Obama's Not An Elitist, Just An Asshole College Kid

Ah, well this changes everything. I'm definitely voting for him now. If their collars were up I'd even donate to his campaign!

Thx, Daily Gut!

P.S. A vote for Obama is a vote against little girls with cerebral palsy!

Revenge of the Landlords

So I just read an article linked on Drudge Report, which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle's website, about some landlords who are FAR more disgruntled than I am. Unfortunately, they (SFChron) have disabled copy/paste on their site, thus negating my illegal copying ways, but the article is definitely worth a read (follow the link above).

Essentially, this couple, fed up with their weiner tenants (and their "demands" for electricity, reasonable rent prices, floors), took matters into their own hands. Considering my tenants have been violating my person for the last three years, this is a dangerous article for me. Maybe the weiner complaints would suddenly cease if I started sawing through their floor.

No, they probably wouldn't. Nuts.

My Anus is Bleeding!

Hey, got 9 minutes 21 seconds to spare? So do I! Enjoy this!

Random Filler

It's rare that I get the opportunity to rip off not one, but two independent sources, but I'm doing just that today.

My friend, the Blogadier General (Blog. Gen., 2nd class), himself ripped off the AV Club (a not great site) feature - "Random Rules" - where they get some "indie" celebrity to go through their IPod (since IPods are cool) and, with the song list set to random (hence the name of the feature), they comment on the song that shows up, usually with a witty anecdote from their professional or pre-professional lives. Here's what happened when the Blog. Gen. did this.

So, anyway, I decided to do the same today, since I'm kind of bored and think it's an interesting idea. Quick note - I don't have an IPod, I have a SanDisk Sansa e260. Eat that, Apple.

Here goes:

1.) Count Basie - "Jumpin' At The Woodside"
Ah, a classic from my bootleggin' days. I've got a million jazz songs on my MP3 player, mostly from Miles Davis. This song features a young Miles, back when he was in Basie's orchestra.

That's all I got.

2.) Soungarden - "Ty Cobb"
Down On The Upside is easily in my top 5 favorite albums of all time. I could (and do) listen to it all the time. The title track might be one of my top 5 favorite songs of all time. I hear Stone Temple Pilots is getting back together - what about these guys??

When this album came out, I was in high school, driving a "classic" 1984 Toyota Tercel hatchback. It was so old and rusted that the words "Toyota" and "Tercel" had long since fallen off the back hatch. Pieces of it would fall off when I closed the hatch. I loved that car. Anyway, I used to give my friends in the neighborhood a ride in to school every day, and this one guy David used to insist that we start the ride listening to this song. It is a pretty great song. So, he would always sing annoyingly along and act like he was playing the drums (yeah, he was that guy), and when the chorus came along, instead of the actual words ("Hard-headed, fuck you all!") he would yell out, "I'm ready to fuck you all!" He thought those were the words. I kept trying to tell him that that didn't make any sense and even showed him the lyrics in the liner notes, but he was still convinced his version was right.

Along with Offspring's "Bad Habit", this is the best song to listen to while stuck in traffic.

3.) Smashing Pumpkins - "Today (live acoustic version)"
Not much to say about this song, it's a good one. I actually saw the Pumpkins play their last show before the keyboardist OD'ed and they kicked their drummer, James Chamberlain, out. Now he's back with the band, and their music sucks!

4.) DJ Shadow - "Organ Donor (Extended Version)"
My little brother got me into Shadow, along with RJD2 and Madlib, last year. This is off Shadow's Endtroducing... album, the double CD version. Specifically, this version of "Organ Donor" is on the 2nd CD. I actually like this version better than the one on the first CD, but I like that one as well. I've definitely entered a phase in my life where I'm more into DJ-driven tracks, like Shadow, RJD2, St. Germain, Stereolab. It's a good phase to be in, I think. Anyway, great track - might end up being the best song on this list.

5.) Less Than Jake - "9th and Pine"
When I was in high school, and to some extent in college, LTJ was my favorite band. I definitely went through a ska phase, and these guys were the best. For a while, though, all I listened to was Jake, Hepcat, Skatalites, Pietasters, Rancid, Mustard Plug, and so on and so forth. I would attend every Vans Warped Tour, get into it with the moshers (despite weighing about a buck twenty). I even had my hair shoulder length. I was so cool.

The first time I saw these guys live, I got pulled over (in my Tercel) for being a suspected narcotics dealer. True story. My friend got slammed against the car by the cop. Turns out we had accidentally stumbled into the top narcotics zone in DC. Oops. Anyway, as it happened, they were mistaken in their belief of our being drug lords. But, on the plus side, at least they were dicks about it!

Anyway, this song is off their best album, Losing Streak. The best song on this album is "Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts."

Incidentally, Less Than Jake is the Blogadier General's favorite band!

6.) Less Than Jake - "Jen Doesn't Like Me Anymore"
Awesome. And really, I only have this one album on the MP3 player. I like how the chorus to this one develops at the end: "Jee-e-e-e-e-e-en, no she doesn't fucking like me anymore." I miss the simpler songs.

7.) Blind Melon - "Rebirth (Demo)"
Hmm. Blind Melon's one of my favorite bands of all time, but this song (and this recording) isn't that great. Not sure how it made it on there, except that I'm such a Melon fanboy. I just saw them live with their new lead singer a couple months ago. They sounded great, can't wait for the new album.

8.) Beatles - "Yellow Submarine"
The Beatles were at their best when they were stoned out of their minds. Really stoned out of their minds. The other Beatles songs on my player are "Strawberry Fields" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." My favorite part of this song is when Paul starts drunkenly parroting everything Ringo sings. I bet that pissed Ringo off good.

9.) Handsome Boy Modeling School - "The World's Gone Mad"
Featuring Alex Kapranos and Del the Funkee Homosapien. Love this song. It's the best song off of White People.

Del, of course, is the nerdy cousin of Ice Cube. I bet a thousand years from now, when aliens rule our planet and runaway slave humans congregate in the sewers, trying to keep away from the watchful eyes of robot police, Del will seem a lot more "gangsta" and "hard" than Ice Cube.

10.) Robert Johnson - "Preaching Blues"
Great way to end this. My fourth year of college, we had a summer roommate named Catfish (named after the fish, not the pitcher). He got me into Robert Johnson, as he was taking a summer class on the famed blues guitarist/singer/wife beater.

Hey, don't get uppity with me - Johnson sings about beatin' his woman on nearly every song! On "Me and the Devil Blues," he notes, "I'm going to beat my woman til I get satisfied." God, I love this album.

Anyway, we used to listen to his Robert Johnson box set all the time. It was pretty great. Pretty great summer, actually, now that I think about it.

Alright, well that's that. Hope you weren't bored to tears. Shit, I enjoyed it, that's all that matters.

The Circus

This is what I'm talking about below, absolutely ridiculous "activist" bullshit from local idiots that only hurts kids.

They're trying to take the circus away from kids!

Now how is a new generation of kids supposed to develop an irrational fear of clowns?

Here's my favorite part of the article:

"To see a bear ride a bicycle, it is ridicule. You're really just laughing at that bear," said Mel Levine, a renowned pediatrician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has written numerous books about child behavior and the way children learn. "So the question is: What's the message you're giving to kids when you take them to the circus and they laugh at animals? I think to laugh at animals is to devalue them."

Hehehehehehehehehe!!! Seriously?? A bear on a bicycle!! Hehehehehe!!! I'm giggling like a schoolgirl just writing that! I need to get me to the circus if that's what's going on there!

Arlington

Before I get into what I've gotten on to write about, I just wanted to pass along another classic quote from my friend Mike, who's been a somewhat regular contributor to the Disgruntled Blog. He and I are in a fantasy baseball league together, and I was lucky enough to pick up the Red Sox's set up man - Hideki Okajima - for $1 (it's an auction league). Okajima is great because he provides a strikeout or two a game, a low ERA and WHIP, and the occasional spot win or save (he recorded the first win of the major league season this year). Bargain pickup at $1.

Anyway, got this in an email from Mike this morning:

"Also, I had some spare time and realized your boy Okajima has the perfect name to go with the Sanford and Son theme. Try it:

Okajima
Okajima is the man, Okajima
Okajima gets them out from the bullpen"

Next up, Al Qaeda's #2 says they do not kill innocent people. So, at least we don't have THAT to worry about anymore. What a relief!

So, Arlington, Virginia...

This morning, I was walking from a parking garage to the building where I work in Rosslyn, and as I was waiting for the light to change, a school bus pulls up just past the intersection. A large group of elementary school students were waiting by the side of the road, and as the bus pulled up, they moved slightly into the street to board the bus. As the bus stopped, its stop sign swung out on the left hand side, as all school buses do, requiring (by law) all cars behind the bus to stop and wait while the kids get on the bus. This, of course, is done primarily for the kids' safety.

Despite all of that, about six cars, full of road raged commuters, in the lanes in back of the bus decided to speed ahead - quite recklessly so I might add - shooting angry glances and obscene gestures at the school bus as they did so. The drivers seemed infuriated that the bus would stop in front of them. The school bus driver honked the horn incessently to indicate that, no, in fact they had to stop, but the cars kept going, until finally one car stopped and all the cars in back of it stopped as well. At this point the kids got on the bus, and after a minute of this, the bus's stop sign swung back, and the bus (and the cars in back of it) was on its way.

What struck me about this incident is not that it was unusual, but that it seemed totally par for the course in this area. I looked over at the other people waiting on the sidewalk with me, and though they clearly noticed what was taking place, they seemed totally unfazed by it.

And why not? Arlington is infamous for its drivers failing to yield to emergency vehicles, for example. I've witnessed this many times, and have also seen more drivers than not make turns or lane changes without looking (often while talking on their cell phones, in their SUV's or luxury cars).

But what's worse is that this problem is not confined to Arlington - it's actually more of a metro-DC phenomenom. I've been to many places around the country and around the world, and I've never (not even in Europe) seen such a self-centered group of assholes as I see on a daily basis in this area.

And it's not confined to drivers (though they are the worst). This weekend the Disgruntled Girlfriend and I had brunch at Teaism in Dupont Circle with her cousin. Her cousin is about six months pregnant, and definitely showing (the kid's a future linebacker, by the looks of it). Teaism was pretty crowded, and if you've been there before, you know there's not a plethora of seats there. Despite that, however, we saw many people finished with their meals/beverages, and were fairly confident that once we got our food, we'd be able to get a table.

Nope.

The people kept sitting there, occasionally glancing over at the very pregnant, probably uncomfortable (but good-natured about it) woman carrying her tray hoping for a seat. No one offered a seat, no one offered to get a door for her. Again, pretty par for the course in the area, but a good descriptive anecdote nonetheless.

My point in all of this is that I'm getting pretty fed up with things here. There are clearly too many people for the accomodations in the area (as evidenced by the traffic and total lack of parking, for one), and the people moving into the area seem to be trending more (not less) pretentious, uncaring, asshole. My boss thinks it's more of a "city" problem than a NoVa problem, but I'm not sure. Everywhere I go in this area, be it Arlington, Alexandria, DC, Southern Maryland (just kidding, I never go there), I'm surrounded by pricks who care more about being trendy, hipster, save-the-earth-by-eating-organic-because-I-can-afford-it than giving two shits about the person standing next to them. It's just getting tiring, is all.

All I'm saying is show some common courtesy other people. Please.

Me so disgruntled.