FRQNC


Monday, January 29, 2007 Time for a dub-to-the-double-E-KEND RECAP. Word. Friday night was the magazine's 3-year-anniversary party, held at a small art gallery in Montrose. And I can say that it was definitely one of our better ones. I admit to being slightly concerned about the number of drunk people in such close proximity to sculpture and paintings, but all seemed to turn out well. Mind Puddles is quite the interesting little venue though, and one that's definitely worth checking out some night, that is if you're of the ilk who would enjoy having a drink or two in a gallery. Great intimate space, and a truly excellent patio. It seems that word travels quite fast in that circle (funny thing about journalists), and I ended up fielding quite a few questions and kudos about the Naominterview. Not that I mind of course. =] Anyway, good times. Saturday I hung out with Danny for a while at the W. Alabama Ice House, then we headed to some house party, lured by the promise of free beer. A promise that was, in fact, delivered on. Of course, nothing is exactly "free" in this world. In order to imbibe said complimentary barley & hop goodness, we had to share space with a romper room's worth of children. I was easily the oldest person there, by roughly 7 years. So we did the "old people" thing by setting up shop next to the keg and proceed to drain it of its contents. And, once it was floated, we tossed our plastic cups and started to make our exit. But on the way to the front gate, I randomly took an elbow to the ribs from someone behind me. I turn around, expecting someone to clap me on the shoulder and say "sorry." Instead I find a little hispanic boy (roughly 5.5 ft. tall), looking up at me with an antagonizing look on his face. I glare at him for a moment, decide to ignore it, and keep walking. He does it again. This time I turn around, pull myself up to a full height of 6' 1", and get so close that I'm towering over him. "What the fuck?" I say. Suddenly the antagonizing visage fades, replaced by nervous glances at his friends. "What?" He asks in a crackling little boy's voice. "'What?'" I mimick with a grin. "I'll tell you exactly what little boy. You've bumped into me twice, and this is the part where you apologize." He tries to hold my stare for a moment, fails miserably, and starts muttering and looking down at the pavement, correctly concerned that I'm about to feed it to him. His friend steps up and starts to threaten. I ignore him and concentrate on staring the little boy down, who's now so hunched over on himself he looks like a kicked puppy. "Now...are you going to apologize?" I say, still grinning. "umno." he mutters, still keeping his gaze fixed on the pavement. "Fine then get the fuck out of my way," I say, grabbing his shoulder and pushing. Now sure, I'm a lot bigger than this kid, and sure my adrenaline was up, but to be honest I really didn't expect him to go flying into the bushes the way he did. He somehow rotated 180 degrees and landed ass first into the greenery adorning the patio. His friend starts yelling. I turn my back to them and continue on my way toward the exit, people parting as I walk by. I get all the way to the gate and open it when feel something graze the elbow of my jacket. I turn toward it just in time to watch the girl next to me get doused in a can of Milwaukee's Best that had just been hurled at me. "What the hell?!?" she screams and looks at me, "Did you just throw a beer at me?" "No. Someone else threw a beer. I think it was intended to hit me, and they hit you instead." "I'm fuckin' soaked!" "I'm very sorry." I say, then turn back toward the kid, noticing that he now has 2 more friends with him, bringing the total I'm about to fight to four. "All right," I say, and take a couple steps toward them, sliding my jacket off. ---Now let's pause the testosterone for just a moment for a reality check. I'd love to be able to say I was so incensed that I didn't care how many of them there were, or that I was merely concerned about defending the honor of the now beer-soggy girl next to me... But that isn't the truth. No, honestly I was wondering how in the hell I was going to pull this off, deciding which one of them I should hit first for instant shock value, and wondering exactly where it was that Danny went... And as I'm thinking all this the host of the party steps in front of me, effectively blocking my way, and tells me to get the hell out of his house.--- "You know, I was doing just that when that kid started this shit." "Dude, I don't care. Just go. Those guys are from out of town, you really don't want to fuck with them." "I don't care where they're from." "Look, you already threw that guy into my bushes...they're pissed. Don't do this. Just go home." "Fine. All right. Hey, I'm sorry about that." "Yeah, right. You're sorry. Now go." So I turn to leave, and find everyone that I came to the party with standing on the opposite side of the wrought iron gate, staring at me nervously. "What the hell just happened?" "Nothing. Let's just go. I'll tell you on the way." sigh Three times...three times that guy waited until my back was turned to him before he started flexing, and every time we were face to face he wilted like an Alabama daisy in August. Kids today...not an ounce of courage in 'em. So we leave, catch up with Dixie and a few others at Jet Lounge (which I can say has not improved one bit in the time I've been boycotting it), have a drink, play some bar trivia, then we grabbed some Mexican food at Andy's and called it a night. Sunday was unofficial "spend the day at Danny's watching bad movies" day, which was as uneventful as it sounds. Headed home at around 8 or so to work on my articles for March's issue, and crashed early. And now, it's work-time. Talk to you later, j.s.



Thursday, January 25, 2007 j.s. [[Thanks Bryan.]]



Tuesday, January 23, 2007 You'll never guess who's got a 5 minute interview with Naomi Campbell tomorrow afternoon. That's right. Yours truly will take on the mistress of the +3 Jewel-Encrusted Vorpal Blackberry, and will be asking hard-hitting, Pulitzer award caliber questions like: "So Naomi, pirates or ninjas?" and "Finish this sentence: 'Naomi Campbell defeated the Kraken using only her _______ and _______.'" I'll tell you this though, I'm coming strapped. And I swear to Tom Ford, if she so much as flinches at her cell phone holster I'm going to drop her like a French border gate. j.s.



Monday, January 22, 2007 Ahoy. So the weekend was good. Few drinks, few bars, few parties...that kinda thing. Dropped by the Mixed Media Music Series at the Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday, which was interesting despite being completely drenched in Starbucks logos. (Everything but the bathroom signs had a 'Bucks gobo splashed on it somewhere.) I had an interesting and slightly vain realization while I was there though. One which I will share with you right now! Ready? Most of the time I assume that I'm flying under the radar here in Houston, and that I'm a rather small fish in a Pacific-sized pond. And then I go to some random but well-publicized event somewhere, and I remember that I've been doing the bar/club circuit here for nearly 4 years. For example, at the MFAH I ran into photographers, musicians, artists, designers, other columnists, and a couple of adorable little girls that apparently knew me from somewhere and who "really love [my] writing." It's kinda mind boggling. Moreso when you consider how indifferent I've become to the whole "scenester" thing this past year. I mean, for the most part I don't even try to hit the new/cool/elite bars and clubs anymore. At least, not the way I used to. I've either become jaded, or it simply isn't important to me anymore. But somehow, when I do show up somewhere like that, it makes people utterly thrilled to see me. Dry gin, wry grin, and all. Add to this the exchange I just had with my bank teller while I was depositing my magazine check this afternoon: "So what do you do for [insert magazine name here]? "Oh. I just write for them." "Hey, that's awesome man. That magazine is cool." "Er, really?" "Yeah. Much better than the Houston Press." "Wow. You think so?" "Hell yeah. I picked up the one this month, the game stuff in there is awesome." Jeremiah looks downward and grins bashfully. "Heh. Yeah, I write those." "No way! That was great man. Especially that World of Warcraft one! My friend and I were laughing about it. He works here too." "Um... Well thanks, I appreciate that." "No problem. Okay man, you're all set. I'll see you around, huh?" "Yeah...yeah. Thanks." Like I said, little fish in a big pond. But sometimes, when the light catches me just right, the shadow I cast gets thrown completely out of proportion, and the delusions in the mirror appear to contain even more grandeur. j.s.



Thursday, January 18, 2007 I'd like to give a final, definitive answer to those of you that have (repeatedly) asked me whether or not I'm "enjoying the cold?" No. No asshat, I am not enjoying the cold. And this is why... Back in the north (that's the squiggly outline that surrounds Texas for you natives), it does, in fact, get this cold. Colder actually. And quite often. However it rarely comes packaged with a metric shit-tonne of rain and/or humidity. There it's either: a.) Cold and relatively dry. or b.) Snowing. See, there's no way to protect yourself from this kind of humid cold. No amount of jackets, sweaters, gloves and scarves will keep it out, because they all get wet. Wet clothes tend to hamper (I PUN!) the raiment process. And snow? Snow brushes off. Rain does not. Now the whole rain + 30's thing does happen on occasion up there, but it's not the industry standard of winter that it is down here. Understand, rainy and cold is unpleasant, no matter the latitude. So please stop asking me the same thing in the hope that I might beam at you and gush poetic about the virtues of 38 degree afternoons, frigid sleetch and gunmetal skies. Although it sucking more here in Houston (given the rest of what I have to put up with by living in this town), is something I'd be most willing to debate with you... j.s.



Wednesday, January 17, 2007 So after that last cord-jacket-wearing, horn rim-bespectacled, FM sneering post, I'm going to completely ruin my hipster cred by filling you in on a dark secret of mine. Part of me is really enjoying listening to Mae's album "The Everglow." I know! Exceedingly simple (bordering on jejune) chords with piano accompaniment, classic verse -)> chorus pop format, and embarrassingly saccharine lyrics like "Deep inside we both know it, everything's hanging on this moment." And God help me, I can't seem to stop listening to it... [wails]* Don't look at me! j.s.



Monday, January 15, 2007 Hi. So my Dallas trip this weekend was...er...well it was a Dallas trip anyway. I caught up with the main purpose for the 4 hr. drive on Friday night, had dinner (which was awesome), and beers (which were of variable tastiness) at The Old Monk, a pub that looked strikingly like Onion Creek with a slightly European bent. She talked for a while about work, beer, fashion, etc, then we drove over to the Issue Release Party at the Metro Grill. And it was a rather typical IRP for us, although not nearly as bad as the last one I attended up there. Subtract about 300 people, then add a naked, coked-out-of-her-gourd girl in airbrushed body paint, and you'd pretty much have it. Stuck around there until around midnight, then caravaned over to some dive bar called "Slip Inn." Now, it's my contention that nothing good can possibly come from a bar with a pun or a play on words in its name, yet we went anyway. And it was as bad as I'd expected. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about the dive bars...but typically there's something charming/quaint/quirky about them that's alluring. The Slip Inn was lacking on all those fronts. In fact, I saw absolutely no redeeming feature whatsoever about this place. It was like going for a drink in a trailer home. So we left after about 20 minutes or so and headed back to her place, where I crashed on her ultra-comfortable couch. Saturday we had lunch at "Campisi's Egyptian Italian Restaurant" (how exactly that works is every bit the mystery to me as it is to you), which was kinda meh. Then we skipped over to Good Records, which was, hands down, the coolest place I've seen in Dallas to date. (It's apparently owned by a member of the Polyphonic Spree.) Picked up the Sparklehorse, "Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain" LP, which is excellent if you're into that kind of thing. The Brightblack Morning Light album leapt off the rack and demanded to be taken home with me too. It's relatively good, but an unexpected bonus was finding that Matador had joined the ranks of music publishers that are bundling mp3 downloads with their vinyl. Sub Pop does this too, along with at least one other label that I don't recall currently. (Tim?) And God bless them for it. It's 70% finished d/ling as I write this. I was also very, very, VERY close to getting the new And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead album, and to be honest I'm kinda kicking myself for not picking it up when I had the chance. Specifically because "Stand in Silence," "Naked Sun," and "Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" are 5-minute flashes of sheer brilliance that have been playing on my internal soundtrack since I heard them. The whole album is actually pretty great, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Ah well, hopefully Soundwaves will be smart enough to carry it on vinyl... And I've completely devolved into music elitism haven't I? -ahem- So we finish up at Good Records, then head back to her place to watch the Indy/Baltimore game. After which I feel like I've monopolized more than enough of her day, and head over to H's place to brush up on my pop culture a bit, to decide that Krumping is the answer to all the world's problems, and to drink a bottle of some truly excellent wine. (Not necessarily in that order.) We all fall asleep at around 1, and I head back to Houston at noon the following day. And here endeth the Dallas trip. Now some of you are flailing and pointing wildly at the earlier passages, wondering how exactly the "date" went. And the fact that I left out the majority of the pertinent details thereof shouldn't lead you to the false belief that it went well. Then again, it didn't exactly go "badly" either. No, in actuality it appears that this girl has just been gifted with some manner of Jeremiah-shielding device, and was thus immune to my charm, wit and good looks. Yes, I know. It was a shock to me too. Now someone with a mere mortal ego might've been stricken with doubt in the face of such rampant indifference, and I will abashedly admit to you that I was a bit perplexed by the time I got home on Sunday night. (Which is wont to happen after 4 hours of driving through the rain with nothing else to think about but where the hell you went wrong.) But, after a few beers worth of discussion with friends, I came to the conclusion that there was little I could do about it other than shrug and acquiesce that there are indeed women out there that are simply not interested in me. God help them. And I'll be taking my slightly bruised, yet still tide-affecting ego to lunch now. Talk to you soon. j.s.



Tuesday, January 09, 2007 ringringringringringringring....Applephone! So Cingular picked it up huh? Hmmph. So use an iPhone, get tapped by the NSA. Lovely. Anyway, it looks like a June release for the pricey little guy. And yes, despite the fact that all my conversations will end up on the Daytona server in the basement of Ft. Meade, and despite it not being as sexy as some of the projected styles I'd seen, I still want one. j.s.



Friday, January 05, 2007 To the Graphic Artists at Fox News Corp: The bones in the background were a nice touch. rolls eyes j.s.



This is an hour long Lawrence Lessig panel from the 23C3 Hacker Conference in Berlin. And while he leans rather heavily on Creative Commons (naturally), it's worth every second of the time you'll spend watching it. And it's almost mandatory watching if you happen to create things online. I.e. upload music to MySpace, post pictures to Flickr, or even just write a blog. In other interesting (but unrelated), news, the new Modest Mouse single is streaming from Pitchfork today...and I'm of the opinion that it sounds like a B-side off The Killers new album. (i.e. godawful.) "Poppy! Poppy will make them sleep!" Bah. Have an awesome weekend. j.s. [Via BoingBoing]



Tuesday, January 02, 2007 Happy 7 to you. You know, there's something unsettling about it being '07. I can't quite put my finger on it, but 2007 just seems like one of those ominous numbers... Like, "Early 2007 saw the rise of the feral, inner-city, rabid penguin. Millions ravaged. Many former city residents flee to the safety of equatorial climes." or "The continued increase in mean temperature of the world has necessitated a revision in the classification of storms. In response, NOAA created Category 6: "Smashy Wet Windy Bedlam," Category 7: "Jupiter's Great Red Spot," and Category 8: "Disintegration." or "Tiring of Americans' indifference to their attacks, terrorists have switched strategems and have focused on assassinating reality television personalities. This devious arrow struck deep in the atheromic hearts of the U.S, and proved to be the most distressing and effective terror tactic yet. Impeachment figures rose to double digits for 2007." Anyway, it's an eerie number. So my New Year's Eve turned out to be quite the good time, despite my earlier reservations about celebrating the holiday. Spent the evening, and most of the morning, in the company of friends at a small house party. The usual occurrances from all the usual suspects (nudity, fires, megaphones, trampolines, chicken vomit) were as abundant as ever. And everyone there was someone that I actually wanted to see on New Year's...and not a single person that I didn't. I don't think you can ask for a better night than that. But now, it's "End-of-Monthiness" time, and I've got to get after it since I've already lost a day this week and have more work than ever to get finished. Talk to you soon. j.s.