husks and shells

i often wonder if i'd be happier waking up at six in the morning and working in a field all day. eating only when i'm hungry and to replace nutrients lost. everything i have/eat/wear is something either myself or someone in my family/community made. i wonder if we'll ever get back to that.

do you ever wonder that the simpler everything is, the more you're a part of it?

of course if that were the case i wouldn't be typing on a computer sitting underneath a fan and listening to volcano choir on the internet. i like that too. maybe i'll wake up at six in the morning tomorrow and see if i like it.

pussycats

it might seem ridiculous to take an album that's already been made and remake it. note for note. no changes. but by remaking it, aren't you changing it? might be note for note, but you've added something new to it by remaking it. the walkmen did this with pussycats. pussycats was a lost album made by harry nilsson and produced by john lennon. it was made during the whole lost weekend bullshit story. i actually like the walkmen version better. i'm not sure why.

i highly suggest going out and getting both albums, if you can find the first. listen to one and then the other. beck is actually doing this project called record club. it's not exactly the same because beck and friends are stylistically changing the songs/albums. check it out.

no line on the horizon

long, long, long

"long, long, long" is a george harrison song on the white album. i've always been intrigued by it. there's nothing immediately exceptional about it. it's somewhat seductive in its presentation. i used to skip it when i first listened to the white album. but i remember i was in huntsville listening and drinking in my apartment by myself. i used to do this with all the lights off and only had some candles burning and i would really try to "listen" to the music, almost completely feel it. it didn't always work successfully, but for this song it did. i felt it. the reason i mention it is because jim james (yin yames?) from my morning jacket has covered a few george harrison songs and "long, long, long" is one of them. i hope it is better than the original, which there is no way possible it will be, but hey, give it a shot. plus, there's no audio sample of the original song for me to link to. you can hear a clip on amazon. actually, you can't do that either. sorry.

as much as this country is about muscle cars and power, i cannot wait for the future of cars to get here. i want a light, battery operated vehicle that will fit myself and a bag or something, but still have protection from flying debris and flying monkeys. like those bikes/vehicles from tron (see above). that's awesome. fast, safe (unless you hit a wall and they break up into ten million pixels), but safe in reality. check out these cars from the near future.

i've been watching a lot "one year from the crisis" type shows where they go back and see what really caused things and how we really should have handled it. anyway, here is frontline's version and i love frontline.

here are the most frugal cities in america.

i have seen wilco live three times, once in austin and twice in houston. the first time in houston was april of 2005 for the ghost is born tour. i went with randy and his girlfriend. it was a great show. jeff tweedy had just stopped smoking and was a easily agitated by the crowd. he basically said he was not coming back to houston because everyone who wanted to see them could go to austin. the next time i saw them was at acl in austin. great show again. and the last time was march 2008 back in houston. they came back apparently because they forgot something, i don't know. but he had a cold this time. so every time he came to houston that i saw them, jeff was afflicted in some way or another. i also met and talked to glenn kotche outside a sushi restaurant the last time they were in houston. that was cool. i bet he remembers that. this time, i'm going to cedar park, which is outside austin to see wilco in october. it doesn't look like they're coming to houston anytime soon and i'm taking the audit part of the cpa text the week before the show, so i'm going to be ready to blow off some steam. i'm totally stoked.

audience with the pope

"i have an audience with the pope, and i'm saving the world at eight, but if she says she needs me, she says she needs me, everybody's gonna have to wait." brilliant elbow.

did anyone watch 60 minutes last night? the interviewer, i believe it was steve kroft was interviewing president obama. he mentioned how the american citizen is having a hard time handling the health care reform because there's been so much change already. what change is he referring to? what has changed? the administration has done nothing to correct the financial industry's problems. everything that happened before can happen again. today. he hasn't changed health care. he basically backed out of the public option. so what is really changing around here? please inform me of the great amounts of change going on. i would love to be corrected. because i thought i voted for change. that's what i thought.

speaking of interviews, my mom told me about wilco being interview on cbs this morning. i didn't see it because i usually don't wake up at 8:30 on a sunday morning. here is the interview.

i did make the mistake of watching the texans game yesterday. seriously. unbelievable. totally pathetic. i predicted 8-8. that might be optimistic.

the evil mastermind of the 20th century

i wanna be adored

there's a lot going on today. it's the 8th anniversary of 9/11. we're a year on from our financial meltdown that basically starting this blog. and apparently kurt cobain looks like a dancing monkeybear on the new guitar hero video game. nice.

it's the 8th anniversary of 9/11. feels so long ago. anybody else want to play the "where was i when...." game with me? so i was in huntsville and i had woken up and turned the tv on before going to class, like i always did. but by september baseball is wearing down and it seemed like there were highlights from track and field or bowling or something stupid that i didn't like, so i changed the channel and found a building in new york had a hole in it and it was believed to have been caused by a plane. so i sat there and continued to watch. at this point, it was believed to have been a mistake. so my girlfriend at the time and i walked to class, not believing it was anything other than pilot error, and by the time we walked to class and sat down, there had been another building hit by a plane. by this time, it was apparent, this was not an accident. so we sat there through our first class and our second class and watched. watched the buildings fall. watched the ash and debris. we walked back home and stayed there pretty much all day. i called my mom and some other people just to settle my mind. later that night, my girlfriend, myself and another friend went bowling. we felt like we had to something to take our minds off of it. i got home late, probably about midnight and watched dan rather sign off. he had been on the air all day. i called my dad and sat there talking until about one in the morning. i guess it was actually 9/12 when i got off the phone. the next seven years sure were shit as far as our decisions and methods taken to correct such an injustice. but i won't forget the collective feeling i felt with my country that day.

it's also been about a year since our entire financial system fell apart. let me ask you a question: what have we done to ensure this doesn't happen again? the answer: nothing.

did accountants help to cause the financial meltdown?

has the federal reserve bought the entire economics profession?

here's krugman's explanation for why the economists got it so wrong for so long.

so often people forget that simply trust is a big reason why our economic system works.

grizzly bear has a new video out for "while you wait for the others."

also, it's the 20th anniversary of the stone roses debut album. if you don't have this album, buy it, you will love it. it's incredible.

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.