sab

While I was digging through old LJ posts finding ones to transfer over to my blog, I learned that EVERY GOOD STORY I've EVER WRITTEN happened in '04. Go read them and love on them? [everything good I've ever written (in 2004)]

Man, how was I so good in '04; I haven't written anything nearly as good since. /getting ollllld

Quite possible that more artifacts from history will follow.

Boys and girls in America (and Europe, and Canada, and Asia, and Oceania, and even the Pole, for 30toseoul)! I promised a pimping post about The Hold Steady [wikipedia], and here she comes.

About... four years ago I got hooked on Regina Spektor and her entire songography was on repeat on my Zune for months. Now it's the Hold Steady, and I've actually become unable to listen to anything else without wishing it was Craig Finn's Jersey vibe and half-spoken lyrics against that 80s real-band-playing-real-instruments track. They've drawn comparisons to Springsteen and REM, the Tragically Hip and Sonic Youth, Ted Leo and even Billy Joel. They are all these things and more, people!

Here's their one single, though I don't even know if it got radio play; the opening track from "Boys and Girls in America," Stuck Between Stations. Take it as a taster; if you like it, just keep rocking the fuck on with the rest of their discography.

There are four albums so far, and while individually they're amazing, and while individual tracks on each album can also be isolated as a-fucking-mazing, there's an even better story happening across the four albums, starring the same set of characters (Hallelujah [call her Holly] the teenage burnout, Charlemagne, the struggling drug dealer/pimp, and Gideon, the gang member -- and a whole cast of other supporting characters who get drunk at music festivals, get fucked against dumpsters behind townie bars, get in knife fights, fall in love, party till it almost kills them, and wake up in Ybor City looking for a change).

The aesthetic is set up on the first record, "Almost Killed Me," with a growling lyric-rich Craig Finn and some old-school hair band/punk guitar licks.

Then "Separation Sunday" really got the narrative ball rolling; it's entirely a concept album based around Holly, Charlemagne and Gideon, slightly rawer than the other records and still totally lyric-based and groovy.

"Boys and Girls in America" is totally the most accessible record, and where lots of fans (including me!) got started. Three years ago or so, pene and unwinding came to town and played me "Citrus" and "Party Pit," and I fell into this band crush headlong. Later when I went back to hear the two earlier albums I started reading the narrative and character development (as well as musical development and shifting styles), but for the first few months all I listened to was BaGiA. It's where the single (above) is from, and it busted the Hold Steady into mainstream reviewers' consciousness. Read a review from Pitchfork Media, here.

The newest record, "Stay Positive," just came out a couple months ago, and while being an album totally addressed to summer '08, is also a bookend to "Almost Killed Me," which started with the song "Positive Jam" as a band intro. "Stay Positive," after four records of some killer highs and some crushing lows, reminds us, "it's one thing to start with a positive jam; it's another thing to see it all through." I can not stop listening to "Stay Positive," occasionally clicking back to tracks on the earlier albums just to remember how they pay off in the most recent record.

( zip file full of songs, and commentary about them, under cut )

x-posted to apocalypseweather.blogspot.com

6 Aug 2008, 12:45, Borough of Westminster

The trip broke the bank. One day more and I'd be busking at Heathrow, scraping together the money to get my car out of long-term parking somewhere off Imperial Hwy near LAX. At least busking on the Heathrow side I'd be paid in pounds.

It's just past noon and I'm in a franchisey-looking pub near the Tower Bridge, Wednesday, my last day here. Just coming off a week of unreality as escorted by cazling (hostess in possession of the unquestionable mostess) and mon couer samdonne, infinitemonkeys and heyiya and some fantastic, hard-rocking good times with Sarah-Jane, a dual-citizenship top mate from back when we were six years old.

And at the same time I'm looking to get back to LA, you know, where everybody knows my name, or at the very least where my outgoing combination of brashness and sincerity is seen as friendly (as opposed to just terribly gauche, or, you know, threateningly offensive). In LA when I'm washing my hands in the ladies' room, next to another lady washing her hands at the adjacent sink, it goes like: I say "hey" and she says "hey" and then there's a "how's it going" sometimes even followed by a "I am in the process of ditching my date" or "I hope they don't tow my car" (this is me, spitballing typical LA convo), and then we dry our hands and go our separate ways, right? Anyway it turns out if you do this in a surprisingly non-touristy subterranean wine pub near Covent Garden, the lady in the loo will look hard at the floor, not say a word, and brush past you like you might be trying to corner and kill her.

But the point of all of this, the culture-clash punchline, is Hamlet, up in Stratford-Upon-Avon, me full of glee and no idea of the appropriate way to show it.

( i knew him, horatio )

And on the other hand, I'm going to attempt to get out there and see the show again next year.

*

Okay... so I need some Stargate promo one-liners. Like if you were writing a poster slogan advertising the game Stargate Worlds. Or just advertising Stargate (SG1, SGA, SGwhatever) itself. Hypothetically.

Winner gets a free copy of the Stargate Worlds game due out this fall. No, for real.

Seriously, just spitball at me: Stargate promo lines, annnnndd, GO!

Do you think it's dangerous to put my laptop in my checked suitcase? I always carry it on with me but this time I think it might be easier not to.

Okay so the pound just went up another 2/10 of a cent last week and will probably be even higher on Monday... dear people in the finance business (jeviltwin, qowf, boxmint??? Etc???): where is the best place for me to purchase pounds? Based on supply/demand I would assume it's less expensive to buy pounds in the UK -- if Friday the rate was 1 pound/$2.01, how bad's it going to be this coming Friday? Am I better off purchasing pounds earlier in the week? Etc etc.

livelongnmarry, a fundraiser-cum-celebration for the legalization of gay marriage in California and elsewhere, has opened for bidding, as I'm sure you've seen around the internets.

Me, I offered to write a fan letter to your favorite celeb, personal crush, mentor, or fictional character, and also a 3000-5000 word fic, in a small selection of possible fandoms.

Notice how the hand never leaves the wrist!

::

1. Incoming spycookies, two hour countdown. Subsequent sisterly podfic recording for amplificathon's gift-fic extravaganza ball.

2. Leave tomorrow for Philly for the wknd, wedding w/projectjulie as arm candy!

3. Back Sunday.

4. Very first second Muppet Show Cast Album BSG manga meeting, Monday.

5. runpunkrun, the Rice to my a-Roni.

6. Twitch City: the Canadian Spaced? Mark Head: amazing? Neither show: lives up to its hype? (And from the runpunkrun corner: Dave Foley: the Canadian Simon Pegg?)

7. I fell in a rose bush.



OH.

8 and most importantly! livelongnmarry. It's like Sweet-Charity for big gay weddings! I'm up for bids and also plan on buying some fannish product. Anyone want to offer up vid skillz???


//

So, because ciderpress is the girl so nice we wish we could friend her twice, (no, really! We do!) and because she made me such fantastic icons, I wrote her a HIMYM drabble which bloated all the way up to 350 words. And then I grabbed Punk and commandeered her to write Psych, which I don't watch but which I clearly, upon learning about these characters, should.

In Canada, The Retailers Call Them "Igars" To Get Around The Law
HIMYM, Barney/Robin, 350 words, by Sab

( rolled on the warm brown thighs of gorgeous naked women )

And also we've got Desk Job
Psych, Shawn/Gus friendship, 350 words, by Punk

(Desk Job)



Thank you, Anna, for being so very very cool and a pleasure to know! Also thank you Punk! Who served her country above and beyond the call of duty.

//