I forgot what a great album "A Divina Comedia ou Ando Meio Desligado" by Os Mutantes is. It's not produced in the U.S. anymore, but I'm sure you could find a copy at MusicStack or GEMM. The entire album is a criticism of the repressive military rule over Brazil at that time and social stagnation in Brazilian culture, but it's done in such a wildly creative and hilarious way that the listener can't help but love it. The fact that they were all so damn charming may have been a good part of the reason why they got to stick around while peers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were exiled for subversive lyrics and views. Honestly, I think bands in the U.S. could learn a lot about musical rebellion from this album - the anti-Bush music being put out now all sounds pretty uninspired and lacking in subtlety by my count.
- posted by Eric @ 7:09 PM
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I seem to currently be addicted to sparkling grape juice. I know it's supposed to serve as a low-rent substitute for wine for little kids at occasional celebrations, but I've been downing the stuff all week.

How pathetic: Eric, the grape juice [non-]alcoholic.
- posted by Eric @ 1:27 AM
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MusicMatch Jukebox likes to open a little program updating itself without prompting. It's listed in the task manager as "mmtask.exe." It's only 3MB, and it ostensibly uses 0% of the CPU, but whenever the thing's open, it makes every computer I use excruciatingly slow. Seriously, it does that thing where even entering text in the address bar in Internet Explorer is really slow. I don't know how they do it.
- posted by Eric @ 10:35 PM
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So I just saw my friend Sam's friend Aloha on American Idol. Performed really well. The American Idol message boards seem to be abuzz with the opinion that she's one of the top three of the females...
- posted by Eric @ 10:32 PM
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Everybody needs a sidekick
- posted by Eric @ 5:17 PM
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Note to upstairs neighbors:
Please play top 40 pop music louder. I do not hear it enough, and I obviously need more of it.
- posted by Eric @ 1:47 AM
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Meet a lost post (i.e. I never finished writing it) from last July. Since I wrote it, I've also had to get this thing's screen and power supply replaced.

After my laptop's screen hinges came loose, after it stopped recognizing the presence of its touchpad, after the antivirus software started acting odd, and after I took it to Mr. Sudin to see if anything could be fixed, and it just stopped working completely, we now know that due to the laptop's overheating problems, the motherboard has been burned to the point of no longer being usable. Could my life possibly get any worse? This raises the question, if Curb Your Enthusiasm, rather than being about an intelligent, wealthy superstar TV writer with everything going for him that nevertheless finds everything going wrong, were about a not-so-wealthy 19-year-old college student who is unsure of his future, and questions if his talents (or lack thereof) are of the extent that he'll be employed with enough income to not live in constant worry, would it be as funny?

On a different note completely, Dreaming In Cuban is a fantastic book. For all of my fellow former Ladue AP English students, if you found Typical American lacking in any sort of point beyond "it's difficult to move to a different country with a different language and different customs -- who knew," do I have a book about families, politics, immigration, and life for you.

Family Guy. I think it's funny. Most of us think it's funny. But as you may or may not have noticed, it seems to be part of a current trend of an anti-political correctness in pop culture. Specifically in Family Guy, stereotypes are used to scold against stereotypes. I wonder, though, when have we gotten to the point when being anti-PC to rebel turns into "being anti-PC is the popular thing to do"? There are loads of kids out there, and I hate to be the guy ragging at me at 12 not to be playing Mortal Kombat, but I get the feeling that not everyone gets the fact that all of this facetious racism, sexism, etc. is facetious. At times, I wonder if the shows' writers really do. As someone once wrote in a review of the Frogs' themed album "Racially Yours," there is a point where some people who would, at first glance, appear to be criticizing old examples of discrimination just look like they're having way too much fun with it. Herein lies the problem.
- posted by Eric @ 2:43 PM
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Hulk eating lunch!
Hulk think restaurant's cuisine not fusion enough!!
Hulk smash!!
GRAWR!!

- posted by Eric @ 5:14 PM
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Adventures of Pete & Pete, The - Nick's 'Rewind Collection' Continues with Pete & Pete!

I think I just heard a kids' TV show with Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson as secondary characters, Hunter S. Thompson as an extra, and the Magnetic Fields as background music with your name on it.
- posted by Eric @ 2:53 AM
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I knew that Pitchfork Media was good for something

Boredoms Book North American Shows

05-17 Los Angeles, CA - Knitting Factory
05-19 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
05-21 Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium
05-23 Victoriaville, Quebec - Festival Actuelle
05-25 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom (w/ Jim O'Rourke)

- posted by Eric @ 10:33 PM
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Watch out now, kids - this one's gonna be bandwidth-heavy.

I've had some great fortune cookie fortunes sitting around, and having received another wonder this last Friday from Mekong Vietnamese, I figured I might as well share all of them.





I also finally got my print back of a slide I picked up last Labor Day at the flea market in the Loop.



I completely intend to find some sort of smartass artistic use for the image at some point. I think I'm going to contact the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players to see if they could use it.
- posted by Eric @ 11:08 PM
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I just want to tell you that you've never heard of the place that has St. Louis' best wraps. Crazy Bowls can go sulk, because Wehbe's Cafe at 7th and Pine downtown has the title by far. The flavorings are always right, they're the perfect size, and there's just the right amount of rice to balance the whole deal. Wehbe's, how I've missed thee...

Also, remember what I was saying about downtown getting all expensive? There's a Bang & Olufsen there now. I'm just getting this image in my head of a few homeless people just looking for somewhere to sit down and some B&O employee dressed in black shooing them off the couch and out of the store.
- posted by Eric @ 11:14 AM
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Residential Technology has an internet connection only a mother could love.
- posted by Eric @ 11:49 AM
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