Author: jbenton

I want your feedback on an idea I had a while back. Let’s say, hypothetically, I created a mix CD every month of music I like. And let’s say I’d send you a copy of this mix CD each month if you sent me a mix CD of music you like. Would you be interested? If enough people are, I think it could be a good way to get to hear something new once in a while. Let me know, via comments or email.

Time for that 19th nervous breakdown: Mick Jagger released a new album last week. So did Robbie Williams. On the first day of his album’s release, Williams sold 73,000 copies in the U.K. Mick Jagger sold 954. (Thanks, brandhast.) Yep, three digits. That’s got to sting.
Albums that would sell more than 954 copies on the first day of release: *Nsync, Justin Timberlake Hums Indiscriminately With Britney In the Next Room; Garth Brooks, Early Recordings: Lil’ Garth Makes Armpit Noises, 1972-1974; U2, All We’ve Left Behind: Bono Speaks Out on Third World Debt Relief; various artists, Now That’s What I Call Arbor Day!

Well, we know that at least two people have something to be thankful for today. Congrats, you crazy kids.
Today, I went to Crowley — which I’d call the nearest town of any significant size, if only it was of any significant size — to pick up my grandpa. He lives in an old folks home there; when I left to pick him up, my grandmother uttered the memorable words: “Make sure he remembers his teeth.” Then we picked up food at Chef Roy’s, Rayne’s finest restaurant. I had the seafood platter — shrimp, oysters, stuffed shrimp, catfish, crab cakes, and (not technically seafood, I suppose) a fried frog leg. (Yep, tastes like chicken.)
Of course I’m thankful for all the usual things: family, friends, health, continued employment, etc. But at the moment I’m particularly thankful for all of you people who read this mess every day (all four of you), and all the great people I’ve met through this page. Happy thanksgiving.

I like the Brits as much as any right-thinking quasi-Frenchman could, but that dry Oxbridge sense of humor can get annoying. (Via kaus. The Economist — inhouse motto: “Simplify, then exaggerate” — is just about the most overrated magazine around. Hell, I’m agreeing with Andrew Sullivan! Shoot me now!)

Want to convince Aunt Jolene that the time-tested two-table Thanksgiving system should be upgraded to three (the adult table, the kiddie table, and the freak table, just for you)? Try putting Colonel Jeffrey Pumpernickel on the CD player during your turducken carving. What an odd compilation of indie rockers obscure (The Minders, Howe Gelb), really obscure (Weird War, Goldcard), and not so obscure (Guided By Voices, Stephen Malkmus). It’s that weariest of old ideas, a concept album. (Although at times it appears the concept is limited to, “Hey guys, let’s all make a concept album.”)
Underwater fire battles, the great animals vs. robots debate, Oedipal complexes, severe allergies: it’s all in there. Spotty, and a bit too odd at times, but always interesting, and in the Ann Magnuson/Dave Rick tune “Dr. Mom,” it might have the oddest song of 2001. (It details, among other things, bedwetting, muhajadeen guides, an encounter with John Entwistle, spawning salmon, and the trouble with playing with baby bears.)
Switching topics, I don’t watch much TV back in Dallas, but I always catch up when I’m in Rayne where, to be brutally frank, there ain’t much else to do. So my first (and likely last) television review of the new season: that Ed show is pretty darned good. Wow, that blonde is pretty damned hot. But the true star (I hope at least, after viewing part of one episode) is Michael Ian Black. I have no idea if he’s any good as Phil, but he was brilliant at the English-challenged Johnny Bluejeans on the late, lamented Viva Variety.

Only a few hours to Thanksgiving, so it might be a little late, but I feel that as a Cajun Activist, I must alert you all to my people’s contribution to Turkey Day: the Cajun deep-fried turkey. (I’ve never actually had it, but I’ve heard rave reviews. Of course, eating it means instant death. And maybe preparing it too: the recipe starts off with these words of warning: “You must cook this turkey outside. You should wear goggles and gloves. Also have a fire extinguisher on hand. Remember – your safety is the first step in this recipe.” Other safety hints mentioned: “You want to wear some old shoes that you can slip out of easily and long pants, just in case you do spill some oil on you…Avoid frying on wood decks, which could catch fire, and concrete, which can be stained by the oil…don

All of you are lucky there are miles of fiberoptics between us, because I need to strangle someone right about now. My company laptop — the same one that’s died and been “fixed” three times before — died again, in exactly the same way it has before. Except this time, it took a 1,500-word story with it, which meant I had to rush over to my uncle’s place to use his 1991-era Compaq to rewrite the damned thing.
(The computer used to be mine back when it was cutting-edge technology, so it was a brief little time warp. All my high school papers. All my college application essays. Letters to girlfriends. All still on the hard drive. I hadn’t typed “dir/w” at a command line in ages. The computer’s in horrible shape. The ctrl key has long been severed from its mother keyboard, which is encrusted in that yellowy dirt layer old computers get. The monitor on/off button is broken, so you have to stick a toothpick (!) into the monitor for it to work. The system boots into Geoworks Ensemble, a bizarre proto-Windows that crashed and burned soon after my computer teacher started evangelizing for it.)
Anyway, I rewrote about half of it at 6:30 a.m. this morning, then that computer too met its maker. I must have the IT equivalent of a black thumb today. So I waited until 8 a.m. for the Rayne library to open. The staff knows me well from my childhood, but now they know me well as the guy who rushes to the library computers in a panic everytime he’s in town because his company laptop has broken and he has to get something done quick. The story’s done and emailed off. I’m off to see if I can track down a laptop for the next few days. And if I can get the old clunker to work again, to look at my old high school essays and laugh at the 16-year-old me.

Since I mentioned it once before, I feel it is my responsibility to keep you up to date on the Peter Buck trial. It seems that, along with damaging British Airways crockery, the R.E.M. guitarist also stands accused of other offenses, including “cover[ing] himself with yogurt” and “mist[aking] a hostess trolley for a CD player,” all while drunkenly crossing the Atlantic. I bet Osama’s linked up in this somehow.

I’d like to apologize for the entry below. I’m almost certain that my Secret Santa gifts in the 1980s did not include a Victor Borge biography. My mention of Mr. Borge, perhaps the greatest of the great Danes, was simply an attempt to get Google to send me some of the thousands of Victor Borge hits it no doubt generates. My apologies, and govern yourself accordingly.

Remember the Htoo brothers, Luther and Johnny? The Burmese preteens who, unlike most of their peers, channelled their feelings of aggression into forming an “Army of God,” not video games? Who toted assault rifles around the jungle, willing followers in their wake, but still found time for naps? Well, they could be coming to a junior high near you. The U.S. is close to giving the Htoos green cards. Now, it’s bad enough when the guy sitting next to you in your MBA class might well be responsible for the genocide of 800,000 people. But can you imagine going to eighth grade with these guys?