"J.D. Salinger Writes More Than This Guy!"

Exiled on Main Street #40 is now posted.

After I dropped it off at the post office on Wednesday, I felt like Roger Miller on the cover of The Return of Roger Miller.

Geek Update
(or)
As AC/DC Said: Let There Be Rock

After spending forty-eight bucks on a tiny but awesome FM transmitter and another forty-three bucks on adapters to get said AAA battery-powered transmitter to plug into an AC outlet, I'm finally playing tunes from my iMac into my stereo and boombox on any damn available FM frequency I choose battery-free! (Above prices are inflated due to gotta-have-it-now shipping costs.)

The transmitter

The transmitter to DC adapter

The DC to AC adapter

Now all I need is some Macintosh freak to email me and say: "Hey, you could have bought (this yet-unrealized-for-me product) that does all of the above for only twenty-five bucks!"

Historical Or Hysterical?

This is pretty neat in an ego-stroking way.

A Year-End List For The Rest Of Us

Fitted Sweats has the Most Annoying People Of 2004.

Christmas Eve Shocker

The Minnesota Vikings lost a big game yesterday. Imagine that.

Christmas Probables and Potentials

Lowenbrau and Grain Belt Premium longnecks in the icebox.

A Christmas Gift For Your From Phil Spector and A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrak on CD.

Batman: The Animated Series episodes on DVD, included is "Christmas With The Joker."

Hickory Farms "The Little Farmer" box of cheese, summer sausage, and crackers ready to go.

Country Bar hours ... Christmas Eve 10AM - 2AM; Christmas Day 8PM - 2AM.


Sports, sports, sports ...

Christmas Eve:
Noon - "Favre 4-Ever" special, narrated by Billy Bob Thornton, on Fox
2PM - Purple vs. Packers on Fox

Christmas Day:
11:30AM - Hate-filled Pacers vs. Pistons rematch on ESPN
2:15PM - Hate-filled Shaq vs. Kobe tilt on ABC
7:30PM - Imploding Denver Broncos vs. already-imploded Tennessee Titans on ESPN
OR
7:30PM - USA vs. Russia in the World Junior Championships from Grand Forks, North Dakota! on ESPN2

The first half of those last games might be missed due to me celebrating the holiday at my sister's house. The second half may be pre-empted by the second annual Christmas tracking of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

"God bless us, everyone!"

Random Stuff

- PJ Harvey apparently has played her last show. This is sad news - she's one of the best live performers I've seen. Her show last October was her at her peak.

- Chuck and Joel joined Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber on the Crap From The Past program Friday night. The show is up online. It was ninety minutes of talking. Very enjoyable.

- Two things made me crabby last Tuesday that I meant to rant about here ...

1) I stopped in Cheapo Uptown to do some Christmas shopping and they now have rock n roll music divided into "classic rock" and "modern rock" sections. Why do record stores need so many divisions? (Husker Du: "They divide, conquer.") If I owned a record store, it would have two sections: New and Used. Within each section would be three divisions: A) Artists A through Z, B) Various Artists/Compilations, and C) Soundtracks. Why would this system not work? Whether you're looking for Johnny Cash, Run-DMC, or Dave Brubeck; you would simply find them under the appropriate letter. Are genre subdivisions in record stores truly helpful? (Oh, and I ended up doing my shopping at The Electric Fetus because their selection is much better.)

2) On The Common Man program, he came back from a break playing the latest, greatest Denny Green quotes from Arizona. I was eagerly anticipating 20-30 minutes of some classic Denny stories. But then Dan Barrerio stopped in for a so-called "Super Show," and he started to moan about some cable TV show he saw that dared show people having sex. The rest of the show then turned into a shrill and self-righteous "has the entertainment business gone too far" diatribe. Borrrrrring! Keep Barrerio off Common Man's program - all he does is dilute Common's greatness!

But He Knows Where The Nearest Doughnut Shop Is

Potential scandal-a-day Bernard Kerik reminds me of the chorus from that Strokes song.

The Other Night At The Country Bar

I'll treat it like a play ...

The Barfly is a 45-55 year-old white male.

Bill is a late-thirties white male. He's simply a guy with a newspaper to read and a notebook to write in, and he's standing at the bar ordering a Grain Belt Premium bottle. The Barfly, sitting at the bar, asks some simple small talk questions to Bill, who responds in kind. Then ...

BARFLY (hushed tones): Do you partake in Bud?

BILL (normal voice): Budweiser??

BARFLY (hushed tones): Noooo ... marijuana.

BILL (pointing to bottle of beer): No, I'm just a booze guy.

Bill walks away.

Bean Counter Laffs

I did some accounting work late this afternoon and have been amusing myself with a punchline to a dumb accounting joke I came up with:

"And that's why they call it a balance sheet!"

(Sorry, I won't share the set-up.)

The Back Cartoon Says "They Call Him 'Clem The Gem'"

While going through my brother's and my sports card collection tonight, I came across this one.

Sundays Won't Be The Same

Chuck and Joel just dropped a bomb on the Twin Cities airwaves. They announced that the final Cosmic Slop show will be on Sunday, December 26th.

My phone rang immediately after this announcement. I saw from the caller ID that it was my pal Def Jeff. I answered with "HOLY SHIT!" We shared our shock and soon-to-be-dawning depression. At some point Jeff said: "What are we supposed to do on Sundays now? Go to CHURCH??"

December 26th is Boxing Day, and I'll probably drink a box of beer as I listen to Cosmic Slop sign off.

Maris Reinstated

Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire took steroids and it's obvious that Sammy Sosa did also. Their records are fraudulent.

We here at Exiled on Main Street will now only recognize Roger Maris as the single-season home run leader. We also like Maris because he was one of the three best right fielders of his day (up there with Roberto Clemente and Al Kaline), with a gun for an arm. Compare him to Sosa, a crappy right fielder; Bonds, who loafs after fly balls in left; and McGwire, who played first base. (No offense to my friends who are first basemen.)

Catching Up On My Reading

Oh man did Tom Hallett had some kind words for Exiled on Main Street.

Stranded

Whilst over drinks tonight with friends, I mentioned that Highway 61 Revisited is my Stranded album. (Stranded is a book that came out in the late seventies wherein a bunch of rock critics wrote essays on the one album they would want with them if they were stranded on a desert island.) Then one friend asked the table - what would their five Stranded albums be?

Off of the top of my head, in no particular order I came up with:

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (it would take me years to get to the bottom of it)
Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (same as above)
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory (the very essence of rock 'n' roll)
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells (favorite drinking album ever?)
Hank Williams - 40 Greatest Hits (great great lonesome songs)

Like I said, that list was from the top of my head. But what about Little Richard? I could scream along with him all day long and no one would be there to complain. Then there's PJ Harvey's Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. Or early Rod Stewart - my favorite vocalist. Bruce Springsteen's The River? My Aussie punk anthology so I could sing along with The Saints' "(I'm) Stranded"? And what about the Replacements? Where's the metal?

Decisions, decisions. As for books .., give me some Lester Bangs and Joan Didion and ...