Two Wheels Good

Got live if you want it ...

2008-03-04T01:01:00.000-08:00

Missin' Knock Knock. Oh, well ...

2008-02-15T22:11:00.000-08:00

One of those evenings that started out with the best of intentions. I was gonna go see the English Singles and Knock Knock at Old I, which for you out of towners is a bar here in Suck City. But between a frickin' recurrent cold and sore throat and the anti-social demeanor that comes along with that condition, I don't feel like being too social tonight. So here I am at another venue, listening to backwards baseball cap and knickers ponk ruck on some Sirius/XM chain wallet station, while a band upstairs makes a dull thump through their floor and my ceiling.

Not gonna mention the venue, except that a local monthly slammed it for not measuring up to its hipster standards, but said the tea was okay. I'm drinking a hot tea. And typing this. Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" is playing in the background.

And I died. Well, almost. Thought I had the gosh-darn pneumonia there for a few days. Jeepers creepers, this cold knocked my johnson so far in the dirt that I slept right through the Super Bowl. Now that I give two pazooties about anything that makes Condoleezza Rice vaguely orgasmic, or gives Richard Nixon a boner even in his grave, but it woulda been nice to see that cockamamie Patriots team get circumcised on national television. But then you have to put up with all the other televised excrement, like all those ghey as smooth jazz Bud Light ads and those wingnut dickwhistle commentators, so, well, the heck with that. I'll eat my toast and stare at the wall instead.

Guess I'm kinda grumpy tonight. Part of it was sitting in the unemployment office waiting for an assessment interview, and getting all depressed, especially when the nice lady, after I told her this was the first time I've been unemployed since 1982, said, "Oh, I've been hearing that a lot lately." Thanks, George and Dick. Hope life is nice in Dubai or Paraguay or whatever dictators' retirement paradise you end up in. As for moi, I'd settle for a decent paying gig working for and with some reasonable individuals.

Sidelight: I really really hate dancehall reggae. That is all.

Um, so here we are in an election season. I voted for Barack Obama in the primary, partly because my favorite candidate, John Edwards, dropped out of the race, and partly because Senator Obama is inspiring in a Robert F. Kennedy sorta way. And partly because Hillary Clinton is the kind of polarizing figure that might piss off enough people into voting for a tired old retread like John McCain. Or if Clinton doesn't do the trick, her crazy followers will. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: A Hillary Clinton presidency may turn out to be like a four-year-long episode of "Ow! My Balls!" from Idiocracy. Not that Senator Clinton will personally engineer that, but her fanbase, judging from what I've read online, seems to have an unhealthy head of piss-off built up through 20 years of pasty whiteboy wingnut AM radio bloviating, and they're likely to catch plenty of non-neocon nutsacks in their gardening shears when they get a chance at a payback. And, anyway, I already lived through the 1970s, and the idea of getting treated like a pariah because fate blessed me with dangling outdoor plumbing is something I'd relish as much as, oh, sitting through a marathon of acoustic solo performances by emo-band frontmen. No thanks.

But, given the choice of the Hill or Grandpa Death, I guess I'll have to vote for the candidate not affiliated with Karl Rove, and hope I can land a job that makes enough scratch so I can invest in several pairs of chain-mail underwear.

Heck whiz. Hobson's choices blow goat, don't they?

Screw it, eh?

2008-02-13T15:42:00.000-08:00

Eh, No one's visited this blog for a while, I'm guessing? Feel free to post a comment, and then I'll start posting here again.

The Fix Is In

2008-01-26T16:46:00.000-08:00

Another original tune. I left out the guitar solo because by the time I got a take of this (which was, like, take 15 because I nailed a perfect one early on and for some reason there was no audio track), my hands were so tired I could barely play the song. Mississippi John Hurt I am not.

Anyway, it's kind of a political song, special for you this election year. I hope you enjoy.

If this is Friday, it's bad hair day.

2008-01-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

Yikers.

Sometimes it pays to pay attention to what's going on on top of one's head before one posts a photo. Nevertheless, this bad indie-rock bedhead probably goes along with the western Washington state-style weather we're getting. After a day running around trying to get work, in the rain, it's kinda nice to kick back in a midtown coffee joint, even if they're playing the worst poopola known to man -- it's a "seventies" channel on one of those satellite radio channels, which means bad Tony Macaulay pop hits, Bee Gees disco crud, Foreigner chestnuts and the occasional ZZ Top tune ("Tush," which is kinda the anthem of Buttrock Nation) that some mixed-up guy in a Black Sabbath hat was complaining about because it was too "white trash."

Perhaps I should go fix dinner for somebody or something. This joint is crawling with cops. Go figure.

More new music

2008-01-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Here are five new videos for songs I wrote, some old and some much newer.

"Corporation"

"When Tony Bennett Sang"

"Stay Out of Small Planes"

"This Is Your Big Rock Moment"

"Go! Li'l Rock'n'Roll Dart!"

I sincerely hope you do enjoy.

Fiddyment Farm

2008-01-13T23:12:00.000-08:00

Uh-oh. I YouTubed myself. This is a song I wrote about this subdivision north of Sacramento. I'm kinda hoping to record it one of these days. I'm not really left-handed; it's just the way the camera recorded me. Hope you enjoy.

You can find other songs by me on my MySpace page. Not that anyone's gonna read this or anything, but who knows?

Here are the lyrics, for those of you (non-existent) readers who might me inclined to sing along:

Placer County true believers in the conservative dream
We have found your sweet suburban paradise it would seem
Nestled in the rolling prairie north of capital town
One big master-planned community growing around
Us today
It’s come our way
Thank our lucky stars
We’re off to Fiddyment Farm

Fiddyment Farm, Fiddyment Farm
New subdivisions so charming
A fine address for you and me but liberals may not agree
The Farm fits their lifestyles
Though creeks with ducks run through the place
And there’s enough green open space to make Fred Olmstead smile

Starbucks lattes taste much sweeter up in Fiddyment Farm
Hope they build a Fuddruckers soon and a BJ’s bar, yeah
Behind the Rose Curtain we can praise our deities too
Mickey Mouse and Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh who
Saved the world
For boys and girls
Like yours, mine and ours
They’re off to Fiddyment Farm

Fiddyment Farm, Fiddyment Farm
New subdivisions so charming
A fine address for you and me but liberals may not agree
The Farm fits their lifestyles
Though creeks with ducks run through the place
And there’s enough green open space to make Fred Olmstead smile
It’s a fine address for you and me but liberals may not agree
The Farm fits their lifestyles
Though creeks with ducks run through the place
And there’s enough green open space to make Fred Olmstead smile

We’re off to Fiddyment Farm
We’re off to Fiddyment Farm

Good crikey, it's raining like a bitch in heat

2008-01-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

Nothin' like a good nasty rain storm to rattle the nerves. Normally, I love the rain, because makes those sunny days go away, and it's good for getting mildly depressive, or reasonably melancholy, which makes for nice times sitting around in coffee joints. But today the wind has whipped up a little too much, which here in the capital of California means that trees get blown down and people turn into utter maroons on the road. Normally, I like to employ breathing techniques learned from Buddhist meditation to keep myself from getting rankled by other drivers, but because I've got a bit of a caffeine edge, perhaps it might be a good thing to stay off the road.

Plus, they're playing frickin' leprechaun music here at the coffeehouse I've settled into for the afternoon. Nothing like a little Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem to set a person's teeth on edge. If this mofo breaks into a tin-whistle solo, I'm ... uh ... I'm leaving. Anyway, it's too goddamn wet to go look for a job today, because people probably went home for the day or took a three-day weekend or, well, shoot, I'm just making excuses, aren't I?

Time to drill down and get granular on those million-dollar brainstorms I've been having already.

More later.

So it's Wednesday night ...

2008-01-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

... and I'm sitting around the True Love with nothing better to do. Yeah, baby, this is the life. After quietly bemoaning the fact, and after beginning to type said fact, that hardly anyone i know has been here tonigh, drummer extraordinaire and graphic artist Matt McCord popped in to check on his paintings, specifically if anyone had bought a painting. C'mon, everybody. There's some cool stuff here. I'd buy one, but now I'm broke and, uh, not currently and hopefully temporarily unemployed, I don't have the scratch (or the place to put it) right now.

Ah, time to go home, get some shuteye and hit the pavement looking for gainful employment tomorrow.

New year, new whatever

2008-01-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, nothing on here in months. That's fixing to change soon. OK, yeah, I said the same thing a few other times, but this time I mean it. I've transitioned to, well, a new position as a freelance writer, so I'm going to use everything I can to build that mojo back up. Including this place.

Yabba dabba doo...

OK, I'm back

2007-09-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah, OK, I'm almost fixing to get ready to start posting some new stuff here. It's been, what, months? Lotsa new stuff.

What's up with this blog?

2007-07-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Did I get suspendered or something?

Must've been the Jack Chick links. OK, no more Jack Chick links. And, one of these days, more other stuff. But I am grumpy now, so it'll have to be later.

This "blog" be sucking, mm-hmm ...

2007-04-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. All you faithful reader(s) of Two Wheels Good are pretty darned disappointed with me. Why am I not taking the time to recount any of the sordid happenings in my life for the past six months, when life seemed like I was Jimmy Stewart who stumbled into the wrong David Lynch movie? Why am I not recalling any of my great chemical-induced experiences back when I lived in Las Vegas, like the time we took hallucinogens, then went to Abbey Rents to rent wheelchairs so we could wheel ourselves into the Jerry Lewis Telethon?

Patience, patience ...

Meet the Four-Eyed Banana Pizzas!

2007-04-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

I sooooo want to get a band together. If anyone would like to play music with me, I've got a whole bunch of new songs and a pretty great name, the Four-Eyed Banana Pizzas, which pretty much guarantees us at least one gig at Fools Foundation, and maybe a private party or two, too.

I play guitar and sing. I also wear glasses and love pizza, from Zelda's to Steve's, along with bananas, but not necessarily on pizza. You play bass, drums or lead guitar (no pointy-headstock wankers, pls) and can sing harmonies, and you don't have to wear glasses (squint squad membership a plus, tho), but you probably should kinda like bananas. Or pizza. Or some other food.

This, of course, is not about being geeky guys who have no other recourse for connecting with feminine companionship other than picking up guitars and making a swell racket, although, truth be told, that's probably part of the equation. But really, it's all about doing it for the sheer joy of being in the moment and having a wonderful and ebullient time making music. It's kinda like that Buddhist thing about right livelihood, or maybe, um, well, yeah. It is.

Wouldn't you like to be part of something like that?

Anyway, gosh darn it, I'm so fricking stoked about this idea, I'm just beside myself. I may have to go pour myself a glass of milk and look around for some cookies or something. And you?

The Hottest Groups in the World

2007-04-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Going out to see some music tonight. Apparently people aren't wearing "trucker caps," or at least the true "hipsters" aren't, or at least the one person who bothered to post anything on this board doesn't.

Fuck it. I don't even bother to wear caps of any kind anymore, because it might mess up my totally ghey hair. If I had a coonskin cap, I might wear one, but that might require carrying some kind of stupid firearm around to shoot "varmints," as it were, and these days shlepping around a gun on city streets might not be a really keen idea.

Anyway, if anyone reads this by, oh, August, are there any good and devilish shows to hit this weekend? I'm totally clueless, as my "hipster" friends are wont to remind me, as it were.

Carl's Jr: Fuck You, I'm Eating!

2007-04-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

Go 'way. 'Batin. Dude, your chart here says you're fucked up, you talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded. But don't worry, scrote. There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kickass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now. Comin' up next on The Violence Channel: An all-new "Ow, My Balls!"

OK, I'll shut up with the quotes now. Can you guess which fine cinematic masterpiece they're nicked from?

Oh. Yeah. None of you trucker cap-wearing hipster fucksticks post here. Sorry. I just need you to tell me how to get to the time machine.

Oh, that's easy. You go down by the museum and stuff ... It's like- it's, like, by the museum ... Sorta by ... Actually, not really. More like on the street, you go, um ... Wait, let me start over. Okay, you know where the time machine is?

Let's Not Posting!

2007-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

あなた自身最も早い機会で行かなければならない肉体関係。このページの私の執筆に答えない読者。笑うが、読者答えない。ホースあなた自身は行く!

Return From the House of Dead Blogs

2007-04-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Um, okay. So like I kind of ignored this blog for a while, which ia partly because I was too gosh darned depressed to think of anything entertaining to write about and foist into the public arena, and partly because I couldn't think of anything to put here. I mean, it isn't like my current life is all that interesting these days.

When I really needed a blog was back when I was a gobbige-haid teeno in San Whackeen County, and all sorts of insane stuff happened to and around me all the time. I used to hang kind of on the periphery of this group that called itself the Hetch Hetchy Boys, because they used to go up to Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park and ingest this stuff called "moon juice," which was essentially a jug of Carlo Rossi's Red Mountain wine with every drug known to man added: LSD, mushrooms, truckdriver whites, peyote buttons, codeine, percodan, reds, yellows, tuinal, valium, xanax, coke, hash, weed, kif, junk, and whatever could be gleaned on the street or from somebody's medicine cabinet. I never went on one of those camping trips, because stories of people barking like raccoons were all too common, and I knew a couple of people who got left there because they climbed trees and had gotten too fucked up on the moon juice to come down, so the other assholes just hopped into their trucks and went back to Stockton.

The other downside was that if you got too toasted, I mean, like drooling scribbled, they would sing the "Babytown" song to you. Imagine a bunch of assholes warbling "Oh I am a little baby 'cause I am a little baby down in Babytown, waah waah waaahhh" in your face while they blew dope smoke in your eyes and poured Regal Select beer down your unwilling gullet, and you can kinda grasp the unpalatable charm of that particular good time. They almost killed one of my pals one night, and I fished him out of a swimming pool at an apartment complex with a net and damn near had to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation; he ended up joining the Army, and then last I heard he'd moved into a mobile home park east of Modesto and had hooked up with some white trash blonde, with a passel of snot-nosed Dumpster-diving BMX bike champs the inevitable result.

Meanwhile that night, the Hetch Hetchy Boys were spraying Right Guard deodorant into one end of a toilet-paper "der-der" tube stuffed with paper towels and huffing the other, which a couple of them insisted would result in a "most famous" or even "religious" buzz. I think both of those guys came to untimely ends not long after.

Anyway, it's Saturday, and I still have some functioning brain cells because I refrained from huffing the Right Guard, and it's a beautiful day. Maybe I'll go to the supermarket and get some bread so I can have a few slices of toast.

Toast: The Snack That's Ready When You Are.

This blog paid for by the Toast Advisory Board.

Jeebus, mon, I swear ...

2007-04-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna start posting stuff here soon. I mean, I'm no Beckler, but there oughta be certain things I have something to say about.

Saw Amy Cooper last night. She was great. She fucking rocked. I don't know why she isn't huge. Liani Moore played in the middle. She was all right, but I was really tired after the first band, and it would take someone as stellar as Amy Cooper to wake me from my torpor. Some golf rock band called Radio Astronomy opened. They weren't my cuppa, but they brought a few nice looking ladies in. Unfortunately, the music, from the Jack Johnson school of slacking, put me the rest of the way into the coma induced by the Fox & Goose Cornish pasty I'd scarfed earlier when watching the Juggs, Kim Alexander's new band. What is it about these Hootie & the Blowfish retreads that they can get come into a proper rock club and inflict such Tiger Woods rock on a crowd?

Uh oh. The office is empty. Suddenly everyone's a practicing Catholic. Not me.

Punxatawney Philharmonic

2007-02-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

Yowza.

Sorry, wingnuts, but Al Gore was right. I'm sitting here on February 3 listening to some guy mowing his lawn next door to where I'm staying. It's like, Hawaiian shirt weather out there. Whoda thunk that Super Bowl Sunday might become one of those holidays where people celebrate by having outdoor barbeques?

So global warming, or "climate change," as the Orwellian wordsmiths inside the Bush regime and their foxagandists over at Foxaganda "News" Channel put it, is real. And, um, aside from the glee and desire of watching Rush Limbaugh get roasted by the sun in his own lard, we've gotta face the grim realization that we're pretty much in a seriously crummy place here. And we can blame our own stupidity, even if a bunch of little dicks went out and bought Hummers (thanks, Arnold!) and drove around in them.

Because we were driving, too, and we bought into the same line of bullshit as everybody else.

Anyone seen Mike Judge's new movie, Idiocracy? You probably missed it, because it came out for like five minutes in the theaters, in maybe five cities, and then it got released on video. Judge is the director of Office Space, and the creator of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill. Idiocracy, like Office Space, is a flat movie that may not be a masterwork of cinematography, but it does contain some pretty hard-hitting jokes.

The premise is that at some point, like now, mankind stopped evolving, because the Federlines began breeding way faster than the Einsteins. By 2505, the world became overrun by garbage, and a garbage avalanche dislodged the suspended-animation casket containing an utterly average Army librarian named Luke Wilson, which was buried in 2005 when the top-secret program was shut down, the base was bulldozed, and a new Fuddruckers was erected in its place. I won't tell you much more than that, except that the citizens in 2005 are so stupid that they can't grow crops because someone decided to irrigate with Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator (a sports drink with electrolytes, ie.e., Gatorade) instead of water. And that even though there's a pro wrestler slash porn star in the White House, Carl's Jr. pretty much runs everything, and its advertising slogan is "Carl's Jr.: Fuck You, I'm Eating."

I don't think it's going to take us until 2505 to get buried by a mountain of garbage, though. We're headed there a lot sooner.

My dinner with nobody

2007-02-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

As I said downthread, through circumstances mostly outside of my control, I am currently homeless, and find myself surfing some of the finer couches and davenports in the Sacramento area. Fortunately, I landed that most choice of couch surfer gigs, the house sitting arrangement, through the weekend. Ah, the life of O'Reilly is mine. Time to go to the local supermarket and pick up some most excellent microwavable Dinty Moore, as in beef stew. Don't all bums just love that hot steaming mug of beef stew? I sure do.

Last night, I was in one of those funks you find yourself in when you've just sat in an AA meeting for an hour listening mostly to people whose problems are pretty mundane, and you'd neglected to eat din-din between the end of work and the beginning of the meeting, so by the time the meeting was over, when you hop in your car and start driving around, you hope the right dinner will occur to you. Jimboy's? Nah. Willie's? Double nah. Especially when your stomach feels all jinky from ongoing marital discord, or ongoing end-of-marriage discord, and you're sleeping on couches and wearing clothes permeated with the accumulated funk of several days, and you have that vaguely "Is this the onset of like the flu, or is it just that I've suddenly gone from living comfortably in a house for years to begging friends for a spot on their couches and my stomach is kinda gnarly?"-style rough patch that we of the hobo profession sometimes get.

I drove around past Taco Bell and some of this burg's other stellar drive-thru Ralston Purina outlets and ended up on Stockton Boulevard at Pho King 3, which turned out to be pho king awesome (sorry, never can resist a bad pho-related pun) as it was the first time I went, which was Christmas night with my now-estranged wife. In retrospect, she seemed kind of estranged then, too, but that's neither here nor there.

As for me last night, I wondered if I was some kind of raging sentimentalist for going there. Yeah, I am, kinda, but not really last night; I just needed a hearty bowl of soup, and Edokko on Broadway with its infamous Stamina Ramen, which would kill any virus or bacteria (but make your sweat smell like the loo in a Korean restaurant, which could incite homicide from whoever your're sleeping with, so its beneficial effects were somewhat negligible) is no longer there.

The pho was even better this time than it was at Christmas. To the broth, which was swirling with complex and enticing flavors, and the pieces of beef and thin, clear noodles, I added fresh basil leaves, chili peppers, mung bean sprouts, squeezes of lime, and squirts of plum and chili sauce. Then, the ritual of eating. Man, if you want something that will pull you right out of a bad funk, this pho will do the trick.

Not having a dinner companion kinda sucked, but that's the life of a solitary man, as I've already given up the idea of turning into some kind of ladies' ninja or middle-aged babe magnet (if you saw me with my Shaggy from Scooby Doo haircut and snaggle teeth and shambling Viking in the woodshed hillbilly lurch, you'd know what I was talking about). So next time, I'll bring a good magazine. And next time will be real soon.

Pho yeah.

Couch surfin' USA

2007-01-30T22:58:00.000-08:00

Not my favorite place to be, but when life takes a weird turn, you kinda have to roll with where Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is headed.

This is where I get to say that I am very grateful for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, because if I was still in my cups and going through the same set of circumstances, I'd be preaching at squirrels from an upside-down shopping cart. And those new ones are made of cheap plastic, and they won't hold your weight.

Anyway, life sucks, one day at a time. But this too shall pass, right?

I know there's an answer

2007-01-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

When life takes a turn for the jinky, I like to turn to musical comfort food to help surf through the weirdness.

So this morning, when I hopped on my bicycle to ride from my home in Arden Arcade (a suburb in Sacramento County, northeast of downtown and just west of Carmichael) across Business 80 and through North Sacramento, over whatever they named the drainage ditch that parallels the old Western Pacific tracks, "Steelhead Creek" or something like that, and down West El Camino over Interstate 5 to the Starbucks at Gateway Oaks, then down Gateway Oaks to the office, I cued up an old favorite, perhaps my favorite album of all time, the Beach Boys' 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds.

With an opener like "Wouldn't It Be Nice," with its upbeat notion of flowering love's promise, it occurred to me that I might be rubbing a little salt in my wounds. But not really. The album's trajectory runs from promise to fulfillment to disillusionment, and anyway I kinda decided that, rather than wallow in country 'n' western bitterness or the done me wrong blues, I'd try to reawaken that dessicated romantic sense in me, even if it hurt a bit at first.

Pet Sounds is an old, dear friend. I remember looking at it in a rack at the Bigg & Littel department store on Waterloo Road in like 1966 as a sensitive 11-year-old, and deciding to spend my money on a Beach Boys greatest hits package instead. By the time I started paying attention to rock journalists, who uniformly showered it with glowing superlatives, Capitol had discontinued the album, and it had disappeared from stores.

So my introduction with it was after the Beach Boys signed with Warner/Reprise, and their new label packaged Pet Sounds (in mono, the way Brian Wilson recorded it) as a twofer with Carl and the Passions/So Tough, which came out in 1972, if I recall correctly. The new album had one great song, "Marcella," and some other stuff that wasn't so hot, but Pet Sounds hit me like a ton of bricks. I guess I was ready for it at the ripe old age of 17.

I'd never heard anything like it, really. I mean, some of the Beach Boys' songs that preceded it, like side two of Today, with "Please Let Me Wonder," "She Knows Me Too Well" and others, hinted at Brian's new, soulful direction, but the stuff on "Pet Sounds," from heartbreakingly heavenly love songs like "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)," "God Only Knows" and "Caroline, No," to more existential statements like "I Know There's an Answer" and "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" (a self-pity anthem for the awkwardly shy teen if ever there was one), and even the two instrumentals ("Let's Go Away for Awhile," the b-side of the single "Good Vibrations," and the title track), were coming from a different world, one that touched an emotional body I didn't know I had.

The arrangements were always imaginative, even if a couple of them got a little clunky in places. And Mike Love's reedy nasal whine has never been one of my favorite voices in popular music (give me Brian or Carl Wilson any day over Love), got grating at times, like "That's Not Me." But the home runs were out of the park, like the bridge and coda in "God Only Knows," or the arching heavenward melody on the line "I'm glad I went, now I'm that much ore sure that we're ready" in "That's Not Me." Aah, bliss.

What I love most about Brian Wilson's songwriting is that his melodic sense isn't mechanical; his melodies come from that same raiment of divinity that I hear in Bach's music, that sense of eternal springtime unfolding. Wilson's melodies move through the air like a flock of birds taking unexpected sweeps and dives in the light of sunrise, if that makes any sense. It does to me.

I listened to Pet Sounds again on the ride home. The beauty of it is that Brian's Wilson's 1966 masterpiece is awakening something in me that has seemed dead for quite a while, that sense of the possibilities of love. And that's not a bad thing, right?

You fucking bitch

2007-01-23T19:42:00.000-08:00

A while back, I had to watch videos of a bunch of old Sam Kinison performances. Call it part of my job duties. His shtick had gotten pretty boilerplate when these videos were taped, which were toward the end of his career in 1992 when he died in a wreck outside of Needles, California, after a truck smacked his Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. (Which was a particularly appropriate vehicular choice for Kinison, and five bucks sez Sammy Hagar drove one too, a T-top even.)

Around the close of a typical Kinison gig, the Pentecostal preacher-turned-comedian would canvas the audience to find some poor sap with the absolute worst "fucked over by an evil woman" story. Once he had a winner, he'd get the phone number of the woman who had fucked the poor sap over, and he would call the number, get the woman on the line in front of hundreds of people, and join in with the poor sap in a verbal beatdown: "You fucking bitch! You evil cunt! You fucking suck! You fucking stinky whore, how can you live with yourself? You bitch! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! Fuuuuuck yewwww!" You get the idea.

It's probably a good thing that a) Sam's long gone, b) and so he's not around to do a show that I attended in the past year or so, because, c) I'd be a sure bet to be that sap up onstage, and d) my soon-to-be-ex-wife (hereafter to be referred to as "S2BXW") would be the one getting a really nasty phone call from Sam.

But, you know, as far as carrying around that kind of baggage, fuck it. Anger, and especially recycled anger, or resentment, are toxic, corrosive emotions. And I'd rather recognize that S2BXW and I have, ahem, radically different ideas of what constitutes appropriate behavior in a marriage, and leave it at that and move on. Which seems easy most of the time, having made a decision to finally end this sham marriage. And most of the time I'm feeling reasonably sanguine about the whole thing. Still, a few of those jinky feelings heralding an impending emotional storm come bubbling up into waking consciousness, and a few of those storms still blow through occasionally (and how's that for a fucked up mixed metaphor?). But they do seem to pass fairly quickly, after mercifully brief intervals of discomfort laced with twinges of raw fear.

Anyway, hey: I know this site gets virtually zero readers, but phantom eyeballers, y'know what might cleanse my kundalini-energy palate and help me slide into a groovy new interface with my forthcoming single life? Yep, a couple of days and nights of delicious, unhinged sportfucking. Now, I'm not talking about undying love, ladies. Just a little short-term animalistic lust to help a brotha erase some very bad memories. You dig?

Mm-hmm. That's the ticket. (Or maybe not.)

It's a brand new day so let a man come in and do the Popcorn

2007-01-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

James Brown is dead, and I guess so's my marriage. Nuff said there. Which means I'm most likely going to have: a) more time on my hands, b) more relationship denouement angst to channel into posts, and, c) um, I dunno. Anyway, this probably means that you the non-reader (Hi, pimply faced former junior-high hall monotor in the basement at the En Ess Ay!) will have more great stuff to not read.

Mark Trail is pretty good in the Bee today, although I'm getting a little tired of the Lucky the Beaver storyline, even though Jack Elrod's unintentional jokes are pretty good. The Molly the Bear storyline, which included mildly retarded cubnappers "Shake and Jake" (aka wingnut suburb 'n' western duo Montgomery Gentry) was much better. And "Molly the Bear" would make a great name for an emo band.

Sunday morning thoughts

2007-01-21T08:52:00.000-08:00

Hanging out with the dog on a Sunday morning, drinking some coffee, making some notes ... what could be better? The house is quiet, wifey (or, more accurately, soon-to-be-ex-wifey) has been off with some putatively well-heeled college professor from Monterey (or is he the inventor of Google Maps, or the owner of a gold mine, or a secret government agent, I dunno, the story keeps changing) who's probably real interested in her "narrative," or what some cynics might label "line of bullshit," for the past 24 hours, and I'm over the emotional storms that hit me yesterday when I got home and my teenaged stepkids informed me that Mom's new sugar daddy came into the house and seemed like a bit of a know-it-all and controlling dick, at least according to my 15-year-old stepdaughter, and then they took off. And when I pulled out the cell phone bill from last month, the account for her number was bursting with phone calls to and from several numbers in Monterey. D'oh. How could I be such a dumb fuck?

Anyway, fuck all that. As soon as I can sort through this reeking pile of shit called my marriage, I should be back in the single life, which may seem pretty weird, at least at first. Girls, if you want to spend time with me, please show me a recent psychiatric exam, so I can see you're not Bipolar or have Narcissistic Personality Disorder or anything like that (just kidding, although this pretty much indicates I won't be hooking up with Courtney Love anytime soon).

Last night I went to Old I and saw three bands (Deluxe, then the Bennys, then Parlor Dames). When I got there, most of the women in the audience appeared, ahem, to be playing for what they call "that other team." Later on, some fairly cute women showed up, but by then I had a backache that wouldn't quit (note to self: do yoga), and then Jerry Perry and I were commiserating on how we were probably twice as old as most of the women in the room. Guess I'll be cultivating an interest in "smooth jazz" if I start getting really horny. Or something.

Ah, fuck it. I'm just gonna walk around midtown listening to John Coltrane on the iPod like I did yesterday.

Oh, and note to Heckasac Beckler: I tried CW Little's House of Chicken & Waffles last night. Dunno what to think of that joint. Time to go back to Pho King 3, methinx, where a bowl of pho and a Thai iced coffee is like ten bucks. Sweet!

Life's like an old Tammy Wynette tune

2007-01-20T20:59:00.000-08:00

Or so they say. Anyway, looks like yours truly will get to experience that staple of country and western tunes, namely dee-vorce, pretty soon. I'll spare you (nonexistent) readers the grim details, except to say that, well, it's shitty and it hurts and I need to stop being a nice person and maybe morph into a real prick. Or at least stay out of relationships with bipolar women who can't seem to grasp the basic boundaries of married life.

So I'm about to be single again, and I haven't got a fucking clue.

That's me and the dog. Dunno who he'll end up with. I'll miss him. He's certainly much more of a loyal friend than my soon-to-be-ex-wife ever was.

Pho King A

2007-01-18T20:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah, haven't been on here that much. I stupidly registered for some kind of "Blogger 2" upgrade (stupidly because my password changed and then I couldn't remember it), and then this crazy machine wouldn't let me post anything.

So here it is mid-January, and it looks like I may be joining the ranks of the single very soon (if anyone has a line on a decent roommate situation, i.e. affordable, no serious craziness, no post-fraternity situations, etc.), lemme know. Not that this blog has any kind of track record for people posting here, but there's always that slim chance.

Or if anyone wants to hit, like, Pho King No. 3 or 524 Club No. 2 or even Nationwide Freezer Meets No. 1, I could use the company. I'd rather not go into any kind of stupid details, but things took a weird turn into mushroom territory in the past 48 hours.

Oh, that lovely lady above is my daughter.

OK, I've been slacking

2006-12-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've been totally neglectful of this blog. And for that I am sorry.

Now that Google owns YouTube, however, and now that scores of Eastern European record labels are probably looking to write nasty legal letters as this is written ("We at Warner Music Transylvania are demanding that you cease and desist from posting any content by Zdob si Zdub on Google YouTube or we will send our highly trained intern bats to drain your blood"), I've decided to reconfigure this site to more what I'd originally intended, which is to ramble on about dogs, music, the American River Parkway bike trail, film, pop culture, auto design and a bunch of other stuff.

Happy generic winter solstice holiday, by the way.

She be Borat wife

2006-10-22T14:19:00.000-07:00

Big ups to Deathray Dana for this one. Belinda has a cameo in a commercial for the new Borat movie soundtrack.

Vote Republican or, um, bend over

2006-10-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

And check out Ahnold "Hummer Boy" Schicklgruber toward the end.

Are you skeered yet?

Tolkien weeps

2006-10-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

And it's goofier than Spock's "If I Had a Hammer," too.

He said, she said ...

2006-10-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

You gotta love it.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

2006-10-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

"We track library books better than we track pedophiles." That's a quote from now-former Representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.), talking to John Walsh, the host of one of Two Wheels Good's favorite not-guilty pleasures, "America's Most Wanted." Of course, Foley probably had too much Republican-style hubris to figure out that all those congressional pages, young lads they were, he'd been hitting on wouldn't come back to bite him in his closet-homosexual Republican ass, big time. There is a word for that. It starts with "s," and it rhymes with "cupidity."

Thanks for the unintentional laughs, Foley.

Disco dancing lesson of today

2006-09-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

You will enjoy very. Of this I am much certain. Moskau! Moskau! Helsinki!

Qazaqstani Czechnopop?

2006-09-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Anyway, the closest I could find. This is Ulitau, or Ulitay, and this is such a trainwreck of goofy music styles that you have to see it to grok the absurdity of it. So enjoy already.

There's dogs in it, too.

This not Borat

2006-09-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

More hilarious standup from the real Kazakhstan.

For those of you who have played the Myst games, like Riven, doesn't this guy look like one of the D'ni tribesmen, albeit wearing a western business suit?

Kazakh new age

2006-09-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

Aside from boy bands, the Kazakh record industry appears to be pushing a lot of new age stuff like this. Asylbek Detstvo Balalyk must be Kazakh for "smooth jazz on exotic instruments with skinny necks," and if there's a GRP or Narada type label in Central Asia, no doubt they're pumping junk like this out. The video is interesting, however. Part way through, a Communist Studebaker appears momentarily (not as cool as the pink Chaika in that Bangor vid, though). The storyline is pretty sappy, and the music is pure Yanni-style sonic wallpaper.

Most of the Kazakh music I've found so far is just uninteresting. Neighboring Uzbekistan makes music that's far stranger; maybe having a dictator who boils dissidents in oil keeps musicians on their toes. And even Turkmenistan, with its goofy dictator Sapurmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov and his state-enforced personality cult, is coming up with music that has an acceptable level of weirdness.

That said, dictators suck. Especially our very own Jethro Mussolini.

Florish my Astana

2006-09-21T23:04:00.000-07:00

More Borat fallout. Here is a travelogue that will take eight and a half minutes from your life. It looks like something you might see on closed circuit at the Astana or Almaty Best Western. It looks nothing like the Kazakhstan in Borat (which was filmed in Romania), but like a Sovietized Muslim version of Dallas-Fort Worth. Kazakhstan, The world's nnth largest country. Promising future. Welcome to Kazakhstan.

(Oh, and I've been looking for interesting music vids, but everything I've found looks like Kazakh versions of NSync, the Backstreet Boys or 98 Degrees. It would appear the poor young Kazakhs are getting the worst of the Western swill overspill. If I find anything worth posting, I will.)

Kazakh, "freestyle"

2006-09-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Borat may be pretty funny, but here's a look at what passes for comedy in Kazakhstan. I had a hard time understanding these jokes, though.

New Kid of the Borat Bloc

2006-09-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Just saw Borat - The Movie tonight. It very funny, make fun of life in beautiful Kazakhstan. Here is group from my home country call Bangor after city in Maine, which is Appalachia with lobster. Note big pink car, which is either Chaika limo from Rossiya or 1956 Lincoln, cannot tell. Must consult auto expert Bob the Merlis on this. Music is Jive Record circa 1999.

Enjoy.

The 1970s.

2006-09-18T23:20:00.000-07:00

Can you dig it?

Accordiony i hooterslava?!?

2006-09-18T22:56:00.000-07:00

I can't help myself. Here's more Atomik Harmonik, a Slovenian Eurovision combo that's so relentlessly sunny it makes Mentos jingles sound like old Throbbing Gristle records. You've got your hootskis, your accordions, plus people prancing about in ethnic costumes in Slovenia, which looks like it's probably as pretty a country as Croatia. How can you miss?

Czechnopop fix du jour: Atomik Harmonik

2006-09-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

This Slovenian polka video has it all: cute girls, pee-pee jokes and a rousing beat. It's like a wine cooler ad from the disco era, but with accordions and stuff.

Parker et Barrow

2006-09-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

I can't in good conscience leave that awful press conference of an ill-tempered Dictator Chimpy up top, and this blog has been getting a little carried away with Republicans and Nazis and stuff lately, anyway. So here's a vintage clip of Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg performing their continental smash, "Bonnie & Clyde." Because France is so much cooler than the America we've become.

Jethro Mussolini gets all jinky

2006-09-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Who pissed in El Presidente's Wheaties?

Joe Stalin had that tip dialed

2006-09-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

A bit dry and nerdy, but worth your attention. You wonder why Republicans keep winning elections? Here's part of the answer. That, and "scrubbing" non-Republicans from voter registration rolls, and making sure that affluent white precincts have a surplus of machines, while less-affluent precincts where people of color and college students vote don't have nearly enough machines, along with good, old-fashioned thug-style voter suppression. It's like Josef Stalin is attributed to have said: It's not the votes that count, it's who gets to count the votes. Which adds up to another bullshit situation, and four more years for Jethro Mussolini and his merry band of Robin Hoods in reverse, and fuck you to John and Jane Q. Public.

Party time with the campus Bushjugend?

2006-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

Didja hear the one about Young Republicans having "shoot the lib'ruhl" contests at the University of Michigan? Things are getting pretty squirrelly out there in Wingnutistan. Here's some classic stock footage of what happened the last time this mindset took hold among young people in a country run by a "unitary executive."

Heil, Mickey!

2006-09-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Kudos to AmericaBlog poster Plisko for this fine response to Disney-ABC's GOP propaganda film 'The Path to 9/11.'

Today's Bible lesson

2006-09-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

Are you a pole-smoking fudgepacker or a Say-tanic comedian? You might want to hear what Reverend Phelps, here to disseminate today's Republican talking points, has to say.

So take heed, sinners. You miserable fucks.

That's hot

2006-09-06T05:03:00.000-07:00

That Warner Bros. Records actually signed Paris Hilton and released an album by the slacker socialite is an outright crime, the kind of thing that will get you nominated to the Foisting Hall of Fame the way that, oh, sitting in a lawn chair tethered to a weather balloon, with only a BB gun and a sixpack of Pabst Blue Ribbon will get you a Darwin Award for rocketing up to 10,000 feet above LAX and playing chicken with incoming and outgoing airliners.

But thanks to performance artist and genius prankster Banksy, Hilton's nascent recording "career" had been placed in its proper perspective. And that's hot.

OK, lads, it's "spank the macaca" time!

2006-08-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

A little non-PC objectifying of Fox Sports air talent Leeann Tweeden to a loop from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." If you object to that, comrades, feel free to tell me off. Because I be's diggin' on that.

Sorry about the Elvis tip, but ...

2006-08-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

... who can resist this weird scene, "Edge of Reality," from the 1968 film "Live a Little, Love a Little"? I think I saw this one when it came out, when I was 13 or 14, and I would do really stupid things while on various mind-expanding chemicals ... like go to late-period Elvis movies. (Once, when I was 16 or 17 and I was at home one weekend while mom and dad were off gambling in Tahoe, I tried to self-induce mental retardation by watching an entire weekend-long Elvis movie marathon on Channel 40 under the influence of truckdriver whites and Mickey's Big Mouth malt liquor, but I dunno how well that worked, or if it's relevant to bring up here.)

Anyway, for those of you more used to seeing fat, bloated Elvis, there's always this:

But I prefer Elvis as The King, the cool dude who could vanquish any enemy, get any girl and move any cloud by pointing his finger and intoning, "Move, fucker."

All right, you fuckers

2006-08-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

Listen up. If someone desn't leave me a message, I'm gonna put some hoodoo jinkiness on y'all and compel you to perpetual perpetualness of doing really lame dances from old Elvis movies. So do the mothafuckin' bearded clam ...

Sometimes, you just need to smile

2006-08-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

So watch this already.

Here's the pussyboy who shot that tame bear

2006-08-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Not the main singer, but the other, dark-heared one, Troy Gentry, the one driving the Suburban with the dead buck stupidly strapped to the hood, is the the assclown who paid some guy $4K for Cubby the captive tame bear, so he could shoot it with a bow and arrow on a disingenuous video to show everyone what a manly man he is. Meanwhile, the music video, pictured above, is a catalog of wingnut cliches, the kind of Leni Riefenstahl with weeping pedal steel that pretty much dominates corporate suburb and western programming for the knuckle-draggin' Jeebus set, and this is what country music would sound like if the Nazis had won the Second World War. Which, um, uh, I guess they did, eventually, although it took them until January 20, 2001 to put their new Adolf, or Jethro Mussolini, or George Dubya What the Fuck into the catbird seat. Anyway, this is what Nazi country music sounds like. Enjoy. Or, should I say, sieg heil, and pick you out an eat-shit bass line?

Caption this, Einstein ...

2006-08-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

I think that if we ever dump the American flag because of Bush regime damage, we should adopt a groovy new flag design that adapts to clown suits ... like, um, Croatia's! As this rather ripped soccer fan video demonstrates, it would make for surreal escapades to other countries. Where's the FIFA World Cup in 2010, and how man bozos can we fit on the bus?

To all my Dalmatian coast wiggas

2006-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

Hrvatski hip-hop. I think Snoop Dog should learn a Slavic language. Sorry this place has been the home of dead blogs lately, but I have been really uninspired lately. Anyone got any suggestions as to how a wigga might get some inspiration?

The Belarussian Celine does an antiwar video?

2006-08-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

The music is pretty schmaltzy, but the visuals are nicely artsy. The singer is Polina Smolova, from the "democracy" (Bushist-Roviet definition) of Belarus.

The kids just wanna dance

2006-08-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

I could write reams of shit about the latest red noise from journo-Stalinists in the Roviet media, but at the end of the day, what does it all mean? Sieg heil, mister funny little chimpanzee? Instead, check out these kids at a disco in the "democracy" (as the chimp would call it) of Belarus.

Bulgarian disco singers are homina homina

2006-08-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

At least Desi Slava is. Here's her new single. (And it isn't the dude you see pictured, and I'm begging for some comments here, reader.)

It's just a barrel of laughs with this bunch

2006-08-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

Yep. The Middle East is going up in flames and global warming is accelerating and most of us non-billionaires are really starting to feel the squeeze. Meanwhile, Pretzeldent A-Dubya-O-L is having a jolly good time. Jeez, what a colossal pendejo.

And dig where our illustrious Decider In Chief namechecks a certain ABC News veteran. As a New York Times succinctly put it, "Never-was calls Donaldson Has-been."

Woof. Woof woof woof: Dispatch one.

2006-07-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

As a public service to Two Wheels Good readers, here are a couple of canine-related entries to the contemporary lexicon.

Dog's breakfast: You hear this occasionally, especially from Brits. "He's made a right dog's breakfast of that one." Now, if you have a pooch in the house, chances are you understand the meaning of "four-legged garbage disposal." The furry buggers will eat pretty much anything remotely edible, along with used tampons and a few other sundry items. And if you are a cook with a penchant for experimenting, and occasionally you fail, and when you fail you have a certain Fido or Rover (or Samir Nayeenanajar Jr., in this case) underfoot, you can appreciate the economy of serving that failed cooking experiment to the furry little (or not-so-little) garbage disposal who's wagging his tail conveniently next to where you stand. Ergo, dog's breakfast: Something you just fucked up beyond all recognition, and would like to dispose of, quickly.

Dog in a manger: Imagine Fido, or Samir, sitting in the barn. He's not hungry, but he won't let the cattle or other livestock get at their food, just because he can. "Grrrr. I don't want this stuff I'm guarding, but you can't have it either." Or something like that.

And my apologies for foisting the Audi commercial above, but it's one of the coolest pooch-related adverts I've seen.

All hail our great and glorious leader!

2006-07-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

I must admit, I had been on the proverbial fence regarding our great and glorious leader. It had seemed that the Decider In Chief was becoming less than decisive in the wake of seditious criticisms coming from the far-lefty-left conspiracist macadamias in the media, that fifth column of treasonous running-dog lackeys of the booboisie at infotainment outlets not named Fox News. But lately, as this clip most amply demonstrates, El Presidente de la Guerra has got his 'nads back, so to speak. What decisiveness! What forthright courage! What leadership in the face of impudent liberalism!

Gott mit uns! Hail victory!

Good more czechnopop Bulgariya from?

2006-07-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

This have Mr. Dzhakson very confused. Is bearded lady making rubrub with strange peoples while dog barking, or do Mr. Dzhakson suffer from Substance D overdose from Philip K. Dick movie matinee?

Is good disco, no? Is not Ms. Desi Slava hotness like Pamela Anderson minus Tommy Lee and Kid Rock jism skanky?

More Transylvania transgender confuse. Is like Romany grandmother Olga say: Keeping garlic and crucifix and bullet of silver handy, because vampire could be next piece of ass you never know, and too much sucking not good when blood all vanish? Czechnop delight, all, hope you humble and gentle viewer are enjoy. I spank monkey now. You too maybe.

Sucez sur ceci, Froggy!

2006-07-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

Les visions des lucettes vous font-elles fôlatrer un pénis droit? Musique populaire doucement le balancement de la France vous fait-il fôlatrer un pénis droit également? Et est-ce que les images de jeunes filles françaises douces suçant sur des choses vous font fôlatrer un pénis droit aussi? Alors vous devez observer ceci maintenant.

"Too much rumpy-pumpy"

2006-07-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

A recent gossip item in the London Mirror opined that just-married actress Nicole Kidman, who showed up with some bruises on her thighs at a party, was the recipient of "too much rumpy-pumpy" from her new hubby, Australian suburb 'n' western crooner Keith Urban, on their honeymoon. Apparently, "rumpy-pumpy" is Limey slang for straight-up hetero banging. Dunno about that in this case; Urban always seemed a bit, well, kind of a three-letter word often modified by phrases such as "... as a tree full of parrots," so perhaps rear entry is the portal he's most familiar with, as in woof-woof style. Or maybe I'm confusing Urban with Kenny Chesney? Aah, all that modern crapola that passes for "country music" these days is pretty darn, um, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, if you ask me.

Anyway, here we have the former Public Broadcasting System kiddie-show host Melanie Martinez, who apparently lost her gig once the fundamentalist Gooper nitwits now running that network found about this particular public-service announcement and a few other, similar ones that Ms. Martinez had made for a spoof website, TechnicalVirgin.com. Lesson learned: You can't employ humor or irony in a society run by Torquemadist retards.

Gotta hand it to the Brazilians, though, for this spoof on how best to butter up those hot buns before breakfast.

Czechnopop vid of the day

2006-07-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

It's our pals Colonia with "Megamix." Dunno if this, ahem, rather clumsily edited video qualifies as a bona-fide megamix, or if "minor league trainwreck" isn't a more appropriate sobriquet. But it does exude a certain Dalmatian charm.

Fuggit

2006-07-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not putting up any more czechnopop videos until somebody drops me a line and lets me know they're reading this shit.

Take that, Insanity & Comatose!

2006-07-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Militaristic czechnopop from Bulgaria. The artist is Gergana.

And here we have some "live" Gergana. Very nice Balkan Hooters aesthetic.

And here's the "sad" Gergana. As the Firesign Theatre' character Peorgie Tirebiter's buddy Mudhead used to say, "she's got a balcony you could do Shakespeare from."

Oh. Yeah. Cool male voiceover, in Ingleesky, too. And what's the Bulgarian word for "headlights"?

It's the Doublemint twins, Gergana and Amelia.

Da, I confess that I am marginally obsessed with Balkan pop stars of the feminine, tight jeans and bustin' out of blouses variety. So sue me already.

Meet the parallel universe Beatles

2006-07-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

No, these guys aren't from Upper Slobovia, or Blingblingistan. This is NRBQ, from a 1989 television appearance. For a long time, this was my favorite band, an amazing live act that added the forward rush and free interplay of modern jazz to a framework of Beatle-esque pop and Cash-style country. Dig Big Al Anderson's funky Telecaster riffs, and Terry Adams' unhinged Jerry Lee Lewis meets Andrew Hill piano playing, and Joey Spampinato's melodic bass McCartneyisms and, most of all, Tom Ardolino's sublimely loose but on the money drumming. Sweet!

Cooler than 'Harum Scarum'

2006-07-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

What's not to love? Hot chicks, Ottoman czechnopop, and costumes straight out of 'Harum Scarum.' As a certain dead Memphian might utter when the medicine wore off: "Holy moly, mama. Open sesame. Little Elvis is fixing to dance, and he wants some o' that jellyroll ..."

(Thanks to my pal Anthee for this hellacious vid from Hellas.)

How to sell Korean GM cars in Uzbekistan

2006-07-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

The new Daewoo Matiz. Or, as they say in Tashkent, "tsivilizatsiya nastupayet."

Nasty payment for "civilization," i.e., the joke's on you?

Czambiry ob Kommerczialichesnaya!

2006-07-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Enjoy, or we boil you in oil!

Closer to home: Hrvatska, destination of my next real vacation.

Dinosaur Jr. goes to Estonia?

2006-07-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a band from Eesti that's got that wimpy Amerindie sound down pretty pat. Not sure if the George Will glasses and bowtie are "ironic," or unintentionally sincere, but there's a gory subtext that's downright American neoconservative in its sexual frustration metastatizing into a sanguine denouement.

And, oh: The band is Ursula; that song is named "Heiki."

Here's Ursula with "Tiffer," a more straightforward effort (if post-commie ska can be called "a more straightforward effort").

All hail Serdar Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great! (Part 2)

2006-07-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here's some choice psychedelic political propaganda, from our friends in the Central Asian democracy of Turkmenistan, whose affairs are decided by the decidership of the great and glorious unitary executive Turkmenbashi. You will enjoy, and imagine that if the Republican Party in the United States continues to foist a cult of personality based around the current American Decider In Chief, it needs to step up its game considerably. Karl Rove should watch this, as should Ken Mehlman and others in the Public Relations communitariat.

Instructive lessons can be found. Replace the post-Ottoman pop with the finest creations of Nashville, with added mind-roasting guitar from Ted Nugent, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and other unitary executive-friendly "rock" guitarists. Also: Boost the eye-catching psychedelic components; if references are required outside of viewing this Turkmenbashi video, ingestion of Amanita muscaria in a controlled setting, such as a golf course, is recommended for Mr. Rove and Mehlman by four out of five Herr Doktor Frists.

This new Bush Our Glorious Unitary Supreme campaign can be aired on all networks as public affairs programming free of charge, but should be tested in front of an audience whose allegiance is already unquestioned, or in less opaque language, it should be rolled out on Fox News every half hour, to document how well the lemmings are edified. This will work. Trust I and I on this.

All hail Serdar Saparmurat Bushmenbashi the Great!

Hummers suck, no pun intended

2006-07-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

This video's a few years old, but it drives home an important point: If you want to go four-wheeling, buy a real off-road vehicle instead of one of Governor Arnold's Assclownmobiles. Get a Jeep.

Conservatism = mental illness

2006-07-21T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, the dangers of mixing neocon politics, alcohol consumption, insouciant stupidity and a video camera. Here we have Polyethylene Pam of the retrograde blog Atlas Buggered, yammering about the current dog's breakfast in the Middle East. Pammy's apparently chubby bait to a certain corner of the wingnutigensia, but then other bloggers, like James Wolcott and TBogg, have a good time at her expense, which is kind of like beating an amputee at hopscotch. And then, surprisingly, certain bellwether starboard-tilting bloggers like Dirk Belligerent either had the good sense to leave Pammy's blog off their hit parade, or else they haven't yet dialed into her half-in-the-bag LawnGuyland Jay-Ay-Pee charms, which might be considerable if you haven't gotten laid in six months or jacked off, and you're pretty drunk and you just did a couple of bumps of biker crank and popped a Viagra for good measure. But that, of course, would be logic-free poontang, if there is such a thing. Anyway, apparently conservatism does equal mental illness, at least in this case.

烟在水 !!!

2006-07-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

我认为这是我的新喜爱的带。

轻的保险丝, 离开。抽烟在水在后院露台由兄弟、兄弟、兄弟、兄弟eyecatcher 和娱乐。享用象二只鸭子喧闹的该死的混蛋在油煎的米陪同用黑豆调味汁。愉快愉快。我们现在毁坏您愚笨的美国人以便宜的汽车、feng 水和凶手potsticker 用致死的辣椒烧您箱子短小三天未来。

Light fuse, get away. Smoke on Water at backyard patio by brother, brother, brother, brother eyecatcher and entertainment. Enjoy like two duck noisy fucking in fried rice accompaniment with black bean sauce. Happy happy. We destroy you stupid American now with cheap car, feng shui and killer potsticker with lethal hot pepper that burn you box short three days future.

Love, Albanian style

2006-07-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Sez who that the formerly Enver Hoxha-run Stalinist paradise known as Shqiperia doesn't know pop music from Shinola? As Albanian pop goddess Lori proves here, Tirana can compete with czechnopop emanating from any other former Soviet republic, client state or oblast, and Albanian skanky-chick eye makeup is second to none.

Meanwhile, fellow Shqiperians Sabian ft. Caty demonstrate the latest Albanian disco-hippie styles, circa 1978 Los Angeles. You will experience joy when viewing these videos, or you will please report to socialist re-education camp promptly.

Foxaganda shows you how to stomp them grapes

2006-07-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

You've gotta love those perky newscasters. This looks like something our retarded Foxaganda affiliate in Sacramento (KTXL 40) might come up with, but this particular short-bus segment aired on the Foxaganda affiliate in Atlanta. Ow! Ow! Ow! Not sure if this intrepid reporter ended up in a wheelchair, but check out her room-temperature IQ compatriots on the set of "G'Mornin' Atlanta! How Would Yew Lahk Yer Pig Cooked!," especially the male co-host. What an abject moron.

(And don't be alarmed; there's more great czechno to come soon, you one or two people who read Two Wheels Good.)

If I were a rich man ...

2006-07-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

必要な説明無し。( No explanation necessary.)

R.I.P. Erik Kleven, great bass player

2006-07-16T12:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry this isn't about another Eastern Euro pop video.

Erik Kleven, a guy who was pretty much a local legend, a musician par excellence and a friendly, positive influence on the music scene here in Sacramento, died yesterday in a head-on collision that killed three other people. He was driving up Highway 16, what we locals call the Jackson Highway, through Rancho Murieta in his 1964 Volvo Amazon, most likely headed to a gig in Sutter Creek or Jackson. In the awful photo in our local daily, you can see his bass amp sitting on the pavement next to the trunk of his crushed car.

The last time I saw Erik play, he was providing the low end in Tony Passarell's free jazz ensemble at Old Ironsides, sitting there blowing through a wraparound Sousaphone tuba while saxophones squealed and squawked around him. He played with everybody, and was the most reliable provider of low-end sonics in the region. But I probably saw him appear the most times as the bass player in Anton Barbeau's old band, the Joy Boys.

I was at Anton's show at the Fox and Goose last night when the news hit. Former Joy Boy Creed Maggiora was playing drums, which made me remember Erik and Joy Boys guitarist Don Hawkins, who weren't there. Then Allyson and Kevin Seconds, who were playing in their band Ghetto Moments a block over at Old Ironsides, popped in to pass on what they'd heard, and because I was in the back booth next to the door, I guess I was one of the first in that club to hear about Erik's demise. Which is weird, because you're looking toward the stage and seeing people on it, and seeing people in the crowd, who are having a really good time, and you know that, in a matter of minutes, they will hear the same news you just heard, and they will feel that same wave of awfulness and sadness and incredulous sense of "What the fuck?" that you're experiencing at the moment.

Erik was the kind of quiet but ubiquitous presence who touched a lot of people in life, played a lot of great music, and is touching them now in death. I'm sorry if I'm getting all Sammy Maudlin here, but that's the way it is. R.I.P., Erik.

How's that for a kick in the face?

2006-07-16T03:04:00.000-07:00

Too bad guests on those shout shows on Foxaganda News and MSRNC and the Conservative Nitwit Network don't respond to their interviewers the way this guy on a Serbian broadcast did to his interviewer. It would make for Sunday morning shows that are a whole lot more entertaining.

Tweety Matthews: "Well, why aren't you sucking presidential knob like the rest of us?"

Interviewee: "Hi. My name is Crispan Glover ..." [kick!]

I'd watch, just to see Tim Russert or Tucker Carlson get the business end of a Bruno Magli.

Cookie Monster goes to Anatolia

2006-07-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

Proof positive that cookie-monster vocals sound exactly the same while barked in Turkish as they do in, oh, English, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian ...

Tha band is called "Hope Survive." My guess is the song title is something like "Woof. Woof woof woof. Woof woof."

Colonia is bustin' out all over!

2006-07-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

It's Colonia, of "Hey Sexy Body" and "Tvojoj ne Streni Ngognog Ngogn" fame, with an out front video that turns melancholy into melons, and if you're as sick of my crappy puns as I am, you'll join me in traveling to Zagreb to investigate matters further. Perhaps we could all charter a plane, me and the one or two inebriated readers who stumbled into this place and can't figure out how to navigate away. The singer in Colonia here looks pretty zaftig, rather than cartoonish as she did in "Tvojoj ne Streni Axolotl Furshligginer Farshimeltiy," or Jazzercize-buff as she did in "Hey Sexy Body I Want Jump You Right Now and Ride You Like Bicycle to Dubrovnik." Nuthin' wrong with Reubenesque, mind you. Anyway, I like the "chart" they show in the vidclip:

VIP DJ Top Lista Sucka: 1) Robbie Williams. 2) Pussycat Dolls. 3) Coldplay. 4) Rolling Stones. 5) Colonia.

The comments at YouTube are pretty funny, too, when assembled into a narrative: "would ya?" "Why not :) Im not that picky!" "would i what???" "tko je ovo stavia...ajme meni...POLJUBIT CHEM GA ODMA :))" "o je hudba nie ako tie kokotiny americke!" "not bad for a Croatian." Not sure if I'd want to tko je ovo stavia her, or perform ajme meni, or even get down and poljubit chem ga odma, especially if my kokotiny americke isn't up to the task. But if I were still a drinkin' man, I probably might have woken up next to her at some point. Or maybe not.

The name of that song is "Najbolje Od Svega," in case you wondering. And in case you prefer Colonia's cartoon videos, here's a treat: "Svijet Voli Pobjednike."

You will enjoy.

Ah, those Moskva women ...

2006-07-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

Dunno if chanteuse Valeria is Russian or Latvian, but from the context of this far northern Olivia Newton-John's song "Riga-Moskva," I'm guessing she's a Muscovite who fell in love with a Latvian, but it didn't work out and so she came up with this wistful song. I think her next hit should be "Sacramento-Moskva."

More of the great Zdob si Zdub

2006-07-13T23:28:00.000-07:00

That one's called "Cucusor (The Cuckoo)." In the words of Ron Popeil: "But wait! There's more!"

That one's called "Nunta Extremala (Extreme Wedding)." Cue the Popeil quote again ...

...and that one's called "Everybody in the Casa Mare."

I really like this Moldovan band Zdob si Zdub, because they remind me of this band called Cake, from right here in Sacramento. Apparently the Dobbs have been around for a decade, and they have a pretty deep catalog, which I'm gonna try to track down.

All your czechno band are belong to us

2006-07-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

In A.D. 2101. War was beginning. What happen? Somebody set up us the bomb. We get signal. What! Main screen turn on. It's You!! How are you gentlemen!! All your czechno band are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction. What you say!! You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha …. Take off every "zig"!!! You know what you doing. Move "zig". For great justice.

It's our pals Colonia, of "Hey Sexy Body" fame, performing their smash Balkan hit "Na Tvojoj Strani Postelje." Paging Elroy and Judy Jetson, white courtesy telephone in the lobby of the Zagreb Hilton ...

I dreenk wotka. Den I womit like crazy

2006-07-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

Some orthodox Jewish guys somewhere behind the old Iron Curtain talk a half-wit Russian kid into guzzling copious amounts of vodka, then laugh at him when he drinks it in reverse all over the ground and on himself. Rated "TD" for totally disgusting.

Why aren't our talk shows like this?

2006-07-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

A talk-show host is interviewing what look to be survivors of some kind of calamity in front of a studio audience. When one of the victims starts recounting his experiences in a voice more suitable for a Sesame Street character than an actual human being, the host starts losing it. Subtitled, for non-Hrvatski speakers like you and me.

Monty Python enthusisats should enjoy this.

Lou Pearlman in Turkmenistan

2006-07-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

You knew it had to come to this. Even former Soviet Central Asian Republics aren't immune to the boy-band virus. Even if it takes root a few years after it burned out in the West.

Mushrooms in the news

2006-07-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

Researchers are rediscovering the significance of a roll in the hey hey hey with our old friend Amanita muscaria. What better way to enhance a shroom buzz than the shifting fabrics of this quite psychedelic example of Central Asian post-Communist propaganda? All hail Serdar Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great!

None dare call it Silverlake

2006-07-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Aside from the language, these Hrvatskis could be the next Ednaswap. They look like something some bad television casting director might cob together from drama departments around L.A., and the haphazard mix of styles and visual abominations say Silverlake hipster washout wih much elan. The band is Psihomodo Pop. Dunno if they're the bee's knees in downtown Zagreb, though.

Hrvatski Idol, anyone?

2006-07-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

(On edit: The short-bus window lickers at the GOP Agitprop Agency, oops, I meant to say TASS, erm, Falafel Media, uh, um, Foxaganda, have disabled embedding, so bloggers like me can't make fun of their crappy programming. But you, dear reader, can circumvent this awful turn of events by clicking outside of the little "play" circle, which will take you directly to the video as it appears at YouTube.com.)

Yeppers, our Hrvatski friends have been sold the same bill of rotting donkey bollocks that we Americans have had shoveled on us by the foistmasters at Fox. Poor them. Poor us. There's no indication that the Croatians have their own version of our judges, though: Do they have an acerbic but essentially stupid Hungarian, an OxyContin-thwacked cheerleader turned disco dolly and a dense bass player (how do you say "What up dawg" in Srbo-Hrvatski, anyway?) to make contestants' lives miserable? Word has it that the Fox organization in Zagreb is still too busy searching for the Hrvatski equivalent to the words "loofah," "falafel" and "Yoo hoo Mr Bush, teabag me next, please!" to find the right combination of venal evil and profound incompetence to give Cowell, Abdul and Jackson a run for their money in the Balkans.

Ouch.

Ouch ouch.

Why can't the people coaching these clowns steer them toward some of Elvis' cooler tunes? You know, the hits: "Rock-a-Hula Baby," "(There's) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car," "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce," "Queenie Wahine's Papaya," "Do the Clam" ... even "We're Coming in Loaded" would be an improvement over these threadbare stinkers.

"Sexy Cool" OK, I'll buy that. Croatian women are tha bomb.

"Moj Broj," which means ... um ... erm ... screw it. I went to the well, but the jokes just were not there. But Lidija Bacic makes me reasonably conscious of my heterosexuality, so all in all it's a square deal.

If anyone stumbles across Kamchatka Idol, please don't tell me, OK?

I have no idea what this is. Please help.

2006-07-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure this is from Uzbekistan, probably from somewhere around Samarkand. It starts with some passionate drumming with three guys, one of which is either Jim Carrey, Will Farrell and Chris Cattan, or Russians who look like them (I don't as a rule watch anything with Carrey in it, so I wouldn't know) doing an update of Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin's old "wild and crazy guy" shtick in some bar, then it shifts to a variety show with a bunch of televisions onstage, then there's a fat woman dancing and some people who look like extras in a high-school production where they combined The King and I and Scheherezade to save a few rubles, plus shots of a little kid breakdancing. Then the action shifts to a woman singer who's probably big news in Tashkent or Almaty, who is singing a song that is spelled "Aziz" but sounds like "A Jeb Uh Jeb," and she's backed by one of the weirder sounding orchestras I've heard in a while and I've taken mushrooms and listened to some pretty offbeat stuff in my time; symphonies of kiddie bicycle horns, kazoos and various Rube Goldberg instruments involving kitchen spoons and rubber bands always make me feel slightly scribbled, dunno about you. This segment reminds me of an old Robert Crumb Weirdo comic about a guy named Etaoin Shrdlu who gets pulled into his TV set to dance with some voluptuous and exotic babe he found and got aroused by on a UHF channel late one night.

As a comment at YouTube where I found this put it: "Xaxa! Tak klassno v nachale tri komika tancuyut pod horezomskuyu (esli ne oshibayus) pesnyu tancuyut! I sama pesnya i ritm zastavlyaet golovoy shevelit kak v nachale troe tancuyut! Xaxa! Ne poverish,no ya toje vmeste s nimi plyasala!:))) Jalko tol'ko pesnya korotkaya prishlos povtoryat neskolko raz i tancevat poka ne nadoelo!:)))" Ahem. I really can't add to that, so I won't even try.

Thugz get the girl, even in Turkmenistan

2006-07-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

Proof posi that it doesn't pay to be a square bear when there's girls involved, even in the dictatorship of far-off Turkmenistan on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. Note how our well-scrubbed romantic ballad singer makes a strong case for connubial bliss in a choice concrete Soviet-era apartment complex, but when Mr. Cool rolls up in his Bimmer and represents like 50 Kopek with the hand gestures and thug veneer, all bets are off. Plus he probably has better drugs, but that's kind of hard to ascertain from the narrative, and my Turkmen is a little rusty these days so I coundn't tell if he was "rapping" about an 8-ball or dining-room furniture.

Polish hip-hop: No joke, please

2006-07-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

Here's some party-down Polska hop to get that throwdown started. I'd figured the Poles were pretty much locked into prog, as years ago a friend in San Francisco had this roommate named Krzysztof or something like that, it was pronounced more like "Sheestoff," and he and his pals would get all messed up and play this album where on the last song everybody's supposed to light matches and then blow them out one by one, until one poor guy who's already knocked back way too many cold brews and, ahem, Polish dogs in the bleachers at the old 'Stick attempts valiantly to keep his match lit without a) setting fire to himself, or b) pissing his pants. Guess you had to be there. Anyway, good to see that Poland's gone all Def Jam on us.

Now that's what I call czechno!

2006-07-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

What is a "dragslut pepper"? This low-budget vid for "Buble Gum Boy" by Lollobrigide has all the correct czechno ingredients. Cheesy Soft Cell keyboards? Czech! Wanky animation? Czech! Hilariously incoherent lyrics? Czech! You may ask me why I think these goofy records could be big in the West. I can't tell you. All I can say is that when Depeche Mode does it, it's the work of ham-fisted beatweenies, but when someone with a Boris Badenov accent does it, it's High Art. Czechno, by the way, in case you're too lazy to scroll down to read, is synth pop and techno dance music of eastern European origin. (And credit Countess Christsmasher of the Canadian duo Procon for that brilliant piece of nomenklatura, not me.)

Why aren't car commercials like this over here?

2006-07-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

Part one ...

... and part two.

Dunno if you ever wanted a car that looks like what might happen if a Nash Ambassador impregnated a Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia, but I would love to get my hands one one of these rear-engined Czechoslovakian babies, especially if it handles as well as it does here. Dig the cool jazz soundtrack, too, and the overall Avengers vibe. I want my circa-1962 Tatra 603, now! And you?