Michael Moore inspires such conflicted feelings in me. On the one hand, his politics are more or less spot-on, but gawd, he's so fucking unfunny for a satirist. It's surely a symptom my Lettermania (David) that everything on television has to be so scathingly sarcastic, that maybe Moore just can't compete with self-mocking advertising, Ozzy doddering in a "real" sitcom, and guys shooving staplers up a midgit's butt on "Jackass"...fuckifIknow.

What I do know is that Bitch Magnet CD, the one before (I think) "Umber" is absolutely seminal shit. What's that one called Yale? I got to add it to the collection.

Actually, rereading my post about Moore's politics...maybe it's Texas, but I'm becoming evermore the pro-abortion, pro-gun, pro-death, god wouldnta made it out of meat if he didn't mean for us to eat it libertarian I was born to be. The things that really piss me off, are only marginally political...I mean I can extract a political argument from why Hastings can suck my butt, but nevertheless, what pisses me off are middle managers who seem to have no conflict about hiring incompetent hormonal cases who can't stock VHS section alphabetically. Does that sound woefully Republican? I just want to rent "Fistfull of Dollars" for fucksake!

maybe it's Texas, but I'm becoming evermore the pro-abortion, pro-gun, pro-death, god wouldnta made it out of meat if he didn't mean for us to eat it libertarian I was born to be.

I am intrigued as are others, please pontificate further. For instance, when you say pro death, who should die? rich whitey? arabs?

aside: I would like to be a vegetarian but the fuck if a nice new york cut doesnt hit the spot every goddamn time. Free range grass fed ofcourse.

Libertarianism is an interesting philosophy to me in that it seems to be the point on the Great Ideological Circle at which Liberalism and Conservatism converge. I mean, people arrive at Libertarianism from both sides, you know? Interesting.

And about that Lettermania: methinks you are not alone. As David Foster Wallace explained at great length, our society is enslaved by irony and sarcasm. What could be the next logical step? Where do we go from here? Meta-sarcasm?

Free range grass fed of course

That reminds me of how at Zimorino's the menu says "humanely raised veal." In the kitchen we used to jokingly refer to it as "humanely raised, then savagely exterminated with a bolt gun veal".

that Bitch Magnet CD, the one before (I think) "Umber"

Before Umber was Star Booty, but I ain't so keen on that one (sounds like it was recorded in a locker room). You might be referring to Ben Hur, which verily set the bar for that type of cerebral, textural shit.

Of course, nowadays they call it "math rock."

Did anybody else ever get roped into taking one of those Libertarian political surveys in the UC? They had a table set up one time and I had a few minutes to kill (well, let's face it, I had hours to kill everyday at the good ol' U of M), so I filled out their little multiple choice thingy. Mr. Libertarian very scientifically analyzed my info and placed my beliefs on a graph. I was way above the the curve, deep into Libertarian territory, but also pretty far over to the Left of things. I could see the man had mixed feelings about me. Obviously, he thought I had enough of the right stuff to join up, but he was not as enthusiastic as he might have been if I had agreed that everyone ought to have a howizter in his back yard.

Years of reading later, I realized that the Liberto-quadrant that survey placed me in can be called Libertarian Socialism. The far more Romantic label is Anarchism. I thought that was pretty funny.

"I am intrigued as are others, please pontificate further. For instance, when you say pro death, who should die? rich whitey? arabs?"

Oh I dunno, everybody. People are really overrated. I think Mr. Stansberry made the compelling argument in Mr. Hamiliton's Honors English that wolf introduction ought to equal human extraction. Along the lines of, if a wolf is killed they ought to haul off a kindergarten, or something similarly morbid and delightful.

As Bill Hicks famously said, "I hate this 'aren't humanity wonderful?' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes."

Ben Hur, that's right. And that Star Booty disk was wildly sub-standard. They had this whole weird thing angular thing, but their song names, if memory serves, were ironically cock-rocky. Even their name. And "Star Booty"?

Growth for the sake of growth is cancer. Thats where the libertarian schtick fails. Libertarian party platform is akin to market fundamentalism, which states greed for greeds sake is a good thing, and the only driving economic factor that matters. In pratical terms, one thing that libertarians advocate is the selling off of all the national forests to the highest bidder, because they believe the market itself will govern the rate of exctraction. Growing up in the northwest as most of have, we all know this is complete bullshit. However I do dig on the social platform of the Libertarians, i.e. end the drug war.
I must agree with Henderslob's pro-death stance. The less people the better. Not to worry there though, global warming as its going now will destroy a hefty percentage of world population, through increasingly violent weather, rising sea levels, and the increased breeding grounds for water born disease that will come from that. Quite ironic that water, are most precious resource will ultimately destroy civilizataion. more water and less ice in terms of this planet is just like gas on a bon fire.

My buddy Smokey turned me on to Walt Mink back in '94 or so. We were roomates in a little house off of Babcock here in Bozeman. Smoke is a super great guy and back then was always buying huge amounts of music, mainly in cassette format.

We both worked in kitchens at the time and rent was cheap, so we had a good chunk of cash for CD and tapes. Smoke would come home weekly with 5-10 new tapes a week. We would check 'em out and drink some beer and listen to 'em some more. Walt Mink was a up there with Built to Spill and the Smashing Pumpkins.

I always used to listen to that tape on my way to Billings to play with our band Snuffy's.
Long drive in the winter. Yale are you into Robert Pollard?

Yeah, I dig the shit out of Bobby Pollard! I don't think that I'm the same caliber of GBV fan that most people are, but I heartily acknowledge the man's genius. That new album isn't really doing it for me, though. It's good, but not anything to write home about. I think "Do The Collapse" is my favorite, although I think I may be the only person in the world that ranks that album as their favorite GBV record. Bee Thousand is a close second.

Isolation Drills for my money, though I used to have Alien Lanes until some gangsta hippy (I assume) stole all my CDs out of my car. Except for Coltrane, so maybe he wasn't a hippy. I digress...

Pollard rules. I don't have Bee Thousand, but everybody's got a boner over it, so I suppose I'll have to get it.

On Walt Mink: is Bareback Ride the proper introduction?

Isolation Drills for my money

I dig that one real bad as well. I can see where people that got into GBV back in "the day," when their records sounded like they were recorded over the phone, they don't dig on the super slick production found on the last three GBV albums. But since I showed up late to the game, I don't claim any fealty to the lo-fi stuff. Another amazing thing about GBV is the fact that some of those old songs that are nothing but Bob, an acoustic, and some guy hitting a shoebox with a pencil, those songs translate surprisingly well to the modern-day live setting with the full 5-man sonic juggernaut.

is Bareback Ride the proper introduction?

Abso-tively. But a person could use their "El Producto" album as a jumping-off point and probably land in essentially the same space. I think that would make for a good discussion topic someday: the best starter albums for different bands. Like, I wonder if I'd have gotten so heavily into the Minutemen if I'd picked up "Three-Way Tie For Last" as my first Minutemen record. Or if the first NoMeansNo's album I heard was "Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed," would I have deemed that band worth further review? Prob'ly not.

I think that would make for a good discussion topic someday: the best starter albums for different bands.

Isn't that so true? I got to say, many many bands that everybody think are so fucking seminal have simply not made the cut because their sophomore/post-drug/after they changed drummers/psychadelic album blew the goat. A few first record must-listens in order to appreciate the ouevre, as it were:

Melvins: Bullhead (hands down the clearest aesthetic comment from this band, and one of the most-derived records, short of the first three by Sabbath)
Steel Pole Bathtub: Tulip
Palace: Viva Last Blues
Bob Dylan: Bringin' It All Back Home
Didgits: Hornet Pinata
Fugazi: Repeater
Replacements: Let it Be
Urge Overkill: Supersonic Storybook

...to which I add:

All- Allroy Sez
Dinosaur- You're Living All Over Me
House of Large Sizes- My Ass-Kicking Life
Husker Du- Zen Arcade
Meat Puppets- Up On the Sun
Minutemen- Double Nickels on the Dime
Unwound- New Plastic Ideas
Mudhoney- Self-titled
Victims Family- White Bread Blues
NoMeansNo- Wrong
fIREHOSE- if'n

...shit, in many cases it's a lot harder than you'd think to make the distinction between what's a band's "best" album is and what would be the best starter album. And looking at that list, in every case except House of Large Sizes and Mudhoney, those were the first albums I got of each respective band.

Funny memory: I recall getting "Double Nickels on the Dime" when I was about 16, and when the song "Retreat" came on, with the line "the toilet... starts flushing... sets me... off again," I remember thinking, "What is this stupid shit?" Now it has been my all-time favorite record for something like 13 years.

Since this a music Web site, I'll chime in with my latest obsession: Cowboy Nation. This outfit is apparently the latest group to include the brothers Tony and Chip Kinman of some earlier things called The Dils, Blackbird, and Rank & File.

It's also about the best example I've got of the country side of that odd axis between punk and country, which is my favorite musical tightrope to watch(listen to?) bands shuffle across. I know Yale is at least a moderate fan of X. Ever listen to "Poor Little Critter in the Road," which they put out as The Knitters? It seems to be widely and unfortunately overlooked by all my Uncle Tupelo-cranking, Steve Earle-worshipping bros.

Anyway, my starting point for Cowboy Nation is the stunning "We Do as We Please."

Sweet turds on fire! As an X fan, a Knitters fan, a Rank & File fan, and as an American, I will duly check out Cowboy Nation. Thanks for the tip, yo!

As an earlier participant on this fine little message board has eloquently written: God, fuck America.

But dadgummit, God bless Cowboy Nation!

Thanks for the tip, yo!

Been mulling over this latest tweek in ye ole english language, what should this form of address be called? Ebonic dangling vocative? I must admit I am starting to use it more and more, yo.

Great starter albums:
Husker Du - Flip your wig
Bad Brains - I against I
Fishbone - The reality of my surroundings
Miles Davis - Around about midnight

Seminal, shmeminal. Ya'll need some fucking metal injected into this great starter albums indie rock wank fest, by gum!

Iron Maiden -- Live After Death
Judas Priest -- British Steel
Black Sabbath -- Any of the first four
KISS -- KISS
AC/DC -- depends on if you want to fight Bon Scott supporters or Brian Johnson supporters
Rush -- Moving Pictures

Chris is back! I thought you'd gone and joined the Scientologists or something.

Thanks for the tip, yo!

I ridiculed this colloquialism for a long time as well, then it insidiously crept its way into my lexicon. It rolls off the tongue nicely at the end of an exclamatory statement, I think.