Extant Chords

After enjoying a delicious Chinese lunch this afternoon, I cracked open my fortune cookie an discovered a rather curious bit of wisdom.  I leave it to you to decide if it was:

a) clever
b) racially insensitive
c) an amusing typo

"There is no time like the pleasant."

As is mandatory for any culturally significant "alternative" band still on listeners' radar, Radiohead's first three albums have been re-issued.  Replete with all sorts of superfluous "bonus material" (as is also mandatory) and costing about twice the original sticker price, the completist (chump) in me will be buying at least two of them though I am not happy about it.  In fact, I'm downright angry about it.  Many people that know me are aware that I fucking hate Radiohead.  It wasn't always this way but as with any break-up, the acrimony of diverging interests eventually settles in which poisons the soul and colors everything black and painful and black.

We were once in love, Radiohead and I.  Actually I was in love but it turns out they were only in love with themselves.  Maybe that's just what happens when there are too many partners in a relationship but I am long past making excuses for my ex-paramour(s).  In the beginning it was so good, maybe even perfect.  Maybe even too good to be perfectly true.  Sure there were bumps in the road but we navigated them together.  I never cared for their friends (fans).  I mean, what's to love about a bunch of obsessive tools with shitty attitudes and an inability to objectively analyze the band's ups and downs.  But that wasn't the real problem, we worked through that shit.  No, the problem was the second half of OK Computer which is when I should have known that they were leaving me for other things.  Maybe some part of me did know but conciously, I didn't want to believe it.  Couldn't believe it.  Until that digital turd of an abortion, Kid A, dropped on my head like a "Dear John" letter with my name misspelled.  Fuck.

Anyway, I eventually got past it.  Rarther than burn those old love letters, Pablo Honey and The Bends, I kept them.  Reread them.  Over and over and over again until I got comfortable with the idea that what we had was great for a time but all good things, etc.  And I was cool with loving the old them and hating the new, able to revel in the past while still pissing on the present.  But then I read a recent review (too painful to link) from one of my Trusted Sources. And in this review, from this guy whose opinion I respect.  Whose opinion I ingest on a weekly basis.  This experienced, literate, and tasteful critic, he called Pablo Honey...disposable.  Disposable.  DISPOSABLE.

Fucking hipster revisionism.  Why is it that in this age of dismissiveness, we have to look back on pop music and any shit that rocks with some measure of sniggering condecension?  I'd prefer you just said thank you and be on your way.  Look, I have no point to this rambling piece of indulgence other than to say that I too have my online forum and here at Extant CHords, I don't care how aweome you think Amnesiac is.  Pablo Honey fucking OWNS.

I saw lots of cameras on hand Sunday night.  I trust that photographic evidence of the blessed event will soon surface.

Can you believe it has been 50 years since the day the music died?

Khaaaaannnnn!!!!!!

So, uh, when do all of the KttD posts start?

The best way to start a new year is to make a bunch of resolutions you know you will never keep.  This gets the disappointment in early and that way the rest of the year isn't so much an aching letdown but rather a manageable, inevitable defeat (kind of like Steeler football).  So here is the list of things I genuinely wish to accomplish in 2009 but am already doomed to abandon:

1) Become an expert land navigator.

Since I go hiking alone quite a bit, my parents got me a Garmin GPS for X-mas.  Concerned that I will get lost in the back country (for which a GPS will be useful) or get attacked by a black bear (for which a GPS will be useless), they thought this the best gift for me in 2009.  And it is pretty sweet with a lot of cool features I look forward to figuring out.  But...it's kind of a pansy way of sorting out oneself in the wilderness.  I mean, would either of my two heroes resort to such a technological crutch?  Fuck no.  That's why I went out, bought a compass and topo map, and signed up for a day long land navigation course at REI.  That combined with my dad's Land Navigation Army Field Manual (if I can ever find the damn thing) and I should be ready to locate my position on a grid and find my way home.

Outside of the land nav class in February, I'll probably never use that compass again.

2) Finally record an EP.

I've been talking a big game about recording original music for quite some time.  With two friends having their own home studios and lots of accompanying musicians to work with, the logistics are simple.  It's the doing that's the hard part.  I need to compile my horribly derivative snippets of roots-rock and power pop into a coherent 5 song set (along with the mishmash of terrible introspective lyrics about about girls and Star Wars and the Food Network) which is just a pain in the ass and not a lot of fun when you're banging away alone in you apartment.  But since I just dropped some serious coin on yet another needless addition to my arsenal of guitars, I need to at least pretend it is all going somewhere.

I give myself until early Spring before I quit altogether.

3) Get punched in the face.

Weary of the mindless lifting of weights and having long fostered an interest in (and respect for) the Sweet Science, I joined LA Boxing a while back to up my workouts and learn the rudiments of pugilism.  The instructors are awesome and the workouts intense but at some point I want to start sparring and participate in one of the gym's "Fight Nights."  The problem; I really don't want to get punched in the face (and I'm a big pussy).  Being as big as I am has certain advantages one of which is that no one ever tried to bully me growing up.  People assumed that I would either kick their ass or at least put up a good fight - neither of which is correct.  But it's time to grow a little which means I need to experience one good ass-kicking in my life.

This one I'll probably do but cry "No mas!" after the first punch.  Like Iron Mike said, everyone has a plan until they get hit.

4) ...

I'll keep this last one to myself.

I am John Wilkes Booth's angry legacy.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.   In celebration of that irrefutable forecast I have begun work on a mixtape [sic] that captures my personal sense of holiday cheer.  As a stocking stuffer for my landlord, my financial adviser, the office girls, the guy at the Shell station who gives my ride a blind pass on the State Safety Inspection every year, and the attorneys who handle my paternity suits, I think this one is a winner.  I don't want to give away the tracklist here but the centerpiece has to be a certain Tom Waits holiday classic that is the tops.

However during the research phase of this project I observed that while there is no shortage of songs taking a cynical view of the holidays, there is a dearth of good ones.  If Southern California fell into the sea and took every obnoxious, nasally pop punk band with it, that would be great.  (C'mon Santa, I've been a good boy this year.)  So with that being said, I have one or two slots still open on my mix.  Any suggestions out there?  Bonus points if you know of any depressing Hanukkah (or Purim or Rosh Hashanah) tunes as the Tribe of Abraham is woefully unrepresented on this disc.

No man should wear jeans with button-down flaps over the back pockets.  Actually no man should wear jeans with any flaps over the back pockets, fastened or otherwise.