If the Smashing Pumpkins are reuniting with only Billy Corgan and the drummer...

How is that different from a Zwan reunion?

I listened to a Bright Eyes song today

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Why do ghosts and ambulances make the same sound?

"WooooOOOOOOooooOOOOOoooOOOOOoooo"

Seriously, who thought that up?

Awesome things my friend Mike has said about music and the 1980s

Mike is a musician and a music guy, and has been so for a long time. He's worked at at least two record stores and been in a ridiculous number of bands over the years (sometimes he plays trombone or bass in mine, the Mathletes, and sometimes I play bass or keyboards in his, the Defenestration Unit), and has seen more shows and owned more records than anyone could possibly keep track of. He either loves your band or he hates your band; if he only sort of likes your band, or kind of doesn't really care for your band, he hates your band.

Mike is about fifteen years older than I am, and as such likes to give me shit about being younger than him and knowing less about music than him. His enjoyment of this is matched and surpassed only by my enjoyment of giving him shit for being younger than him and knowing less about music than him. There are few greater things than telling someone who bought Mudhoney's first 7" when it came out that the first time I ever heard of Nirvana was when I heard on the news that Kurt Cobain killed himself. When I was in fifth grade. He gets so upset. It's awesome.

Anyway, here are my three favorite things that Mike has said relating to music and the 1980s, in no specific order:

1. "Looking back now, who would've thought 25 years ago that Bono would end up being this much more ridiculous than Robert Smith?"

2. (at a club where local DJs were spinning old new-wave bands and bands that sounded like new-wave bands) "Why is everyone so nostagiac for the 80s? I was there in the 80s. The 80s were Reagan and AIDS."

3. "I know you don't believe me, but Adam Ant had a lot of great songs"

then, after I replied I'd only ever heard "Goody Two-Shoes" :

"No, no... I'm talking about his solo stuff. Adam AND THE Ants were fucking amazing. Jesus..."

Mike does a lot of other things besides being a music guy; read his blog here if you'd like.

JOE MATHLETE'S BAND NAME MASHUP RODEO (a fun game that you can play alone or with other people)

I'm still finalizing the rules, but the basic idea behind Joe Mathlete's Band Name Mashup Rodeo is you take a band or artist and see if you can combine their name with the name of another band. The more band names you can string together, the more points or whatever you get. A website or book or competitive league devoted to this sort of diversion may already exist, but I'm pretty sure I invented it and should probably get some sort of certificate from the government or something, because it's fun and awesome.

Some classic examples:


John Cougar Mellencamper Van Beethoven
Super Furry Animal Collective
Revolting Cocteau Twins
Johnny Cash Money Millionaires
Fatboy Slim Thugs 'n' Harmony
Yo La TenGo! Team
L.L. Cool Jay-Z.Z. Top
In Living Color Me Badly Drawn Boy George Michael Jackson Browne
Dschninghis Khanye West
The Mathletes (the "The" is from The Beatles)

See? Fun and awesome. Try it!

EDIT: God dammit.

Maturity (in three steps)

ONE: That is not Santa Claus. That is Dad, wearing a Santa Claus outfit and pretending to be Santa Claus.

TWO: Dad is drunk.

THREE: In a couple dozen years, that's going to be me over there, desperately going through the motions of being a good family man as I almost drop my niece on the floor in a bleary, whiskey-induced fog and perpetuate my lineage's unyielding and inescapable cycle of self-destructive sicknesses.

New solution to the will dilemma (see: previous three entries)

I'm going to try extra-hard not to die and just put that stuff on the backburner for awhile.

I've just about given up on the will

I ran an early draft by my lawyer, and he had issues with just about everything in there. I specify at the end that I wanted to be reincarnated as an octopus (I have my reasons). He says that this won't work, and that nobody puts that sort of thing in their will. What I want to know is, how does he know it won't work if nobody ever tries it?

I'm looking for a new lawyer.

Writing a will is hard

I haven't made a lot of progress on my last will and testament, but I did think of one good thing to put in there. I want to be cremated, and I want my mom to go around and throw handfuls of my ashes at people I didn't like (I'm working on this list right now). If someone was a dick to me, not only will they get a bunch of nasty me-ash all over their face, but they can't get mad at my mom because her son just died and they'd look like an asshole for yelling at her.

If my mom dies before I do it should be an Iraqi War veteran who's missing a leg or something like that.

I'm writing my will

I haven't thought of much to put in it just yet, but I did decide that when I'm finished, I'm going to record an audiotape of myself reading the will and specify to my lawyer that it be played to my family on my old Teddy Ruxpin. This will help them to cope with their grief or something.