Long Live the King, The King is Dead

The King of Prussia Mall that is. Today is our last day of this mall tour. It is a bit more anti-climatic than the end of our last tour. That is mostly because this tour has been very easy and very boring. The last one had lots of harrowing adventures and ridiculous circumstances which made it more tiring and more work but also more fun. Spending every day bouncing back and forth between a hotel and the mall is just mind numbing. I mean look at this blog. Already I am seven sentences and one fragment in and I haven't said anything interesting or funny yet. Because, my mind has turned into a grey slate of nothingness. MEH

But now the real adventure begins. Where will we work? Where will we live? Can we clean the house by Sunday, when the landlord is bringing people by to look at it? Will we have any money left in a week? Oh and we still have another event to do in NY so while we are packing and looking for work and apartments we have to go do one more event in NY and then drive everything back down to Miami and try to spend a couple days relaxing on the beach while wondering (return to top of paragraph here and repeat until your head explodes)

We do have some interviews lines up so we will see what pans out. This reminds me. I should stop wasting time on MySpace and make a couple phone calls. Gotta go!

Sam's Goodies

Sam Goodies at the King of Prussia mall had a big going out of business sale so I had to go through every CD in the store and look for gems as they were all like no more than $4 a CD.  Here is what I got all for a whopping $47:

Blind Melon, Soup - Pretty good, I've been going through a bit of a throwback to the 90's phase lately  revisiting some of the bands I was listening to in high school during the early 90's, so this fits into that little musical mid life crisis of mine.

Liz Phair, Somebody's Miracle - Also pretty good, not as artsy and innovative as her first album (which also came out back in my high school days). A bit more mainstream, but a good listen and it has nice photos in the artwork which make it worth having the physical CD as opposed to downloading from iTunes. I'm a sucker for cool album art and being a designer, that makes it qualify as a tax write off. It's called research and education. BONUS.

Strung OUT on U2, The String Quartet Tribute - OK I'm also a sucker for novelty cover versions of popular music. This one is pretty good. The older U2 songs lend themselves better to the classical interpretations on this album more so than the more recent ones. Especially I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Of course this also plays into my revisiting the music of my youth phase, so I guess there is a common thread, being that all the new stuff was picked off the shelves by the time I got there. A good overall dinner music or background CD.

I Believe to My Soul, Various Artists This is a sort of a "What are they up too now / tribute to the soul masters CD. It features some of the giants of soul from back in the day doing new songs with a tip of the hat to their roots. Not trying to relive the past so much as show what they are writing currently having come from the roots of Soul music. Pretty good, but I definitely have to be in the right mood for it. Nothing really earth shattering here or better than the Hits they carved out in the past. Again good, dinner or background CD, definitely leaning towards the gospel sounding soul roots.

Thrice, VHEISSU This one I pretty much picked up because the album artwork was of a certain style that really appeals to me and is usually wrapped around a CD that I inevitable will like. It is what I guess would be defined as Emo-Core. Melodic and screaming at the same time. It has a lot of the overproduced, over compressed, over layered sound in current popular music that I do not realy care for. But something about it I like. I think I will like this one more after a few listens. After all the artwork never steers me wrong.

Eels, Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, This one is one of the best ones I picked up. I really dig this double album. It is refreshingly different and has a nice melodic and casual feel to it. Highly recommended. Something about it I really connect with, which is refreshing.

Spottiwoode and His Enemies, Building a Road I recognized this one, from a song I heard on WTMD that was decent. I was not overly impressed with this album on the first listen. Maybe it will be better next time, but I'm not holding out hope. The artwork is pretty nice, but not enough to make up for the complete lack of focus on the album. It is a bit too rough around the edges and has all the trademark disappointments of a freshman album that should have been worked on a bit more, or not at all.

Mos Def, The New Danger It's been a few years since this came out and if I recall correctly it was several years in the making. If that recollection is true, this album is a bit disappointing. It has it's moments but is about 50/50 good shit/blah shit. On a side note I really hate when rappers go "uugh, uugh, uugh" I mean come on, write some fucking lyrics what is with all the grunting. They all do this and every time it ruins it for me!!! Rap dammit, like with words!!! You never heard Grand Master Flashing pulling that lame ass shit!

Brad, Welcome to Discovery Park, I always liked their first album so I picked this one up which there was still 50 copies of on the shelves. First of let me just say the lyrics and the vocals in this band are kind of crappy. But beyond that, they do put together some great songs. Their mellow stuff is really where it is at. The more rocking songs are so so, but when they do the low mellow thing it's really nice, barring the lame ass lyrics and the poor vocal execution. Again this is throwing back to my high school years, when their first album came out around the rise of Pearl Jam.

The String Quartet tribute to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, Yes, I got two string quartet tribute albums. So what. I told you I was a sucker for this kind of crap. The U2 one is better. Some of these songs come across really nice, but others just do not work in this format. Still this is for my novelty collection, got to take the good with the bad.

NYC Subway, Songs From the Underground, This was another gem. It is all NYC subway musicians and it is up there with the Eels album as the best finds I got from this sale. Very eclectic and every track is damn good. Also highly recommended. It is about half acoustic so you have to be able to appreciate that, but the other half is worth it too even if you don't dig the acoustic solo stuff.

I also have two more that I have not listened too yet....
The Sound of Urchin, The Diamond
and
Super Furry Animals, Out Spaced.

Sleepytime

I found myself in an african village of some sort. It was desert country. A few scattered pieces of brush sprinkled on a barren landscape of dust and sand. Most everyone was wearing redish-orangish-purplish garments, a fiery contrast to their dark wrinkled skin. Many people had bandages and crutches and were in pain. It seemed some uncureable epidemic had been spreading through the village. There was a gathering for a mysterious but expected meeting and everyone had circled around the makeshift village amphitheater. We waited as the murmurs swept through the crowd. It was clear that whatever we were waiting for was not going to begin until the crowd was silent. The murmurs turned to shushes and for several minutes a battle of shushes was waged until finally one superior shush rose up from my mouth and silence overcame the crowd.

Then the music began. Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum began playing their Sleepytime (Spirit is a Bone) song.I crawled under the bleachers and began shuffling through a stack of cards I found. They had the lyrics to the song on them and I was trying to stack them in the proper order as they sang out in the sand.

"Sleepytime
Sleepytime
All you days
All you nights
All you hours numberd
Follow the red line
The black line
The gray line under
Smoking time
TV time
Medicine line
Snack line
Follow the blue line
The green line
The gray line under
Sleepytime
Sleepytime"

A couple verses into it a small girl approached the singer and interrupted him to ask a question. They whispered a hidden exchange in each others ears and the girl shuffled back to report the response to one of the elder women of the tribe. All of the adults wandered away from the concert shaking their heads. Most of the children stayed behind. The band sang on as they moved from the sleepy tones into the louder more intense, building suspense part of the song.

" Spirit is a bone
Bone is a tree
Tree is alive inside of me
Spirit is a bone
Bone is a shape
Shape is a thing
Thing is awake
Spirit is a breath
Breath is a flower
Flower is a tree
Tree is a bomb
Spirit is a bomb
Second is a bomb
Flower is a day
Tree is a year
Bone is a life
Spirit is a bone
Sleepytime
Sleepytime"

I frantically shuffled through the lyrical flash cards trying to keep up. I can never quite remember exactly how this riddle goes. Some of the children are dancing others are just staring in disbelief. The swirling sand is building up around us as the music creeps around our heads.

Suddenly a polyphonic ringtone lifts me out of my sleep and plops me back down firmly on the bed in my hotel room.

Funny how Boojum had just asked me last night if I had been having weird dreams lately. I always have weird dreams. Being waken suddenly seems to help in being able to remember them. I had to pop in the ipod and listen to the song as I wrote this to help me remember how the story went. I couldn't find a link to the actual song anywhere and the myspace "Currently Listening" feature seems to be on the brink. So suffice to say I am listening to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Grand Opening and Closing which I highly recommend you all just drop what you're doing right now and go out and buy it.

Well go on, get out of here already.

Bunny Jazz

Today is the final day at White Marsh Mall. Then we are of to the arctic King of Prussia for 2 more weeks of mall bliss. Then we have a week off and one event in NYC (this just in...) before we close out the program.

Boojum wants to go to the New Orleans Jazz festival during the week off because it would be fun to drive to New Orleans and back and then go work an event in NYC and then drive to Miami to close out the program. Silly girl obviously is going through some sort of shoe withdrawal crazy talk. Since we can't afford to buy new shoes, she wants to spend money on a trip to New Orleans and to drive there and back because we have only been driving for 8 months straight so why stop now? UUGH. We have to move, and get jobs silly silly girl. This is all just a ploy to buy new shoes I'm sure of it. But I won't be fooled!

Easter News from the front lines:

We have been set up next to the Easter Bunny display for the past two weeks. This odd human activity involves suburban white mothers lining up en mass to with children dressed up in pastel outfits. They wait their turn to pay large sums of money to place their children into the clutches of a complete stranger in a furry bunny outfit and then jump up and down yelling "PEEK-A-BOO!" and make lots of noise in an attempt to get the children to disguise their uncomfortable terror with a fleeting smile to be captured on digital. They then exchange money for key chains or printouts of the oddly dressed children making unusual facial expressions while sitting on the kid in the furry bunny suit. Many mothers sniff their children's behinds before or after placing them on the bunny creature. Many children are filled with awe and excitement at the sight of the bunny. This often turns to sheer terror once they reach the point of actually interacting with the bunny. Many tears are shed. Many pictures are taken of forced smiles on teary eyed faces. Many children are probably traumatized for life. A few actually seem to enjoy it. People are strange indeed.

This could explain the childrens fear of the Easter Bunny though: THE EASTER BUNNY HATES YOU

Spring, Taxes and the Quest for the IDEAL job.

So spring has sprung and taxes are in the air like wildflowers.

Weather is acting up again like a neglected child.
"Look at ME! I'm hailing!"
Then the next day,
"Look at ME! I'm a freaky windy snow storm!"
Today, apparently satiated, it is mildly pleasant.

In other news we just found out that we owe about $10,000 in taxes this year. YIPPIE! Now it looks like we will be returning back to normal life, broke. Well not totally broke, but almost. We will have to put a large chunk of money into an SEP IRA to avoid having to pay even more taxes which is great for the long term but sucks for the short term as it will leave us with about no money left for right now. And now we have moving costs on the horizon. And I will probably need to get a car again.

SO kicking up the job search a few notches to make sure we are ready to keep the money rolling in as we roll off the road and pull back into "normal" life or something like it.

To that end I have posted my resume online here. I welcome any comments or critique of it, or a job offer.

On Monster they have a spot where you are supposed to fill in what your IDEAL company would look like. My answer:

"One that will pay me ridiculous amounts of money to do fun things. Less than ideal offers will be considered as well."