Tuesday's Fortune: 11 December 2012

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

Hotcha!  Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 252

Camper Van Beethoven:  II & III:  "(We're A) Bad Trip"  [mp3]

Imagine eight to twelve young stoners sitting around a large coffee table in the living room of a Victorian house on Milwaukee's east side circa 1988.  As you might imagine, every last one of those stoners arrived at that powwow with a disposable lighter on their person.

The circles in which I travelled liked to play a game we simply called "The Lighter Game".  The object of the lighter game was to come into possession of somebody else's lighter without their immediate knowledge.  This meant until that person asks "Who's got my fucking lighter?", or until that person left.  As you can imagine, with bongs and pipes being passed around, there was also the tendency for lighters to travel as well.  And of course, being stoned made it more likely for us to forget we've handed off our lighter.

We played this game within the confines of these stoner circles, and at larger parties, where there were many people who had no knowledge of "The Lighter Game", and so the winner of that night's lighter game might have as many as six or eight lighters rattling around in the pocket of their Levis 501 buttonfly jeans.

Anyways, that was kinda our version of CVB's "bad trip".

Hotcha!  Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 239

The Band:  Northern Lights~Southern Cross:  "Ophelia"  [mp3]

Well, today is "weed day".  You'll notice I put that in quotation marks and left it uncapitalized.  I'm ambivalent about the whole thing, really, despite my great fondness for the stuff.  I mean, it would seem strange to have a day that celebrates shrooms or LSD or MDMA.
I realize the reason for the today is education, and a supposed serious discussion about the viability of legalization and/or decriminalization, but for most of us, it's really just about reading celebrity tweets with #420 hashtags.
Ayup...

Tomorrow is the 5th annual Record Store Day.  I'll be heading to Mad City Music to pick up a few things, although the only vinyl I'll bring home will be of the free variety.  I like the idea of Record Store Day, but it seems to have been co-opted by Vinyl (with a capital V), if you know what I mean.  It's a great excuse for guys like Jack White and Fucked Up to put out limited edition 7 inchers, and for dudes who actually spend time thinking about their facial hair to snatch 'em up.

I used to go to multiple record stores weekly.  Mad City Music Exchange is my favorite record store in the city, and I haven't been there since November.  Like I said, I like the idea of Record Store Day, and I'll gladly participate for as long as they last, but if a guy like me hasn't been in his favorite shop in 5 months, I think it's safe to say places like MCMX and B-Side and even local chains like The Exclusive Co. are dead already.  Anyway...

Levon Helm passed away on Wednesday after a long bout with throat cancer.  He was a raw, soulful singer and a solid drummer who left a nice legacy as the nimble, thumping heart of The Band, and he will be missed.

Multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham of 80s Aussie Pop superstars Men At Work passed away yesterday of unknown causes at his home in Melbourne.  Men At Work were a relatively fun diversion on the pop charts, and helped usher in America's brief fascination with Australian culture.  Somewhere Yahoo Serious is crying.

Rest in peace, Levon and Greg.

Rest in peace, bowl of green.

Hotcha!  Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 230

Robyn Hitchcock: A Star For Bram: "Judas Sings (Jesus & Me)" [mp3]

Considering the mentions of a phone and dope, we must assume this song isn't Judas Iscariot singing to Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest who (allegedly) organized a plot to kill Jesus Christ, or Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judaea, who judged and sentenced Jesus to crucifixion, or even Emperor Tiberius himself, although the lyrics certainly fit otherwise.

Robyn Hitchcock is a smart and clever fellow, so I assume this song is some sort of allegory, religion as co-dependence and twisted love, breaking down your partner verbally, convincing your partner that nobody else in this whole world loves them except you and Jesus. You say that to someone often enough, and they very well may believe it. Or it could simply be about a dope dealer named Judas, who knows? I'd bet anything there was plenty of hashish and opium in Judaea, circa year zero.

So anyways, Jesus died for your sins. My sins. Everybody's sins. That's a pretty fucking heavy load of guilt and co-dependence right there, isn't it? Of course, some of our fundamentalist family members and friends might say God never gives us more than we can bear, which is a nice way of saying that no matter how much pain and suffering may be heaped upon us, we must always remember that it can always get worse. But we can handle it, right? We can handle the pain and despair, or the loneliness and heartbreak, we can handle Aunt Carol's constant put-downs and Grandpa's tendency to say racist things loudly in public, and we can even handle the cancers and the diabetes and the hypertension. We can handle it all right up to the very end because God loves us enough to never overburden us. Ever.

Man, this song is depressing. Religion is depressing. I guess I'm depressing, although I wouldn't say that I'm depressed. Maybe weary, not even sad.

[Insert sound of weariness here]

I wish all of you a pleasant and satisfying holiday season. May we get the handheld device of our dreams, may our fantasy football team win our matchups this weekend, and may we all enjoy this long weekend among people we like and even love, with no strings attached. Forgiveness and unconditional love. I think that's what this is all supposed to be about.

Don't be a Judas, an assassin of hearts.

Keep resting in peace, mom.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 218

Laurie Anderson: Homeland: "Another Day In America" [mp3]

We all know what this Sunday is all about, right?

I'm not a fan of nationalism, so my thoughts and feelings about the events of 9-11-01, and our rememberance of the day on this 10th anniversary, are not very deep or involved. Which means this Sunday I'll be drinking Kentucky bourbon, smoking SW Sconnie weed, watching football, monitoring my fantasy teams, and perhaps doing things like absent-mindedly drawing comic strip stuff, or finally getting around to reading Portnoy's Complaint. At some point I'll probably order a 16" Pestoral from Roman Candle Pizza, and if my fantasy teams do well, and if I actually start reading Portnoy's Complaint, I might masturbate sometime in the evening.

My biggest hope for Sunday is that I hear bits of Lee Greenwood's "Proud To Be An American" no more than three times that day. My plan is to mute the TV and crank Fucked Up, or some such loud and rollicking music combo of that sort.

So yeah, this is another solipsistic blog entry, making a national tragedy all about me...

But what would you have me write? That I'm not a fan of nationalism? That I believe our current financial problems can be partially tied to the events of 9-11? That I'm not a 9-11 truther but I still don't understand how the damage at the Pentagon was done by a passenger jet airliner and not a missile? That we retaliated in the wrong country for reasons other than retaliation?

You don't want or need my opinions about nationalism, fundamentalism, war, death, the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration, or the politics of oil. Of course, you didn't want or need to know I'm probably going to pleasure myself Sunday evening, but here we are.

Information is not knowledge, babycakes.

I suppose the blog post I should have written here and now would have posited the thought that when I think about New York City, I think of maybe eight people - Woody Allen, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Gregory Corso, and the Talking Heads.

And then I could have gone on to write about how Anderson's song "O Superman" appeared to be a bit prescient in light of the events of 9-11, and somehow brought it around to this particular song you're hopefully listening to right now.

But I didn't do that, did I?

See, I've been hesitant to read Portnoy's Complaint because I think I'm too old to really truly enjoy it. It's like The Basketball Diaries, or Catcher In The Rye, which were scriptures to me when I was 17, but not so much with subsequent readings. From what I know of Roth's book, I fear the same might be true - that it's a book I probably should have read when I was 28. I guess I'll find out.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 06 September 2011

MEAL: 2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 small order Hunan Pork = $6.95 + $1.05 tip

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 211

Au Pairs: Playing With A Different Sex: "We're So Cool" [mp3]

We were doing whippits in a kitchen in a duplex half a block off Brady Street in Milwaukee. We were drinking assorted liquors and smoking weed and some of us were snorting coke and dust, and others licked toads and ate fungii and who the fuck knows what else. There were seven or nineteen of us in the kitchen doing things, and some of us were playing Sheepshead.

There was a small Puerto Rican dude passed out in the back hallway with his pants pulled down and a small erection in his purple grundies, but we didn't know that for awhile.

Eventually one of us opened the kitchen door to get more toads, or something, found the small Puerto Rican dude passed out in the back hallway with his thumb in his mouth and a bunch of us laughed because we were doing whippits and whatnot. I remember he smelled like deep-fried fish and one of those Calvin Klein colognes.

Naturally, because the kitchen and all of us were full of Schedule 1 substances, we quickly decided the small dude with the small erection needed to be somewhere else, like in the shrubs on the side of the Walgreen's three doors down. I think that was Betty's idea.

Me and Shortbus, being two large, strong men with the least serious substances in our systems at that time, fireman-carried the guy to Walgreen's, but by the time we got him there, he was foaming at the mouth and starting to moan.

So yeah, shit got really real right then, and I made a call from the payphone on the corner (this was like, 1988, you know?) and now there were a couple of girls gathered, so Shortbus and I slinked off through the backyards because there was no way we were dealing with cops and paramedics.

Eventually the flashing lights that bounced off the living room window and through the dining room and into the kitchen in the duplex three doors down were gone, and we went back to smoking and snorting and licking and Sheepshead. At some point Murph said, "man, I wish we had whatever that dude had", and we laughed and partied just a little bit harder.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 204

Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy: "King Of The World" [mp3]

There are some misguided fools out there who believe THE RAPTURE is going to happen this weekend. I say "misguided" because the Holy Bible tells us that no one, save God, can or will know when THE RAPTURE is going to happen. I say "fools" because, c'mon - if and when the world comes to an end, it will be done by mankind, not the will of God.

(Of course, this all presupposes that God actually exists)


In that spirit, I offer you "King Of The World", a Steely Dan song that concerns itself with a post-apocalyptic world - specifically, New Mexico after an atomic disaster, which I'm presuming happened at Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project, where the atomic bomb was developed.

So, hedging my bets, my plans for this weekend include: getting drunk on absinthe, getting high on weed, having sex and/or masturbating, listening to a playlist of my favorite songs, and having a last meal of my favorite foods - a reuben sandwich, egg noodles with cream-styled corn, butterscotch pudding, cherry cheesecake, plenty of ice cold whole milk, and as the world burns around me, a glass bottle of Coca-Cola made with pure cane sugar.

If it is indeed the end of days, I wish you all the best. If not, well, carry on.

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 12 April 2011

MEAL: 1 order (8) Crab Rangoon + 1 small order Pork Lo Mein = $8.00 + $1.00 tip Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 196

Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde: "Weekend" [mp3]

What are your plans for this weekend?

I'm going to be smoking crack with my family of goddesses and watching porn. Either that, or drinking alone and reading Drood by Dan Simmons. I haven't really decided yet.

Plus +++ LAUNDRY!

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 172

Blitzen Trapper: Destroyer Of The Void: "Sadie" [mp3]

I was listening to the new Blitzen Trapper album this past week, and they're a band that evokes (for me) an era forty years gone...Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Grateful Dead, Lennon & McCartney, Bob Dylan..."Sadie" is the last song on the album, a sweet piano ballad that I can imagine Richard Manuel working out with The Band in some empty afternoon saloon, circa 1969. That's kinda what it sounds like to me. Maybe even a splash of Elton John from way back when. It's all good - the song, the album, the band...

Bob Dylan: Self-Portrait: "Little Sadie" [mp3]

Speaking of Bob Dylan, here he is doing his version of a trad song, "Little Sadie", which you might/should recognize as a variation of "Cocaine Blues" as made famous by Johnny Cash. Both songs were born of, and usurped, an old '20's song called "Bad Lee Brown", about a dude who kills his woman with a .44 which he hides beneath his head when he sleeps that night... The next day Bad Lee Brown gets caught in rhyming places like Jericho or Juarez, Mexico...Anyways...

I love Cash's "Cocaine Blues" as recorded at Folsom Prison because he spits the song out with such fervor, a song of drugs and murder and judges and jail, and the inmates at Folsom cheer like a fucking choir. Nothing beats that, not even this song by Dylan, which is a damn fine version from a strange and interesting album in his catalog, an album that's a small, overlooked gem in it's way, and if nothing else, an album with stories and theories around it...

The Beatles: The Beatles: "Sexy Sadie" [mp3]

"Sexy Sadie" is the third song about a woman named Sadie that I am aware of, or should I say the third song in my MP3 folders? And the thing of it is - this particular song is supposed to be called "Maharishi" to begin with, a stinging indictment of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles had visited in India , and who was accused of making improper and unwanted sexual advances towards one of the young woman in Fab Four's entourage. Harrison (and McCartney)thought the allegations were bullshit, and convinced Lennon to change the title and lyrics...Viola..."Sexy Sadie". "You made a fool of everyone..."

I am well into my 40's, and I cannot recall ever knowing a girl named Sadie. Not once, not ever, not even in passing.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 053010

01: LOST: "The End" [S6EP17]: Pop culture is mostly irrelevant. Television is a mere distraction. LOST was/is a red herring in this thing we call life. Indeed, when all is said and done, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the producers of LOST, gave us a series finale that ought to be a hard slap in the face to all the hardcore fanboys who were demanding, are still demanding, answers to so many of the the mysteries of the island, the characters, the show itself. Cuse and Lindelhof were all but literally telling those fanboys that all those mysteries, those puzzles, were red herrings when it came to "the meaning of LOST". There would be no reason for all that Hanso Foundation stuff. Walt's superpowers will have to remain unexplored and unexplained. The numbers were apparently random and held no great powers. So much time wasted on Eko. The books Sawyer read had no deep meaning, really...Or did they? Widmore's motives would remain unknown. Etc. Etc. Etc. In the end, LOST was steeped in death, or rather, the intermediate state between life and death, called "bardo" in Buddhism. It is here, in the "sideways universe" of season six, that Jack Shephard's soul must connect with the souls of all those from Oceanic flight 815 so that they can move on. In season one, Jack Shephard gave us the first big catchphrase of the show, which ultimately came to define the entire series. Simply put, "live together or die alone", and here at the end of the show, they needed to live together through the plane crash and all the weirdness of The Island, so that they could forge strong enough bonds to find each other after death, in Jack's bardo. And here we are, fanboys obsessed with the trivial minutae of LOST, and all six seasons of that stuff, the meaning of all that stuff, is irrelevant, and some of it makes sense, and plenty of it doesn't, and some of the questions got answered, but others never will, but none of that matters. What matters is that we watched the show, shared in that experience, and then we got together around the watercooler, or in discussion boards on the internet, to talk about all those red herrings, those distractions. So many puzzles, so many theories, so much discussion. And now even more discussion about this series finale. Love it or hate it, Cuse and Lindelof brought us all back together again, their show a spark to connect us in this waking dream we call life.

02: Commodore Pumpkin: You might suspect some photoshopping going on here, but I'm not so sure this picture isn't real.



03: SNL Digital Short: "Great Day" [NBC]: In general, I really like the Digital Shorts put together by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone (The Lonely Island) for Saturday Night Live, and this one, from last week's season finale, is a trim and fantastic thrillride from start to finish. Just remember kids, drugs are fun until they're not.

04: Royal Crown Cola: I'm not much of a soda drinker. Aside from the can of Mountain Dew I pound down first thing every morning at work, I just don't drink all that much of the stuff these days. Having said that, I always have some Royal Crown Cola in the fridge. Compared to the big two (Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola) RC isn't as sweet as Pepsi, and doesn't go flat as quick as Pepsi (seriously, Pepsi is shit), and RC is slightly sweeter than Coke, holds its carbonation almost as long, and in general, I find Royal Crown to be a creamier and tastier cola than the other two. Also, there is the Pair Of Kings cocktail to consider. I typically like my whiskey served neat, but if I'm going to drink a whiskey and coke, it seems only right that it be made with Crown Royal and Royal Crown. The Pair Of Kings! Thank goodness my boss gives me a bottle of Crown Royal every Christmas...
05: Wise Beard Man: If I'm not mistaken, beards in all their glorious variations, were the status quo in civilized (to say nothing of uncivilized) American society right up to World War I. It would seem head lice became a serious problem for our military men in the trenches of Europe, and shaving off all the hair on one's head was the first step in getting rid of the little buggers. And because society held soldiers and soldiering in much higher regard back then than we do now, soon it became fashionable for civilian men to go clean shaven. And here we are. Aside from some short-lived fads (moustaches in the '70's, goattees in the '90's) the clean-shaven look has remained the status quo, especially in the business world, since the 1920's. Take it from me, a dude who's worn a goattee every single day since the autumn of 1986, there are alot of uptight dicks in the corporate world who might appreciate an expensive blue suit, but will not take you seriously if you've got any sort of facial hair. You might be the smartest person in the room, but to these people, you'll always be a neanderthal. BTW - this post obviously doesn't have anything to do with Mark Bunker and Xenu TV, Scientology or 4Chan...Once in awhile I just gotta represent. I like beards.

06: FUCKING METAL: Is it possible that the infamous "duck face" craze popularized by plasticized celebutards and "real housewives" got its start in Fucking Metal?

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 164

The Dream Syndicate: Medicine Show: "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" [mp3]

The Dream Syndicate still has a small but very loyal fanbase among GenX, and in general, the critics have been very kind to the Los Angeles band since their earliest days in the Paisley Underground movement of the mid-'80's out there in southern California.

Try as I might, "John Coltrane Stereo Blues" is the one and only Dream Syndicate song I like. It was the freshman dorms at UW, vinyl LPs were selling for $4.99 at The Den, and I was smoking alot of really good weed that was migrating up from the fourth floor.

I wasn't listening to much (or any) Jazz that year, no Coltrane on my stereo, not like I would in a couple short years from then, but I did listen to to this one cut off Medicine Show an awful awful lot, and I drank my share of wine... Glorious wine! Glorious song!

Blather.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 162

Local Natives: Gorilla Manor: "Stranger Things" [mp3]

The year is still young, but right now, I'd have to say Gorilla Manor by Local Natives is the best album I've heard so far in 2010.

Anyways, I'm currently floating around my flat on half a quaalude and Beefeaters, and typing is proving to be rather challenging, so I'm gonna keep this post short and sweet.

But hey, the idea that I scored a quaalude in 2010 - that's a strange and wondrous thing, I'd say. And for the record, I considered this the best album I've heard in 2010 long before this quaalude entered my life.

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Philip K Dick

05: Valis [1981] Wherein Philip K Dick himself is the narrator, telling the story of Horselover Fat, a character based on Dick...In other words, Dick's avatar. Throughout the book, Dick and Horselover Fat have conversations with each other, mostly about philosophical and spiritual matters, and how both Dick and Fat have suffered emotional/psychic wounds, with Horselover in particular starting to lose his mind, or at least believe he is losing his mind. He reveals that he's had a series of visions that has led him to believe that there is an intelligent machine of some sort (V.A.L.I.S. -or- Vast Active Living Intelligence System) orbiting the earth, and it is capable of facilitating communication between humans and extraterrestials. As the book progresses, Horselover Fat heads towards the rural estate of a famous musician (based on Brian Eno?) in hopes of contacting VALIS, and thereby acquire the necessary wisdom of life that might heal his psychic wounds. But what will happen to Dick himself, who finds himself isolated and seemingly lost while Horselover Fat is off on his quest for gnosis? I'm not telling, mostly because I don't remember.

04: The Man In The High Castle [1962] Wherein it's 1962, and the Axis Powers of Germany and Japan have won an extended World War II and the United States has been divided into thirds. The U.S., as a Nazi puppet state, now occupies only the eastern third of the country, while the western third belongs to Japan, with the middle third of the country a mostly lawless buffer zone between the two. In general, The Man In The High Castle is concerned with the daily lives of a loose collection of characters, many of whom are involved in such things as American antiques, war collectibles, banking, international trade, counterfeiting and other aspects of culture, diplomacy and economics. Themes such as personal identity, cultural identity, greed, racism, and the very nature of reality are woven throughout the various characters' stories, which are set against the larger story of a post-war Cold War between Germany and Japan, and the power struggles within the Nazi government in particular. Not so much a science fiction novel as an (obviously) alternate history, this sweeping story is nonetheless a fascinating and thought-provoking examination of chance and circumstance.

03: Ubik [1969] Wherein the then-future 1992 is so technologically advanced that civilians are able to easily travel to the moon and various parapsychology phenomena, such as ESP and telekenesis, are widely accepted as real. Our protagonist, Joe Chip, is an anti-telepath technician who works for the Runciter Corporation, and who is sent to the moon along with several other technicians to block telepaths from reading the minds of the deceased who are kept in "cold pac", and in this "half-life" state are capable of limited consciousness and telepathic communication abilities. The assignment ends up being a trap set by a radical organization of psychics, who bomb the lunar "cold pac" facility. Joe Chip and the other survivors head back to Earth, where they are able to get Glen Runciter's dead body into "half-life" to preserve his consciousness. However, they soon find their reality shifting and changing in strange, troubling ways. It seems that this group that returned from the moon must stick close together, because if any one of them strays from the group, that person dies and decomposes at a sudden and quick rate. Messages received through the television suggest that the group itself is actually suspended in "half-life". Their reality continues to warp, and time begins to shift backwards, until the group find itself in 1939, where they try to obtain a substance called UBIK, a substance that existed at every place and time in their space-time travels, and which apparently is the only way they can continue to survive while in their "half-life" state. Meanwhile, back in the real world of 1992, a living Glen Runciter finds coins with the image of Joe Chip on them. Hmmm...

02: A Scanner Darkly [1977] Wherein Agent Fred goes undercover as Bob Arctor, a drug user in a suburban house he shares with a couple other users. A house Agent Fred is spying on. Except Bob Arctor becomes addicted to Substance-D, "Slow Death", a psychoactive drug that can eventual cause one's brain to literally split into two hemispheres that function idependently, and so Agent Fred has no idea he is Bob Arctor, who has no idea he's being spied upon by himself, and is distracted anyways by his love for Donna (as played by Winona Ryder in the film). Donna's a Substance-D dealer, through whom Bob Arctor hopes to find the high-level Substance-D dealers, except Agent Fred's bosses at the police department discover Bob Arctor is addicted, and so no longer capable of working undercover. In the end, Agent Fred finds himself on a farm of the New-Path rehab clinic, emerging from his mind-splitting addiction a shell of his former selves, unsure if any of his ghostly memories are even real. Then he finds a blue flower amidst the rows of corn. A blue flower used to make Substance-D.

01: Flow My Tears, The Policeman Says [1974] Wherein genetically-enhance pop singer and television star Jason Taverner wakes up one morning to find he has no identification, and is now completely unknown to friends and fans alike, no longer a celebrity. There isn't even a record of him in the vast government databases of then-future 1988, which leads Taverner to be interrogated by Police General Felix Buckman. One thing leads to another leads to Taverner having an affair with Buckman's sister and incestuous lover, Alys. Alys is an adventurous drug user, and one of those drugs happens to be KR-3, an intense psychedelic that severely warps reality, until one becomes unbound from it and crosses over into a secondary, alternate reality. When Taverner returns from his KR-3 trip, he finds the skeleton of Alys Buckman, which freaks him out and sends him on the lam. While running from the law, he meets up with another woman on KR-3, who goes to an alternate reality where Taverner doesn't even exist. Taverner freaks again, and decides to turn himself in...All of this happens against the backdrop of a "second civil war" which has resulted in a "totalitarian democracy" in the United States. There's a heavy police surveillance state, but oddly enough, things such as drug use and pedophilia are legal. All in all, a gripping and still relevant story about identity, celebrity, genetics, the nature of reality, radical politics, power, oppression...and love.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 159

Fang Island: Fang Island: "Welcome Wagon" [mp3]

It's officially spring, and like evil fucking clockwork, the squirrels are back, traipsing around the yard like they own it. And as I like to do every spring, I'm welcoming the squirrels back in a fun and exciting way. This year, I'm lacing a pecan pie with LSD and setting it out on my front porch. If I know these squirrels (and I do), they're gonna scarf that pie, and then I'm going to sit at my living room window and watch 'em all lose their minds. I'm gonna laugh, eat some Choco Tacos, maybe take some pictures, and listen to this Fang Island album because it's the sound of absolute triumph.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 157

Blue Oyster Cult: Blue Oyster Cult: "Before The Kiss, A Redcap" [mp3]

I've been sick with the flu since Tuesday. I'm gonna work my way through the Nyquil haze just long enough to say, here's some Blue Oyster Cult.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 152

Hank Mohaski: Moist & Tender Favorites: "No Returns" [mp3]

I wrote and recorded this song exactly ten years ago today. How do I know this? Because despite the Psilocybin mushrooms I ingested that evening, which may very well have blurred my memory, it was my birthday. It's hard to forget one's birthday, even while under the influence of hallucinogens.

This song is called "No Returns". It's a play on the old playground saying "girl germs - no returns", but more to the point, it's meant to represent the forward movement of our lives, the idea that we cannot recapture the past. Thus, the sounds of kids playing, and underneath, the slow mechanical sounds of time forever moving forward.

On the surface, it may sound as if this song is nothing but 5 minutes of repetition, but if you listen closely, you will hear new instruments and new melodies continually being introduced to the song - the sounds of experiences constantly being acquired as we age. It may seem that we never really get anywhere in this life, but in reality, nothing ever quite stays the same.

So, here I am, ten years later, and at first glance it may seem that my life hasn't changed very much since then - I still live in the same house I did then, I still work at the same job, I still have the same two cats and many of the same friends - but in reality I've travelled in the past decade, I've made new friends and lost old friends. I've had alot of new experiences, I've shared my bed with new women, read new books, seen new movies, heard new music, written and recorded new songs. I've accumulated knowledge and forgotten other knowledge. Memories have slipped away, only to be replaced by others. In some respects, I'm still the same man I was in 2000, but in many other respects, that man is a stranger to me now. And so it goes...

Hotcha! Hank

Tuesday's Fortune: 19 January 2010

MEAL: 1 Vegetable Spring Roll + 1 small order Chicken Chow Mein = $5.45 + $1.55 tip

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