Another thing, I believe you *cannot* or *should not* use the same criteria for different genres of music. For example, in my opinion you can't use the same criteria to judge a hip hop album that you do for a rock album. That's why I think that a person who's exclusively into rock music or whatever has a difficult time appreciating the absolute brilliance of someone like Jay-Z, and conversely, someone who's exclusively into hip hop may have a difficult time appreciating the beautiful noise of Wolf Eyes. But all this is another story.)

Anyway, here's a short and incomplete list of "perfect" albums to me: obviously Loveless, the first two Velvet Underground records, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, Dr. Dré's The Chronic, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Gilberto Gil's 1969 self-titled album, Gang Starr's Daily Operation, John Coltrane's Giant Steps, Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby, numerous Bob Dylan albums, Can's Tago Mago, PiL's Second Album/Metal Box, Nas' Illmatic, and many more...I'm getting tired of thinking about this shit. There are albums that I don't consider "perfect" that I probably enjoy listening to as much as, if not more than some of those listed above...but if not for those songs I don't care for...

Okay, I promise I won't write about music next time, unless it's putting up a playlist from my radio show.

My entry into the world of blogging

Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, I've finally done it. Never say never...because I kinda swore I'd never have my own weblog. But after seeing my friend Tom's blog, my friend Todd's blog, my friend Fred's blog, and other blogs that mostly talk about music, politics, and shit, I got inspired and said "fuck it" and decided to develop my own meaningless blog.

I really don't know exactly what kinds of things I'm going to write on this, or how often I'll update it. Todd and Fred write about different things, but one thing that they do that I'll probably start doing is listing their playlists from their radio shows. Mine was last night, and I can't remember everything that I played off the top of my head, but it was a decent show...I give it a B. But I'll start posting playlists from my next show on...and maybe from last night, too, if I decide to make it over to WXYC and write down what I played. I'm lazy, so I probably won't.

In any case, I'll probably write about all sorts of random things because my mind's usually all over the place, although often they gravitate towards the areas of music, women, and beer. I probably won't get too personal, so it won't be like you're reading my fucking diary or anything, which I've never really understood anyway (diaries, that is).