Time Like A Rubber Band / Stretches Infinitely Until / Finally It Snaps

Dude. This has been the longest day ever in the history of my life. Anybody else?

Also, the title to this post is in haiku if you count "rubber" as one syllable. Which I do. Also also, it was entirely unintentional. I went back in and broke up the stanzas after the fact. I like haiku. Haiku rules! Five-seven-five, baby!

In fact, in honor of this unintentional haiku, I am, in my infinite power as King Of the Internets In My Own Mind (which is a much harder job than you would think and really just utterly thankless), declaring tomorrow, Friday, May 23rd, and every stinking Friday after that "Haiku Friday." There will be much celebrating.

So leave a haiku as a comment and I will publish them as a post tomorrow when we will also look at a movie trailer and decide if it's going to suck or not (speaking of which, has anybody seen Indy yet? I'm waiting until I'm in Vegas to see it so I can see it with my brothers, but I welcome any spoiler-free thoughts on it. I know Chris Haley saw it and liked it, but he likes Speed Racer and Geoff Johns, so his taste = suspect. I kid, I kid.). Anyway, I'm going home. Peace in the Middle East, home fries.

He's Like, Super, Man

DC's August solicits hit the web yesterday. In them was this, the cover to the final issue of the always incredible when it comes out which is roughly once in a blue moon All-Star Superman:

If that's not completely incredibly awesome I really don't know what is. I mean, if you can look at that and not want to immediately read it, cover-to-glorious-cover, twice, then there is no hope for you. Go crawl in your coffin, shut the lid and close your eyes and may whatever deity you pray to have mercy on your soul.

Amen.

Tom Is On My Side

The NPR: All Songs Considered blog posted a press release of Tom Waits interviewing uh, Tom Waits. Check it out. It's an excellent read.

My favorite part? Probably this:

Q: What do you wonder about?

A:
1. Do bullets know whom they are intended for?
2. Is there a plug in the bottom of the ocean?
3. What do jockeys say to their horses?
4. How does a newspaper feel about winding up papier-mâché?
5. How does it feel to be a tree by a freeway?
6. Sometimes a violin sounds like a Siamese cat; the first violin strings were made from cat gut- any connection?
7. When is the world going to rear up and scrape us off its back?
8. Will we humans eventually intermarry with robots?
9. Is a diamond just a piece of coal with patience?
10. Did Ella Fitzgerald really break that wine glass with her voice?

Oh, and his concert next month in Columbus? Sold out. In 19 minutes. That, my good internet buddy, is the very definition of "sucks." Oh well, maybe next time?

Sneak A Peek

Here's a sneak peek at June's mixtape artwork:

Brian Eno, GBV, Pavement, Grandaddy, Art Brut, Devo, Talking Heads, Modern Lovers, Sebadoh. Uh, yeah, this is a pretty "Dylan" mix.

Here's some links to the previous BRR Monthly Mixes to tide you over until June. Let me know which you like the best:

01.08 - Bed Is For Sleeping
02.08 - It's All Fuss
03.08 - Like A Love Affair
04.08 - No Cars Go
05.08 - Folk Star

I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape

A track ("Chemtrails") from the new Danger Mouse-produced Beck album, Modern Guilt has leaked (sorry it's not the entire track, but you take what you can get, right?) and holy crap it is good. Very Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. And those drums! Oh man, those drums. I do so love a good, fat, apocalyptic drum sound. No idea when this drops, (the rumors are that it will just sort of show up one day, a la the last albums by Raconteurs or Gnarls Barkley) but you can be assured I will be getting it, by hook or by crook.

Be seeing you.

The Thumbless Wonder

I cut off the side of one of my thumbs with a nice, sharp Xacto knife at work this morning (as a graphic designer, it's sort of inevitable that this happen at least once in your career. It's sort of like a sacrifice to the design gods or something, those bloodthirsty creatures.) and had to go to the emergency room. Yay! It's not horrible, but it wasn't a little nick, either. So yeah, not the best Monday ever.

Anyway, here's what my thumb looks like now:

Pretty ridiculous, right? I look like a freaking Looney Tunes character or something. Anyway, I'm going to bed. "That's all folks!"

Why So Serious?

Sadie got into Candace's makeup the other day. Looks a little like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, doesn't she? You can tell from the picture that she thinks she looks very pretty, but still...

Uncanny, right?

This Could Get Ugly

This weekend I read my first 33 1/3 series book, Douglas Wolk's look at James Brown's Live at the Apollo.

I can see this easily becoming a problem.

In case you don't know what the 33 1/3 series is, it' sort of like the Criterion Collection only for music. The publisher seeks out writers and musicians to write something, anything on what they consider a seminal album. I just started Colin Meloy's Let It Be (the Replacements Let It Be, not either of the Beatles' Let It Be), a sweet memoir of growing up in Helena, Montana.

So let's do some math: music/writing about music + well-designed pocket-sized books + my partial completist OCD = can you see why this is problematic for someone like me? I mean, they couldn't have concocted a better plan to take my money. According to Wikipedia there's only 56 books in the series (so far!) and my Amazon wish list contains, oh, 45 of them. I have no clue who Throbbing Gristle is, but I sure do want to read the book on their 20 Jazz Funk Greats album. I've already put three more on hold at the library (one on Guided By Voices masterpiece Bee Thousand, another on Neutral Milk hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as well as Joe Pernice's novella inspired by the Smiths' Meat Is Murder). The Amazon trolling started this morning with the idea that I should just buy the first one (Dusty In Memphis) and take it from there. You should probably start coordinating the intervention now.

Dang! This is why I have never bought any old Doc Savage paperbacks (even though I really want to, like badly), because I know I'll want all of them. Like Pokemon. Oh man. I'm in trouble.

Anyway, if you're interested, the 33 1/3 series is pretty great, though totally addictive. You have been warned.

Take a Breath Of That Country Air

Oh man, the American Country Music Awards are on tonight and I can't stop watching. It's like some hideous car wreck only everyone involved is an over groomed phony. A terrible pile-up strewn with mutilated bodies with fake tans, bleached teeth and highlighted hair.

And that's just on the guys.

It's a total embarrassment. I mean Rascal Flatts? These guys are country? What country? Fruitsylvania? Come on. Willie Nelson would be spinning in his grave if he were dead and not just some old pot-smoking lecherous creepy granddad in a trailer somewhere.

Anyway, so I watched like half hour of it. The awards show. I had a sleeping baby on my arm and couldn't move and there was nothing else on and come on! Gimme a break! It was research for my new book: Country Music Is Stinky. It's about contemporary country music. And how it is stinky.

I saw Garth Brooks run through a medley of his "hits." Only I didn't recognize two-thirds of them. It was like bad karaoke, watching Garth up there (seriously, it was embarrassingly bad) but it reminded me of something: I freaking hate Garth Brooks.

There was a time there where his music was everywhere. It seems like any youth trip we took we would be forced to listen to him, all while being told how great country music was and how you kids' music these days was terrible and country music had morals and blahblah. And this was pre-iPod, so we couldn't just slap on some headphones and tune old Garthy-boy out. If you wanted to do something like that you needed a portable CD player and those things were roughly the size of your head and skipped if you sneezed or looked at it wrong. Also bread cost a nickel and we had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow all while being chased by hungry wolves and Cossacks and Huns. I lost my brother to scarlet lung and my mother developed the whooping cough in the trenches of the Great War. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

Anyway, so this country pop stuff is stinky. It gives me hives and makes me think bad thoughts. It makes me stabby. I must go listen to the new Old 97's album to cleanse my pallete. You should probably do the same. Yee-haw!

This Whole World

Dear Everybody In the Whole World,

Stop tucking your long-sleeved shirts into your pleated khaki shorts. In fact, stop tucking any shirts into your pleated khaki shorts.

Thanks,
Dylan

PS: Also, please stop wearing pleated khaki shorts. Pleats = gross.