Jam of the Day: Young the Giant - "Superposition"

There is something lovely about this new track from Young the Giant. It sounds like Out of Time-era R.E.M.

Jam of the Day: R.E.M. - "Devil Rides Backwards (Demo)"

R.E.M.'s classic masterpiece Automatic for the People turns 25 this month. A deluxe anniversary edition of the record comes out next month, featuring several unreleased tracks, including this haunting ballad.

Jam of the Day: Florence + The Machine - "Ship to Wreck"

I'm starting to really get excited about the new album from Florence + The Machine. I love this track that sounds like Florence is fronting Reckoning-era R.E.M.

Jam of the Day: Westkust - "Swirl"

Intriguing guitar pop from Swedish band Westkust, that sort of sounds like a cross between The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sonic Youth, and R.E.M.

iPod Shuffle

As the year comes to a close, it's very quiet in the office this week and in between waiting for documents to save in a case I am working on I decided to put my iPod on shuffle and see what the first 5 tracks were:

1. Japan - "Halloween"



From their 1979 album Quiet Life, "Halloween" is a sleek new wave number full of moody synthesizers, nimble guitar work, languid basslines, and the inimitable croon of David Sylvian.

2. R.E.M. - "Daysleeper"



Probably the one truly R.E.M.ish track on Up, their first record without Bill Berry, "Daysleeper" is a majestic track with a killer chorus. If you have ever worked an overnight shift, you will understand the sentiments behind this song.

3. Cibo Matto - "Beef Jerky"



Their first record Viva! La Woman, which contained ten songs all containing some form of food. "Beef Jerky" is a really fun track with clever samples, chunky drum programming, and some groovy bass.

4. Booka Shade - "Hallelujah USA"



Menacing track from Booka Shade's classic album Movements.

5. Curve - "Ten Little Girls"



Criminally overlooked band from the 90s whose dense, swirling shoegaze sound was later appropriated by too many people to mention. "Ten Little Girls" was first featured on their Blindfold EP and later on the compilation LP Pubic Fruit. It showcases gnawing, thrashing guitars with Madchester drum rhythms and Toni Halliday's amazing vocals.

Jam of the Day: Line & Circle - "Wounded Desire"

From their upcoming eponymous EP, Line & Circle release this rush of a single, whose jangly guitars and tight rhythm section recall the early days of R.E.M. You can listen to the track over at Stereogum.com.

Non-Sequiturs

Hot belly.

Silver hotness.

Cutie cub.

Enjoy the view.

Damn.

Furball and cigar.

Tough looking.

Too hot.

Killer beard.

Tatts and chest.

Nice smirk.

Yum.

Furry abs.

UNF.

Love a man with back fur.

Hey there cutie.

Woof.

Sup?

What you thinking about?  Bear stuffs.

Amazing body.

Killer hair.

Bathtub daddy.

Damn.

Grrrr.

Love the lighting.  And damn, what a nice back.

Adorable.

Drop and give me 50.

Hello nips.

I'd go 10 rounds with him.

Beefy.

Gorgeous chest.

Nice build, and bulge.

Yes please.

Snippets on SoundCloud are completely annoying.

Cold fried chicken is the best.

Plans to do nothing are still plans.

Sometimes, when I am alone of course, I sing songs using fake French words.

Perfection is overrated.

Dawwwwwww.

Lucy was an ok summer movie. It tried to tow the line between being a bang-up action flick and a philosophical mind fuck but really needed to pick one or the other.

Saint Etienne's album So Tough is a brilliant masterpiece. It never held up much for me when I first heard it but, like Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, I was just not ready to comprehend it. There is almost too much going on in it to grasp initially. Sonically, it is off the rails with wicked invention.

Weekends doing nothing are the best.

I was thinking about this the other day. When people come across a last name and first initial but no indication of what the first name is, as a general observation, most people tend to automatically make the person male. Just sort of odd when you think about.

Pesky dinosaurs.

The months right before a major November election are serious torture with all the idiotic political ads.

The scene on Mad Men where the secretary runs over the guy's foot with the lawn mower still makes me jump out of my seat.

I haven't heard from you since 2011.  I am not going to go out of my way to see you.

If you try and slut-shame someone for taking PrEP, you are no friend of mine. Hell, if you slut shame anyone for any reason, you are definitely not a friend of mine.

Although charity work is fulfilling, sometimes it can be downright exhausting.

Truth.

It always saddens me when two wonderful people split up. What makes me happy is when they remain friends.

I hate when I see someone I dislike make a witty comment similar to mine.

I know dark chocolate is supposed to be good for you, but damn it tastes nasty.

I've made some jokes about Ebola coming to Atlanta, however, they were solely meant to be lighthearted. The doctors and nurses at Emory Hospital and the employees of the CDC know what the hell they are doing and I have no fear that having these patients here will cause problems.

Would it be insulting to say someone looks like a Hobbit version of Bea Arthur?

Another truth.

I think I need to switch my morning breakfast from oatmeal to brown rice. I just can't abide oatmeal anymore.

On social media, the question "how are you?" appears to be a very difficult question to answer.

Why do gay men cream their panties every time Deborah Cox makes an appearance somewhere?

Do you ever have days where it seems like everyone is mad at you?

Beauty can cause blindness.

Your cute for the day.

Lyrics Rattling Around My Brain

"Your eyes are burning holes through me
I'm gasoline, I'm burnin' clean
Twentieth century go and sleep
You're plasticine, that is obscene, that is obscene

You are the star tonight
Your sun electric, outta sight
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight
Electrolyte, you're outta sight

If I ever want to fly
Mulholland Drive, I am alive
Hollywood is under me
I'm Martin Sheen, I'm Steve McQueen, I'm Jimmy Dean

You are the star tonight
Your sun electric, outta sight
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight
Electrolyte, you're outta sight

If you ever want to fly
Mulholland Drive, up in the sky
Stand on a cliff and look down there
Don't be scared, you are alive, you are alive

You are the star tonight
Your sun electric outta sight
Your light eclipsed the moon tonight
Electrolyte, you're outta sight

Twentieth century go and sleep
Really deep, we won't blink
You're eyes are burnin' holes through me
I'm not scared, I'm outta here
I'm not scared, I'm outta here."

R.E.M.
"Electrolyte"

"It's been a long, long time
Since I've memorized your face
It's been four hours now
Since I've wandered through your place
And when I sleep on your couch
I feel very safe
And when you bring the blankets
I cover up my face

I do
Love you
I do
Love you

And when you play guitar
I listen to the strings buzz
The metal vibrates underneath your fingers
And when you crochet
I feel mesmerized and proud

And I would say I love you
But saying it out loud is hard
So I won't say it at all
And I won't stay very long

But you are life I needed all along
I think of you as my brother
Although that sounds dumb

And words are futile devices."

Sufjan Stevens
"Futile Devices"

Appealing Things

Lusine
Locking down our place at Bear Week for next year
Sandwiches from Relish in Provincetown
Caribou's new record Our Love
Chocolate, peanut butter, and bananas

Annoying Things

Whiners
People who don't respond to an invite, even after several reminders
Lazy Bear envy

Non-Sequiturs

UNF

Daddy!

Grrrr.

So handsome.

Sexy.

Nice chest.

Nice belly.

Drool.

So cute.

Silver fox.

Wow.

Woof.

I think this is the hottest pic of him.  Love the peek of belly.

That is a hot man.

Sleepy bear.

Yes please.

I'll take two.

Beautiful body.

Words fail me.

Tongue out.

Gorgeous.

Damn.

Hey Daddy!

Beef.

Country boy.

Yum.

Furry belly.

Too much cuteness here.

That chest.

Tight body.

SBJ.

Intense.

Bald hottie.

Amazing.

 Nuzzle.

All these Republican state senators and representatives that are sponsoring these ridiculous and unconstitutional "preservation of religious freedom" bills are all fucking lemmings.

It is beyond creepy when someone I don't even know on FB starts sharing my pics on their wall.

The game Threes is so much fun, and yet so horribly frustrating.

It's confounding that in 2014 we are still having to fight for basic rights.

LOL.

I love it when people discount my advice after living here in Atlanta for 20 years. I might not know many things, but I do know Atlanta.

Work limbo sucks.

Sometimes simplicity is the best. The new Real Estate record Atlas is plain gorgeous jangle-pop.

Feast or famine at work; no projects for three weeks, then get hit with two.

After being told I have no boss, and having no one to report to and get work from, my job has become somewhat like sales where I am having to go almost door to door to each attorneys' office to find work.

Could you even imagine?

Do people still watch Glee?

I don't care what your reasoning is, or whether your state has no laws about it, but if you ride a bike or a motorcycle without a helmet, it's kind of stupid.

Is it just me, or is there a mass epidemic of people getting into relationships overnight?

Dat's right.

Sometimes I do think I have lived in Atlanta far too long.

Favorite band name at the moment: Perfect Pussy.

Is there such a thing as a combination introvert-extrovert? An intextrovert?

In this day and age, it should not take anyone over two days to respond to something, especially if it is important.

Granted it was the 80s, but damn, I wanted David Sylvian's hair.

Passive-aggressive is the new black.

I am helpless to resist a man in a Bike jock strap.

Rush Limbaugh needs to rot in hell.

Make it happen.

What I love about SoundCloud is how sometimes it randomly throws some great music at you that you normally wouldn't be exposed to.

When a music magazine/site talks about dance music and songs that are "floor-focused," I am generally taken aback as to what they consider music you can dance to. Generally, the songs they mention are so slight as to be almost gossamer. I certainly wouldn't/couldn't dance to it. I guess by "floor-focused" they mean staring at the floor.

Do you have to like every single song on an album to consider it a classic/masterpiece? I don't think so. Two of my all-time favorite records each have a track that is so completely out of place I nearly skip over it altogether every time I listen to the album. The culprits? "Ignoreland" on R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People and "Electioneering" on Radiohead's OK Computer.

Is there any point to Guided By Voices?

Your cute for the day.

Lyrics Rattling Around My Brain

"Prince Johnny,
You're kind but you're not simple
By now I think I know the difference
You wanna be the son of someone

Remember the time we went and snorted
A piece of the Berlin wall that you'd extorted
And we had such a laugh of it?
Prostrate on my carpet

You traced the Andes with your index
And brag of when and where and who you gonna bed next
All with sons of someones
All with sons of someones

Saw you pray to all
To make you a real boy

Saw you pray to all
To make you a real boy

Prince Johnny,
You're kind but do be careful
By now I know just when to stand clear
When all your friends and acolytes are
Holding court in bathroom stalls

Where you pray to all
To make you a real

Saw you pray to all
To make you a real boy

But honey, don't mistake my affection
For another spit-and-penny style redemption
Cause we're all sons of someones
We're all sons of someones
I wanna mean more than they mean to you
I wanna mean more than I meant to him

So I pray to all
To make me a real girl

So I pray to all
To make me a real girl."

St. Vincent
"Prince Johnny"

"Shotgun poetry
Crack the whip again
Make me see
Sharpen your knives for me
Infiltrate the mind, the body
Body

Contract killer prose
Calmly walks away
As blood flows
Open, the wound grows
Melts away
The water froze
The water froze

'Cause my love, my love, my love don't love me
My love, my love, my love don't love me
My love, my love, my love don't love me
'Cause my love, my love, my love don't love me

Contract killer prose
Calmly walks away
As blood flows
Open, the wound grows
Melts away
Water fro...

'Cause my love, my love, my love don't love me
My love, my love, my love don't love me."

SOHN
"Bloodflows"

"Oh, Carissa when I first saw you
You were a lovely child
And the last time I saw you
You were 15 and pregnant and running wild

I remember wondering could there be a light at the end of your tunnel
But I left Ohio then and had pretty much forgotten all about you
I guess you were there some years ago at a family funeral
But you were one of so many relatives I didn't know which one was you

Yesterday morning I woke up to so many 330 area code calls
I called my mom back and she was in tears and asked had I spoke to my father
Carissa burned to death last night in a freak accident fire
In her yard in Brewster her daughter came home from a party and found her

Same way as my uncle who was her grandfather
An aerosol can blew up in the trash, goddamn what were the odds?
She was just getting ready to go to her midnight shift as an RN in Wadsworth
Then she vanished up in flames like that but there had to be more to her life's worth
Everyone's grieving out of their minds making arrangements and taking drugs
But I'm flying out there tomorrow because I need to give and get some hugs
Cause I got questions that I'd like to get answered
I may never get them, but Carissa I gotta know how did it happen?

Carissa was 35
You don't just raise two kids, and take out your trash and die
She was my second cousin, I didn't know her well at all
But that doesn't mean that I wasn't
Meant to find some poetry to make some sense of this, to find a deeper meaning
In this senseless tragedy, oh Carissa I'll sing your name across every sea."

Sun Kil Moon
"Carissa"

Appealing Things

The new stuff
DJ Paulo at Jungle
Cathedrals
Flavia coffee machines in the break room
Ferry booked for Bear Week

Annoying Things

People who exit elevators slowly
7am return flights
Inequity in the office place
People who don't do what they say they are going to do