Giuseppe Zangara

Last I read, he was making God-friendly music, so no biz quitting for him.

Sad, but true. Please refer to the post above yours.

No, mainstream music is still mostly bad, but there is something of a creative rebirth in some of the stuff that gets played on the radio. Artists like Justin Timberlake, Kelis, etc. are making commercially accessible music, but with an energy that's largely been absent in pop radio. Now, personally speaking, I can enjoy the above, but usually for the singles. An entire album of it interests me very little.

Studies show that fantasizing about wrestling is closely related to masturbating to child porn. I shit you not.

"Milkshake" is a good song, you miserable worm. Anyway, longtime followers of my work may remember the coke whore I talked to on AIM (and was later treated orally). She claimed to live near him in Mississippi or some shit.

The Kinks--"Victoria" XTC--"Senses Working Overtime" Joy Division--"Transmission" Wire--"Mannequin" The Wedding Present--"Dare" Tom Waits--"Ol' 55" Tindersticks--"City Sickness" Elvis Costello and the Attractions--"Beyond Belief" All of the above are fairly close to whatever perfection is.

The Decemberists' The Tain EP (quirky indie pop) Ghost's Hypnotic Underworld (slightly proggy psychedlia from Japan)

Nope. It's from Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Here's where I got the shot:

I'm gonna play the first two songs again, loudly, and rock out here in the station.

You'll be thanked, don't worry.

This won't happen. Not by name, anyway.

Nah, it's cool. I plugged the show here, and the station's phone number is on its website, so it's not like any of this was a secret. EDIT: If you had called my cell phone, then I would've been worried.

Earplugs? Any drugstore should have them. And YNA: Everyone's loss but mine, man.

Hey, thanks for calling. I was as shocked as I'm sure I sounded, believe me.

Damn, Squirt, when you do an adults-only show, you don't go halfway, do you? Why don't you play Tom Lehrer's "Fuck You" song while you're at it. But seriously, my question: why name your show after the greatest "weird" singer of all time, yet not play any of his stuff? Waits doesn't swear very often; I don't think he's said "fuck" in any of his songs, and the 14 tracks listed above all contain at least one use of it. Anyway, I play enough Tom during my normal show.

whoa EDIT: Here's the playlist for my dirty language edition of SWORDFISHTROMBONES tonight. It'll be on at 11pm, EST, here. Mudhoney--"Touch Me, I'm Sick" Pixies--"Planet of Sound" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--"Stagger Lee" Dump--"Erotic City" Tindersticks--"Rented Rooms" Hüsker Dü--"Indecision Time" Built to Spill--"Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup" Minutemen--"The Big Foist" TV on the Radio--"Young Liars" Spiritualized--"Come Together" Les Savy Fav--"Who Rocks the Party?" Wilco--"Ashes of American Flags" Ryan Adams--"Come Pick Me Up" Basehead--"Do You Wanna Fuck (or what)?"

The Rolling Stones should sue.

Speaking of which, I was thinking of going in later tonight--either 10 or 11pm--and doing an hour of songs with profanities. I never get to have curse words on my show normally, due to its time slot.

Tindersticks--"My Sister" (it's a spoken word piece, not sung) Do you remember my sister? How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes? I couldn't work it out. I swear she could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one glance. Maybe she was stripping herself away, saying: Here I am, this is me I am yours and everything about me, everything you see... If only you look hard enough. I never could. Our life was a pillow-fight. We'd stand there on the quilt, our hands clenched ready. Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age, and a Stanley knife in her hand. She sliced the tyres on my bike and I couldn't forgive her. She went blind at the age of five. We'd stand at the bedroom window and she'd get me to tell her what I saw. I'd describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open that Dad was always going to fix. She'd stand there quiet for a moment. I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head. Then she'd say: I can see little twinkly stars, like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows. Rings of brightly coloured rocks floating around orange and mustard planets. I can see huge tiger striped fishes chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes, all tails and fins and bubbles. I'd look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains. She burned down the house when she was ten. I was away camping with the scouts. The fireman said she'd been smoking in bed - the old story, I thought. The cat and our mum died in the flames, so Dad took us to stay with our Aunt in the country. He went back to London to find us a new house. We never saw him again. On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our aunt's garden and broke her head. She'd been drinking heavily. On her recovery her sight returned, a fluke of nature everyone said. That's when she said she'd never blink again. I would tell her when she started at me, with her eyes wide and watery, that they reminded me of the well she fell into. She liked this, it made her laugh. She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all muscles he was. He lost his job when it all came out, and couldn't get another one. Not in that kind of small town. Everybody knew everyone else's business. My sister would hold her head high, though. She said she was in love. They were together for five years until one day he lost his temper. He hit her over the back of the neck with his bullworker. She lost the use of the right side of her body. He got three years and was out in fifteen months. We saw him a while later, he was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town. I don't think he recognised her. My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time. She'd get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand. She'd laugh like mad because it didn't hurt. Her left hand was pretty good though. We'd have arm wrestling matches, I'd have to use both arms and she'd still beat me. We buried her when she was 32. Me and my aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole. She said she didn't want to be cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly. She said she liked the idea of it, though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat and our mum.

I've managed to go through life hearing no Lil Jon, up until his appearence on the David Banner album, which caused me to laugh my ass off.

Leonard Cohen has a wealth of great lyrics. Here's an example, in the form of "Chelsea Hotel #2": I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were talking so brave and so sweet, giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street. Those were the reasons and that was New York, we were running for the money and the flesh. And that was called love for the workers in song probably still is for those of them left. Ah but you got away, didn't you babe, you just turned your back on the crowd, you got away, I never once heard you say, I need you, I don't need you, I need you, I don't need you and all of that jiving around. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel you were famous, your heart was a legend. You told me again you preferred handsome men but for me you would make an exception. And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind, we are ugly but we have the music." And then you got away, didn't you babe... I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best, I can't keep track of each fallen robin. I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, that's all, I don't even think of you that often.

I mean, am I right?

Oh, I read "over" as "in." My bad.

See, this strikes me as stupid. With plugs, you can still hear the music fine, it just won't be so fucking loud.

I once saw this band called Dalek. At the start of their set, this dude came out with a guitar (which is hooked up to a laptop, by the way) and proceeded to make all sorts of horrible, face-peeling noise. I was wearing earplugs, but I was standing right in front of a speaker. I could feel the vibrations pulsing all throughout my body. It was like bathing in noise. Awesome feeling, that.