Nov
Posted on 13th November 2007
Shockwaves rippled through the scientific community and also through most of my apartment today when I read a story on the Internet about a hammerhead shark in Omaha, Nebraska that had experienced a “virgin birth,” which is to say that it totally gave birth to a baby hammerhead shark without ever having been banged before. This news has come as a really big surprise to both shark experts and also everyone at the shark aquarium where the virgin shark birth took place because up until this point they had all been under the impression that a shark birth simply could not happen without there having been at least a little bit of shark banging going on beforehand. Also, up until this point pretty much everyone had assumed that the hammerhead shark in question was a total ho, what with her coquettish grin, the swishy way she swam around her tank, and her complete lack of effort in keeping her crazy shark vagina from public view and all. As is often the case with rumors, however, this one turned out to totally not be true. In fact, upon further investigation, it became clear that the hammerhead shark in question had never even been fingered before.
If you are as shocked by all of this as I am, I completely understand. Until now, I had generally spent little to no time each day thinking about hammerhead sharks and/or hammerhead shark vaginas. As of this writing, however, it is pretty much impossible for me to not think about hammerhead sharks and/or hammerhead shark vaginas most of the time. And as it turns out, I am not alone on this. Scientists from all over the world have been studying the case of the virgin shark birth around the clock and have come to the conclusion that the female hammerhead shark of Omaha gave birth to the baby hammerhead shark through a process known in medical circles as parthenogenesis, which is a Greek word that apparently means “hammerhead shark birth in the absence of hammerhead shark banging, especially when the hammerhead shark in question is totally not a ho even though everyone used to think that but whatever.” Greek is a seriously efficient language.
Anyway, it took a while for the scientists to decide that the hammerhead shark of Omaha did in fact experience a virgin birth since they discovered through their research that female hammerhead sharks in general often keep hammerhead shark sperm in their hammerhead shark vaginas for months at a time. This, of course, only goes to confirm what many of us knew from the beginning- female hammerhead sharks can be real skanks sometimes.
In an unexpected twist in the case of the virgin shark birth of Omaha, the baby hammerhead shark that was born during all of this actually ended up getting killed by a stingray within hours of swimming out of its mother’s weird shark vagina. This is really sad news but also kind of happy at the same time because- between the virgin birth and the dying young and all- it is hard not to think of the baby Jesus when thinking of the baby hammerhead shark. Anyway, all of this just goes to show you that it was pretty much anything goes in that crazy shark aquarium in Omaha. How that hammerhead shark managed to not end up turning into a total ho in that environment I will never know.
Nov
Posted on 13th November 2007
Here is something nice- I am in New York Magazine this week as part of the “Twenty (Intentionally) Funniest Web Videos of 2007” list. I clock in at the #5 position (though I don’t think the list is in any particular order). I even made a special video just for New York Magazine. You can see all of this stuff here or- if you’re like me- you could go out and buy twelve copies of the magazine (but you can only see the video on the Internet). Anyway, it is exciting to be in the same issue as Brooke Astor. Now there was a lady! Too bad she had to go out like that, but still.
Nov
Posted on 12th November 2007
Speaking of Fleetwood Mac (mentioned a couple posts ago), here is a video of my friend Lucy Wainwright Roche performing her version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere” when she opened up for her brother Rufus at the Gramercy Theater a few months back. And speaking of Lucy, I am doing a show with her and some fun friends at Joe’s Pub on December 16. The full scoop is here. You should totally come. It’s gonna be a scorcher x50.
As hinted in Lucy’s name, her mother is in the Roches, one of the greatest bands ever. Normally the idea of three women singing harmony over acoustic guitars might send me running in the other direction, but the Roches are total badasses. It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were a brand new group today. They kick the crap out of most new music today. To see what I’m talking about, watch the video above of them playing “The Hammond Song” in 1983.
And speaking of the Roches, one of the biggest Roches fans I know is my friend Tig Notaro, whom you might know as Officer Tig from the popular Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central. Here is a fun video of Tig and Steve Agee talking about the program and whatnot. I saw it a while ago but I am just getting around to posting it now because of my on-the-go lifestyle and stuff. Anyway, check that shit out.
Nov
Posted on 12th November 2007
It’s Sunday night here in the Big City and I have been practicing life avoidance for the past couple hours, which is to say that I have pretty much been dicking around the apartment, thinking about doing stuff of great importance but then not really doing anything at all other than eating ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby) and drifting in and out of sleep. Maybe I am not so much avoiding life as I am relaxing, which isn’t so wrong I guess. It’s just that I am trying to take over the world and all so this is kind of getting in the way of that, dammit.
Anyway, this weekend was full of a reasonable amount of excitement despite the rain and other signs of the apocalypse. On Sunday night, Children of the Unicorn played at the Blender Theatre at Gramercy (or whatever it’s called) along with Super 400, the Young Lords, and Rose Hill Drive. That is totally a picture of me rocking out during the show above (photo by Anya Garrett). I am playing my new maple Firebird the fine folks at Gibson hooked me up with. I totally love that guitar. I get excited just looking at it. I hope you do too.
The rock show on Friday was pretty fun, despite it being a for-the-most-part sparsely attended sausage party. I had to split soon after we played so I didn’t get to see any of the other bands besides Super 400, who are a Dave- approved rocking power trio that doesn’t shy away from lots of guitar and bass solos and stuff. You should totally go see them.
Yesterday, I officiated a wedding for the first time in my life. I was kind of nervous about it since I am not licensed or really qualified in any way to do such a thing, but I’m told it went pretty well and- even better- nobody pelted me with tomatoes or anything at any point in the day. The wedding was out in Brooklyn and was tons of fun (as you could probably gather since, you know, I was the minister and all). I promised myself I wasn’t going to drink anything until after the ceremony but once I got there the groom offered me a drink and I accepted it without hesitation. I think it helped me get in the zone a little bit as far as being a minister and stuff goes though. It’s not easy being a minister, you know.
In other news, above is a video by Bathory, the great Swedish viking metal band. This video pretty much has everything a music video should have- vikings, fire, guys on horseback, guys in hooded robes wandering around in the woods, and sacrificial virgins. They don’t make them like this anymore. If you have nine minutes and fourteen seconds to spare, I totally suggest you check it out.
Nov
Posted on 7th November 2007
I have totally been listening to Fleetwood Mac lately. In fact, I am listening to Fleetwood Mac even as I type this. I am stating the obvious here, but there was/is something really magical about this band. And I’m not just saying this because of those rumors about Stevie Nicks having cocaine blown up her ass with a straw because her nose just couldn’t handle it either (though let the record show that I think the very notion of that is completely awesome). No, I just really like their music. Something about it makes it seem like it’s August and the sun is setting every time I put it on. And also no one is wearing shoes for some reason. I don’t know how they do it, those Fleetwood Mac people.
Above is a video of Fleetwood Mac playing their excellent song “Sara” at a concert in 1979 or so. I like how Stevie Nicks always looked like she was about go to a Renaissance fair all the time. She makes me just want to run out and buy one of those plant holders made of rope that you can hang from the ceiling and then just sit and look at the plant while listening to Fleetwood Mac some more. File under: the best time ever.
Nov
Posted on 7th November 2007
It is Tuesday night and I have just returned from playing my first hockey game of the season. I am playing on a team called the King Williams. We are regal in nature, as hinted in the name. So far we are not that good at hockey though, as we lost to the team with the green jerseys 6-0 or possibly even 7-0. At some point I stopped looking at the scoreboard. It’s a good thing I am not so much “in it to win it” as I just like playing hockey. I played a lot as a kid and even in high school and some of college (until I lost the fire). You might not guess that if you saw me playing tonight though. My skills seemed to have left me and I have pretty much become everything I used to fear as a kid- a chubby grown up who can barely make it a few times around the rink without hallucinating from exhaustion. I am hoping this is only temporary and a few games from now I will be back to full-on Gretzky mode. I am ¼ Canadian and I really can’t afford to be shaming my country.
In other news, everyone in show business is talking about the big writers’ strike. I hope it ends soon, what with me being in show business and all. I worry that a few months from now we will all be on bread lines and the world will be in sepia-tone everywhere you look (assuming you are in show business, that is). Maybe I will use this time to focus on my love of dance. Or I could just get hammered a lot like they did back in olden times when the only hope left was sitting in the glass right in front of you.
In still other news, today I bought some of my favorite cookies in the whole world, Tate’s chocolate chip, which are totally pictured above. As chocolate chip cookies go, Tate’s pretty much kick the crap out of every other cookie that has ever existed ever. Every time I buy them I get both really excited and really worried because I know the situation in my apartment is about to get really crazy, what with all those delicious cookies around and all. They pretty much taste just like really good homemade chocolate chip cookies only they are really expensive. I guess I could probably recreate the magic by baking chocolate cookies myself in my apartment, but since I am so totally not gay that it’s not even fucking funny I can’t really do that sort of thing. I have to get my cookies on the outside. Those are just the rules as I understand them.
Finally, today I read a story about a young girl in India who has four arms and four legs and is undergoing surgery to have a normal amount of limbs. Apparently, she has a conjoined twin attached to her that doesn’t have a head, which is just crazy any way you slice it. Even crazier is the fact that some of the people in the girl’s town are opposed to the surgery because they think she is sacred (you know, because of the extra arms and legs that tend to make her look more like a Hindu god than most people ten to). That’s easy for them to say- they don’t have to walk around all crazy-like (and probably in a considerable amount of pain I am assuming). Anyway, the good news is that the doctors think the surgery is going to go really well and the girl will be totally normal once she heals up and stuff. And then one day she will be hanging out with her friends sharing crazy stories of youth and she will say “Well I had four arms and four legs! Beat that, motherfuckers!” And then all her friends will be all like “Yeah, right- looks like someone’s had one too many Mike’s Hard Lemonades.” It will happen just like that.
Nov
Posted on 4th November 2007
Last night, one of the incredible rock bands I play in Children of the Unicorn, rocked balls over at the Annex on Orchard Street. It was a fun show full of all the rocking good times that attracted me to rocking in the first place (minus the groping).
Before the show, Phil and I headed next door to the Thai place they had sitting right there and ate the fuck out of a couple orders of spicy noodles with basil and chicken. We also ate some salads since we are all healthy-like. The food was pretty delicious but Phil and I agreed afterward that we had overdone it as far as pre-rock meals go. Generally speaking, if you’re stomach pushes your guitar out further in front of you than normal, you have most likely gone and overdone it. Making matters worse, the food was spicy too. I can’t speak for Phil, but a spicy meal before a rock show increases the chances of me shitting my pants on stage by roughly 75% according to my privately-funded research on the topic. Thankfully, however, we had a good set anyway and at no point did my ass explode or anything.
After we got done rocking the fuck of the Annex, a band called Captured! By Robots took the stage. The band consists of one dude on guitar and vocals and then a bunch of robots that he built himself rocking along with him. It’s quite a sight to behold. The robots actually play their instruments- it’s not just pre-recorded music. That said, the music the lone human in the band and his robots produce is not really my kind of thing, but I still support it fully. Anyone that builds a bunch of robots, piles them into an RV, and then rocks the fuck out the entire country with them is to be commended in my book. They have cool T-shirts too. To get a sense of the Captured! By Robots magic, check out the video above. He/they are onto something.
In other news, my computer totally died on Friday so right now I am typing this on a loaner computer. As a result, I don’t have any my iTunes music (what some people might call “jams”) so I am instead listening to actual CDs and also some Internet radio until I get my computer back (assuming it hasn’t just gone and slit its wrists). A second ago the station I was listening to played some Pere Ubu, a great band from my hometown of Cleveland that I really dig. I dig them so much in fact that I am totally recommending you go and watch/listen to the Pere Ubu video above. It is from “Night Music,” a great music show that was on NBC in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. The show was hosted by Jools Holland and David Sanborn. This particular episode featured Pere Ubu, Philip, Glass, Debbie Harry, and Loudon Wainwright among others. It’s mindblowing to think that a collection of artists of this quality actually appeared on network television all at once like this. That would quite simply never happen today, at least not in America anyway. How did our country get to the point of sucking so much? Oh wait, I remember.
Speaking of rocking rock music, earlier today I was listening to Superjoint Ritual, the now-defunct heavy metal band from New Orleans that featured Phil Anselmo from Pantera and Down, Jimmy Bower from Down and Eyehategod, Hank Williams III and a couple other dudes. Here is an incredible video for one of my favorite songs by them. I hope you enjoy it so much. It rocks balls. It is also kind of disgusting. Historically, however, this has often proved to be a potent combination.
Nov
Posted on 3rd November 2007
I saw a lot of great costumes this Halloween season, but my favorite has to be the one above worn by model American Jeremy Yazinski from Boulder, Colorado, who went as me from my wildly popular television program <a href=”
http://mojohd.com/mojoseries/kingofmiami/” target=”_blank”>”The King of Miami” (which- as mentioned previously- is now available for download on Amazon.com). Hopefully one day dressing as me for Halloween will be a totally common occurrence, like dressing as Elvis Presley or Martina Navritalova or something. Until then, however, I am grateful to Jeremy for carrying the torch. Please also note that the guy next to him in this photo is (I’m told) dressed as a young Robert Goulet. This must have been a really great party. I wish I could have been there. But then I guess it would have made Jeremy’s costume look kind of bad, you know, since I already totally look like me and all. The big question though is whether or not anyone at the party was able to guess Jeremy’s costume. God, I hope so.
Nov
Posted on 1st November 2007
Here is a video from another great band who is doing their part for rock, Witchcraft, who are from Sweden and have great hair and cool guitars. This song is called “Chylde of Fire” and is pretty rocking. The band scores extra points for filming this video at the edge of the woods and having a big bonfire burning almost the whole time. That’s pretty much how you make a rock video if you ask me. Also, note the spelling of “chylde.” Keep up the good work, Witchcraft- you are Dave-approved.
