freudian slips

As mentioned previously, I should really be working now. But this is too good not to post. In doing a little prep for our trip coming up, I came across this on a hotel website for a place in Dahab, on the coast in Sinai.

Go to this link here and look at the special offer on the left side. Awesome.

Mimicry: Guided by Voices

My wife and I leave for our honeymoon on Friday. I have less than 48 hours to complete a 15-20 page paper, work a (nearly) full day tomorrow, pack, sleep a couple times, eat a few things, bathe, run a few small errands, and decompress. We're going to Egypt too, so I should practice some Arabic, which I've barely touched for the past month.

So there's a very bright light at the end of the tunnel, but I still need stuff to sustain me. Legal stuff -- coffee, music, sweets. I have not yet resorted to nicotine, so we're keeping it pretty clean. But, running out of options, I thought to myself, "What is it I need to do?" The answer, of course, is be as prolific in a very short period of time (I should note that I completed another 15 pager this morning around 3 am). Who is the king of being extremely -- almost offensively -- prolific in short periods of time? Robert Pollard, the mastermind behind Guided by Voices, that's who.

I thought for a minute that I could do all Bob Pollard and GbV from here on out, but that's just not possible. I'd kill myself. Plus, I never sprung for those absurdly exhaustive box sets he puts out, so I'd run out of material (I think). Instead, I'm having a contest: who does the best Guided by Voices rip-off?

So far the contestants: The Capstan Shafts, The Broadfield Marchers, and Times New Viking. Capstan Shafts have a commanding lead.

Anyone else care to throw a name into the ring?

'I saw another one just the other day / A special new band'

"I'm just never gonna like a new band as much as I like Pavement. There, I said it." - my buddy G.L.

Hard to argue. Maybe Pavement's not that band for you -- I tried to think of who else might be that band for me -- but I think for most serious music fans there's a group or an artist out there that just makes you wish you were there when it all happened. You mythologize it so much maybe that it can't ever really live up to expectations, but, thankfully, the current impossibility of time travel renders this a moot point. Sure, it would've been great to be at Monterey Pop or just to experience the thrill of spinning a hot off the press copy of Rubber Soul in '65 -- those are maybe too obvious. That's why Pavement's such a good choice. Of my other all-time favorite bands, none really had/have that buzz, that very particular style, that tied them so closely to a particular time and place. I'm sure there are others that fit the mold though -- who's got their own pick?

And speaking of which, Captain's Dead has been posting plenty of Pavement shows lately, and he's got a great one up right now from Shepherd's Bush in 1997. Very good sound quality. A couple mp3s from it below:

Pavement - "Cut Your Hair" (Live)
Pavement - "Stop Breathin" (Live)
Pavement - "Silence Kit" (Live)

Nowhere Boy

My buddy Casey (he of the great and hilarious "Action Direct" blog which covers the best and worst in action movies of all shapes and sizes) passed this along to me. Looks interesting. Better than that "Two of Us" crap VH1 peddled a few years back.

Jimmy Fallon doing Neil Young

You really ought to see this:



Wow.

World Cup Draw today, 12 noon on ESPN2

The World Cup 2010 Draw takes place today at noon on ESPN2. The stage will be effectively set for next summer (winter in South Africa though), and we can all begin our prognosticating. The draw is set up in four pots: one top pot of seeded teams, and the rest grouped regionally. A group can have no more than 2 European teams, and otherwise no two teams from the same continent can be drawn together. Because the host gets an automatic seed, and because South Africa is really not very good, possible draws range as widely as South Africa, Uruguay, New Zealand, and Slovakia as one group to Brazil, Ivory Coast, Mexico, and France in another. If the US can't draw South Africa as their seeded team, I'm personally pulling for Italy. We snatched a draw against them in 2006 and we had the lead against them last summer, before a cruel red card reduced us to 10 men and we lost 3-1. Either way, in all likelihood the US will be the 3rd or 4th best (most fancied?) team in a 4 team group. My one sincere hope, however, is that Algeria gets drawn into a group against their former colonizers, France, which really has some great post-colonial potential.

Here's a video of the BBC's choice for top ten all-time World Cup Goals. Enjoy.



I'm partial to all of them, but I especially love Bergkamp at #6. I remember watching this live -- it was around the last minute of the game, looked headed for overtime, I think both teams were down to 10 men, and then came this.

Ed Sullivan's Rock and Roll

PBS is airing "Ed Sullivan's Rock and Roll", a collection of some of the best live performances from his show in the 60s. And it is awesome, despite containing several clunkers (Beach Boys, I'm looking at you).

Here are a few of my all-time favorite pop tunes for your listening and viewing pleasure:


We Five - "You Were On My Mind"


The Turtles - "You Baby"


The Seeds - "Pushin' Too Hard"


The Easybeats - "Friday on My Mind"