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

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

Superchunk: Watery Hands

What do you do when you don't have anything to say?

Let me rephrase...

What do you blog about when you don't have anything to say, and you've got a blog, and you feel like, in the spirit of blogginess, you ought to be posting regularly, but you just don't know what to write about?

Ya see, I'm 41 years old...I've been the "creative type" my entire life, and I've been prolific in many respects...I've written and recorded hundreds of original songs over the past 25 years...I've acted as engineer and producer for other bands...I paint, I cartoon, I've written several screenplays, a book of short fiction, and a couple of aborted novels, to say nothing of the pornography I've written...

I've done alot of creative things over the past 2-3 decades, and while I can't say that any of it was worth a damn, I still did it all, nonetheless...

The thing is, after all this time, and all that effort, at the age of 41, I feel empty...Drained...I just don't think I have anything to say at the moment...I haven't for the past couple years, actually, and I wonder if I'll ever have anything meaningful to make/share ever again...

And yet, I WANT to say things...I want to create...I want to share, teach, whatever, but the fact that I seemingly CAN'T at the moment is what puts me in this losing situation...

You don't want to read about my two cats, do you? I could tell you about Eno suddenly developing this urge to slip and slide around in the bathtub, or how Isaac lost another fang, so that now, at the age of 12, he's only got one of his four fangs left and he's now relegated to soft food...You don't want to read about that...Hell, I didn't want to write about that...

I could share with you my recent forays into needlepoint...Nah...

I don't go out to the pubs much and get sloppy drunk, so I can't regale you with tales of drunk Mohaski...

Last night I made spaghetti, but there are enough blogs out there already recounting last night's meals, so I won't go there either...It was damn good spaghetti though, because I am a damn fine cook...

So what's left? What do I do when my head is empty and echoing with useless thoughts?

I guess I post things like this Superchunk video, in which Janeane Garofalo and David Cross (and the band) make lighthearted fun of stupid conceptual music videos...For the record, I still think Laura Ballance is one of the hottest foxes in rock, and I still think the best part of this video is the drummer, who appears to have a mind and will of his own until "confronted" by his bandmates, at which time he acquiesces to their furrowed, displeased brows...I think it's a sly and nifty way of pushing the theory that drummers are little more than hired guns and trained apes...Anyways, enjoy the video...I was looking for a video for "Slack Motherfucker", one of the greatest rock anthems ever recorded, but came away with this...

I still don't think Janeane Garofalo is funny, but that's my cross to bear.

Hotcha! Hank