Someday I will write clever, uplifting things here.

Really!

SO. I was walking down the street, bopping like a moron, with the new Soulwax album

ANY MINUTE NOW blasting in my headphones. And I thought to myself, as I grinned and

hopped over the curb, "My goodness, I am SO going to be deaf when I'm 60!" And I

started thinking about how there has been a handful of albums that I have discovered

in my life and played relentlessy, for months, over and over, at VERY high volume. If

I do lose my hearing as I age, these are why. I've listed them in approximate order

of how LONG and how LOUD was my obsession with each.

1) Mr. Bungle--Mr. Bungle
This album is FAR and AWAY number one. For maybe two years I listened to this thing

at absolutely crippling volume, over and over and over and over. Absolute bliss for a

20-something geek with unconscious MOUNTAINS of unprocessed, unidentified

anger...seething and sizzling away...It wasn't funny; my ass was on fire.

2) Slipknot--Vol. III: The Subliminal Verses
This just rules. No one rocks harder than Slipknot. Few rock as hard. The

pop-psychology above also applies, I admit.


3) System of a Down--System of a Down
System of a Down may not rock as hard as Slipknot but few others rock as hard as

THEYdo...and with such beautiful vocals! Each member is a master musician, and the

music is genius...even if the lyrics are...er...troubling?



4) Rage Against the Machine--Rage Against the Machine
This album has some of the most orgasmic guitar hooks EVER. Zack is kinda irritating,

but kinda great too.



5) Led Zeppelin--Physical Graffiti/Houses of the Holy
When I was a junior in high school there were several months when I would get home

from school every day and put on In My Time of Dying as loud as I could stand it and

just turn inside out with bliss. EVERY DAY.



6) The Toadies--Rubberneck/Hell Below Stars Above
Both these albums ROCK. Great lyrics, great hooks, great great great.



7) Frank Black--Teenager of the Year
Hard to put my finger on why I love this one so much. Very catchy, beautiful and with

enough surprises to keep me hanging on through....I dunno...10 thousand listens?



8) Queens of the Stoneage--Songs for the Deaf
This was a blessing while I was stressed out in grad school...



9) Nirvana--Nevermind
Before "Smells Like..." was well known, I heard it on KSJS, playing through a

portable stereo with detachable speakers I had put on the floor of my old Volkswagen

one night while I was driving home. I drove round the block like three times to hear

the whole song. I was stunned. Bought the album within days and played it

incessantly. I was sad when I later saw the ridiculous video they'd made for that
song.



10) Burning Brides--Fall of the Plastic Empire
This three piece ROCKS. I'm not being very descriptive, am I...




11) Dead Kennedy's--Frankenchrist/In God We Trust, Inc. (tie)
Used to drive me crazy that MTV GET OFF THE AIR was such a great song...but MTV was a

cable station, and therefore not ON the air...I was a weird kid.
First heard In God We Trust, Inc. when I was in 7th grade and it blew my mind. Never

heard anything so fast or angry. Whatever politics I had after that were pretty much

based on whatever Jello said. I may have learned to think for myself later...not

sure...



12) Hash--Hash
This is a little-known, White thrash-funky gem. Watch the bargain bin!



13) Silverchair--Freakshow
White, male teen fury. Yay!



14) Meat Puppets--Forbidden Places
This is more beautiful than rockin'. But I blasted it for months anyway.



15) Queen--Sheer Heart Attack/Jazz
Stone Cold Crazy, Now I'm here and Fat Bottomed Girls. I get a little thrill just

thinking about those songs even now.



16) Smashing Pumpkins--Gish
Mindless orgy of repetitive hooky guitar goodness. Can't stand most of the later

stuff. I saw the video for I AM ONE on the freakin' Headbangers Ball on MTV WAYYYYY

back when. I was like OMG I HAVE TO BUY THIS NOW! And I did, and listened many, many

times.




17) Soulwax--Much Against Everyone's Advice/Any Minute Now
This wacky Belgian grunge pop thing was SO creative. The new one is more crispy

techno dancey, but I love it too... We'll see for how long...



18) That Dog!--Totally Crushed Out
Umm. Hard to explain this. I like angry young women who sing harmoniously. Very much.



19) Bad Religion--Against the Grain/Stranger than Fiction
The punk with vocal harmony thing. I'm a sucker for that.



20) Pink Floyd--The Wall
This was a whole world to me when I was 12 or 13. I used to drag the speakers around

to face each other, about a foot apart, put a pillow in between them and lay my head

there and sail away...



21) Melt Banana--Teeny Shiny (Cell-Scape coming up fast!)
Melt Banana are the sexiest, rockinest people on earth. I will see them every time

they come to SF from now on. I promise me.


Hey! Respond with your list! Charles??? Everyone???

Cheers!
:)
Mike

So, San Francisco is heaven. Heaven with earthquakes.
Fine, I won't ride my bike under dangling pianos.
My car has a trunk full of emergency food and water. Life is grand.
If you want to see this sad panorama at full size, just click it! (It's big and
ungainly but you can really see the City in the middle if you take a sec to pan over)
This is at about 9am on Feb 16, 2006. Apologies to the snowbound and damp of the Earth. ;)

What's up?

1. Completely obsessed with bicycling.
I cannot believe how good it feels riding up the hills I used to hike with tremendous effort.
Anyone want to ride?

2. Reading Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn. My goodness
this is important information for us all. Power relationships,
behavior control, dysfunctional manipulation...
don't be alarmed, but you're soaking in it! Our entire systems
of social, educational and economic interaction are based upon some
self-defeating, incorrect assumptions about human nature.
Kohn pulls the rug right out from under us. Gooooood stuff.

3. Saw LAKE TROUT with my buddy Chuck, and not only were they STELLAR
but Chuck loved the show too! This possibility hadn't even occurred to me.
Going to see Nada Surf, the Kronos Quartet, Belle and Sebastian and
the Fruitbats this March/April. Wooohoo! And I just discovered
a new SOULWAX album that's got me dancing down the sidewalk like a
fool each night. Hooray for Rock and Roll!

4. Ulysses book club meets Monday.
Hope we don't spend too much time talking about Bloom sitting in his own rising stench.
I fear I may have nightmares about that.

5. The MOST exciting thing!: Finished my credential work in time to get a
Professional Clear credential from the state, AND
a beloved professor at Cal has agreed to sit down with me and help devise a "re-entry plan"
for me to once more sally forth into the classroom...next fall?
Woohoo! Wish me luck and courage and organizational skills and all that stuff.

HEY if anyone wants to see a movie, go for a bike ride or whatEVER, e-mail me!
Also, we go hiking all over the bay--look for my posted schedules at http://bayareahiking.tribe.net
and come ON out!

CHEERS! Y'all rule.

Knees finally told me to slow down. We argued a little,
but they have a way of making me submit to their will in the end. I'm gonna lay
off them awhile and then start biking...Geez I hope I can do the hills again soon.

I hardly ever step onto a scale, just because it has been invariably disappointing for
many years and even when I'm living healthfully and feeling better, the scale has
tended to say "Hah! But look at your numbers, Butterball!" so, as I've learned
to do with people whose messages are discouraging to me, I ignore it.

But today, curiosity overcame me and I stepped up to find that I weigh just over
an eighth of a ton. I'm about 253 pounds. That means I have somehow lost
about 130 pounds in the past few years. In fact, I'm probably 40 or 50 pounds
lighter than the guy in my profile picture there. So, my question is this, can you forgive
me if I'm a little angry at all the skinny people who keep telling me how thin I look?
Can you folks just keep it to yourself please? Or save it and go tell a beautiful
heavy person how wonderful she/he looks? Or even an ugly one?

I was a beautiful human being at every weight. It was only because I realized this
and decided to concentrate on my health in honor of my Mom's (and countless others')
inability to choose her (their) corporeal fate that I look different now. OK, that is not
the whole truth--I also became very afraid that I would never experience passionate
romance again because I was too far off of the radar of so many women. Opening
this door a little wider was also an act of self-love, but I'm finding that as I creep
onto the radar of the more shallow among us, I'm often repelled. Not so
much by each well-meaning individual, but by the nauseating social cost of the
attitudes expressed again and again by people around me. Can we please try to let our
bodies be and value one another on other bases, like, habitually,
as a society? Perhaps I should focus my request on my own stratum,
HEY white middle class men, grow up and think about what you're perpetuating!
In so many realms... Let's not hate ourselves anymore! Especially when that self-hate,
in the hands of the dimwittedly privileged, trickles down (and sometimes
BARRELS down) into all manners and manifestations of self-hatred and self-destruction
among other members of this society. And I'm not disempowering
non-white non-male folks, suggesting that they are hapless victims of
white male dominance...no it is obvious all around me that strong people with the
courage to love self and others are actively and powerfully rejecting the weight
of racist-sexist-capitalist-patriarchy. But I would like my own kind to make it
easier for those folks to thrive by simply taking responsibility for whatever effect
our privilege and self-satisfied ignorance has had on social ills, and to
change ourselves accordingly.

Hmmm. Sorry. I was talking about weight, wasn't I.

So, I am asking for a favor from those around me. Call me crazy, but when I hear
"You've lost weight!" I actually hear "Your value as a human being has increased
because you are more attractive to the shallow folk who cast the dollar-votes that
decide what happens in this capitalist nightmare world!" (Really, it's OK to call me crazy)
But for some reason when I hear, "You look great!" it's completely different.
That phrase registers in me more as it is intended--like all my
hiking and community building and hard work and healthy habits and learning to
truly love myself and others can actually be detected in my physical presence. I know
this may not be what people mean, but it makes all the difference to me. I know
this is all in my head--that's why I say it's a favor I'm asking. And while I'm at it, let me
also ask that you take a look at someone who does not strike you immediately as
looking "great" and take a closer look and find the beauty there and compliment them.
Of course you probably do that already and I'm just irritating you now...
Anyway, I should shut up and take my own advice first.
We are all unmitigated miracles. You will never convince me otherwise.

God bless.

:)
Mike

From a dimly glowing opening on the leeward face of Castle

Tibia's watchtower, a jade camel was ejected by an unseen

force and then fell with much conviction but little aplomb,

ultimately shattering the statue "Dominicus' Perfidy

Among the Innocents" into 10 jagged chunks of chuckling

ponies, each arrogantly tipping its nose at

wimpering Apollo as the line scurried past him like

fastidious, enchanted flatware bearing a magnetic charge on

its sleeve as the prophet Calamine was wont to do in

tandem with a teeth-whitening and soft-shoe presentation

before the Royal Snivelers League whose infernal fiestas

could fit on the head of a baptist in spite of the legions

of yodelers scowling around the punch bowl and the rows of

dapper marmots turned away at the door to shuffle back to

their sidecars and putter off beyond the galactic horizon

where all sad vertebrates must one day retire and bake

delicate, flaky pontoon cakes amongst the relentlessly listless

Ferns of the Ferbazzadon.