Something 4 The Weekend # 143

Luna: Rendezvous: "Cindy Tastes Of Barbecue" [mp3]

I've been with two women in my life named Cindy, and neither tasted of barbecue, which is fine with me, because I'm not much of a BBQ fan.

For the record, one of those Cindys kinda tasted like pineapple. The other tasted like, well, a Cindy.

Hotcha! Hank

Good Tattypoo

Hotcha! Hank

Wicked Sally

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 10 November 2009

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Sweet & Sour Chicken = $8.30 + $1.70 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 142

Faces: Ooh La La: "Cindy Incidentally" [mp3]

You've never heard this song on Classic Rock Radio™, and you never will, which is certainly a shame. "Stay With Me" is probably the only Faces song you've ever heard anywhere on the FM dial, and that's a shame too, because even though it's one of the finest rock songs ever written, it really ain't enough Faces for the airwaves. For every time "Stay With Me" gets played at 2:13 AM on yr local Classic Rock Radio™ station, you'll hear 19 Rolling Stones songs, including "You Can't Always Get What You Want" twice, and I guess that's my way of saying the Faces were pegged as some sort of second-rate Rolling Stones, which is kinda, sorta true, but that 19:1 ratio is absurd. Unfair. There were plenty of times, when the Faces out-stoned the Stones...

Now, I don't know if "Cindy Incidentally" out-stones the Stones, mostly because I don't think the Rolling Stones were actually capable of this exact kind of smooth swagger...Alot of that has to do with Ian McLagan's piano, no doubt, and yes, Ron Wood's guitar, which would soon after be poached by you know who...

In the end, I'm like 99% of you, of course, and take The Rolling Stones if forced to choose, but that still doesn't mean a song like "Cindy Incidentally" doesn't deserve to shine a bit...Or "Flying"..."Glad And Sorry", "Bad'n'Ruin", "Had Me A Real Good Time", "You're So Rude"...And if that can't happen, how about Classic Rock Radio™ should adjust that Stay With Me Ratio™ to something like 9:1.

I, for one, could live with those odds.

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

jiggumbobs

Function: noun

Etymology: British slang, from bobs - testicles; earlier, bob - a man

Date: late 1700's

01: testicles; "Don't talk to me, Randy's the one who dipped his jiggumbobs in the hollandaise."

Hotcha! Hank

EVERYTHINGATHON! November 2009!

Wherein yours truly plays "His Indie World" by Mary Lou Lord, then proceeds to play songs by most of the bands she mentions in her song...Simple as that...

http://www.everythingathon.com/podcast.htm

Enjoy, you quickly aging hipsters! Sebadoh! Sentridoh! Silver Jews! Bikini Kill! Butterglory! And many, many more indie rock superstars from the front half of the 1990's...

Oh, and no, that's not me in that picture, although I have much respect...According to Fudgie's Beard Index, this young independent man is sporting what most closely resembles an "Extremely Cheech"...

Hotcha! Hank

Not Sideways At All

One time, just once, I had this dream that I was standing on a beach at night, and way, way, way up in the sky above the ocean, there was what appeared to be a rather enormous flourescent tube, just kinda floating there, a mile or three above the water.

I decided that this was the corridor from the reoccurring dream (what else could it be?) but wondered exactly what it was...Heaven? An alien vessel? An enormous flourescent tube?

Now, Imagine that the the entire world has a PA system, which is typical in most of my dreams. Well, in this particular dream, Tom Petty was acapella singing "The Waiting" from the skies.

He really doesn't have that good of a voice without the Heartbreakers.

Hotcha! Hank

The Belle Sinking Sideways

See, here's one of my greatest fears, of which I have many...Phobias might be a better word, but whatever...

I have an almost deathly fear of water, of large bodies of water, and of being submerged in said bodies...

And I'm an Aquarius, babycakes!

I've had a reoccurring dream since about the age of six or seven, of barely treading water out in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a black, black night. I've had this dream at least two dozen times in my life, and half of the time the dream is nothing more than that - me floating in the ocean at night - except to say that there is an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, that the situation will never change, a feeling that borders on dread. What is in the dark, dark waters beneath my feet? What toothy death awaits?

Like I said, half the time I wake up before anything happens, though there have been variations of the dream. At some point in my teens, I began dreaming that there was a door in the sky, just out of my reach, a few feet above the water. So of course, there was hope in the dream now. Hope that my paddling and the fate of the swelling ocean would lift me to this door.

Which it did, eventually. On the other side of the door, I found myself in a long, white corridor. Extremely clean and brilliantly white like a brand-new hospital, except it was also extremely empty. At one end of this long corridor was a glass counter, and behind counter was a voluptuous Hispanic woman in a nurse's uniform. Ahh, puberty...

I walked the long corridor towards the woman, passing door after door on both sides, until finally she stood in front of me. I spoke to her, asking her the questions you might expect me to ask - Who are you? Where am I? What the fuckity fuck fuck is going on? Are you God? Goddess? Can I see your boobs?

The Goddess never spoke and never showed me her boobs, but she did hand me a fairly large, black spider encased in amber, and at this point I should note that I have a fairly strong fear of spiders.

I turn and walk down the hall away from the woman. Some of the doors are now open, revealing random scenes of life on earth, including the middle of the black ocean at night. I keep walking towards the opposite end of the corridor, which is so far away at this point as to be a brilliant white pinpoint in the distance.

I've never made it anywhere near that brilliant point, but I do have to mention that one time about ten years ago I had this dream, and the door from which I had came from had another guy floating in it as I passed, and I heard his yelling, and so I lay down on my stomach, dangling my arms down towards him who was splashing about no more than twenty feet down and away from me.

This went on for awhile, until the fate of the ocean took him out of sight and sound of me and the door...

Then I woke up.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 03 November 2009

MEAL: 1 Vegetable Spring Roll + 1 small order Chicken With Pea Pods = $5.45 + $1.55 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 141

Boris: Smile: "My Neighbor Satan" [mp3]

I've lived in one half of a side-by-side duplex for the past 12 years...These are just a few of my neighbors...

Kelly lived by herself, although her boyfriend "visited" most weekends, totally wired on crack, and beat her pretty fucking hard. I was her "safe house" until the cops showed, for awhile, until I finally told her I wouldn't do it anymore. I told her I wasn't helping her, really, because the only solution was for her to get as far away from this guy as possible. Besides, I didn't really like having 2 or 3 cops in my house at 3am on such a regular basis. Otherwise, Kelly was pretty cool. Yeah, she liked to do a line or three of blow on a Friday and/or Saturday night herself, and she liked her red wine, but she also baked the moistest brownies I've ever had, and she insisted on always mowing the lawn (a shared responsibility in the duplex) because she said it was like meditation for her. I understood. Dishwashing. Kelly lived on the other side for the first two years I lived there, until moving out without any notice one day. By that point her boyfriend was in jail for burglary, but I like to think Kelly is living somewhere near an ocean, with him completely in her past.

Carl couldn't hold a job. It might be because all he owned were basketball uniforms, literally, but more likely it had to do with his hardcore addiction to World Of Warcraft - 36+ hour marathons at a time, and he had the mountain of Red Bull cans to prove it...Carl stole my lawn mower and gas can when he moved out suddenly one day, which I found rather amusing because he never mowed the lawn once in the year he lived here . The landlord told me he owed 3 months back rent when he split.

Pam was pretty cool. She was a single, 40-something long-haul truck driver who chain smoked Virginia Slims and chain drank Rum'n'Diet Cokes, and had the voice to prove it...Her and I were starting to fool around a bit (just the back hallway and two doors between us), as slightly drunk and totally single neighbors are wont to do. It wasn't a bad thing because she was on the road 4-6 days a week, and both of us really liked the loose, casual nature of it all. The sloppy beej on the washing machine was a particularly memorable evening...Then her elderly mom in Des Moines got sick, and she moved back home to take care of her. We kept in touch for a year or so, and then we didn't...

Connie was a college co-ed. During the first week she lived on the other side, she was washing her car in the driveway when I came home for lunch, and I introduced myself and talked to her just long enough to find out she was from Green Bay, majoring in biology, that she liked Hip Hop and painted her toenails lime green. During the next year she lived there I only talked to her one more time when she came down to the basement while I was doing laundry one evening, and we talked just long enough for me to learn she spent most of her nights at her boyfriend's place, closer to campus, and that she totally promised to mow the lawn the next week. I briefly imagined getting a sloppy beej from Connie, which made me think of Pam. I kinda missed her. Anyways, Connie never did mow the lawn, and then moved out a month or so later. She stole my laundry detergent, bleach, fabric softener sheets and a laundry basket that (believe or not) had sentimental value. She left behind a toaster oven and a beat-up 10-speed bike.

Bob was a 50-ish fork lift driver at Oscar Mayer who drank a heroic amount of beer with his nephew, Matt, and watched ESPN and porn exclusively. I thought he was a pretty innocuous guy until I discovered him stealing my electricity one day - running a heavy-duty extension cord from my outlet in the basement up the stairs, and under his back door to his side of the house. I yanked the cord from my outlet, and banged on his door. Even though I could hear ESPN through the door, Bob didn't answer. Bob did a remarkable job of avoiding me, and then about two days later, I found him once again stealing my electricity. Same runaround, except this time, I took digital, time-stamped photographs of the dirty deed. I slipped a note under his door telling him if he didn't stop stealing my fire, I wouldn't just tell the landlord next time, but also take my pictures to the cops. Two days later, he was stealing my electricity again, so I took a pair of hedge shears that the landlord just happened to have in the basement, and I cut his extension cord into about nine pieces. The next morning I found a note under my door from Bob, demanding I replace the extension cord or give him $30. I banged on his door, hearing ESPN coming from inside his place, but again, he refused to answer the door. I called my landlord, who told me he had already served Bob with an eviction notice. We were all expecting Bob to be the kind of guy to fight the eviction (In Madison it's legally quite difficult to evict a renter), but much to our surprise, he disappeared in the middle of the night about two days later, but not before taking a dump in the back hallway in front of my door. Like Carl, Bob owed 3 months back rent when he split.

Sarah was another Connie, but with bigger eyes and better curves, and a declared major in Psychology. Her and her boyfriend fought and fucked loudly, and alot. One time, when I was sitting on the toilet, I heard Sarah singing "Magic Man" by Heart on the other side of the wall separating us. I imagined she was singing in the shower, and then I imagined other things. It's fun to imagine. Sarah lived here for about 8 months before splitting. She had a habit of using my electricity to do her laundry and drying, but otherwise, was an alright neighbor, I suppose. Man, their sex was LOUD!

Ashley moved in one Sunday afternoon, met her once in the front yard, and then she moved out three weeks later. Apparently she hated UW, was homesick, and moved back in with her parents. I never got the chance to ask what her major was.

Erick "with a CK, like sick, cuz I'm ill, yo!" was a full-time wigger and half-assed Juggalo. He drove a sad, miserable old Toyota Celica with a boomin' system, wore full-on basketball gear almost as often as Carl, had pizza delivered every single night that he didn't bring home one of those $5 footlongs he slapped together part-time at the Subway two blocks away...Other parts of the time, I'm pretty sure he was dealing drugs. He certainly smoked alot of weed...I was tempted to try scoring off him for awhile, but having decided he was positively one of the dumbest human beings I had ever talked to, I further decided to limit my interactions with him. He was so dumb, it wasn't even entertaining to me, or rather, his was an annoying kind of dumb, and don't even ask me to explain. Carl was another one who used my electricity to do his laundry and drying, and my two attempts to remedy the situation were expectedly futile. At last I got wise and put my basement outlet under a lockbox and deducted the cost from my rent.

Jeff was a 40-ish dude, brawny and possibly covered in a very thin, imperceptible, coating of motor oil. I wrote about him a bit elsewhere. Jeff was a bit scary on sight, but wasn't really a bad guy. He bartended and bounced, liked Classic Rock Radio kinda stuff, drove a pick-up, and dated a very tall blonde woman named Katie who looked a little busted, but kinda in a pretty way. She called me "babydoll" and liked to go play bingo at Ho-Chunk, and Jeff was very sweet to her, which I will always remember. He lived on the other side for about a year and a half, and I kinda missed him when he and Katie decided to move to Milwaukee.

Eve lives on the other side now. She's a large, pretty young woman who always wears muu-muu's and flip-flops, and her toes are always painted in bright colors. She's a phone sex operator (the third I've known in my life, believe it or not), and a rather boistrous, funny woman who nonetheless has very loud, nasty arguments with her boyfriend. I kinda feel bad for him because he seems to be a pretty nice guy, and because she talks for a living, always gets the better of him in their arguments.

Sometimes I imagine Pam driving her big rig somewhere out in the desert southwest, and I think of the washing machine. It has served so many, so well...

Hotcha! Hank

Ghosts Of Sideways Astronauts

I stand corrected...I still want to know how it feels to be Sally Timms...And now, Jon Langford a bit too...

Team Mekons!

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Sideways Sideways

We've all of us always wanted to know what it felt like to be Bono...This is Sally Timms singing Johnny Cash's first single, "Cry, Cry, Cry"...I bet Bono has always wanted to know what it felt like to be Johnny Cash...I know I have...More than I've always wanted to know what it felt like to be Bono, in fact...

Anyways, I bet Sally Timms has always wanted to know how it felt like to be Johnny Cash too...I never wanted to know what it feels like to be Sally Timms until about 41 seconds ago, and I suppose in another hot minute or so this feeling will pass...

Hotcha! Hank

Happy Birthday, Winona!

Because I am 100% certain that Winona Ryder reads HOT POOP regularly, I would just like to take this opportunity to wish her a very happy birthday, so...

Happy birthday, Ms. Horowitz!

Dare I say you are more lovely and talented and intriguing than ever? Yes, I dare...Time brings a kind of grace...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 27 October 2009

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 small order Kung Pao Chicken = $5.65 + $1.35 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 140

Mekons: Retreat From Memphis: "Lucky Devil" [mp3]

There was a time, about a decade ago, when I had this reoccurring dream about being manhandled by Sally Timms in my dad's garage. She had me on my knees with a handful of hair, forcing my face between her legs. Because this was a dream, there were three squirrels sitting on the workbench, watching the action like they were judging us...me.

Fucking squirrels - even in my dreams they're the enemy!

Anyways, I had this dream three times, according to my notes, but I have no idea why. Sally Timms has never intrigued me, sexually or otherwise, and The Mekons are a fine, respectable band, but one I've never slobbered over, so to speak.

I mean, those filthy dreams involving Kim and Kelley Deal in a bathtub are understandable...Or the many glorious nights spent in a Winnebago with The Donnas - I get that...

And I even get those fucking squirrels. But Sally Timms? Hm...

According to my notes, she didn't care about my safeword.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 20 October 2009

MEAL: 1 order (4) Chicken Wings + 1 order Fried Crispy Bean Curd = $7.45 + $1.55 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Maneuver Just Wants To Be Your Everything

Only a manchild as sexy as Andy Gibb could get away with wearing an unzipped satin cricket jacket, even in 1977. 78% of male America was unbuttoning their shirts back then, due in no small part to cocaine, and it was simply a bad decision for all of 'em, save Andy and possibly two of his older Gibb brothers from the BeeGees...Linda Ronstadt coulda pulled it off, if it wasn't for her perky tits. America was almost as afraid of perky tits back then as we are today.

But I digress.

I think this video proves my long-held theory (nay, belief), that the bigger one's teeth, the bigger the success. Whiteness certainly counts, but size matters most. Try thinking of a famous person with small teeth. I can't, but I don't really want to right now.

I digress.

I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain Andy Gibb was singlehandedly responsible (Rex Smith and Shaun Cassidy probably factor, but barely enough to mention) for my sister Starsky going through puberty when she was 10 years old, and what I mean, you pervert, is that he exuded soooo much sexiness on his album covers and posters and Tiger Beat photo spreads and appearances on American Bandstand that my sister literally willed herself to become a woman. That's fucking sexy, babycakes, and Andy had it 100%. The only man who possibly had that much sex power in 1977 was Burt Reynolds, but he wasn't for the little girls like Andy was. Burt was for the ladies, like my mom, who had her copy of Cosmo with the naked centerfold neatly tucked at the bottom of her stack of cooking and sewing magazines in the dining room. It was the only copy of Cosmo she ever owned, such was the power of Burt on the housewives of that decade, but now I'm really digressing...

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 139

Andy Gibb: Shadow Dancing: "Shadow Dancing" [mp3]

Guilty pleasures. I don't believe in 'em.

This non-belief fits into my philosophy (certainly not original) that there is no such thing as "good" and "bad" music. I mean, there's an argument to be made that some songs are better written than others, that they follow certain "rules" of songwriting (intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, outro), and utilize specific chord groups and progressions (G, C, G, C, D, C) that for reasons that can't really be explained except to say that they are familiar and comforting to our collective intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities. But these "rules" offer no quantifiable proof that a song is "good" or "bad". Music is simply too deeply wired into our brains and souls and culture to be qualified in such a way. We (as individuals) either like a particular song and/or musician, or we don't (or sometimes we're simply ambivalent), and that's a truth that most of us don't figure out until we're older, and categorizing everything as "sucking" or "not sucking" is no longer a satisfying game to play.

I like Andy Gibb, and I like this song, and there's absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

If you don't agree, well, that's because you suck.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 13 October 2009

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Moo Goo Gai Pan = $8.00 + $1.00 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 138

The Jesus Lizard: Down: "Countless Backs Of Sad Losers" [mp3]

Of course, the remastered re-release of the entire Beatles catalog was the musical event of the season, if not the entire year, and for good reason - the original CD mastering sounded like absolute ass, and the new versions are stunning by comparison.

I like The Beatles, who doesn't? I respect their prolific output, and their songwriting skills are impeccable, plus I always felt that their musical progression is a rather remarkable mirror of the 1960's in general, from their innocent skiffle beginnings of the early '60's to the drug'n'mysticism influenced latter years when the counterculture ruled the pop culture landscape. More than any other band, The Beatles owned that decade. The Beatles were the 1960's.

But you know what? I was much more excited about the remastered re-release of The Jesus Lizard's Touch'n'Go recordings, which just hit the streets last week. I was excited, their great fucking music aside, because I owned those albums on cassette, and those cassettes had certainly seen better days, having been played and played and played to within an inch of their lives. And nobody plays cassettes anymore, including me.

The Jesus Lizard are one of those bands that pretty much defines what Rock music is to me - an unrestrained expression of the human Id. The Jesus Lizard were unpredictable, ugly and oftentimes violent, both musically and lyrically. David Yow sang about nasty people doing horrific things to themselves and others, cutting right to the heart of the human condition - the idea that underneath the thin veneer of civilized society, we are really just a bunch of animals with sick thoughts and poor impulse control. If that ain't Rock'n'Roll, I'm not sure what is.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 06 October 2009

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 Fried Sweet Bun = $7.85 + $1.15 tip


Hotcha! Hank

EVERYTHINGATHON! October 2009!

This month's EVERYTHINGATHON! turned out pretty well, I'd say...

Wherein I insert myself as Dr. Watson into an old Sherlock Holmes radio show, and proceed to swear alot...

http://www.everythingathon.com/podcast.htm

Enjoy!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 137

Yid Vicious: Klez, Kez, Goy Mit Fez: "Devil's Sher" [mp3]

One of my favorite concerts/shows I ever attended happened here in Madison a few years ago, when I had the pleasure of seeing this Klezmer band, Yid Vicious, perform live at Mama Fool's coffee shop on Willie Street.

Now, Mama Fools is a long, narrow space, which probably has enough seating for about 30 people during normal business hours. On the night I saw YV, there must have been somewhere between 100-150 people packed into the place, and considering the nature of Klezmer music (and other styles of Eastern Europe), many of these people wanted to dance...Nay, were compelled to dance...

Let me just say I've been in hardcore moshpits that were more genteel...

It was a magical night...The rain outside, colored by the street lights and stop lights, was dotting and streaking the windows with diamonds of light, which backdropped the band, itself numbering at least 8-10...

It was a joyful, magical night for a Polack like me...

Hotcha! Hank

Hank Ranks No. 28

My 9 Favorite Sausages

When it comes to meat, and you can bet yr ass I'm a carnivore, I eat an awful lot of sausages...They're tasty, they're versatile, they easily go mobile, and alot of 'em are pre-cooked for ease of use...and plenty of 'em, like Summer sausages, don't even need to be refrigerated...For a single guy like me, it's easy to slice some salami or braunschweiger for sandwiches, or grill up one or two hot dogs or bratwursts at a time for a quick and easy lunch with no leftovers...And almost nothing beats a big, fat kielbasa sweating in a bed of saurkraut and potatoes in a crockpot...Almost...

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

09: Venison Summer Sausage I come from a family of hunters, and here in Wisconsin, that means whitetail deer. Now, I never cared for venison steaks, or venison burgers, finding the meat a bit too "gamey", but dammit if I didn't love venison summer sausage, and to a lesser extent, venison jerky. It's all about the seasoning, heavy on the mustard seeds, black pepper and garlic.

08: Hungarian Winter Salami 100% pork seasoned mostly with white pepper and allspice, cured cold and smoked slow...Known for the mold on the outside of the casing. Even though this is a Hungarian salami, the Polish deli I used to go to (before it made way for a fucking Starbucks) often had this stuff...And it was good...An interesting alternative to regular store-bought hard salami.

07: Iron Sausage There is no such thing as "Iron Sausage", except in the lyrics of the Frank Zappa song, "The Torture Never Stops". And if I'm parsing the lyrics correctly, the "iron sausage" Frank mentions is some sort of torture device... "In the night of the iron sausage, where the torture never stops..."

06: Italian Sausage When it comes to pizza, I'm an Italian sausage guy all the way...Pepperoni is a salami, of course, but it just doesn't measure up to a fat chunk of sausage when it comes to pizza...Sausage and onions and black olives on a thin crust, which I believe is called "Portland-style". Otherwise, Italian Sausages are probably the second best grilling sausage after the venerable bratwurst.

05: Cumberland Sausage Cumberlands are long, curly pork sausages from Britain that are heavy on the pepper and often used for "bangers and mash", the popular British pub grub. Add some thick onion gravy, and what more needs to be said?

04: Braunschweiger Also known as liverwurst. Ahhh, soft smoked pork livers...Spread on toasted rye with a touch of mustard and a thick slice of Swiss cheese - delicious! The strange thing is, I vowed to never eat liver of the "liver'n'onions" variety once I left home, and I never have, but I sure do love liverwurst sandwiches. I almost always have Braunschweiger in the fridge.

03: Bockwurst Similar to bratwurst, except there is typically more veal than pork in the mixture, and just about any other type of ground meat can (and has) been substituted over the years, although I could never take a shine to any sausage made out of things like turkey or chicken, finding the idea just wrong. The other major difference between bockwurst and bratwurst is the fact that bockwurst is typically simmered, rather than grilled like brats. Great with mustard and originally created as a compliment to Bock beer, thus the name.

02: Wiejska Kielbasa A long, U-shaped pork and veal sausage known as "wedding sausage" in Poland. Seasoned heavily with garlic and marjoram, this is perfect for the crockpot in winter. Serve on a big plate with mashed potatoes and saurkraut, plus some horseradish - few things better on a long, long Sunday of NFL football...Aside from Chopin, perhaps Poland's greatest contribution to world culture.

01: Nürnberger Rostbratwurst The popular German version of what we call a "bratwurst" here in America...To me, it's the quintessential sausage, so tasty and versatile, and at least here in Wisconsin and the greater midwest, so pervasive. It always saddens me (yes saddens) when I travel around the western states to know that finding bratwurst is an oftentimes difficult task. Those people in California and Oregon have no idea what they're missing. Sausage of the gods...Sausage of the working man...

Hotcha! Hank

FREE POLANSKI!

No, I don't think Roman Polanski should be let off the hook for drugging and raping a 13 year old girl in 1977. But these prominent people do...Careful, somebody you admire is probably on this list...

Is there something I'm missing? It's hard for me to believe so many of these people would actually defend the drugging and raping of a 13 year old girl...I mean, I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but drugging and raping a 13 year old girl by a 44 year old man is simply wrong...

Sigh...

[source]

Erika Abrams, Fatih Akin, Yves Alberty, Stephane Allagnon, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Gianni Amelio, Wes Anderson, Michel Andrieu, Roger Andrieux, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Frédéric Aranzueque-Arrieta, Alexandre Arcady, Fanny Ardant, Asia Argento, Marie-Hélène Arnau, Darren Aronofsky, Olivier Assayas, Alexander Astruc, Gabriel Auer, Zdzicho Augustyniak, Alexandre Babel, Fausto Nicolás Balbi, Eleonor Baldwin, Jean-François Balmer, Alberto Barbera (Museo nazionale de Torino), Luc Barnier, Christophe Barratier, Ernest Barteldes, Carmen Bartl, Pascal Batigne, Anne Baudry, Juan Antonio Bayona, Xavier Beauvois, Liria Begeja, Matthieu Béguelin, Gilles Behat, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Marco Bellochio, Yannick Bellon, Monica Bellucci, Véra Belmont, Jean-Marc Benguigui, Djamel Bennecib, Luc Béraud, Jacob Berger, Alain Berliner, Gael Garcia Bernal, Pascal Berney, Bernardo Bertolucci, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Jean-Marie Besset, Marlène Bisson, Arnstein Bjørkly, Lucien Blacher, Virginie Blanc-Brude Bard, Jean-Marc Bloch, Catherine Boissière, Anne-Sylvie Bonaud, Olivier Bonnet, Thierry Boscheron, Freddy Bossy, Patrick Bouchitey, Cédric Bouchoucha, Paul Boujenah, Frédéric Bourboulon, Katia Boutin (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Ian Brady, Jacques Bral, Sophie Bramly, Paulo Branco, Patrick Braoudé, Guila Braoudé, Edwin Brienen, Isabelle Broué, Max Brun, Merima Bruncevic, Anne Burki, André Buytaers, Anthony Byrne, Marco Cacioppo, Gerald Calderon, Monica Cannizzaro, John Carchietta, Christian Carion, Henning Carlsen, Jean-Michel Carré, Esteban Carvajal Alegria, Lionel Cassan (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Bryan Cassiday, Mathieu Celary, Teco Celio, Muriel Cerf, Chagi, Jean-Yves Chalangeas, Daniel Champagnon, Christophe Champclaux, Georges Chappedelaine, Fabienne Chauveau, Claire Chazal, Patrice Chéreau, Brigitte Chesneau, Mishka Cheyko, Catherine Chiono, Catherine Chouchan, Elie Chouraqui, Souleymane Cissé, Jean- Pierre Clech, Henri Codenie, Ethan Coen, Robert Cohen, Suzanne Colonna, Jean-Paul Commin, Anne Consigny, Alain Cophignon, Alain Corneau, Jérôme Cornuau, Guy Courtecuisse (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Miguel Courtois, Guillaume Cousin, Morgan Crestel, Dominique Crevecoeur, Penelope Cruz, Alfonso Cuaron, Estelle Cywje, Frédéric Damien, Sophie Danon, Olivier Dard, Luc et Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Isabelle Dassonville, Hervé de Luze (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Artus de Penguern, Valérie de Saint-Do, Virginie De Wilde, Viviane Decuypere, Guillermo del Toro, Benoît Delmas, Jonathan Demme, Ruud den Dryver, Dante Desarthe, Romain Desbiens, Thomas Desjonquères (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Alexandre Desplat, Chris Devi, Rosalinde et Michel Deville, Guillaume D'Ham (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Christelle Didier (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Kathrin DiPaola, Claire Dixsaut, Xavier Dolan, Ariel Dorfman, Jean Douchet, Jean Douchet, Fabrice du Welz, Marina Duarte Nunes Ferreira, Marc Dufrenois, Sissi Duparc, Jean Dusaussoy, Georges Dybman, Daniel Edinger, Yaniv Elani, Elrem, Sam Enoch, Ernest, Jacques Fansten, Joël Farges, Gianluca Farinelli (Cinémathèque de de Bologne), Etienne Faure, Maud et Romain Ferrari, Michel Ferry, Jean Teddy Filippe (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Aurélie Fiorentino, Alan Fischer, Martine Fitoussi, Sebastian Fleischhacker, Joy Fleury., Michael Flynn, Hugues Fontenoy, Scott Foundas, Werner Fraai, Jean-Robert Franco, Stephen Frears, Thierry Frémaux, Marc Freycon, Sam Gabarski, René Gainville, Matteo Garone, Yves Gasser, Tony Gatlif, Catherine Gaudin-Montalto, Jean-Marc Gauthier, Costa Gavras, Nathalie Geiser, Lizi Gelber, Isabelle Gély, Jean-Marc Ghanassia, Alain Gil, Véronique Gillet, Terry Gilliam, Christian Gion, François Girault, Stéphane Gizard, Carlos Miguel Bernardo González, Christophe Goumand, Eric Gravereau, Martin Gregus, Philippe Gruss, Marc Guidoni, Marta Gutowska, Mikael Håfström, Ronald Harwood, Dimitri Haulet, Geert Heirbaut, Buck Henry, David Heyman, Laurent Heynemann, Joshua Highfield , Dominique Hollier, Isabelle Hontebeyrie, Frédéric Horiszny, Robert Hossein, Jean-Loup Hubert, Wendy Hudson, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Gilles Jacob, Eric et Veronique et Nicolas Jacquelin, Just Jaeckin, Thomas Jahn, Olivia Janik, Jean-Baptiste Jay, Anne Jeandet, Alain Jessua, Renate Jett, Sébastien Jimenez, Arthur Joffé, Pierre Jolivet, Kent Jones (World Cinema Foundation), Peter Josy, Alexandra Julen, Paola Jullian, Roger Kahane, Pierre Kalfon, Elisabeth Kalinowski, Reena Kanji, Nelly Kaplan, Wong Kar Waï, Darius Khondji, Ladislas Kijno, Richard Klebinder, Jonathan Klein, Harmony Korinne, Jan Kounen, Sylvia Kristel, Diane Kurys, Emir Kusturica, Irene Kuznetzova, Jean Labadie, Eliane Lacroux, Michel Laigle, Stéphane Lam, John Landis, Claude Lanzmann, David Lanzmann, André Larquié, Pauline Larrieu, Jacques et Françoise Lassalle, Carole Laure, Christine Laurent-Blixen, Emilien Lazaron (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Eric Le Roy, Fábio Leal, Vinciane Lecocq, Patrice Leconte, Linda Lefebvre, Claude Lelouch, Ann Lemonnier, Alain Lenglet, Gérard Lenne, Larry Levine, Lorraine Lévy, Pierre et Renée Lhomme, Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Michael Louis Wells, Catalina Lozano, Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski, Flore Luquet, Laurence Lustyk, David Lynch, Bania Madjbar, Laurent Malet, Tim Malieckal, Guy Malugani, Erling Mandelmann, Michael Mann, Yvon Marciano, François Margolin, Jean-Pierre Marois, Tonie Marshall, Alain Martin, Sandrine Martin, Didier Martiny, Mario Martone, Christine Mathis, Esmeralda Mattei, Nicolas Mauvernay, Yannick Mazet, Christopher, Spencer et Claire Mc Andrew, Natalie Mei, Guillermo Menaldi, Frédéric Mermoud, Laura Metaxa, Allison Michel, Radu Mihaileanu, Jean-Louis Milesi, Claude Miller, Lionel Miniato, Nelly Moaligou, Jean-Marc Modeste , Mario Monicelli, Jeanne Moreau, Gael Morel, Omayra Muñiz Fernández, Stephanie Murat, Christian Mvogo Mbarga, Anna N.Levine, Charles Nemes, Juliette Nicolas-Donnard, Sandra Nicolier, Rachel Noël, Rui Nogueira, Olivier Nolin, Alejandra Norambuena Skira, Fabrice Nordmann, Fabrice O. Joubert, Michel Ocelot, David Ogando, Mariana Oliveira Santos, Szentgyörgyi Ottó, Martine Pagès, Eric Pape, Abner Pastoll, Alexander Payne, Richard Pena (Directeur Festival de NY), Lindsey Pence, Olivier Père, Suzana Peric (Membre de l'équipe du dernier film de Roman Polanski "The Ghost"), Jacques Perrin, Thomas Pibarot, Arnaud Pierrichon, Stéphane Pietri, Anne Pigeon Bormans, Samuel Pinon, Claude Pinoteau, Michele Placido, Sabrina Poidevin, Agnès Catherine Poirier, Jean-Yves Potel, Stéphane Pozderec, Harry Prenger, Jean et Marie Prévost, Gilbert Primet, Marie-Hélène Raby, Philippe Radault, Tristan Rain, Florence Raphaël, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Joseph Rassam, Rolandas Rastauskas, Brett Ratner, Raphael Rebibo, Jo Reymen, Laurence Reymond, Yasmina Reza, Christiane Rhein, Jacques Richard, Dominique Robert, Jean-Jacques Rochut, Yannick Rolandeau, Paul Rondags, Avital Ronell, Frank Roozendaal, Graciela Rosato, Kontochristopoulou Roula, Laurence Roulet, Joshua Rout, Paolo Roversi, Florence Rphael, Isabelle Ruh, Martin Ruhe, Sonia Rykiel, Anita S. Chang, Esteban S. Goffin, Joaquin Sabina, Marc Saffar, Ludivine Sagnier, Gabriela Salazar Scherman, Walter Salles, Jean-Paul Salomé, Jean-Frédéric Samie, Marc Sandberg, Léo Scalpel, Jerry Schatzberg, Richard Schlesinger, Daniel Schmidt, Georg Schmithüsen, Julian Schnabel, Barbet Schroeder, J. Neil Schulman, Pierre Schumacher, Ettore Scola, Luis Gustavo Sconza Zaratin Soares, Martin Scorsese, Steven Sedgwick, Steven Sedgwick, Andrea Sedlackova, Frank Segier, Michèle Seguin-Sirhugue, Guy Seligmann, Lorenzo Semple Jr, Julien Seri, Sophie Sharkov, Boris Shlafer, Antoine Silber, Pierre Silvant, Charlotte Silvera, Noel Simsolo, Christophe Sirodeau, Abderrahmane Sissako, Beatrice Sisul , Petter Skavlan, Marcin Sokolowski, Paolo Sorrentino, Roch Stephanik, Karen Stetler, Guillaume Stirn, Gérard Stum, Jean-Marc Surcin, Tilda Swinton, Jean-Charles Tacchella, Radovan Tadic, Danis Tanovic, Bertrand Tavernier, André Techiné, Cécile Telerman, Harold Alvarado Tenorio, Alain Terzian, Christian Texier, Valentine Theret, Virginie Thévenet, Pascal Thomas, Jeremy Thomas, Marc Thomas Charley, Giuseppe Tornatore, Serge Toubiana, Nadine Trintignant, Julie Turcas, Mitja Tušek, Tom Tykwer, Alexandre Tylski, Stephen Ujlaki, Jaques Vallotton, Phil van der Linden, Betrand van Effenterre, Leopold van Genechten, Christophe van Rompaey, Dorna van Rouveroy, Elbert van Strien, Vangelis, Lucília Verdelho da Costa, Christian Verdu, Jean-Pierre Vergne, Sarah Vermande, Julien Veyret, Marc Villemain, Jean-François Villemer, Daria Vinault, Verde Visconti, Thomas Vossart, Gilles Walusinski, Eric Watton, Dominique Welinski, Wim Wenders, Anaïse Wittmann, A Wolanin, Margot Wolfs, Arnaud Xainte, Paule Zajdermann, Christian Zeender, Terry Zwigoff.

And here's a few more:

Isabelle Adjani, Valerie Alati, Antoine Aronin, Benjamin Arseguel, Paul Auster, Sebastien Azzo, Morgane Beauverger, Candice Belaisch-Goldchmit, Yamina Benguigui, Clément Brua, Pascal Bruckner, Emmanuel Carpentier, Catherine Chouchan, Sandrine Clarac, Jessika Cohen, Gilles Collard, Philippe Corbé, Jean-Luc Cosotti, Estelle Cywje, Jean-Paul Dayan, Cynthia Derolez, Katarina De Meulder, Romain Desbiens, Arielle Dombasle, Nathalie Faucheux, Claude Fichard, Corinne Figuet, Julien Fontaine, Pierre Forciniti, Harrison Ford, Barbara Frei, Louis Garrel, Albert Gauvin, Johanna Gozlan, Davide Homitsu Riboli, Taylor Hackford, Isabelle Huppert, Siri Hustvedt, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Jacquemin, Neil Jordan, Paola Jullian, Thierry Kamami, Milan Kundera, Gaelle Lancien, Valérie Lang, Claude Lanzmann, Veronique Lestrade, David Leroy, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Saskia Lévy, Dominique Maisonneuve, Carlo Mancini, Georges Mazilu, Sam Mendes, Camille Meyer, Patrick Mimouni, Yann Moix, Laurits Munch-Petersen, Nadine Nahmiasm, Bernard Nahmias, Mike Nichols, Sandra Nicolier, Marie Nieves, Perez Neël, Claude Nunzy-Valery, Lucien Obellianne, Sigrid Obellianne, Luis Ospina, Catherine Paganessi, Natalie Portman, Françoise Ratajczak, Yannick Rolandeau, Salman Rushdie, Daniel Salvatore Schiffer, Patrick Samama, Carine Sarna, Ysabelle Saura Del Pan, Sophie Schmit-Flageollet, Kristin Scott Thomas, William Shawcross, Olivier Soares Barbosa, Steven Soderbergh, Nil Symchowicz, Danièle Thompson, Traube Nathalie, Arnaud Trichet, Eugenia Varela Navarro, Jean-Pierre Vergne, Diane von Furstenberg, Margaret Walker, Elsa Zylberstein...

Did I mention that he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl, and all these people don't think he should be punished for it?

Sigh...Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

consensual

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin consensus + English -al

Date: 1754

01: existing or made by mutual consent without an act of writing; "There may not have been a written contract between Roman Polanski and Samantha Gailey, but there was nothing consensual about their sexual encounter of March 10th, 1977."

02: involving or based on mutual consent; "There is absolutely nothing consensual about drugging and sodomizing a thirteen year old girl who repeated says 'no'."

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 29 September 2009

MEAL: 2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 small order Sweet & Sour Chicken = $6.95 + $1.05 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The End Of The Weekend

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears: Tell 'em What Your Name Is!: "Get Yo Shit" [mp3]

Well, it was a busy, craptastic weekend that just isn't worth talking about...

Sometimes life hands you lemons, and there ain't no water for lemonade.

Joe Lewis knows...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 22 September 2009

MEAL: 2 Roast Pork Egg Rolls + 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon = $5.95 + $1.05 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 136

The Jim Carroll Band: Catholic Boy: "People Who Died" [mp3]

One night, when I was fifteen or sixteen, I climbed up on the roof of our garage and masturbated under the moonlight. I did it because Jim Carroll wrote about doing the same on the roof of his apartment building in NYC when he was a teenager. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It still does, really. The raw primacy of the act outdoors - it was quite a powerful experience, and one that stayed with me...There's nothing quite as exciting as outdoor sex, I don't think - fucking like animals...

Anyways, The Basketball Diaries blew my teenaged mind, and is definitely one of the most influential books I've ever read...Sex, drugs, basketball - that was essentially my teenaged life, although I never had to sell my mouth and ass for heroin money...Instead, I worked a dishwashing job for $3.75 an hour for weed and booze money, which I often smoked and drank at the basketball court on 3rd Ave...

The Basketball Diaries was influential because it was one of my earliest forays into adult fiction, and led my reading to what might be considered the more transgressive writers - William S Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, the Beats, JG Ballard, Kathy Acker...It was an autobiography that seemed to give me permission to experiment, as it were...Now, I never got strung out on smack at 13, let alone 43, but when I was young, I never shied away from trying any drug at least once, including heroin...Most drugs I never did again, including heroin, but two or four were worth repeating...Sex too - just about anything goes, you know, and you never know when a favored safe word might come in handy.

Anyways, Jim Carroll died last Friday, though I didn't hear about it until Tuesday...Go figure...

This song selection is the obvious one, but it truly is a great song and worth hearing again...What is Rock'n'Roll if not a raging against the dying of the light?

RIP, Jim Carroll...

"I just want to be pure."

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 15 September 2009

MEAL: 2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 small order General Tso's Chicken = $6.75 + $1.25 tip


Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Parliament-Funkadelic

05: Funkadelic: Maggot Brain [1971]
Featuring..."Maggot Brain", "Hit It & Quit It", "You & Your Folks, Me & My Folks","Wars Of Armageddon"

Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time...For y'all have knocked her up! I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe...I was not offended! For I knew I had to rise above it all...Or drown in my own shit! Come on Maggot Brain! Go on Maggot Brain!

(I wanna know if you can get to that!)

I want you to hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it! I want you to (hooo-whoaa) Oh mama, hit it! Good god, hit it and quit it!

If you and your thing dig me and my thing, like me and my thing dig you and your thing, and we all got a thing, yeah, and it's a very good thing...

(We are back in our minds, again!)

More power to the people, more power to the people, more pussy to the power, more pussy to the people, more power to the pussy, more pussy to the power...Power to the pussy!

(Right on, brother...)

04: Motor Booty Affair [1978]

Featuring..."Mr. Wiggles", "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)", "The Motor Booty Affair", "Deep"

DG was the only black kid in my middle school, circa 1977-1979...The comfortably numb white middle-classed suburbs of Grafton...DG's family had moved to our languid town from the north side of Milwaukee, an area I knew well on account of my grandparents...

Stereotypes be damned, DG excelled at basketball and boxing...During recess, out on the playground, playing hoops, he'd take it to the rim and totally smoke some taller, gawky kid of ambiguous Nordic descent, and just to make things clear that the only black kid in the school wasn't to be trifled with, he'd start shuffling his feet like Ali when he was done with the rope-a-dope, and start jabbing and dancing, jabbing and dancing, getting in a quick lick or four, and then take off running in the opposite direction of Mr. Stangle.

I was a decent enough basketball player myself in those days, and smart enough not to get sucked into any boxing matches with DG, and so we became pretty good friends...Good enough friends that Stan, Paul and me would go over to DG's house during lunch sometimes, and we'd sit in his bedroom in the basement, passing around a bottle of rhubarb wine his mom had made, and listen to Parliament and Bootsy Collins records...

Never any Funkadelic, for some reason, though...I got into them via the One Nation Under A Groove album, which I bought for myself after DG had schooled me in the ways of George and Bootsy and the rest of the P-Funk crew...

I was a 12 year old white Polack in the suburbs, getting drunk on Parliament! So it shouldn't be so strange to consider the 43 year old white Polack in hipster Madison getting high on Parliament right now?

"I got a string on my thing, rhythm in my thing (Wind me up)... I can do my thing underwater!!! I got a string attached to my thing, when you pull my string, I can do my thing like I oughta!!!"

03: Mothership Connection [1975]

Featuring..."P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)", "Mothership Connection (Star Child)", "Unfunky UFO", "Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)", "Night Of The Thumpasaurus People"

Back in those same middle school years, I used to go with my parents to rummage sales, and one breezy Saturday morning I was rummaging through crates of vinyl, both 7 inch and longplaying varieties in some crumpled uncle's garage, and I happened upon a promotional 45rpm of Parliament's "P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" with an extended, somewhat dirty version on the flipside...Rather rare these days, and you bet yr ass I got that baby tucked away in a sturdy case in the front hall closet...

Imagine a middle-aged man of ambiguous Nordic descent selling a Parliament 45 to a 12 year old kid of Polish descent out in the whitewashed bedroom community of Grafton!

And damn if I didn't jam that sweet sweet single frequently, full volume in my big fat KOSS cans, bouncing around at the foot of my bed, watching the neighborhood girls ride past and thinking about teenaged sex...

"Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show. We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving. Welcome to station WEFUNK, better known as We-Funk, or deeper still, the Mothership Connection. Home of the extraterrestrial brothers, dealers of funky music. P-Funk! Uncut Funk! The BOMB!!!"

02: One Nation Under A Groove [1978]

Featuring..."One Nation Under A Groove", "Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?", "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo-Doo Chasers)", "Into You", "Lunchmeatphobia (Think, It Ain't Illegal Yet!)", "Maggot Brain [Live]"

So wide can't get around it! So low you can't get under it! So high you can't get over it! Do you promise to funk, the whole funk, nothin' but the funk??? One nation under a groove, gettin' down just for the funk of it! One nation and we're on the move...Nothin' can stop us now!

'Bout that time they asked me where was I going, ya know? I, said, " Well, you have to be reasonable...So you know I've never been away from home before...And, uh, besides, they gave me a good deal, and I think that, uhhhh, Funkadelica is...you know... the nation, uhhhh, you know, I would like to, live under..."

(What in the world is this boy talking about?)

The world is a toll-free toilet...Our mouths neurological assholes...And psychologically speaking, we're in a state of mental diarrhea...Talking shit a mile a minute! Or in a state of constipated notions, can't think of nothin' but shit...And in this world of stinky futures, shitty memories and constipated 19 now-nows...Emerges from the hiney of your head...The doo doo chasers!! The Promentalshitbackwashpsychosisenemasquad!!! The prune juice of the mind! The doo doo chasers!! Friends of roto-rooter!!! Bringing you music to get your shit together by...The band in the tidy bowl of your brain!

(Fried ice cream is a reality!)

You know, it was in my hands, it was in my feet...I got it all over me! Yes, I did! I got it all over me! Got to go, got to go, got to go with the funk!

01: Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome [1977]

Featuring..."Bop Gun (Endangered Species)", "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk", "Wizard Of Finance", "Funkentelechy", "Placebo Syndrome", "Flashlight"

What I consider the greatest Funk album ever made...Six fat, sick slabs of groove and hardcore funk, bookended by arguably the two best songs in the entire Parliament catalog...Or at least the two best-known and most-sampled...

I guess it isn't much of a surprise that two of my favorite Hip-Hop albums, Ice Cube's Death Certificate and Digital Underground's Sons Of The P, infringes upon this album hardcore...

I don't know what else to say at this point, about my favorite album by a band you might never expect would mean so much, and run so deep, for a guy like me...What might I have missed if I hadn't been such good friends with the only black kid in Grafton in the 1970's? Would we have jammed Grandmaster Flash on the boombox in the JV football locker room a couple years later? Would I have loved Run-DMC if they hadn't teamed with Aerosmith? What about Fela Kuti?

Of course, they were on the same label as KISS, so maybe all of this was inevitable...

"Everybody's got a little light under the sun!"

Hotcha! Hank

When Sideways Maneuver Talks To God

"When the president talks to God, does he ever think that maybe he's not? That the voice is just inside his head when he kneels next to the presidential bed...Does he ever smell his own bullshit when the president talks to God?...I doubt it."

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 135

Woods: Songs Of Shame: "Military Madness" [mp3]

I shouldn't have to tell my fellow Americans (and most others around the world) what today is, so I won't...

The question has been asked before by others, but where have all the anti-war and protest songs been this past decade? Aside from Bright Eyes' "When The President Talks To God", I'm having a hard time thinking of any others...

("Military Madness" is a Graham Nash song from 1971, btw...)

While the Cheney administration was bullshitting the American public into a nasty war against the wrong country/regime (Iraq) at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and untold human lives, it would seem the opposition was mostly ineffectual...It's not necessarily true that the anti-war people were completely quiet, but underlying the opposition (at least to me) was the feeling that we were helpless and powerless to do anything, and so we mostly did nothing...

Until the 2008 elections, when the majority of voters put the Democrats back into Congressional power and gave Barack Obama the presidency, which seems to me to be a fairly strong repudiation of the past 8 years...

And now President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are attempting to pass some health care reforms, including a public option and insurance coverage for those of us who cannot afford insurance in any form, and dammit if Republicans and those with conservative political ideologies aren't storming town hall meetings and screaming bullshit talking points and trying to stifle any sort of rational dialogue. These are the same people who saw no problem with funding DEATH and WAR to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, but believe that taking care those who cannot take care of themselves, improving their quality of life, and in some instances, SAVING LIVES, is a waste of money, and even worse, SOCIALISM...

Words cannot express the ridiculousness of it all...Maybe that's why there are no decent protest songs these days. Cognitive dissonance is a stone-cold bitch.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 08 September 2009

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 small order Chicken Chow Mein = $5.35 + $1.65 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 134

Joe Jackson: Look Sharp!: "Happy Loving Couples" [mp3]

My friend and former co-worker, Taber, got married this weekend, and as any friend and former co-worker would do, I went to the wedding/reception. It was a grand affair, capping off a whirlwind 8 year romance/courtship, and I believe they'll have a long and happy marriage, despite now living in Los Angeles, land of divorces and general neuroses...

Now, this sour and sarcastic song by Joe Jackson is not aimed at Chris and Christine Taber, but rather, sums up my general feelings of being a middle-aged single man at a wedding reception. Particularly a wedding reception where most of the attendees are already coupled up, and/or significantly younger than I am...

Which is not to say I went to this reception looking for a hook-up or the blossoming of a new romance...

You see, I'm quite happy being single...Well, most of the time I'm quite happy about it...However, it's tough to remain sunny about these self-imposed circumstances when there's so much love/lust in the air. A wedding reception is one of those events where I certainly begin second guessing my choice of bachelorhood. A time when I actually feel lonely, rather than just being alone...Which is why I'm streaming "Happy Loving Couples" for this week's S4TW...

So, I drank heavily...If you consider 9 Gin & Tonics and 2 glasses of red wine in about 3 hours heavy drinking...

And I danced...And when DJ Papi Love (another good friend and ex-coworker) needed to take bathroom breaks, I took over the soundsystem to keep the party going...During one of these breaks, we were coming up on a slow-jam segment, and I learned something - 20somethings do not like Echo & The Bunnymen...Even a song as beautifully moody and perfect as "The Killing Moon"...It would seem this younger generation doesn't care much for slow-tempo songs in general - if they want to slow dance, they'll just do it no matter what song is playing at the time...

Kids - there's no accounting for taste...

(Congratulations again, Chris and Christine)

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

fond

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English fonned, from fonne fool

Date: 14th century

01: foolish, silly; "Ach, you and your fond dreams of wealth and fame."

02: prizing highly, or having an affection (used with of); "Anyone who knows me, knows I'm quite fond of butterscotch, Winona Ryder, and thoughts of Winona Ryder covered in butterscotch."

03: foolishly tender, indulgent; "Fond mothers make for spoiled kids."

04: cherished with great affection; "My fondest memory may be building a go-kart with my grandpa one weekend when I was nine."

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 01 September 2009

MEAL: 1 order (4) Chicken Wings + 1 small order Chicken Chow Mein = $7.75 + $1.25 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Look What The Cat Rolled In

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 133

Earth: The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull: "Engine Of Ruin" [mp3]

The passing of Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy this past week has heightened the already extreme polarity of American politics between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. While most liberals have been effusive in their praise for the man's many legislative accomplishments and his championing of those among us who are in need of the most championing (the poor, tired and huddled masses), many conservatives have approached the man's passing from an entirely different direction, honing in on the incident/crime at Chappaquiddick as the jumping off point for demonization of the man's entire life and career, and even much worse, celebrating his death, and wishing death upon others who share his political philosophy. They celebrate his death because of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. They cheer his death because of his pro-abortion beliefs, but mostly they rejoice in his death merely because he doesn't share their same basic political worldview.

This is the America we live in today - largely devoid of empathy, sympathy, compassion, forgiveness, understanding, compromise, etc...We revel in the misfortune of others, we take great comfort and joy in the misery of those we do not like, or merely don't agree with. We demonize those we do not understand because it is far easier to do so than to try and simply understand.

And I say this not to necessarily demonize the conservative right, because you and I know damn well that when Dick Cheney dies, there will be far too many on the political left who will act and speak with the same kind of vitriol we are currently seeing directed at Kennedy. Hell, I'll likely be one of them...

And the saddest part of all this is - I believe this country hasn't been this divided since the Civil War era, and there is no easy way back to civility, respectful discourse, and the ideals upon which this country was supposedly founded. We are a country adrift. We are lost, and it remains to be seen whether or not we can find our way back.

Ever the cynic (I prefer pragmatic, but whatever), I fear we are beyond the point of no return.

But hey, have a fantastic weekend!

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 25 August 2009

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Pepper Steak With Onions = $8.30 + $1.70 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Harnessed In Sideways Maneuvers

Back to Chapel Hills' finest...Archers Of Loaf...

Finest? Hmmm...

Maybe that would be Superchunk...or Polvo...Or Ben Folds...Or James Taylor...Or Corrosions Of Conformity...Or Southern Culture On The Skids...

Ach, I'll stick with the Archers, much as James Taylor's Greatest Hits meant to me as a make-out record in 7th or 8th grade...

Hotcha! Hank

A Hobble With A Wobble At The Sideways Maneuver

Can u taste the belated waste? That's some tight shit, right?

wEEn!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 132

Archers Of Loaf: Icky Mettle: "You & Me" [mp3]

I like MP3 playlists...It's pretty much the same as putting together radio show playlists, except you can add enough songs to fuel a 44 day broadcast marathon out on the ledge of the radio station's building, like Tim "The Rock'n'Roll Animal" did back in the early '80's on WQFM in Milwaukee...

But I digress...

I make playlists...Some of them consist of songs from the same decade...This particular Archers Of Loaf song came from my 1990's playlist...

It was chosen at random by looking away from my monitor and clicking...

That's kinda the way I've been rolling this past week or so - too busy with other stuff to dedicate much time to blogging and whatnot...

So, there ya go, and here we are...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 18 August 2009

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 small order Pork Egg Foo Yung = $5.60 + $1.40 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 131

Ween: Pure Guava: "Poop Ship Destroyer" [mp3]

I've been listening exclusively to the complete works of WEEN on an MP3 disc in my automobile for the last couple of weeks...13 weird and wonderful albums of eclectic music that pretty much covers every conceivable style of music known to the average person and/or WEEN fan...

I'm not sure what kind of music "Poop Ship Destroyer" is, but when I decided it was about fucking time I featured WEEN on S4TW, there was almost no hesitation - this had to be the featured song...Now, I briefly considered the 26 minute live version from Paintin' The Town Brown, but sometimes a little goes a long way...At a slim 2 minutes and 17 seconds, this version goes just far enough...Part of me thinks this song might be a children's song, and the Pure Guava album a children's album, but of course this is WEEN we're talking about here, so things get a bit messy and ugly and twisted.

I guess it's all the pitch-shifted vocals on Pure Guava that make me think this way...Songs like "Push Th' Little Daisies" that sound like they're being sung by kids...Meanwhile the music is mostly bouncy and happy and fun for children of all ages, nevermind that Gene Ween is singing about drug addiction and violent death, and disease and asshole fatboys and poop ship destroyers and all sorts of tender situations that make Gener cry in his sleep...According to Deaner...

Awesome Sound! WEEN!

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways BURB Maneuver

Tape Jazz Massacre haven't done any videos, so I offer you this trim and sarcastic bit of nostalgia, called "War Bonus", courtesy of my friend Nort Weston down in the flatter lands west of Chicago...His music/video unit is called BURB...

Now excuse me while I blather a bit...

Remember the days when the wrong t-shirt got a loony liberal forcibly removed from Town Hall Meetings or campaign rallies if he or she had even gained access with that wrong t-shirt in the first place?

Remember when Dick Cheney was the only person who could bring a gun to a political function without question or repercussions?

Remember when Dick Cheney shot his billionaire friend in the face?

Remember the days when the government spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a War On Terror (the ultimate Death Panel), and if a person even questioned any of it (the war, the cost of the war, the justification for the war), let alone raise their voice in any sort of protest, they'd be called a traitor and worse?

Remember when waterboarding and the other assorted means of interrogation as used at Abu Ghraib were rationalized, justified and accepted, and if you didn't agree, you hated America?

Remember when the government would intercept any phone calls, emails, text messages and Pony Express messengers they felt like, and we better like it...Or else...??????

Remember those days?

Nowadays, the very idea government-provided healthcare for those among us who needed the most (one of the most fundamentally Christian things we can do as a society, I'd say) is called "Socialism" by those among us who are most Christian, and often enough in need of the very kind of health care they oppose violently in these Town Hall Meetings...

In the end, I guess I can only ask - why wasn't there that kind of vitriol in 2003? 2004? Where was that kind of passion when they tapped our phones and told us war and death was the only path to glory? Where were the viciously angry words in public forums when the Bush administration lied to us? Time and time again?

Who championed de-regulation in the financial markets, and why didn't anybody raise a bigger stink before it all came crashing down?

At this moment in time, what right does ANYBODY on the conservative/Republican side of the political aisle have to bitch and complain about ANYTHING? Their elected officials have been fucking up seemingly everything they touch, and spending us into the poorhouse all the way, and now they've lost an honest election and their political power...If they can't sit down at the table, so to speak, and discuss their opposition to the policies of the Obama administration and this Democratic Congress in a rational, civilized manner, they ought to sit at home, ride it out, and most importantly, just shut the fuck up...

Why healthcare?

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 11 August 2009

MEAL: 2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 small order Pork Lo Mein = $6.85 + $1.15 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 130

Tape Jazz Massacre: Cookin' With Tape Jazz Massacre: "A Beef Tongue Supreme" [mp3]

The new Meryl Streep and Amy Adams film, Julie & Julia, is out in theaters right now, babycakes, and while I have no songs about Julie Powell to offer, I DO have two Tape Jazz Massacre songs that sample Julia Childs quite heavily, so this weekend seems like the perfect weekend to unleash 'em...

Tape Jazz Massacre: Cookin' With Tape Jazz Massacre: "Poached Chicken Runaround" [mp3]

For the record, and not that it's much of a suprise, I am one half of the sampling duo that is Tape Jazz Massacre...I am the Big Jimmmmi Cakefingers half, and my job is mostly cutting up words and mixing drinks...Ornette Yukahiro is the other half, and he mostly does the music and woolie-rolling...His software, my record collection...

As always, 100%!

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

qualm

Function: noun

Etymology: unknown

Date: circa 1530

01: a sudden attack of nausea, illness, or faintness; "The smell coming from the last stall in the men's room on the second floor gave me qualm."

02: a sudden and overwhelming feeling of disturbing emotions such as fear or doubt; "The smell coming from the last stall in the men's room on the second floor filled me with the kind of qualm that haunts a man the rest of his days."

03: a feeling of uneasiness about a point of conscience or propriety; "I have serious qualms about your sudden interest in my masturbating habits."

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 4 August 2009

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Sweet & Sour Chicken = $8.40 + $1.60 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Typical Sideways Maneuver

It's nearing 4am, and the bottle of Cockspur rum is slowly draining towards a noble death...I'm stumbling around YouTube and wondering if bassist Tessa Pollitt or any of The Slits are actually "chicks" by my silly and arbitrary definition...

Hotcha! Hank

Sideways Maneuver Is Moving To Define (So Say So, So Say So)

7+ minutes that should leave no doubt as to why Tina Weymouth is the #1 all-time "chick on bass". This song (and all Talking Heads songs, really) moves on her big, deep bed of groove, the swiveling hips of a song about celebratory, communal dance - the bouncing hips of maidens all around the world, dancing for the young buck drummers, with the sweaty young drummers, since the days when we slept in trees and caves and nobody wore shirts.

Moving to define the world.

Hotcha! Hank

Kissing Sideways Maneuver's Families

Silversun Pickups' bassist and singer Nikki Monninger is the reason for ranking 29 chicks on bass in the previous post (the band was on Letterman the other night). She's definitely the best part of a good (but not yet game-changing) band, she's quite lovely, seems to be kinda tall, she does The Pogo, and in this video she is wearing the exact same style of shoes that are sitting by my front door right now - Chocolate Low-Top Chuck Taylors...I do not have a Video Wizard t-shirt, however...Or red short-shorts.

"Smitten" is a good word...

Plus +++ Kitten and grilled cheese sandwiches!

Hotcha! Hank

HANK RANKS No. 27

29 Chicks On Bass

If I've learned anything at Jezebel, it's that plenty of women of today don't like the term "chick", but then again, I suppose plenty of women weren't too keen on that word long before there were websites where they could voice their disdain...Now, I don't think there is a blinding hatred for the term "chick", but among women who care about the soft misogyny of this kind of word, I believe "annoyed" might be the proper adjective. Now, "chickie" might elicit a more heated response, but this ain't the Rat Pack era, and nobody really uses that term anymore...

So, maybe I'm some sort of tool for calling women "chicks", but I'm a tool that reads Jezebel...

I'm also a dude who posted a picture of Ali Larter's ass two days ago, so who the hell knows what to make of all this except I'm making entirely too much of all this...

Here's the thing, babycakes (a term of endearment I often use that is directed at both genders) - "chick" isn't really meant as a demeaning, belittling term - not by me, and I dare say, not by most men who use the word liberally in casual conversation...It's nothing more and nothing less than a female version of "dude", and I don't believe there's a dude alive who gets offended when other dudes (and chicks) call him "dude".

And here's where we get to the tender heart of this matter - women who play bass in rock bands are exactly the kind of women who deserve to be called "chicks", who often get called "chicks", and who have really earned the right, I'd say. Most of the women I've known who might rightly be called "chicks" were pretty fucking righteous, and yeah, a couple of 'em played bass (thanks to Kim Deal). I wasn't cool enough to get close to most of 'em, and the two or three I managed to attract didn't stay interested for long.

Those are chicks.

I could have listed more than 29 chicks on bass. Alot more, but I think at 29, I've made some sort of point. That point being - damn, there are a hella lot of chicks who play bass. Why is that? Maybe Billy Corgan could give us a clue - he's had at least three chicks working the low end for him over the years...

How many chicks are there on bass? So many that I came up with the band name ...And You Shall Know Us By The Chick On Bass, which is somewhere on my NAME THAT BAND list...

Anyways...The #1 all-time greatest chick on bass was never in question, and nows a good time to mention that I do believe that "the world moves on a woman's hips"...

The rest are ranked according to a complex matrix of musical ability, historical importance, personal taste, sex appeal, units shifted, footwear, and caprice.

See below...

HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP

29: Sean Yseult: White Zombie
28: Donna Dresch: Team Dresch
27: Kristin Pfaff: Hole
26: Jill Cuniff: Luscious Jackson
25: Suzi Quatro: solo artist
24: Josephine Wiggs: The Breeders
23: Vicki Blue: The Runaways
22: Tracy Wormworth: The Waitresses, The B-52's
21: Maya Ford: The Donnas
20: Rachel Haden: That Dog, The Rentals, Todd Rundgren
19: Melissa Auf der Maur: Hole, Smashing Pumpkins
18: Gina Birch: The Raincoats
17: Paz Lenchantin: A Perfect Circle, Zwan
16: Jennifer Finch: L7
15: Johnette Napolitano: Concrete Blonde
14: Kathy Valentine: The Go-Go's
13: Meshell Ndegeocello: solo artist
12: Naomi Yang: Galaxy 500, Damon & Naomi
11: Britta Phillips: Luna, Dean & Britta
10: Laura Ballance: Superchunk
09: D'Arcy Wretzky: Smashing Pumpkins
08: Tessa Pollitt: The Slits
07: Kim Gordon: Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, Ciccone Youth
06: Nikki Monninger: Silversun Pickups
05: Kim Deal: The Pixies, The Breeders, The Amps
04: Micki Steele: The Runaways, The Bangles
03: Kira Roessler: Black Flag, Dos
02: Sara Lee: Gang Of Four, The B-52's
01: Tina Weymouth: Talking Heads

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 129

Superchunk: Tossing Seeds: "Slack Motherfucker" [mp3]

The recording is shit, so who the fuck knows what Mac McCaughan is sputtering and spitting about in the verses...But the verses hardly matter in a song like this, charging hard towards the choruses, those glorious choruses...

"I'm working, but I'm not working for you!!! Slack Motherfucker!!!!!"

I'll tell you what - back in '89 or so, I was working, but I really wasn't working for anyone. I had a paper route for The Milwaukee Journal, and technically I was a private contractor. As such, I drove around out in the middle of fucking nowhere Wisconsin, 75-80 miles a day, delivering newspapers to farmers and the occasional enclave of McMansions out in the middle of what used to be corn fields. It was a great job, really - driving around, blasting tunes, puffing on a pipe - no boss, no homework - not a care in the world.

This brilliant Superchunk song got plenty of play in the tape deck in those days, because this was and will always be one of the great rock anthems of all time, one custom-built for the road...For flooring the gas cuz the next customer is over the hill and 1.6 miles away...Try not shouting along with the choruses as you burn around a curve in the countryside.

Which is exactly what I'm planning to do this weekend because there's a Mustard Festival in Mount Horeb, and that town is freaky enough without a pipe to puff, Superchunk be damned. I mean, just imagine an old German village obsessed with mustard and trolls, then pretend you have an undiagnosed and unmedicated disassociative disorder and a large wad of cash in yr pocket.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna take a drive through the countryside towards Mount Horeb this weekend, towards the mustard and the trolls, and the troll mustard and the fat Norwegian waitress who serves me Kylling Dyppers for dipping into aforementioned troll mustard.

And if that ain't enough, the town has an outrageous Christmas fixation. It's one of those places that dot our land that celebrate all things X-Mas all year round, and so there are gift shops in Mount Horeb. So many gift shoppes for such a small, lazy hamlet. Gift shoppes selling troll lumpen, and gift shops selling Santa shtuff, and all of 'em selling jars and jars and jars of every kind of mustard imaginable, and several dozen more that are unimaginable.

Including the aforementioned troll mustard, if you know where to look, and I'm not telling, you slack motherfuckers...

MOTHERRRFUCKERRRRRSSSSS!

YOU MOOOOOTHERRRRRFUCKERRRRRRSSSSS!!!!!

*snicker*

Hotcha! Hank

Beefcake Equality!

Gotta balance things out a bit...A little Ali Larter ass, a little Nathan Fillion ass...

Hotcha! Hank

Do You Want Celebrity Ass, Or Do You Want The Truth?

This is a peek at Ali Larter's ass. Do you still wish you were a movie star?

"A richer understanding...Of what's already understood...No meanings from the here and now...What gift could be a work of art?...Can you call it the big foist?...I'm fucking overwhelmed!" -- Minutemen

Hotcha! Hank

Night Of The Living Bacon!

I was trying to think of something clever to write about bacon.

I thought about making fun of the internet's creepy and zombie-like obsession with bacon, but couldn't really come up with anything more astute or interesting than the idea that the vast majority of people on the internet are either too witless or too scared to have an original, non-zombie thought.

"BAAAAAACONNNNNN!!!!!"

Eventually, enough of the "right" internet pundits laud the glories of bacon, and pretty soon everybody is doing the same. You would think that bacon was some brilliant new discovery, the way we gush about it, but bacon has always been fucking delicious. Long before the internet and your low-carb diet, babycakes. I guess if there's a silver lining in all this, at least it can be said that the internet has actually embraced something worthwhile for a change. Unlike zombies or Nathan Fillion.

"FIIIILLLLLIONNNNNN!!!!!!"

I enjoy bacon. Not as much as butterscotch pudding, but my version of the BLT (butterscotch, lettuce and tomato) admittedly tastes like shit, so I won't bother going there...

I enjoy bacon, but cannot bring myself to creepily adore it. What I can do is create a BACON tag, and hope to drive some traffic towards this useless blog.

Now, would somebody please do everybody a favor, and write some fanfic regarding bacon and a zombified Nathan Fillion? Or a regular Nathan Fillion eating Zombie Bacon™?

That way, most of us win.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 28 July 2009

MEAL: 1 Roast Pork Egg Roll + 1 small order Pork Mei Fun = $7.85 + $1.15 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 128

James Gang: Rides Again: "The Bomber" [mp3]

So let's see - in a typical week, HOT POOP! includes a streaming MP3 each weekend, a video Sideways Maneuver related to that song, and a fucked up fortune cookie fortune every Tuesday...

And that's really about it, eh?

Man, this blog has turned into a giant pile of suck. Posting a bunch of apparently lame shit that nobody really cares about...I feel like I'm just kinda going through the motions with this blog lately, and I shouldn't be surprised that it can't generate any excitement or readers. Plus, I'm a pretty shitty writer with nothing worthwhile to say. Yeah, that helps...

I mean, I've received one reader comment in the past two months, and it was from a fucking customer service rep from Charter after I bitched about their horrible service. So, maybe you can understand my doubt and self-loathing about all this. Apparently I have nothing to say or share that anybody else actually gives a damn about...

So, here's a James Gang song, just to keep the irrelevance of HOT POOP! intact. Plus, a bunch more useless, self-pitying words...

Have a great weekend. I'm gonna sleep alot and try to decide whether or not this blog and EVERYTHINGATHON are worth my time anymore, and if so, whether or not I should simply post pictures of celebrities and snarky comments about how lame and ugly they are...It seems to me that's all anybody really cares about.

Celebrities and bacon. God shed his grace on thee.

Hotcha! Hank

Smells Like Rick Astley

I just had to share this...

Hotcha! Hank

The Pains Of Being Sideways Maneuver

Let's talk about customer service.

I'm certainly not the first person, or the 100th person, to lament the sad fucking state of customer service in this world of ours today, but I'm going to do it anyways.

Charter Communications...

Apparently my June payment got lost in the mail, because on July 7th I got a NOTICE TO DISCONNECT letter from Charter, stating that if I did not make full payment for June and July ($126.37) by July 19th, my modem would be disconnected. I sent a check for the full amount to Charter on the very same day I got their letter/bill.

On July 12th, 7 days before their July 19th deadline, my service was disconnected.

So I called Charter's billing department, explained the situation, and they were kind enough to mark my account as "promise to pay", and after speaking to three different people/departments, my service was reconnected.

On July 16th my service was disconnected again.

So I called Charter again, and explained that my service was disconnected PREMATURELY for the second time in 4 days, despite my previous call to Charter and the "promise to pay" note on my account. I noted my frustration about this, but then became incredibly pissed when the service rep proceeded to tell me that my payment had been received and applied to my account at 11 o'clock that morning, seven hours prior to the most recent disconnect.

Naturally, my first question was "Why was my service disconnected 7 hours AFTER payment in full had been applied to my account?" The rep tried explaining that a disconnect order for 6pm that day had already been placed on my account prior to payment received.

"But payment was received. Surely Charter is saavy enough to recognize that the account is paid in full and the disconnect order can be immediately removed with a couple mouse clicks."

"I'm sorry, but the disconnect order was already placed."

"Yeah, which brings me to my second issue - that disconnect order was placed for a date and time that preceded the actual JULY 19th disconnect deadline that Charter had stated clearly in their Notice To Disconnect letter."

"Yes, sir, but the disconnect order for 6pm today was already placed on your account."

"But don't you understand, that disconnect notice for today is 3 DAYS PREMATURE. Just like the July 12th disconnect was 7 days premature. If Charter tells me I have until July 19th to pay before service is disconnected, then my service shouldn't be disconnected before then, and especially TWICE in four days."

"I apologize sir for the inconvenience."

Blah blah blah...After making excuses for a minute or two, the rep then informed me that I would be charged and addition $2.95 on my next bill for a "reconnection fee".

I could only laugh at this and say "whatever".

After being transferred again from Customer Service to Billing to Tech Support, my service was reconnected. In the past week, there have been three different service outages in my part of Madison that totalled almost 8 hours. This is pretty normal for Charter in this area, but I've never been able to claim any credit on my account because of it.

Is it any wonder Charter Communications has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? They charge ridiculous rates for crappy service. My only other option around here is TDS, and from what I've heard from customers and a friend who used to work there, TDS sucks just as hard as Charter.

Now, I thought about sharing my recent woes with Staples, but I've bitched long enough...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 21 July 2009

MEAL: 2 Roast Pork Egg Rolls + 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Pineapple Fried Rice + 1 large order Moo Shu Pork + 1 Fried Sweet Bun = $21.30 + $2.70 tip


Hotcha! Hank

Do You Remember Sideways Maneuver?

Well, I'm pretty sure this Kinks song isn't about Walter Cronkite, but it was one of the first things that went through my mind when I heard the news today, babycakes...

Plus, it's kinda hard to deny a video like this...

Hotcha! Hank

R.I.P. Uncle Walter

I don't have much to say about the passing of Walter Cronkite earlier today, except to say that when I was a kid my family ate dessert in the living room and watched the CBS Evening News. Thinking about it now, I have to say that it was an ingenious way to get my sister and me to know and even care about the news and current events.

Now, I was too young (4 years old) to remember this particular footage, but it's a trim 59 seconds of TV gold...Dan Rather gets roughed up on the floor of the 1968 Democratic Convention, when all hell broke loose in Chicago, and at one point Cronkite utters one of my favorite quotes of all time - "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan."

YouTube has disabled embedding, so here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlYRWD_tnA

RIP, Mr. Cronkite...

Hotcha! Hank

[photo courtesy Life Magazine]

Something 4 The Weekend # 127

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: "Young Adult Friction" [mp3]

In regards to S4TW, I've been trying to balance dinosaurs and the youth of today, babycakes...

I'm trying to stay true to my roots (the classic '70's album Rock, Punk, and New Wave that I cut my teeth on, and still love the most), while sharing some of the great and cool new stuff that the kids of today are twittering and facebooking and whatever...Those Pabst-swilling Williamsburg hipsters you don't see much in the record stores these days...Those bearded stoners of Silverlake who've got cooler things to do than go to clubs to see bands, like getting sucked into a Top Chef marathon on Bravo and forgetting to go to clubs and see bands...

And still a band like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart can attain a certain level of indie rock fame and widespread critical acclaim without selling very many shiny discs and/or tickets, cuz according to one of my nameless coworkers, these here internet tubes are reality. Not a separate reality, not virtual reality, but reality. He spends 8+ hours a day writing software code at work, and another 4+ hours networking socially on the internet at home. Add eating and shitting and sleeping, and yeah, I guess this is reality, at least for those of us like him...

And that's the way it is...Friday, July 17th, 2009.

Hotcha! Hank

A Word With Moshammer's Ghost

epic

Function: adjective, noun

Etymology: Latin epicus, from Greek epikos, from epos word, speech, poem

Date: 1589, 1706

01: [adj, 1589] of, relating to, or having the characteristics of an epic; "Connie was holding court in the kitchen, talking some nonsense about William Carlos Williams' Paterson being a modern epic poem, and I mistakenly snickered loud enough for her to hear me, so naturally she asked why I was snickering, and all I could think to say was 'Yeah, Paterson might be Williams' epic, but you can't seriously believe it's an actual Epic Poem - it was originally published as five separate books, for chrissakes, and ultimately attempts to make grand statements by focusing on small moments and common people in the city of Paterson, New Jersey, of all places, instead of telling big stories of heroic men spanning decades and sweeping across whole continents," to which she kicked me in the balls and stormed off into the living room, most likely to try hate-fucking Tom The Tool."

02: [adj] extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope; "The girth of his potato finger was truly epic."

03: [noun, 1706] a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero; "The way he was talking about his lunch with the CTO, you'd think he was retelling an epic."

04: [noun] a work of art that resembles or suggests an epic; "Now, The Changing Light At Sandover by James Merrill is truly a modern epic poem."

Hotcha! Hank