This is the spring supplement of the last post. Since then I have totally fallen in love with the song The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. My God, listen to his voice. It's like someone got a very sharp knife and sliced the howls coming out of his mouth. Ever since the dual disappointment of ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness I've been very wary of bands with cute names, but Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is excellent. There are more mp3s on their site; check out Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood.
3:06 AM

Bad Alex tagged me to list six of current favourite songs, and tag six others, because she is a kind girl and knows how this will delight me.

Los Shakers - Rompan Todo We want you to come! We want you to hear! We want you to dance, dance all night lonng! But when the music start, don't stand there like a fool, but break it all, yeah list'n to me break it all. This song sounds like south American Beatles trying to incite a nihilistic-but-dance-loving revolution. (Alternate theory of Marika's was that maybe they meant break it down, but since Rompan Todo means break everything, it seems likely they just wanted to break things).

The Cherry Blossoms - Glow Jesus Glow This is my favourite song. I think it probably started as a joke, probably as a stoned joke, but more and more people got involved with more and more ideas and the song ended up as an ecstatic skiffle hymn. Listen at the end for what sounds like a man pleading for his life through a kazoo.

Leningrad - WWW One of the greatest cds I ever bought was Russendisko, from Trikont, the best label in the world. This was one of my favourite songs on there (and Leningrad had a song on another cd of Trikont's, Globalista), so I wanted to get more from Leningrad, but where could I do it? Months later I found that the liner notes had all the websites, but it turns out that if I just knew the lyrics I could have figured it out: this song is just an ad for their website. The chorus is www.leningradspb.ru shouted over and over. We've all been singing and dancing to an ad. But that doesn't stop it from being a great song.

On a side note, I'd read before that Leningrad couldn't be played on the radio because their songs were virtually composed entirely of swear words, but I always assumed this was just more of the hyperbole so rampant in the music industry. No! It turns out Russian has an entire sub-language of swearing. Here's a dictionary. My favourite entries are vzdrochennyi, bzdonov, and khujem grushi okolachivat.

Paul Simon - Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard This is a great song, and until yesterday I never had it on my computer. Whee!

Bishop Allen - Things Are What You Make of Them Bishop Allen is unsigned, and I don't understand why. Their first cd got rabid reviews and went to #2 on Amazon (!) without any advertising(!!). I may not understand their signage situation, but I do understand why folks like them; this is great smart pop. Another song from their site ends with these lyrics:

Maybe St. Peter won't let us in
Saying heaven's a place for the innocent
And we'll have a dance, yeah a dance, on the head of a pin
And God will grin and shoo us away

Those are lyrics! Those are great lyrics! This song is even better, but with less easibly snippable lyrics.

Mississippi John Hurt - Nobody's Dirty Business This was the first song of Mississippi John Hurt's that I heard, and it's still my favourite. Mississippi sings like a wounded man that one of these mornings he's gonna wake up crazy gonna grab his gun gonna kill his baby. Another morning he gonna wake up boozy gonna grab his gun gonna kill ol' Susie. But he also pleads for her to come back, assuring her that this time he'll treat her better. Don't go, Susie! (hosted on the wonderful Archive.org, which collects what few public domain songs there are)

Okay, and the tagging. I'm supposed to pick six, but I don't really know that many LJers, and actually they're both picked, so I'll have to branch out.

Little Bobby Baulkner
S!mia H4med
KTK
Ginnie Morrison
Jessica Kavanagh

Okay, that has exhausted my list of people with blogs that might humor this.
2:32 AM

A while ago (March), I said that "A Bad Sign" was coming soon. It is now June, and I am emotionally and spiritually ready to relate the events that befell me that month.

I was walking home from Samia's one Good Friday, and noticed a sign in our yard. If you've never seen my house, it's an old and decrepit thing, a great hulking thing that inspires wonder in all who behold it, wonder which takes the form of thoughts like "I wonder why it hasn't fallen down?", or "gosh, there are bugs everywhere". The land around here has become extremely valuable, so our landlady has been trying to sell it. We however love and live in our house, so we really don't want her to sell it, since it'll be demolished if she ever does.

I prepared, then, assuming the sign to be a For Sale one, to accidentally kick it down. But wait! It was not! In fact it was a notice: there would be next monday a meeting to apply for a demolishing permit for our house. I restored the sign to its proper position, in case the upstairs roommates hadn't seen it, and went in to tell Argy.

We were both very perturbed, and resolved to go to the meeting, and, if possible, we are not familiary with government but if possible, we would even speak there. The upstairs roommates had also seen the sign, and being much more industrious people they formed a different and somewhat better plan: more on that later.

The next morning I woke up to scratching. Actually I woke up to a timid knock on my door, which, at eight in the morning, I assumed was nothing important enough to warrant my attention. Then I heard stuff moving around on the porch, but again, it was eight in the morning, which makes my attention very valuable, so I figured whoever was doing whatever it was they were doing could continue to do so. It wasn't until someone started scratching something loudly on my door that I decided to see exactly what was up.

I put some pants on and opened the door, and there was a middle-aged balding man in well-worn shorts and a t-shirt, who had been scratching out my name, which I'd written on the knocker of my door. Whoa, he said. We stared at eachother a moment, confused and a little upset at our mutual presences. He broke and spoke first: whoa, man, I didn't mean to freak you out or nothing, man, I was just, here, man. At this point he handed me keys to our house, which is nice, because I'd never had a key to my front door before. He continued: I didn't mean to bother you or anything, man I just, I'm living over there, man, there's a sign (he pointed, helpfully), it says this place is coming down, there's a gas leak, man, I saw fires in the stove and it wasn't even on so I'm just going to live on that side, man, I cleaned it all up and everything, so, you can live over here, and I'm going to live over here, because it's going to be demolished, so I'm just going to live over here.

He paused, to let this sink in.

You can't live here, I replied.

Oh it's okay I'm just going to live on this side, there's a gas leak, see, I checked the gas main and this place I mean all these other houses, you see around here, they all have new gas mains, man, but you know this gas main hasn't been replaced in thirty fucking years, man, but the city has been pumping gas here, this whole place could blow any minute, man, they're going to get the fire department, and there's a sign, man, it's going to be knocked down (he pointed, helpfully).

Okay, I see, you can't live here, I replied again, standing up straight. I'm not a big guy, or a buff guy, or even, then, an awake guy, but I can take a crazy homeless guy. He sensed this, I think, and he marched off, shouting, I'm going to call the fire department on you! I'm going to call the fire department on you!

I went into the other side of the house. Our roommate left this side at the beginning of the school year, and in it he left a whole lot of junk, junk which we had added to over the years, so it was really really trashed. Until now. DK (as I later found out he was named) had completely cleaned the place out. It was amazing. In the corner of the room he had gathered up some old sheets of mine he'd found, and a pillow, for a makeshift bed. Next to it he'd set up a sort of floor desk, which included pens, an executive toy, a playboy (open, oddly, to an ad), and assorted junk. I went to the kitchen and started to lock the door (I was a bit, you know, freaked out), when DK slammed through saying whoa no man I gotta get my stuff, fuck no man. He stormed through to the other room, muttering as he did that this was fucking bullshit, man, fucking bullshit, it's not right, man, it's fucking bullshit. His stuff gathered, he angrily left the house. I locked the door and went back to my room, a little more freaked out. I also felt bad, because it's not like we're using that side of the house, but I just can't live with an insane bum. I may live in a house that's coming down and that has had rat and insect infestations in the past (right now our shower is filled with centipedes!) but I draw the line at living with a crazy hobo.

About half an hour later DK came back, sorry that he had yelled. I apologized as well and explained our situation, and he told me that's okay, man, but you should talk to your landlord, because you see that gas main it's thirty years old, man, and why did I see flames in the stove when there was no gas, man? how did I see the flames? you tell me that, man, you ask her why there are flames in the stove, and ask her to, like, let you have your friends stay here and stuff, because that's not right, but I looked at the gas main, and I just don't have the right sort of wrench, I'm going to get one from my friend and come back tomorrow.

He continued talking about the gas main at some length until I finally said "oh the gas main", I see, okay, I'll talk to someone about that, thanks". His mind off the gas main, he expounded at length on other topics: I found a lot of sorcery in tha room, man, so I put it all in bags so that when the cops come they don't have to worry about bombs or nothing, they can just blow it all up, because there was a lot of sorcery, and that's evil shit, man, I'm real tight with the cops, they know me, I left instructions in the kitchen, like, I wrote notes, they're in the kitchen, so you can live right, man.

Sensing an oppurtunity I thanked him profusely, and waved as I gently shut the door. Finally the door was all shut and I peeked my head through the window, waving and smiling, until finally he turned around and toddled off to do whatever it is he does.

After I was sure he'd left (I can't go to the kitchen when Argy's sleeping without going outside) I went to the kitchen. He had tried some of the really old food in the fridge, including my two-month old cake that had been bad when I made it. Sure enough, there were also instructions. Sadly, I seem to have lost them, so I'll try to recreate them here:


Sun set ---------------------- sun rise
carbs every five lots of protien
minutes

brush teeth with spud mash


There were other parts, but I don't remember them. He also took all our large knives, which saddened me. Some food he'd pulled out of the fridge, but I put it back in and so have repressed the memory of which food it was exactly. He had written his initials on the wall outside Dave's half, and signed the note with them, which is why I call him DK.

I saw him the next day, walking down the street, though luckily I was on the phone, so we didn't have to exchange a knowing glance: "you tried to colonize my house, and I kicked you out." "yes, and I stole your knives". The last present of his we have to remember him by happened several days later, when Argy and I, chasing a foul odor on that side of the house, found a pitcher of urine in the closet. I manlily took it to the garbage can, where I threw the urine on the neighbours' yard.

Next: What Those Wacky Upstairs Roommates Were Up To
2:03 AM