The Ronstadt Center

While I'm excited to hear that Califone have a new album forthcoming (Roots And Crowns on October 10th), I'm even more thrilled to see the band using Linda Ronstadt as the lead actress in the music video for Spider's House. It's her most stunning performance since her jaw-dropping rendition of "We Will Rock You". When will you be loved, Linda? Nobody could accuse you of "being no good"! And speaking of being no good, Disco:Very is going to be out and away for the next five days, taking in 4 full non-stop 12-hour days and nights of movies, movies, movies at the Telluride Film Festival. If any of my thousands of readers are also attending, please wave me down if you see me. I'll be the one wearing pants. [Also, in case this joke mystifies you, I'm saying that the creature in the photo is Linda Ronstadt. You're welcome.]

Language: I secretly wish I was Hanzi Smatter, dedicated to documenting the misuse of Chinese characters in Western Culture

Websites: There is only one thing worse than having an Open Web Letter addressed to you, and that is not having an Open Web Letter addressed to you.

Inventions: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!

Toys: Sure, these "vinyl figures based on Club Gods" are cute and all, but why not create an action-figure blogger while you're at it?

Entertainment: The only thing worse than seeing your picture on Hot Hollywood Assistants is being the Hot Hollywood Assistant to Courtney Love.

Crafts: These deranged stitcheries of Patricia Waller are not the kind of stuffed dolls you can bring home to meet your parents.

Art: Finally, an invention for the lazy anarchist spray painter in all of us.

Fashion: For anyone seeking future stardom on a reality series, Pre-Pixelated T-Shirts.

Fun & Games: Please. I already hate karaoke enough, thank you.

Animation: The Egg Lady is rolling over in her grave.

Antiques: He collects everything, so you don't have to.

DVDs: The what-took-them-so-fucking-long release of The Day I Became A Woman, and the hurry-up-before-I-pee-my-pants reissue of Playtime, are making the world a better place.

Food: I used to think there wasn't anything I couldn't enjoy eating. I was wrong.

I Find You Intoxicating

Alcohol is an improvement, not an impairment. Take a listen to the mighty Balfa Brothers performing La Valse des Bombaches twice: the first time, seemingly sober (taken from The Balfa Brothers Play Traditional Cajun Music.) The second time, drunker than Haley Joel Osment looking up my skirt after being soaked overnight in a gallon of Night Train (this track found on the Rounder Records release Louisiana Cajun French Music, Volume One.) The choice is obvious: Thunder, meet Bird. I now pronounce you shit-faced.

A Pick Up (And A Pickup)

There are only three things which make me click my heels in a rush of orgiastic ecstasy: 1) puppy breath, 2) microwave popcorn (organic), and 3) walking into the local chain entertainment store and picking up a barely-played used copy of the Can masterpiece Tago Mago after years of avoiding buying it new because why should I give anyone $18 for a recording from over 30 years ago? Besides, I mostly just play Oh Yeah over and over so what's the point in paying full price? I was also delighted to find a barely-played used DVD of the Samuel Fuller masterpiece Pickup On South Street but let's not go there, girlfriend! (I was recently informed this phrase is making an ironic comeback and I'm hoping to be ahead of the curve.)

The Jade Tree of The Jaded

Emory the Emo Emu has lost his way and can't figure out which Emo band listed below is for real and which ones are merely fakes saddled with terrible names! Can you help him find out the truth?

Eyelash Wishes
As Tall As Lions
Climbing The Branches, Touching The Sky
Birth, Life, Death
Nothing More Than This
Under The Influence Of Giants
Rainfall/Rainbow
Her Vagina, Smiling
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
These Arms Are Snakes
The Ground Below, The Sun Above
Tears As Wide As Rivers
I Ache, You Ache, We All Ache For Romantic Disillusionment-Ache
The Pillow, Tear-Stained
From Ashes Rise
Crushed And Put Away
Clouds of Ennui
My Shriveled Manhood In Your Hands
Blame The Stars
Four Walls Falling
That Darkly Comic Scene in Harold And Maude (You Know The One)
Cast Down, Again and Again
Really Funereal
allinlowercasewithoutspaces
Young Widows
Blue Balls Of Romance

(Answer: It was a trick question. Real or not, they're all saddled with terrible names.)

Rock Softly And Carry A Big Schtick

If we're to believe the article seen in the September 2006 issue of Spin, muscally tepid acts such as Okkervil River, Foutains Of Wayne and Ryan Adams have been publicly embracing the snooze-inducing tunes by such squishy-core mid-70's outfits as Hall and Oates, America, Supertramp and the artistically reprehensible Bread. The day I'm forced to listen to softy-pop 70's folksters as a new cutting-edge schtick tactic, I'll toss my weight behind The Boat Family, a quirky (quasi political) ditty recorded by The Roches--the only sibling singers slightly less weird than The Jacksons. While I'm unable to decipher exactly how the "piece of chocolate" singing to us in the introductory verse suddenly skips towards the issue of ocean-bound immigration by the end, this track has already given me more hours of enjoyment than a single line from "Baby I'm A Want You."

The Right Stuffs

Have any of you heard the news about this huge scandal swirling around Mel Gibson? Apparently there is a video circulating showing him stuffing his chubby Right Wing face and loudly burping while his long-suffering boyfriend Kevin Federline looks on, and...no, wait. I think I got the story wrong. Wasn't it Prince William drunkenly grabbing the boob attached to one Lindsay Lohan at a posh London nightclub (or was it Oprah Winfrey's lesbian husband)? You see, this is the confusion which comes of working utterly exhausting 12-hour days several weeks in a row. The blogging suffers, my mind suffers, you suffer...the entire web suffers! Perhaps it's best to just play the music, in this case, the not-at-all-in-the-news Jewish faith, best exemplified by electronic maven Gershon Kingsley as he cooks up a little kosher Kiddush (or is it Kaddish)? Thanks to tunes like Security Song, the entire God Is A Moog album is like a post-Follies-era Stephen Sondheim musical about the joys of circumcision laced with Moog farts. You could say this Shabbat ain't too shabby.