Carmen Electra's Aerobic StripTEASE: Where the titties at?

Good news everybody! I now know how to dance like a stripper! It works out my abs and my glutes, and I haven't felt this fit in years!

Noted Chicago pro-athlete groupie Carmen Electra put out this DVD that teaches you how to workout and dance like you're working for folded up C-Notes stuffed into your buttcrack.

In my line of work, this does not come in handy. My girlfriend rented this on Netflix (yeah, right, dude!). We fast forwarded to the good stuff that never arrived. So...I will save you the time and trouble of renting this if you're looking for titty, for there is no titty. If you fast forward it, like, it kinda looks like the titty's jiggle a little bit. But that's it.

However, if you're just looking to lose some weight when you're not blog-blog-blogging away, then you should definitely check this out! It won't make you sweat all that much, and you get to learn some hott movez. Do you remember when Traci Lords made an aerobics workout video? No? I saw some of it from one of the great video comps put out by 5minutestolive.com, and it's pretty blatantly sexual w/out being, you know, blatantly sexual. For example, there were workouts that involved spreading your legs and keeping them spread. Carmen's not like that, you understand. These moves are kinda subtle, and at the beginning, Ms. Electra lectures you on the importance of stretching, because "your muscles are like rubber bands: the more you stretch, the longer they can go." (Something like that.)

However, the music isn't that good to workout to. I can't even remember what it's like, so that should tell you something. My girlfriend has a pilates video where the music comes from this dude playing the bongos who looks like one of the Strokes, only buff instead of strungout in a showbiz way. That's just a little bit better than this (only the dude (or the pilates women) has (have) no rhythm), so you should turn it down and practice your striperobics moves to "Maggot Brain" by Funkedelic or maybe "Frankie Teardrop" by Suicide. It's your call, should you pick up this DVD.

sideways parody

Why do I drink grasshoppers? Well, there are so many variants involved. I love how it's like this living thing, how with a grasshopper, what you taste at one moment will taste completely different one moment later. I love how creme de menthe is so much different than creme de cacao. I love saying creme de cacao. I love how you can taste what the cow ate that made the cream they use...when you can taste the bovine hormone, the subtle tinge of peet moss, the buttery flavor that's reminiscent of a cheese nip. When you taste a really vintage grasshopper, like an '86 TGIF frozen blend, or an '84 Bennigans mix left in the walkin cooler, you just know that it has reached it's peak, and, just like any other living thing, after it hits that peak, you know it can't live up to that anymore, and will be nothing but a pale imitation. The creme de cacao fields have a limited growing season; they need just the right temperature to prosper. I think of all the people who grew the creme de cacao, and if it's a vintage grasshopper, whether or not they're still alive. I love to hold the glass to the light, to see how close they get it to looking like a shamrock shake. I think about life, and I think about love, but mostly, I think about you, drinking this grasshopper with me, then like you know, doin' it.

"We Jam Econo"--Required Viewing for Minutemen 101

What's harshing my mellow right now is how there's an anti-immigration group out there called The Minutemen. Why did they have to name themselves after my favorite band? Couldn't they pick another band? How about The Avenged Sevenfold Federation of Aryans? The Art Brutes? The Breaking Benjamin Militia? The Good Charlotte Beaner Hater Project? No, in an ironic twist of an ironic twist (seeing how the very name of the Minutemen band was named, in part, after a right-wing militia in the 60's), these clowns name themselves after the greatest punk rock band ever. The Minutemen are one of the only bands whose t-shirt I used to proudly wear; now, I worry about it getting misconstrued by those unfamiliar with the band.)

However, the other part of what the very name "Minutemen" means is what I love about this band.

When I saw "We Jam Econo," the Minutmen documentary in the theatre, I was annoyed with what I thought was excessive reliance on the Minutemen's contemporaries stating the obvious. In essence: "The Minutemen were really great musicians. "Double Nickels on the Dime" is a great record."

Thanks, Henry, Jello, Milo, and Ian et al. Couldn't've sussed that one out on my own. But...the 2nd time I saw it, I grew to like those parts just as much as the rest of it, if only because there's so much love for these guys in a way you don't see for too many punk bands from the 70's and 80's. Sure, plenty of bands from that era still sell t-shirts at Hot Topic, but there's a kind've religous fervor with San Pedro's Finest, a kind of reverence you only see in diehard Who fans. Approrpriate, because both bands have a total belief in the power of what they were doing, the idea that music has a power able to transcend our realities.

As Mike Watt explained in "We Jam Econo," the second component to the name was defining "minute" not as "60 seconds," but as "small." As in: mi-NUTE.

This documentary is a history lesson of how things used to be for your average unattractive schlep w/ a penchant for playing music (i.e. you, me, and everyone we know). That stage we take for granted used to be so far away and inaccessible except for a few stars. The best you could hope for was to learn some covers and play those on otherwise dead nights in some shitty bar.

Punk changed that, of course, and now, I worry that indie-rock is changing it back, with its over-reliance on glossy showbiz mechanisms.

"I never could get quite get into The Minutemen." So many times, I've heard that from garridge punk friends who should know better. Musicians, even. In fact, outside of my old Florida buddies, I can't think of anybody who's really into the Minutemen. Why is that? Is the music that inaccessible to the average stoopid punk weaned at the teat on nothing but odes to gluesniffing and girl troubles? Surely, it's not too stained from the excesses of 90's whiteboy funk (please don't lump the Minutemen w/ the Spin Doctors...) Does everything have to have a Marky Ramone beat behind it? Pardon the cliche, but I had a friend back in FLA who called The Minutemen a "thinking man's punk band," and maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe "thinking man's punk band" is a contradiction in terms for some, or the very act of using your brain gets you into some murky, pretentious, and unentertaining waters, waters you can't party down to on the weekend when you're at the rock club trying to get laid, unless songs about the colonial oppression of Central America light your crackpipe.

Well, "We Jam Econo" is for those who never quite "got" The Minutemen. This band is important, and their story needs to be told, because, like "History Lesson Part II" sez, "Our band could be your life."

Indeed, it is our life, because we're all mi-NUTE men, toiling in obscurity, putting in the long hours and maybe lucking out with a promotion, but it's a promotion on our terms, I hope. By being small, it means just doing your job as best as you can, without all the phony-baloney showbiz schtick (and that's what "Double Nickels on the Dime Means"), just "small" guys telling their stories. (That's something Watt and boon mention time and time again: We're just trying to tell our story.) No booj. No mersh. No egos. Pull your weight. Put the time and energy into the music, put your heart and soul in the music, leave the showbiz to the latest skinny-tied average mersh abomination. Just shut the fuck up and do your job. Like you, I sometimes need that reminder.

In 1994, I saw fIREHOSE at this hardrock Orlando dump called The Station. Watt came up to me and talked at (me too quiet to make that a "talk to") me for a few minutes and I actually got some words in over feeling intimidated and "starstruck" by the whole thing. A bunch of hair metal dudes were walking into the show. "They think they're gonna see Firehouse," Watt said. (They were a very bad, beyond hope even through 21st century pomo kitsch, hair metal band...in case you kids were wondering.) I laughed. "But that's cool," Watt continued with the spiel. "It's like the Germs, see, "What we do is secret! Secret!"

At the time, he was about 2-3 years older than I am now, playing in clubs on tour that are almost as shitty as The Station. I don't know how much longer I will want to play in a band. Maybe 20 years. Maybe 2 months. But, to even have that option now, I owe that much to Watt. There really are no rules anymore. If you go to the Empty Bottle on any given night, you're gonna see so many different types of bands and so many different types of people from all over the place making the music--some you will like and some you will loathe--but they all have their origin in this idea...of small men, bravely stepping up onstage...having questionable talent and nothing much at all going for them except some ideas and the desire to express them. Yeah, some of it is showbiz (increasingly moreso as the irony we thought we killed continues to fuck everything up), but most of it ain't, and even if I dislike some of it, it's better than a monolithic sameness and a rock star elite.

Nowadays, I miss the Minutemen for the same reason I miss Bill Hicks. The Enemies have not been this clear and this obvious since the sixties. The forces of good versus evil have not been this clearcut since the 60's, and what the fuck is going on with music? It's pretty ugly out there right now, and everybody's just pretending it's all okay, aside from a few personal hangups that'll get better when puberty (or, more in keeping with these days, our 20's and 30's) is outgrown.

I don't want retread nostalgia horseshit. I want stories and expression, challenge and ideas, a documentation of what you're really thinking. (Maybe that's why I like double albums so much. If you're going to release that much music, there comes a point where you really have to let go of your inner critic and just say whatever it is you're wanting to say.) The Minutemen gave me all that, and fortunately, I was young enough for it to make a profound impression. I like dum-dum music as much as the next guy, but that ain't all I wanna hear, especially if you're not a dummy.

The Minutemen, like The Ramones, like The Stooges, like Captain Beefheart, like Coltrane, like Sun Ra, and hell, even like The Spits, are one of those musical experiences that, once you get it, you really get it, and you're a better person for it. I want everybody I know to finally fucking get The Minutemen already and like them as much as I do, and this movie (besides their songs) is the best way to make that happen.

requiem for yet another building set to be demolished on my street

West of Western Ave, they don't care what you do with the old buildings. Maybe Walmart should have tried to build their store in Humboldt Park. Lord knows they're letting these developers get away with everything else...

I've lived on my block for 4 years now. Since then, especially in the last 2 years, eight buildings have been torn down. That's almost half of all the buildings on my block. That's not even counting the building's they've gutted out and rehabbed. The street is almost always a construction zone--jackhammers, hammers, cement mixers. It's a good thing I don't need silence to write. I wrote to my Alderman, who's supposed to be progressive and a real alternative to the Daley Machine, but alls I got back was a form letter telling me my street is zoned ADFARTEFGASD3533 (or whatever), and I don't know what the code meant; presumably, it means you can raze all the character out of a block in favor of $500,000 condos: maximum security leisure prisons for investors. But I stay. The rent is cheap, for Chicago. On the practical side, I would hope that this boom in reconstruction is making millionaires out of the Eastern Europeans who own these now-lucrative properties.

I say this because, while writing today, I heard the violent thud of sledgehammers. Yup, another old building is getting torn down. The fences are up. Bring on the bulldozers.

This appears to be the oldest house on the block, but still occupied until just last month. It's a faded brown bricked two-story cottage. A twenty-foot chimney rises from the roof. Next to it is an old TV antenna. In front of the front door (now ripped away) is a small dark red porch, with three dark red steps leading up to it. There's a little awning, four white posts holding up a small roof, red trim on the top and bottom sandwiching gray roof shingles. The front windows are bisected by dark red trim, a curving pane on top, sideways bricks laid like the top of a circle. Below it is a gray ledge. The second floor window, above that awning roof and to the right of the first floor windows, look the same. Thick foggy glass makes the basement windows. Weeds grow in the small patch of dirt in front of the house. A two-foot high black iron fence encloses the property. The gray-shingled roof is faded.

I like this building for the same reason Ray Davies likes village greens and rrrrrrrrrrrrrroast beef on Sunday in the Autumn. Ignoring the ravenous needs of the marketplace for just a moment, I like old buidlings. Everytime they tear one down, in the name of some greedhead's conception of "progress," I find one less reason to live in this city and especially this neighborhood. Hell, even Lincoln Park's starting to look quaint and working class compared to this. So far, I'm not impressed with the New Millenium. (Except for Myspace and Youtube.) I like small businesses and sturdy homes built to last through over 100 Chicago Winters, and I have my doubts that these shoddy cinder-blocked condos will even last 10, and even if they do, they still retain all the character of miniature Chicago Sun-Times buildings.

The Newest Weapons in the War on Terror

I watched some of the Sunday morning pundits discuss Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman.

Apparently, according to Chris "King Kock" Matthews, Al Qaeda managed to sneak into Connecticut, gain citizenship in the United States, register to vote (Democrat, of course), and, through the use of special effects make up, morphed into 52% of those who voted for Ned Lamont in the Democratic Primary for the Senate.

Or, as George "Hott Sexx" Will opined, Al Qaeda had a giant raygun in Pakistan somewhere, pointed right towards Connecticut, designed to transform Decent (albeit, liberal) Americans into Zombified Peace Activists Who Are Ignorant of George McGovern and Will Destroy the Democratic Party Because Nobody in Their Right Mind Would Dare Question the Validity of the War in Iraq.

Cokie "Sugar Britches" Roberts blamed the whole debacle on the hypnotic effects of the blogosphere and the hippies--Al Qaeda operatives trained in the arts of seduction at the expense of all reason.

Rush "Roxy Contin" Limbaugh even said it was all cuz LIeberman's a Jew. I guess the moveon.org crowd are also raving country club east coast snooty bigot WASPS to boot. What a krazy dichotomy!

Very, very informative, to say the least. Before the pundits set me straight, I was kinda under the impression that regular Connecticut folks went to the polls on a Tuesday and August and simply spoke their minds at the voting booth. Boy, was I mistaken!

Really, though, this li'l primary (because that's all it was: a primary) was more than a referendum on the War on Iraq or Lieberman as Bush's Bitch; no, this was a referendum on these GODDAMN PUNDITS.

I think "the American people" have just about had it with these egomaniacal bullies reducing discourse to the narrow-minded yelling of talking points shilled out by assholes, from assholes. The pundits--pretty much all the pundits--were WRONG about this election, and they are just as out-of-touch as anybody else in DC. They're the pigs in "Animal Farm" dining with the farmers. Jealous of their power, they rail against the "blogosphere" for doing the pundit's jobs, only better. The times, they are a' changing, and it's about time.

Of course, since they were wrong, the spinning is beyond absurd. Nobody mentioned how Ned Lamont, just 4 months ago, was way way behind Lieberman in the polls and defeated not just an incumbent, but a 3-term incumbent who was also the party's VP nominee, and whose campaign was supported by the still-popular Bill Clinton. He also did it without the shitton of campaign cash Lieberman had.

But, none of that mattered. The people of CT spoke louder than all the white noise of the beltway prognosticators, and that's that. If Joe Lieberman had used even 1/10th of the tenacity he's using now in 2000 during the Florida Debacle, he probably wouldn't be the Big Loser he is today. What a Compleat Cocksmack.

So the Golden Douche Award goes to.......Joementum and the Whole Punditocracy. The End is Nigh, Bastards!

Club Juana and Eminent Domain

While in Orlando last week, I drove past Club Juana, a strip club in Sin City, aka Casselberry, F.L.A.

The sign on the marquee read: "Closed Due to Eminent Domain. Thanks for 43 Years. Look for Our New Location."

Such a typical cheap Central Florida move. It's not that I hung out at Club Juana, but I always thought the strip clubs of Central Florida were one of the few aspects of the place that gave it its character. For instance, Club Harem, (used to be called "The Boobie Trap") is a building designed to look like two breasts. These places just added to the weirdness of the melting pot within the melting pot that didn't quite melt.

But no, the Radical Right in FLA has finally gotten their way on this one.

It raises an ugly precedent, this awful awful Eminent Domain ruling from the Supreme Court. Or...maybe not. If I had my way, I would use Eminent Domain against pretty much EVERY FUCKING THING in Central Florida...the churches, the excessive strip malls, that disgusting "I-4 Eyesore" skyscraper built by the televangelist station. I would also use Eminent Domain to raze to the ground every shitty condominium those "@ Properties" jagbags are building all over the North and West Sides of Chicago. I would also use Eminent Domain against every rest stop along the Ohio Turnpike. And that's just the beginning.

But anyway--Club Juana. I only went there twice; no, really. The first time was with Frog because it was free before 4PM, and after 4PM, you'd get a free buffet dinner, and it would only cost you one watered down overpriced drink. The second time, a bunch of us just went because it was something to do. An old pornstar was there to perform and talk and answer questions about sex. She did her striptease, collected the folded up cashmoney between her boobs and her butt, and then, she fielded questions from the audience all about sex therapy, because, really, if you're having issues with sex, there's no better place to get those answers than a strip club, and there's no better person to get those answers than from a nekkid aging pornstar. The questions were from creepy guys along the lines of, "Where was 'Ass Busters Part 3' filmed?" As honest sex ed, it didn't really do the trick, but the entertainment value was A+ all the way.

They'll probably put some hokey martini bar there in its place--some Disnefied PG-13 version of Club Juana with fake mahogany paneling, cigar humidors, and framed pix of the Rat Pack being all drunk and chummy. They'll clean up that strip of dog track/jai alai gambling, strip clubs, motels, adult bookstores, and the rest, and replace it with a megachurch--false hope for day laborers and service industry slaves. Part of it will be googooplex theatres, creameries, tapas restaurants and the like. Something for both ends of the shrinking middle class--and the shrinking of the middle class is looking more and more obvious in a middle class place like south Seminole County.

But that's okay, because this small government conservatives love so much is busy making sure exposed titties aren't available for thems that wants to look. Way to go, Good Ol' Boys. Way. To. Go.

Irrelevant Snapshots of the 2 Week Tour, the 4 Day Interlude, and the 6 Day Vacation

In Green Bay--watched a guitarist for the opening band cover "The Witch" by The Sonics, right arm covered in an Ace Frehley tattoo, smirking proudly at the small audience as he soloed. In Kalamazoo--the temperature cooling off in the middle of our set, playing "Kamikaze" and looking out the window, seeing the giant black storm clouds form, and the rain in thick drops, red shirt 3 shades darker from the sweat. In Jackson, MI--stopping at Sparks Park and climbing a hill overlooking the woods below, feeling like C. Thomas Howell in "Red Dawn." In Hamtramck--the $2 bread loaf and pound of thinly-sliced turkey, watching the Islamic women in black covering everything except their eyes as we sit in front of the Polish Deli on Jos. Campau St., the blue street signs eaten away by rust. In Cleveland--the Sparks vomit spilling onto the amplifier, a chunky dayglo orange. In Pittsburgh--lukewarm beer in a hot van on a desolate ramshackle street. On the PA TPKE--stealing a Pizzeria Uno pizza because nobody was around to take the money, ashamed of how poorly this pizza represents my adopted city. In Brooklyn--the sudden crash of a broken beer bottle in the bar while talking to Sarabird on the phone outside the club, knowing it came from somebody in the band--the Williamsburg Bridge roaring high overhead. In Charlottesville, VA--Bo Bice from "American Idol" performing in an outdoor amphitheatre at the far end of a brick street for pedestrians only decked out like an olde-tyme smalltown--the roar of applause heard from the tiny burrito joint where we would play. In Durham--rocks crunching under feet, walking down railroad tracks to drink in the woods. In Columbus--the steady whoosh of an a/c window unit on a creaking comfortable bed. In Bloomington--the harsh austerity of a Kroger after poor sleep in the back of the van. In Lafayette--the gossip of the Borders' employees as they stocked more "Left Behind" books. In Chicago--the drunk yuppie midget trying to pick a fight with Justin, yelling, "Why did you ash in my taco?" In Longwood--hitting the gray "ON" switches to the buttons marked "Spa Pump" and "Spa Heater." In Winter Park--soft kisses with Sarabird hidden away in one of the empty rooms of the Tiffany exhibit of the Morse Museum. In New Smyrna Beach--the rapid footsteps of the packs of little birds running along where the surf comes in. In St. Petersburg--piped-in calypso music at the outdoor sandwich shop overlooking the yacht harbor, steel-drummed covers of "Pretty Woman" and "Johnny B. Goode." In Altamonte Springs--hazy recollections of the past in a dark backyard, smiling from the medicines, knowing it would end this way, and a quiet 4AM drive down desolate streets that feel like yours no matter how much you've hated them. In Orlando--the 3 hacked palm trees rising above the new Walgreens against the darkening cornflower blue sky.