The Decline

Don't think (Stay)
Drink your wine (Home)
Watch the fire burn (Be)
His problems not mine (Safe)
Just be that model citizen

When giving in is so damn comforting

And so we go, on with our lives
We know the truth, but prefer lies
Lies are simple, simple is bliss
Why go against tradition when we can
Admit defeat, live in decline
Be the victim of our own design
The status quo, built on suspect
Why would anyone stick out their neck?

Fellow members
Club "We've Got Ours"
I'd like to introduce you to our host
He's got his, and I've got mine
Meet the decline

Toonage:

NOFX - The Decline (Live 3-3-2006 Worcester Mass)

Holiday Haiku's... not

To celebrate the end of the year, here are some Haiku's. I hope they make you feel very warm and fuzzy. Or something.

Next Stop Rehab

A lesson I've learned

No matter how much I drink

They keep making more

Too Dumb To Die, Too Old To Rock N Roll

I wear my punk shit

And pummel my bass guitar

Let's laugh at grampa

It Ain't Pretty

Look in the mirror

What the hell happened to me

Time to get wasted

Mop needed in room 219

The guns in my mouth

Last thought as I pull trigger

Who will clean the mess

A lesson from our elders

Hank Williams, James Dean

Had the good sense to die young

Mick Jagger? Not so much

And... have you downloaded the covers collection yet? It's right below this post.

Covers & Kovers

Hey cats and kittens, I put together a kickin' komp of kool kover versions of klassic krazy toons. All for you!

Featuring covers of songs by The Clash, The Byrds, Sam Cooke, Mc5, The Grateful Dead, Cheap Trick, Pink Floyd, NOFX, The Cure and lots more. AND NOTHING RELATED TO ANY DECEMBER HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!

You'll have to download the file to get the full 411 - but what's life without a little mystery?

DOWNLOAD ME!

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

The Nomad's don't grok firearms. Nazz Junior wants an air gun for the holidays. I said "no". He asked why and I told him because he would shoot his eye out. Yep- really happened, just like the movie!




In other news... DON'T ASK DON'T TELL has been repealed!!!!! I support the right of anyone to volunteer to serve in the armed forces. Especially if it is not me! Gay soldier's can shoot just as straight as hetero's. Though I would prefer that there were no reasons to have an army in the first place!

Lastly, holy shit is Grinderman 2 awesome!

Frank Turner - Rock & Roll

When was the last time you really got knocked on your ass by a new album? Frank Turner's Rock & Roll did it for me.
Five folk-punk songs all about the joys and pains of our lifeblood.

Think Billy Bragg or Ted Leo. It's not busking, but Turner's voice is out in front of (mostly) acoustic guitar, piano and drums.

Turner leads his band in sparsely instrumentalized odes to what keeps many of us alive. In the call to arms opener "I Still Believe" - he sings "Who would've thought that something as simple as rock n roll would have saved us all".

Poignantly, "To Absent Friends" is reminicent of The Clash's "Jail Guitar Doors" and Stiff Little Fingers' "Wait And See". "Rock And Roll Romance" is a ballad about the only kind of romance you find- failed. A great companion piece to Loudon Wainwright III's "Motel Blues".

The other two songs "Pass It Along" and "The Next Round" are equally marvelous.

Fucking breathtaking.



Buy it here 
or here

F-f-f-f-f-f-f-rozen

I had to take a business trip last week, which included flying into Minnesota in sub zero weather on a small little "puddle-jumper" plane (while Otis Redding and Buddy Holly flashed through my mind) and then driving 150 miles in a snowstorm. At night. With no lights on the highway. And the snow flying right into our windshield, making the experience much like traveling into hyperspace.

The driving experience for several hours was very much like this:

as cars were crashed on the highway embankments.

The trip was up to Duluth Minnesota; original home of Bobby Dylan. I had plans to in Minneapolis and do The Replacements/Husker Du "heritage tour", but I was so freaked out by the time I got back to the Twin Cities that all I could do was sit at the bar at the hotel and down copious amounts of Leinenkugel beer. Mmmm beer.

Why anyone would choose to live in such a frigid climate is far beyond my understanding. Here in New York today, it's a balmy 20 degrees. Aaaaaahhhhhh.

Toonage:

The Choir - "It's Cold Outside"
Husker Du - "Ice Cold Ice"
Bob Dylan - "Shelter From The Storm" (bootleg version)
Replacements- "Bundle Up"

Nothing's Changed In 70 Years

"I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

December 8, 1980

30 years ago today, John Lennon was senselessly murdered. Murdered. Murdered!

My stomach still churns when I think about it.

The previous generation had John F. Kennedy's assassination. We had John Lennon being murdered. Senseless. Disgusting. Appalling. Nauseating. How can something like that have happened?

Black To Comm

 

Here's your morning wake up call. Ugly, ugly people gonna drop the bomb!  
Play loud and watch the cattle die.

My Mambo In Law

My mom in law is awesome. Everyone should have one just like her. She's the kind of person who leaves money in our house for us to find and takes a train for an hour just to bring us soup when we're not feeling well. She's also Brazilian and a bit wacky (in a good way!). Anyway- she was looking to buy some mambo and meringe music and I said I would hook her up. She especially wanted some Tito Puente stuff so I took care of it and now I have been listening to Tito Puente all week! And loving it. So, I am offering up some Tito Puente here.

Enjoy it and mambo and samba yer arses off!!!!!!!! 
(Click here for Tito Puente: King Of Kings)