15+ musical things I'm thankful for, to be expanded on (and more links added) later...

(i just added a few link updates; more to come, as previously threatened...)

1. The Beatles
2. The Hair Soundtrack (Original Off-Broadway cast)
3. The Chad Mitchell Trio a few songs: Lizzie Borden, Rum By Gum, and Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight
   
4. Hearing Highway 61 Revisited at the right time
5. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (that record I can't find anymore)
6. Rolling Stone Magazine's 1988 "Top 100 albums of the last 20 Years" (and various other mags)
7. Oingo Boingo
8. Tom Waits
9. Mahavishnu John McLaughlin (esp. My Goals Beyond)
   
10. The Fall
11. The Blank Generation
12. The Richmond, VA music scene (circa 1994)
    
13. Dub
14. Steve Albini
15. Ninja Tune
    
16. Califone
17. John Peel
18. Radiohead
19. Wire
20. Bad Religion
21. The Saints
22. Future Primitive Sound Sesssions
    
23. Mille Plateaux record label (R.I.P)
    
24. Loscil
25. The Tied & Tickled Trio
26. Mark Lanegan
    
27. Venetian Snares
    
28. All Songs Considered podcast

Okay, that's more than 25, right? I'll get back to this, just wanted to belt these out, while I had my mind on it. You'll see each of these get a link. And eventually at least a mini-essay.

Happy Holidays. And shit.

The Pixies and the 20th Anniversary of Doolittle

It's the 20th anniversary of The Pixies' classic album Doolittle

I saw them live last night at The Fox Theater in Oakland; they played Doolittle all the way through, plus a bunch of tracks off Surfer Rosa. Really great. Big sound. Cool videos (short films really) for all the songs on the album.

They played 3 shows at The Fox, and they are still on tour through December (then they head down under in 2010).

I also found out that they have some free tunes for download on their site. I thought you might be interested....

Forget the Balloon Boy, now it's the Balloon Goal!

The inflationary theme continues to be a hot issue. Saturday in England, a Liverpool fan cost his own team a goal by introducing his loosely held breath into the sphere of play...

via Soccer Insider

Also here's a list of other odd goals in history.

The Trader Joe's Song--a delightful fake commercial

I mention this video in a recent post that I did on LaughingSquid as the same director also directed a few cool commercials with the Mythbusters guys in them.

But it felt off-topic and like too many videos to put in one post, so I excluded this amazingly catchy parody of the TJ-reality. So I decided to share it here instead.

Two posts in one day, this could portend grave happenings.

Daily Show skewers CNN's weak, leaving-it-there coverage

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

This must be one of my favorite Daily Show segments ever. They could stop a couple times along the way, but thankfully they see the satire all the way through. And there is a lot of damning evidence: CNN is a weak weak choice for news.

Those who celebrate goat *ucking will be particularly excited.

Political Pranksters: Billionaires for Wealthcare on the Rachel Maddow Show

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On Monday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show did a feature on "Billionaires for Wealthcare", a small group of pranksters who crashed Glen Beck's 9/12 protest in Washington DC this past weekend.

Their slogans include Let them eat Advil and Let's save the status quo!, and they wore tuxedos, drank champagne, and smoked cigars. And they put it all together with a song that they set to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Definitely political pranksterism in the spirit of Improv Everywhere and the Cacophony Society.

Here's their full music video

Bolt puts his own World Record in Rearview Mirror

]What a personality, and what a roadrunner. Makes running in a straight line a lot of fun. That's pretty amazing.

Attaboy solo art show in San Francisco

My buddy Attaboy, artist, illustrator, toy maker, and publisher of Hi Fructose has a new art show opening Friday in SF

It's been nearly a decade since Attaboy had a solo art show in SF, but the drought is over. Opening tonight at 1:AM Gallery (at 6th & Howard), Fri. August 14th 7-10pm and runs through September 5th.




Here's a clip of Attaboy being interviewed about his work in the movie "Vinyl Frontier":


(originally there was a typo on this post, saying that the show opened tonight [Thursday]. but that's not right. it's wrong. Friday 8/14 is the opening.)

A 5-gallon pickle bucket full of unleaded gas

Bad Livers - "Turpentine Willie"

The great, recently reformed (sorta) Austin band Bad Livers, with a hilarious intro and eventually song about life in the wilds of low rent Texas....

testing if

this posting via email still works.

 

If it does then I should have something meaninful to say.  I *should*. 

 

FYI, there might be some brief downtime of this blog.  If so, never fear, we'll be back and utterly unimproved.

 

Miklem.com is overdue for a redesign and it is going to get overduer, I'm afraid  But with new awesome hosting (soon) behind the scenes by those charismatic geniuses at http://laughingsquid.net , who knows, anything is possible!

 

Is that enough can I hit "send" now?

Eminem's new album 3AM, pre-release stuff for fans via Topspin

New Eminem out on Tuesday (May 19), lots of amazing stuff around the release

I am contemplating a larger post (probably on The Squid) about Eminem's new album and what the way it's being distributed/marketed/whatever reflects the kind of evolution that the music industry needs. But for now I just wanna test how this embed works.

Many props to Topspin for another amazing album release concept. Great packages of stuff fans really really appreciate at eminem.com

R.I.P. Bea Arthur (1922-2009) with occasional punk rock

Bea Arthur has left this mortal coil. She will live on in reruns of Golden Girls, and Maude via memory more than actual airtime.



here's an earlier rendition of this same tune by another late icon...





Here's an old clip where Bea shows off her comic stylings...



Here's an excerpt from the notorious Star Wars Holiday Special featuring Bea as a cantankerous bartender on Tatooine



I think that we need to all keep even closer watch on Abe Vigoda now. Here's a site that can help.

Eric Lewis at 5pm today at DNA Lounge

See my post on Laughing Squid for all the details

The incredible performer Eric Lewis (@eleww) is playing live tonight at a free show at DNA Lounge. DNA has been battling the state ABC board, so this is a benefit as well.

I saw Eric play earlier this week and shot video and images that are now on Flickr. He's a really special performer (read my lsquid post for lots more detail).

Here's one more video that I discovered on Nerdblog.com of an impromptu show that he did after his famous set at TED earlier this year....


Eric Lewis at TED 2009 from Michael Herf on Vimeo.

The Colbert Report's Big (Gay) Gathering Storm

In case you haven't seen this, it is frickin hilarious.

Two Videos That Showcase Change That We Can Believe In

Two great political clips from today, one on TV and the other in Congressional testimony. Lawrence O'Donnell forcefully rebuts judge-a-book-by-its-cover defense policy from an ex-Bush admin'er and Hilary takes apart photo-opp-with-Chavez-gate like only an adult from the winning political party can. Both via Talking Points Memo TV. Enjoy.

watching the bac'n guys at barcamp austin

Watching the Bacn.com guys at BarCampAustin

These guys created a business letting people Buy Bacon online and bacon realted stuff. Some very cool insights. And great tips for prefab'd services that make it much easier to run a web/mail-based business.

Here's a short list:
Crazyegg.com for landing page analysis, Endicia.com for a great way to deal with postage (interface to the USPS' scary API, has an awesome Mac client--seems like Opentaps does a similar thing), Uservoice for onsite feedback.

Business model: Selling t-shirts for a high profit and lots & lots of the world's best bacon for a lesser profit per item. And being smart as hell about every aspect of marketing & operations, totally leveraging new technology like the above.

Brilliant and fun presentation. Built the biz in 3 weeks. Paid tshirt models in PBR & Pizza. Presentation soon in SF.



Beeler's Uncured Garlic Pepper Bacon from Bac'n.com on Vimeo.


That was great, now back to SXSW proper.

Scam School at SXSWi

Watching the Scam School guy at SXSW

I refuse to look up and remember his name, cuz it's a click away for you to learn it yourself. But it's a show on Revision3 about scams & tricks, esp. around how to get free drinks.

Very entertaining, a domestic Derren Brown who walks amongst us. Gave some background. Lots of it is about Fixed Action Patterns. Interesting stuff.

He recommends the book How to Read a Person Like a Book.

more later

I'm at SXSW (and maybe you are or not?)

I'm hanging at SXSW for the week. And here I have this monthlong gap on posts at my eponymous blog. So I thought I'd get a quickie up here, in case someone surfs over here trying to figure out what my deal is.


To find out what I am doing RIGHT NOW check me on Twitter. Images are on Flickr. Read recent blogposts on my little slice of LaughingSquid. Including today's post about how NOT to attend SXSW.

More later soon yup. -em

Coraline: check.

it's brilliant. duh.

Coraline and Watchmen hit theaters in Spring 2009 (like almost now)

Wow, gee cool, the right movies are being made!

What joy that not both Coraline and Watchmen are coming out in the theaters in the next couple months. Here's the trailer for Neil Gaiman's Coraline:



Gaiman is a master storyteller, famous for his series The Sandman, made a wonderful and little seen feature filmed named Mirror Mask and numerous novels, comics, film and television creativity in his native England and adopted America.

The film has an incredible cast including Dakota Fanning, a Desperate Housewife, Ian McShane (Deadwood), both Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders (creators of Absolutely Fabulous and French & Saunders) and John Hodgman (noted author and A PC). There's a good page on Yahoo! Movies that summarizes details and links to trailers and photos and stuff.

Oh and Hodgman and Gaiman are both on Twitter, btw.

The Watchmen also has a cool compendium page on Yahoo! with some pretty sweet making of videos. It's an Alan Moore graphic novel that I don't have time to talk about in detail. But Time Magazine listed it in the Top 100 novels of all-tim. Here's the sneak peek trailer, which I like better than the one in the theaters now...

Happy New Year! Welcome 2009!!

let the new year in, be aware and take stock

It's just an arbitrary day of course, January 1, not tied to the sun or moon, named for a Roman god who has long gone out of style. But it's a marker, and that's useful. It's been a year (365 "days") since we last had this conversation, right?

I don't go in for resolutions, I don't think betting with yourself in front of everyone is a good or healthy way to motivate or change behavior. But your mileage may vary. But I do think that we tend to be more aware at this time, for obvious reasons (read: hungover). So it's useful to take a look at things (like this desk covered with all manner of crap? no, not that, okay?) and see where that observance takes you. But no dramatic pledges, per se, just run the old problem-solving and optimization scripts against it, and see where you end up. Again, that's me. I should just talk to myself, I suppose.

I want this to be a great year, with focus on the right things--remembering that healthy and pleasurable are not strictly expensive and that they can often be derived by very simple means: taking a walk accomplishes so much. That will be my one Zen outburst. I promise. I have no idea where it came from. But that wish is for all of you as well: a healthy, happy new year.

Also, my advice: find some optimism, which likewise is its own reward, and use it to fuel pragmatic thinking. We need to be practical and somewhat conservative as we proceed into a year that will be difficult. But make sure you know who your friends are, and remember how much that means, and make sure you have their numbers on you. That means write them down, back them up, and probably also get their zip code.

A programming note, as it were, you will tend to find fresher post-dates from me on Laughing Squid (where I guest-blog) than this blog, typically. I think I'll be writing a bit more here, certainly more than I did last year, but in general more and more interesting stuff will tend to pop up there.

That said, more here soon.....

Mikl-em