http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ4uUwR7FBQ

A video pilot that my brother Pablo and I did. EnjoY!

This is sort of the walk-up to the Best of '06 Terribly Happy CD, which I am now finally working on. I'll post details soon.

Over on the profile page:

1. The Arcade Fire - Black Wave/Bad Vibrations -- The Arcade Fire have a new CD coming out next month and they've leaked a few tracks from Neon Bible. They also played a show in New York Saturday that was broadcast on NPR and is available online. Of the three new songs I've heard, this one's my favorite. I like the first single just fine, but this one kind of really does it for me. I've been listening to Funeral pretty much non-stop for more than a year, so the new material is certainly welcome.

2. Rollins Band - Ghostrider -- I haven't seen the Ghost Rider movie, nor do I intend to, but I'm willing to bet money that this song is better than that movie.

3. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Harry to Hospital -- This is from the soundtrack to Wild Palms, a TV miniseries based on a comic book that most people have never heard of. It hit me at a really formative age, right around the time David Lynch hit me, and the music on the soundtrack is creepy, gorgeous, electronic and seemingly has one foot in the past and the other in the near-future. It made me a fan of Bruce Wagner's writing. The only person I know of who really knows anything about this soundtrack is my friend Greg

4. Fiona Apple - Across the Universe -- One of my favorite Beatles covers ever, one that actually works. It's from the Pleasantville soundtrack and has a very lovely video directed by PT Anderson from back in the PT/Fiona days.

5. Hole - She Walks on Me -- We used to play pool at this dive in Norman and this song was in the jukebox, along with the rest of Live Through This. I'd put it on just to piss people off. It's a loud, screechy, obnoxious song that I happen to love.

6. Tha Dogg Pound - Let's Play House -- I've always like Dogg Pound and Nate Dogg specifically and Dogg Food is about the dirtiest CD I own. This song is a little more tame, but damn. It's the jam.

7. The Police - Tea in the Sahara -- I own a Police box set because of a BMG Music Club snafu that occurred while I was dating a woman who loves Sting/The Police. They sent a box set with one disc missing, which prompted a complaint, which resulted in them sending two complete box sets, neither of which were ever asked to be returned. Were these ethical days? They were not. Yet, the four-disc boxed set remains on my CD shelf as it probably does on hers. This is probably my favorite Police song.

Just thought I'd let everybody take a peek at my new single:

To the person who tried to post a comment on my profile page that was a cartoon of a guy blowing himself up with a firecracker while talking the whole time:

I didn't reject it because I didn't like it, I rejected it because I've gone to several pages with that posted and it's annoying to have something blare sound at you with no way to turn it off without going to a different page. If I want a cartoon character talking to people when they come to my page, I'll make sure to put one there myself.

Thanks, though.

I was going to post some turkey-related songs, but I missed that window, so now I'm just posting good stuff.  Good, good stuff, people.  Bowel-shattering, mind-taking soundscapes. Won't you try some, please? Hit up the jukebox on the profile page.

1. The Shins - Phantom Limb -- Mein gott, what a good song.  They're playing the Hell out of this on Sirius radio and with good reason.  It's got more hooks than your grandma's crochet kit and it's just a great-sounding, feel-good melody.  We all know those Shins boys are great.  Yes, we heard the Garden State soundtrack.  But this song, from an album that comes out early next year, is a stiff shot of just the stuff you need.  I would not be surprised if this became a big (testicular) radio hit.

2. Lily Allen - LDN -- Another Sirius regular.  They play this and the song "Smile" a lot and when I looked for it on iTunes a month or two ago, I was surprised to learn that her CD hadn't even dropped in the U.S. yet.  Yep, this is a solid U.K. import, like people I don't get at all (The Streets, Robbie Williams), but somehow I love her.  It doesn't hurt that she's all sweetness and light with really cynical, fed-up lyrics.  This isn't the best MP3 of the song, so if it sounds a little grainy, that's my fault, not Lily's. Pick up her EP when it drops. ("Smile" is on iTunes now, by the way.) One last thing: I'm embarrassed to admit how long it took me to figure out what "LDN" meant.

3. Arctic Monkeys - When the Sun Goes Down -- I only knew that they sold about a bazookajillion copies of their CD in the fabled U.K. by getting popular online before their album, like a particularly nutty turd, dropped. They played a set at South by Southwest that was very hyped and, from what I heard, very disappointing. Somewhere along the line I actually listened to the CD and discovered to my surprise that the songs on it are punchy and great.  They're also fantastic to listen to at the gym.  Monkeys win again!

4. What Made Milwaukee Famous - Idecide -- I heard some buzz about these guys at Austin City Limits Festival and I completely missed them. Jump ahead to two weeks ago and the debut week of The Almost Late Show With Bobby Bones. I was in the audience and they were the music guests. These guys, from Austin, were fantastic and I was instantly smitten. Then a week later, there they are on PBS doing a set on Austin City Limits (the San Antonio station didn't show it, grumble grumble, but I managed to catch it in Austin). This is just one of the great songs on their album, but I'm hearing several of them on Sirius, and it looks like they're gonna be the biggest band to come out of Austin since maybe Spoon. Much deserved. These guys seem like a swell bunch and their Austin City Limits spot (which I think re-airs Wednesday night) was outstanding. Be a fan!

5. The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated -- I've always liked The Ramones, but I realized recently that there was a big, gaping hole in my CD collection where a few Ramones albums should be. I happened to be at Target and a greatest hits CD with 30 songs (supposedly put together by Jimmy or Johnny or Jethro Ramone) was to be had for $9.99. Damn, I couldn't resist that shit. So here you go. Best song about sedation ever. Except for "Comfortably Numb." All right, second best song about sedation ever.

6. Solomon Burke - The Judgment -- This is off the same Solomon CD that has one of my favorite songs, "Don't Give Up On Me," but this is way, way, way darker.  It doesn't hurt matters that Elvis Costello co-wrote this song. Brilliant.

7. Bright Eyes - First Day of My Life -- This is not one of my favorite songs, but something about it just gets me every single time I hear it. Like right there, bam, in the gut.  Ow, it's getting me right now.  Warm fuzzy. Awww... I love you, man.

This was gonna be posted around Sept. 11 with some kinda title like "Songs in remembrance" or some bullshit like that, but I wasn't able to upload the songs until Wednesday and now here it is Friday (day off work, woo!) and it doesn't seem like a good idea anymore. So now I'll just call it "Songs that happened to fall on the week where it was the 5th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 and let's just leave it at that."

1. Sufjan Stevens - The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! -- As my brother said in his estimable blog, I've been on a Sufjan kick lately, probably driving everyone around me nuts. As if by chance, he's going to be performing in Austin tonight and tomorrow (yes, right in the middle of Austin City Limits Festival) and I managed to Cragislist the shit out of some tickets for tonight. So, woooo! The Illinois album is one of those very rare cases where the hype is absolutely justified and Sufjan's brain seems to be a chunky stew of musical textures, seasoned just so. The Avalanche, despite it being a plate of leftovers, is no less savory. This song is very, very pretty and since it's impossible to pick one good song that encapsulates Sufjan to anyone who hasn't listened to an entire album of his, I just picked the one that's been floating in my head the most lately. It's good.

2. Cake - The Distance -- Great song, awful video. There was an awesome animated film called The Running Man that ran on Liquid Television that would have been a much better visual for this song.

3. Rage Against the Machine - Down Rodeo -- Given how early this was in Rage's catalog, it's not surprising a lot of people aren't as familiar with this song as others of theirs, but I think it's probably their best song, period.

4. Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody? -- This Timbaland joint is the one with the baby sample that drives people (including my wife) absolutely fucking bonkers. And, cruelly, it sits right at the very top of my iTunes/iPod playlist. I don't care. I love it.

5. The Pixies - Hey -- This song reminds me of someone from the past every single time I listen to it, as if the song was written for them in my head.

6. Weezer - Mykey and Carli -- I won't retell the story of this song, but it was written about fans of Weezer who died in a car accident. The accoustic performance of this song at a concert on their compilation DVD with the parents in attendance is one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen.

7. Tracy Chapman - For You -- I don't know a lot of people who don't own, or haven't owned, her first CD. It's probably sitting way in the back of your CD collection, piled with dust. Take it out and pop it in the CD player. It's still as good as you remember.

... it's making my browser crash. Please fix it. Nobody needs to see your baby's photos, a video clip from The Hills and five songs by Chingy on the same fucking page. This isn't Geocities and the year isn't 1998. Nobody needs pink text on black on a Web site.

While you're at it, take off that horrible blinking fuschia background. It looks like the inside of Paris Hilton's vag.

I think I've done like four or five friend requests for Erykah Badu over the last six months and nuthin'. No friend add. This makes me sad.

I love Erykah. She is an inspiration. I listen to her music all the time. Hell, I'm listening to it right now. And she's got like 30,000 friends on MySpace and I'm not one of them.

I like to think that if we ran into each other in real life (other than the time I saw her amazing performance in Austin in March), we'd chat and it would be cool and shit. I'd talk about my apple tree and she'd remind me that like is a circle, all 360 degrees and maybe tell me how to get my stomach centered within the universe.

Erykah's busy, I'm sure, being totally funky somewhere, but I have a tiny, tiny tear in my eye because of all the people on MySpace, she's the one I want to be friends with the most.

Go tell her she should add me, would you?

Rather than repeat myself, I'll just recycle myself. This is where my current MySpace photo came from.

It's been a while, I know, but a lot's been going on. Like Big Life Stuff. Seriously. But you know what fixes all that? Good musicks from the profile page...

1. PJ Harvey -- The River -- All right, I know I throw a lot of PJ Harvey at you, and I wouldn't think to do it again so soon, but I was on a trip to California recently and on the plane ride back, my head full of damnedable ideas and still smelling ocean air, this was the first song that came on the iPod. Is This Desire? is not my favorite PJ Harvey album, but this song just sound so damn good at that moment, like I was hearing it for the first time, that it's stuck with me these last two weeks. I think that whole album is a little cold and impersonal compared to my favorite songs of hers, but this one cuts me. Cuts me deep, man.

2. Aha -- Take on Me -- If you should, ever in your life, encounter a person who is cynical enough not to like this song or the video for this song, it's would be a good idea to just run, run, run away from that person. You really don't want them in your life.

3. Al Green -- I Want To Hold Your Hand -- If you listen to no other song on this list, please make it this one. How rare and precious is it to come across a Beatles cover that actually is better than the Beatles version? What are the odds, holmes? I acquired it years ago from a 4-disc Al Green boxed set. There are at least two CDs worth of absolute gems in there. I thought about editing that little banter at the beginning, but I love hearing Al Green sounding, uh... high on life? And the other dude going, "Shut up, Al Green!" How great is this song, though, really? I mean... goddamn. It makes me smile just to think of it.

4. Flaming Lips -- Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 -- The stuff I've heard from the new Flaming Lips album has left me a little cold, but Yoshimi is a fantastic album with at least four or five monumentally good songs. This is one of them. Go, Yoshimi!

5. Molotov -- Frijolero -- I've been doing the pre-show music for our Latino Comedy Project shows the last few years and this song always seems to make the cut. I figure if this offends anyone in the audience, then the whole rest of our show isn't going to sit too well with them, either. Think of it as a first shot across the bow.

6. Lucinda Williams -- Essence -- This is my idea of a sexy song. Yow. Desire, man. Catch it like a fever!

7. Missy Elliott -- It's Real -- You kind of have to be in the mood for Missy most of the time, but whenever this song comes on, I always listen to it all the way through. It's the jam.