across the universe

the beatles are everywhere, still. i guess it's only been a day since i wrote it, but it's still true. i love listening to their music when i walk into best buy or a starbucks. their music instantly puts a smile on my face and makes me start singing out loud, and i find myself just walking and listening and seeing the world a little different. how many bands can you say do that for you?

but one song in particular i find completely mesmerizing and utterly unguarded, naked in its lyrical approach and almost conscience shattering. i feel like i've left my plain of existence when i sing these words and hear the melody. "nothing's gonna change my world."

across the universe is a lennon triumph. it hits me right where i have nothing, a void is filled when i hear this song. "jai guru deva om." it's gentle. it's comforting. it's sad, yet promising.

it's incredible still.

here are some different versions:

fiona apple

rufus wainwright

there's also a cover by david bowie that i can't find.

i'm looking through you

the beatles are everywhere right now. the rock band game is out and all their albums have been re-released in stereo and mono and dolby. i don't think they do dolby anymore, do they? dolby went the way of the dumont network. actually by being on that dolby website for less than a minute, it looks as if dolby is still around and doing quite well.

what a discussion. anyway, the beatles are everywhere and pitchfork is reviewing each album. their reviews have been spot on for me. even some being more generous than i would have been, see magical mystery tour.

but it got me thinking about music and about artistic leaps. the leap these liverpool lads took from help to rubber soul was amazing. and as good as rubber soul was, the leap to revolver is even more amazing to me. i think revolver and the white album are their best albums. so i started to think about the greatest leaps in rock history. and a few quickly came to mind:

radiohead: pablo honey to the bends
wilco: a.m. to being there
pink floyd: meddle to dark side of the moon
the beach boys: all summer long to today

that's really all i got right now. i'm actually ashamed of only being able to think of these four. this office is hot. i can't think when i'm hot.

does anyone has anymore?

and by the way, go read those reviews at pitchfork. if you can't find them, just search "the beatles" and you'll find them. they're a great read.

lovers at the airport

matthew simmons is at it again. talking about peak oil and such. go here.

ben bernanke has made our financial mess worse. he didn't mean to though. he had to. and he'll do it again.

"massive global wealth destruction."

daisies of the galaxy

daisy wasn't the most socially adjusted dog. she was notorious for bringing you a tennis ball or a stick and setting it down next to you and barking until you finally picked it up again and threw it. this process would go on forever. she would never, ever tire playing fetch. never. it was amazing. what she was though was a good dog. she was good for her owners. she was proud to stay and guard the house, proud to lay by the fence and wait until someone would come home and maybe they would play fetch with her again.

i wasn't close with daisy. but the reason i'm writing about her is because i watched her die yesterday. she had a brain tumor and we'd known about it for several months. by the way, daisy was my wife's mother's dog. anyway, she would wobble and fall over when she tried to get up and walk. but she had good days and apparenty these last few days were good for daisy. she had a friend, a younger dog that the neighbor's brought with them while vacationing from houston. they were playing together and chasing each other and daisy chased the young dog into a pond and got her foot stuck. she didn't have enough strength to get her foot out of the mud. the stress of the water and almost drowning, sent daisy into a seizure.

a young girl, probably 17 or 18 jumped into this nasty pond and rescued daisy. we got there when she'd been out of the water for about 20 minutes. her breathing was labored and she was unable to stand up, but other than that, she seemed alright.

but about an hour later, she wasn't alright. something had collapsed inside her head. her tumor had ruptured and she was suffocating with blood in her lungs. she was drooling blood and she was unable to control her bowels. we found a 24-hour vet who would see her. so we loaded her up on a flat bed truck and my wife's mom rode with her all the way to the vet like that. when we lifted her up and put her on the truck, she started bleeding everywhere and let out this howl of pain and it became very clear to me that it was daisy's last day on earth. i had never seen anything die in front of my own eyes. people, animals, they were either close to dying or already dead. i had never witnessed the event of dying. and although i wasn't there when they put daisy to sleep, i petted her for the last time and her eyes were rolled back into her head. she was gone.

it's tough when animals die. like i said, daisy could be extremely annoying when you were hanging out in the back having beer and just wanted to relax. she would bark and bark and bark until you played fetch with her. but she wasn't full of malice. she was sweet and she wanted your attention. and who can fault her for that. she rests easier today and i'm happy for her.

fruit bats

going to see the fruit bats tonight at walter's on washington. it's my first show at walter's, which is perfect timing because they're going to close that place down and move it downtown, so i'm just sneaking in time to catch a show. can't wait.

popular songs

sons of the silent age

there's giant oil in the gulf.

bailouts, bailouts, bailouts. barry ritholtz, author of bailout nation, gives his take on the bailouts, whether they were successful or not and how they could have been improved.

interestingly enough, the pay for executives at bailed out companies, you know the ones who were poorly run and had to be saved by an injection of taxpayer capital, is actually higher than their peers. so cut loose, run your company into the ground, and you too can make tons of money.

diane sawyer is taking over for charlie gibson on abc world news tonight. i have always thought diane sawyer was so hot. here's picture of her younger.

capture the flag

senator tim johnson is set to take over the banking committee if chris dodd/dudd moves on over and takes the recently deceased senator kennedy's still-warm spot. if this happens, good news people: we won't change anything, because the devil we know is better than the devil we don't, right? right.

dr. doom says he's got some ideas on how to get us out of the spend and borrow pattern we love so much. although after reading it, i'm not sure what the idea is/was.

sheila barr, chairman of the FDIC, says a super-regulator is a bad idea.

we're making some money back from TARP, to the tune of $4 billion. i would like to get all our money back before we decide whether we made a profit or not. you don't win a football game at halftime.

the future of movement, travel and transportation through space could be coming from one company: tesla. if you don't read the story, that's fine, but i highly, highly suggest you watch the video of the rocket taking off and going into orbit. there is a camera on the side of the rocket transmitting the image of it leaving earth. it's amazing.

pitchfork already has a review of yo la tengo's new album "popular songs." it's out next week. i saw this band at ACL in 2007, i think. it was around noon and it was hot as shit, but these three people put on a head rattling performance. it was brutally good.

audit the fed

audit the fed.

this is exactly what i wanted.

but how come i feel like this is going to backfire?

my vege-tables

i meant to post this the other day and didn't. i'm really starting to get into the idea of growing and producing food locally. i've been trying to pay attention to where my food comes from and what it is made of. i've read articles like this before and it's something i believe is important as we move forward/backward as a nation.

there is actually a garbage island floating in the ocean. here is a picture.

it's starting to become clear now that oil speculators were behind the massive run-up in oil prices last year.

i write here about peak oil, but what about peak water? is this something we should be paying attention to?

i've got other articles on banks, but i'm sick of reading about these banks. all i want to do is dance.

prank calls

i'm still cracking up about that bernanke joke from my last entry. that's really all i have to say.

bernanke's back

"bernanke's back
and we're gonna be in trouble,
hey nah, hey nah
bernanke's back!"

ben bernanke has been nominated by the continually confusing president obama. it doesn't guarantee a second term for old ben, but it's about a done deal without really being a done deal. so, should old ben come back for another round? how did he do the first time around? he had a lot to deal with. he made some mistakes of course. but was he really that bad?

here is bloomberg.

the financial times.

mish.

in addition, the fed has been ordered to turn over the names of all financial institutions that received bail-out monies.

krugman's got some thoughts on health care and how it relates to the financial disaster we refuse to really clean up.

kid a is being re-released with as a special collector's edition. i remember first hearing this album and thought, "what the shit is this?" but i kept listening, it had left an impression. and slowly, the album revealed itself to me. brilliant, incredible album. they haven't been the same band since.

here is the list of cheapest cars to own. i'm thinking about getting one.

come on! feel the illinoise!

so i'm back from the windy city. what an amazing weekend. the weather, man. it was 70 degrees with zero humidity. just absolutely gorgeous. we got in saturday morning around 10:30. this is after being up the night before until 12:30 and getting up at 4:00. needless to say, i was a little loopy without any sleep. we got picked up from the airport and headed to the hotel. actually, we stopped for a beer first. then we went to the hot dog stand and got something to eat. then we went to the hotel and laid out. took a nap. saturday evening we had dinner at a greek restaurant. it was alright.

sunday was the big day. we got up and went to church for the service, baptism and blessing of the marriage. then we headed to the restaurant and proceeded to hang out/drink and party for the next 10 hours practically. once the restaurant kicked us out, we went to the groom's nephew in-law's place and hung out there listening to 80's music and dancing in a kitchen hallway until about one in the morning.

monday was a pretty wasted day because of hotel conflicts, people not getting sorted out and the baby's mama being unable to move for the first few hours of the day. that chick partied hard.

once we got into houston, they lost 2 out of 3 of our bags, but right as i was leaving for work this morning, the dude was dropping them off. nice timing. of course, last night would have been better timing, but oh well. the great chicago trip is over. now it's back to work.

i just wasn't made for these times

here is a lecture given by william (bill) black about the banking heist we went through and are still going through. i bought his book "the best way to rob a bank is to own it," but i haven't started reading it yet. the guy is sharp, to the point, and very, very focused on malfeasance within the system. i highly suggest you check it out.

the democrats seem to have finally found something: their balls. they have a majority in the house and the senate, in fact a filibuster-proof majority in the senate, yet they are letting the republicans, who lost every election possible last year, dictate their terms on health care. it's really amazing. the democrats are unfocused and completely unprepared and unorganized for this fight. it's simply amazing.

david alexrod has got some explaining to do. major independence issues, but else is new in washington?

when every right-wing blowhard out there says we have the best health care system in the world, do you roll your eyes? you should. because the WHO doesn't seem to think so. this study took place in 2000, but do you think we've made major improves since then under the bust/bush administration? probably not. so we're still somewhere floating around less than adequate. we've got the technology. that is no argument. we have the best doctors. that is no argument. but it's like having the best equipment and the best players on a baseball team, but the rules of the game make the game rigged, so it didn't matter. that's the problem.

that birdhouse presents....

wilco's got a b-side floating around out there called dark neon.

radiohead's got a song floating around too called these are my twisted words.

plus, i found a free cookie in the vending machine! what a day!

moonage daydream

"keep your electric eye on me babe,

put your ray gun to my head,

press your space face close to mine, love



freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!"



is there anything better than bowie? seriously. the man was a force.

rio grande

"oh the great big river,
goes on and on,
oh the great big river,
makes my heart beat strong."

-brian wilson


this weekend was pretty wild. my wife was attacked by a storm trooper at space center houston. we landed a successful mars mission and found water on mars, which was a big deal. we almost got left behind at rocket park inside nasa after it closed. after that, we went to kemah and ate and walked around the boardwalk. that was all saturday.

on friday night, we took jerry out to eat and watched a fight break out in the bar area of the restaurant in tomball. we went to a cowboy bar/dancehall after that and my wife and i danced and then we got jerry out there in his wheelchair and i pushed him around on the dancefloor during the cotton-eyed joe. it was a blast.

sunday i saw my grandmother and my wife and i made dinner and cleaned the house. it was the best weekend ever. and we went to church together for the first time in a while. that meant a lot to both of us.

it was an awesome weekend. how was yours?

my girls

is it much, to admit i need
a solid soul and the blood i bleed
and with a little girl and by my spouse
i only want a proper house

i don't care for fancy things
or to take part in a precious race
and children cry for the one who has
a real big heart and a father's grace

i don't mean to seem like i care about material things and a social status
i just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls

*make sure you select a track that is not remixed. just pick one that only has the title of the song without some crazy shit after it

war on war

remember disclosure and transparency? weren't those things supposed to utilized in the new presidency regime? i wonder where they went? because i haven't seen them....ever.

this is a wonderful article on the uselessness and utter hilariousness of the efficient market hypothesis. it's hilarious when you read what these guys factor into their models as constants and wonder why they get these every 400 year events, like every four years. they talked about this some in "when genius failed."

when is the next oil shock coming? because it's coming. and it's coming within the next two to three years. we're running at full capacity people and the only thing keeping us from teetering over right now is a global economic collapse. so i guess there is a bright side to everything. but eventually people are going to start producing and buying shit again. and demand will catch up and surpass available supply. that's when the pain starts. hard decisions will have to be made. and we've seen how our government handles hard decisions. they don't make them.

over at fortune, they are designing the perfect health care system. check it out.

clothes line saga

idealism only lasts so long. that's why we love to think back when we were younger, before we realized how the world really works. idealism is a beautiful thing and if you had it, celebrate it. if you still have it and you're as old as i am, wake the F up. this is a wonderful story. it proves finally, once and fall for all, there is no change. our future, the future of us being ruled by global corporations using money and influence to continue to subject us to loopholes and fleece us out of our hard earned, hard fought money, is set. there will be some explanation. there will be backtracking. but don't you just feel it. like you know when someone is lying or cheating. you know it. you might feel it, before you actually realize it and speak it. but you feel it. i'm feeling it. there is no change. "meet the new boss. same as the old boss."

so i have one suggestion: do not you spend your money frivolously. you don't need half the shit you have. hold on to books, music and art. don't use credit cards. question everything. realize your little handful of friends and family is as good as it's going to get, so take care of those people.

here's a Q&A with a writer from the NYT who's covering the town hall meetings on health care.

i'm listening to fruit bats right now. i'm going to see them in september. cool.

here's ten minutes with elizabeth warren. everytime i see/hear elizabeth warren, i fall in love. this woman is the best. she is the top of the shit.