Hardwood heaven

The past few weeks have been a flurry of home improvement activity. We are frantically trying to get ready for the move next week!

A thousand million thanks to Drew and Mark for helping me rip out the carpet at our new house a couple weeks ago! Wendi and I have spent a lot of time since then yanking out exactly 896,722,933 staples from the floors. We also ripped out the ugly wallpapered paneling that covered up the natural wood walls in the living room... let's just say that the prybar that Mark left behind got a lot of use. Thanks again Mark, you can have your prybar back anytime you want.

There was about two decades' worth of dirt underneath the carpet. In places it was a quarter inch deep, and it reinforced my vow to never live with carpet again! We have lived in too many apartments with ugly, worn-out, filthy carpet to ever live that way again if we can help it. It doesn't matter how much you vacuum it, dirt builds up under the padding and just stays there. Who knows what kind of vermin thrive in places like that, inches away from you! I hate carpet.

But lovely floors and walls were revealed after all this hard work.... behold!

The living room with real wood paneling.


The living room again.

Who is that scary man with the wild hair at the end of the hall? Notice the dirt worn into the otherwise lovely hardwood :-(

This is the "master bedroom" which is not really so huge. We really hate this color blue and plan to paint it a nice earth tone at some point.

We are tentatively planning to use this bedroom as a study.

In places the dirt was too worn into the finish to be removed, so we are having them refinished and are crossing our fingers in hopes the job will be done by the time we move next Saturday. Once you have hardwood floors, you never go back, man.

Finally, a lovely sunset turned the sky bubblegum pink and gossamer orange. Really spectacular sunset. Love that air pollution.

I take it all back. Not.

Sorry, not to harp on this. Am I being too harsh in saying the GOP and its leader & figurehead, Rush Limbaugh have racist tendencies? Did I make it up?

Maybe I should reconsider. I suppose that some people would find nothing racist about this picture which appeared on the official GOP Facebook page for about a week...



...but you know what? Those people are stupid. And I didn't make it up.

Regardless of what the GOP thinks,I really don't think this photo represents "American values" at all. Not the ones we should admire anyway. Rush Limbaugh and the GOP can keep them to themselves.

Sorry, racism irritates me. I don't feel sorry for or apologize for mocking and ridiculing the people who practice it. Why should people like that be respected?

I'll shut up now... no more political posts for a while :-)

UPDATE 11/5/09: here's a photo from the teabagger "protests" today in DC:



Modest moves toward universal health care are will result in a new holocaust. Makes sense to me, I've been persuaded.

This kind of idiocy cannot be brushed off as being the work of a few crazies on the fringe of the GOP. The Obama photo above was on the GOP's official Facebook page and the awful banner above was proudly hoisted at a rally today sponsered by the GOP congressional leadership.

Truth is out of style

When I read about the right wing freakout over the torpedoing of Rush Limbaugh’s attempt to buy the St. Louis Rams today, I thought of this snarky song from two decades ago.



It’s like the GOP has adopted it as its theme song. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? I would be more disturbed by their whining and paranoia if they weren’t being taken less seriously every time they start frothing about how oppressed, misunderstood and wronged they are. Think about it: wealthy multi-multimillionaire, lying, thrice-divorced, whore chasing, “family values voter” like Limbaugh is soooooo oppressed.

Boo hoo you big fat baby. Nobody’s trying to take away his freedom of speech. In fact, I hope he keeps it up, so he can show everybody everybody who doesn’t know already what a hateful, hypocritical, creep he is.

Lest someone doesn’t think he deserve the backlash against him, please see this list for why some black football players aren’t very appreciative of his race-baiting, reactionary right-wing cluelessness. He says he’s “color blind” when it comes to race. I can actually find common ground; I agree he’s blind to a lot of things!

About the song: yes some of the cultural references in it are dated, but the sarcastic satire is more biting and relevant as ever in this era of what is misleadingly known as “cable news” and wingnut wackiness. Turn off the TV!

No peace, no prize

Well I haven't posted anything political for a while, so I thought I'd fix the situation.

I did a double take when I read this morning that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought it was a joke at first… I’m sure most people did.

Let’s leave aside the fact that this administration has been in office for only about 9 months or so and hasn’t had time to accomplish much. That’s not the heart of the matter.

Do we really need to be reminded that we are in the midst of an indefinite military occupation and insurgency in Iraq, with no end in sight? When Obama makes a decisive move to end this occupation, then he might deserve a Peace Prize. That is not what is happening. In fact even after withdrawal the USA is likely to have a significant military presence in Iraq.

Do we really need to be reminded that our country is fighting another endless war in Afghanistan? That we are slaughtering civilians there by the dozens every week? When Obama takes significant steps to end this war, then he might deserve a Peace Prize. But that is not what is happening. In fact, the Obama administration is planning on escalating that conflict.

Do we really need to be reminded that in the name of freedom and liberty and America, our country tortured and killed completely innocent people on the most dubious of charges? That the criminals who ordered and perpetrated these crimes are still free? When President Obama decides that these crimes should be prosecuted and these people brought to justice, then he might deserve a Peace Prize. But that is not what is happening. The administration has declined to take any substantive steps because they want to “move forward”. And then it has the gall to lecture Iran about torturing its own people?

Do we really need to be reminded that the Obama administration has not taken any substantive steps to repeal the Patriot Act? That it reserves the right to detain any US citizen indefinitely, without charges? That even if the prison at Guantanamo Bay is closed, the USA reserves the right to hold people without charges in other places? If Obama had taken steps to reverse all this, he might deserve a Peace Prize. But the Obama administration has actually embraced and reinforced most of the powers that the executive branch gave itself during the Bush years.

Do we need to be reminded that the government is at the beck and call of the military-industrial-corporate complex? That we are becoming a country eternally at war in part due to the profitability of our wars to our private sector? If Obama had taken steps to dismantle corporate control of the government’s military procurement system, he might deserve a peace prize. But that is not what is happening. Instead, the government has reinforced its ties with murderous mercenary companies like Blackwater (now Xe... nothing like the slaughter of women and children to affect your company's brand image), while at the first hint of a scandal rushing to strip a scapegoat organization like ACORN of any chance of getting grants from the government. How many people did ACORN machine gun?


I don’t know what the Nobel people were thinking, they are making a mockery of themselves and the Peace Prize. Glenn Greenwald had a good piece up today about this… his thinking mirrors my own. But then, his thinking often does.

This is absurd.

First show - make it rain

Tonight is the first show for my new band Governors. It just kind of fell into my lap a few days ago and we decided to go for it. We hope to blow the doors off of Bar Bar.

Business not casual. It's how we roll.

My first live performance in nearly 5 years. We gonna make it rain!





I came across this awesome performance and just felt like he was singing to me, is all, ha! Tom Waits is a treasure.... and it's a first-rate song, too. We'll probably never perform so well, but we'll try.

Oh and the guitar solo in the middle is phat.

Don't apologize

I just discovered this powerful new song by Lou Barlow and have to share it. It's from his forthcoming album Goodnight Unknown.



For those of you that are unfamiliar with Barlow, he was bassist in the legendary band Dinosaur Jr. in the late 1980s and later led his own bands Sebadoh and Folk Implosion... you may vaguely remember Folk Implosion's big hit in the mid 1990s, "Natural One".

Barlow left Dinosaur Jr. under bitter circumstances and was very public in bashing the singer, J. Mascis -- who is a formidible indie rock legend in his own right. So, it was pretty unexpected when the old Dino Jr. lineup reunited a few years ago and played a very successful tour. I was lucky enough to see them myself back in 2007 at the Westword Music Showcase downtown.

Lou Barlow's music is usually pretty melancholy but there's something anthemic and profound about it that makes it better than your average indie rock. Sebadoh's 6th album, 1994's Bakesale was part of the soundtrack of my early 20s. It ages so well 15 years later. I'm happy to see that Lou's still going strong and still making great music! I think I'm going to go and listen to Bakesale now...

Hey Gandalf.... nice dress!

Great video by Red Fang that I came across today. It's got swords, wizards, violence, beer and rock n' roll. And it's funny!

All kidding aside, this band really rocks and I'm going to have to check out more of their stuff. I'm posting this video because their sound is close to the aesthetic to which I aspire for my own band... more about that soon!