Although we no longer live in Lubbock, we have recently heard that KTXT 88.1 is no longer on the air.

Its a sad sign of the times in a commercial musical world. Everywhere you go has the same Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Starbucks, and the same Top 40 radio inundating the masses with the same songs on heavy rotation. KTXT was a beacon of light in a black hole of the 'more of the same' attitude that dominates the airwaves of not only Lubbock, but the country in general. 88.1 had always been a safe haven of local/independant/up and coming/flat out strange music in Lubbock, TX. It's impact on this band, and many more like it will be missed by future bands in the area.

It's sad to see that a university that constantly raises tuition, rebuilds entire department buildings and controls almost half of Lubbock's income can't find it in their budget to maintain a station that music lovers hold dearly. This is a sad day in Lubbock music...

Readhttp://media.www.ktxt.net/media/storage/paper1154/news/2008/12/10/DjPages/Student.Media.Department.Announces.Broadcast.Changes-3577077.shtml">Read> full story here

I dont post very often, mainly because I dont usually like to share my ideas on the sweet world of Myspace. I know, I know, everyone on earth (myself included) is so interesting that you people were sitting around waiting for what I had to say. In fact today I read that Karen is bored an dsitting at home, and some girl named Kristi is bored and horny. the internet is a wonderful place for sharing, but at some point you gotta know when noone cares. Like "**BITCH PLEAZZZZZ!!!! ITS MY BIRTHDAY IN 4 MO DAYS GO SHAWTY, ITS MY BIRTHDAY... WELL IN 4 MO DAYS IT WILL BE, AND I AM READY.. YOU GON PARTY WIT ME? WELL FUCK YOU THEN.. LOL OH I AM GON B SOO DRUNK!!". that leads me to believe that every day "**BITCH PLEAZZZZ!! ITS MY BIRTHDAY IN $4 MO DAYS" will be changing his/her name. The truth is nobody really cares. I kinda miss the Nirvana days when everyone was sad, but they didnt tell anyone. They merely wrote a really bad 2 chord song and sang it in their candlelit bedroom. At the most they went in their garage and sang sublime's what i got over and over again while smoking a joint. Either way it didnt make its way onto my internet viewing joy. With that said I guess anyone should have the right to share their content or discontent in the day like "Mario who HATES IT when situations are forced upon him and has NO input whatsoever!!!". Was this statement created for intrigue. Am I supposed to send Mario a message asking "what situations!" Is this mario's intent. Does mario need help, what if the situation is armed robbery and this is mario's call for help. I guess maybe I should write Mario today and find out, but I wont. I have a hard enough time answering the phone for close friends much less Mario.

Anyway, internet ramblings are simple, which I guess makes sense seeing as we the people have become simple. Once  "blogosphere" became a recognized word we all knew it was down hill from there. Do you think "Lord of the rings" couldve been written today. Not that I care for Lord of the rings, but any decent writer would look at the mere length the book would become and go, "whoa, too long, think I'll write a crime thriller instead". But I digress...

the point is stop driving. quit your job. wake up. read. lie. yell. discuss. rationalize. go green. go purple. go red. find a cause. ignore your causes. write a poem. make fun of poets. listen to music. define music. play in the rain. open the blinds. close your eyes while driving. dont say a word...

Macedonian court convicts bear of stealing honey.

Here’s some more shit I couldn’t make up. Not only did someone bring legal action against a wild bear, but they won. Punitive. Monetary. Damages.
In a case that tied up the (presumably perpetually stoned due to rampant boredom) legal system for a YEAR, the court found in favor of the plaintiff, and awarded him 140,000 denars (1,726 British pounds, or $3,507.57 to us ’yanks’), payable by the state. I can think of a few things I’d do for a single year to make money, and a lot of things I’d for $3500, but the shortlist of things I’d do for an entire year to make only $3500 isn’t populated with the kinds of things you talk about in pleasant company. But seriously, I’m genuinely curious; is this a bittersweet moral victory for this man that after throwing away a year of his life in court, he’s won his case, but is awarded only a relatively piddling sum, or is the economic situation so bad there that thirty five hundred US dollars is enough to live the proverbial good life? If so, consider this my two weeks notice, America! I’m opening a new line of credit (or ten), and after I subject my ATM machine to more use than Paris Hilton at a frat party after too many cosmos, I’m out!

The true beauty of this story is that it just keeps getting better. The man claims that he had to distract the bear with lights and music because he "heard bears are afraid of that." You know, now that you mention it, I think I saw that programme too; if you encounter a bear in the woods, start belting out showtunes, twirling your flashlight like a suburban underage rave-goer in the throes of an extacy binge, and he’ll take off like a redneck with no real community ties and impending child support. No? Ok, how about this; he’ll disappear faster than a Highland Park resident at the prospect of manual labor. Eh? Up yours, then, and you write something. Prick.

Maybe it’s not just any music that terrifies bears to their very core; perhaps only the driving bass lines, inexplicably excessive vibrato’ed vocals, or the pants-wetting intensity that can only be described as "turbo-folk" music performed by Serbian sensation Ceca (whose name looks as though it would sound like the byproduct of a horrible medical affliction) can destroy the will of nature’s woodland death machine. Wondering what turbo-folk is? Don’t worry, I promise not to leave you lonely and curious, with only the likes of Google and Wikipedia to sate your thirst for useless trivia. I’m here to do the Googling for you. That’s just the kind of guy I am, but more on that later.

Yes, loathed by wildlife and musical philistines alike the world over, it was turbo-folk that held this beast at bay for weeks. Like a junkie to the spike, or a meth-head to the light bulb, so was this bear to the honey found in Mr. Kiseloski’s beehives. The Reuters story neglects details pertaining to the prelude of the Grisham-esque drama of Man v. Bear, so I’ll have to assume that Kiseloski saw the bear hanging around in the (presumably remote, or populated entirely by nocturnal turbo-folk lovers) neighborhood with some friends, leaning against trees smoking cigarettes with bloodshot eyes and a generally distasteful appearance, causing him to purchase a generator to power the constant barrage of lights and turbo-folk. But, as anyone who watches horror movies (or has a general understanding of mechanics, or common sense, for that matter) knows, eventually generators run out of gas, and light-sensitive music critics inevitably return to ravage your beehives. All of which begs the question; if you can afford a generator, lighting rig, and (apparantly) weather-friendly boombox, why not buy more gas for the generator? Did he, in a insomniatic turbo-folk induced hypnotic state, forget about it? Did he not realize that generators don’t run on affection and goodwill? Or was he returning frantically from the gas pumps with a jerry can sloshing around in his floorboard, cursing every red light and slow driver, only to return home to find the bear shoulder deep in hive, enraptured by the pure joy of raiding a strange honey stash? And in this scenario, did the bear look at him, gulp loudly, then run away on his hind legs to the Benny Hill theme song? Probably not, but when I reminisce upon this story, he does indeed.

Anyway,God bless Reuters for stories such as these.

As promised, heeeeere’s Ceca;

Even better than the video is the first comment on youtube, by sircantaloupe, which I think aptly sums up the entire saga, despite being linked to the music video (not the bear story) and being apparantly apropos of absolutely nothing.

"Even I, an American living in California, am with the laughter in this incident of hilarious qualities"

I too, am with laughter in this incident, sircantaloupe. I too, am with laughter.