THE GURGLING COD

Hey kids - who wants to see an airbrushed photo of Craig James in a duster?

Thanks to the heroic efforts of the cinetrix, the barn yields up its treasure, in this case a promo package from a Craig James vanity recording project from 1986. 

But I don't imagine anyone would be interested in mp3s of the songs.  

Wait, what letter comes after G?

A rare non-food Guiteau Monday jawn. And one for the ladies, except, like, not. At least, not ladies you like. I think this might have been via the Hairpin, but I hope not, and don't have the heart to go back and look. Anyway, you know how sometimes your whole weekend gets ruined because people can see the line of the part of your underwear that connects the back of your underwear to the front of your underwear? Even if you are wearing a g-string? Well, your worries are over, with the dawning of the age of the C-String. It's like a headband, only for your taint! It's like a slap bracelet and a pantyliner had a baby and they called it lingerie! As we get started on summer ferrealz, remember that Guiteau Mondays work a 12 month calendar. 

Putting the DH in Bodhisattva

Think about the last presentation you made. Then consider how much better it would have been if it were drunken, rambling and profane. That's why Jerome Aniton>you. 

Listen and learn: 

Steely Dan "Bodhisattva"Live in Santa Monica, 1974

WWDBD?

D. Boon died twenty years ago today.   Edit -- sorry  did not notice piece was not current.  And I can't do math. Would that D. Boon had lived to 1991.

In one corner, there is Daniel Boulud cashing in on CBGB's legacy to sell nineteen dollar hamburgers.

Inthe other corner,  DRees, in the HuffPo, on D. Boon:

D. Boon's bassist and best friend, Mike Watt, still plays bass, writes music, and tours the country in a Ford Econoline van; and that Mike Watt ends his gigs with the exhortation to "start your own band, paint your own picture, write your own book"--twenty* years after his friend's death broke his heart--and that Mike Watt continues to champion this D.I.Y. punk philosophy while many other punks have burnt out, grown soft, or given up; and that Mike Watt (I imagine) perseveres in part to honor his brilliant friend's brief life and the possibilities bequeathed to future musicians, artists, activists, punks and outsiders--is one of the greatest American success stories of all time.

Yeah. 

*Twenty-six. And he's still at it. 

Don't quit your day job.

Keep moving. More food, rap music and hockey presently. 

Download TACDNTP

Hipster Ariel is as puzzled by the Grammys as you are

Sling it in the Melph for the fools that's looking

Sporty T: Sporty Talkin Sporty '93

For his day job, the Cod heard a pretty compelling talk this summer by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, on the subject of geographies of primitive accumulation.* Long story, but basically the West Indian sugar plantation is the primal scene of capitalism as we know it. Anyway, this bounce classic, which comes to me by way of a Cocaine Blunts post Katrina benefit compilation, reminded me of Dillon's talk. The opening 40 seconds or so offer a neat account of the buying, producing, and distributing crack, mapped onto a landscape of housing projects that don't exist any more, and jails that do. Click the map for details. FYI, headphones might be advisable if listening in public.

*Reprised today, if you happen to be in the greater Ithaca area.

Before there was Cee-Lo

There was The Violent Femmes:

Everybody's working for the Weekender?

A bit on the non-food tip before the nose-to-tail adventure commences. You may have seen the fake NY Post response to those Times Weekender TV advertisements. Pretty funny, but living in a market where the Times Weekender ads don't run much, I took a look at the actual Times Weekender ad:

Separately and together, what the real and the fake advertisements suggest about the future of newspapers -- and the present of New York City -- is kind of alarming. In no particular order:

-As someone who spends time in his day job thinking about print culture, it appears that the shared presumption of the real and the fake ad is that the primary function of the print newspaper in 2010 is to help identify suitable mates. Back in the day, the Boston Globe was known as "The Maid's Paper," as distinct from the Boston Evening Transcript of T.S. Eliot fame, and it's nice to know that in multi newspaper towns, the paper still serves this function as a social filter. 

-More generally, do these ads share a presumption that the Times demo skews smarter and whiter, and the Post's skews dumber and browner? I say that despite/because of the spokesmodels in the Times ad -- by virtue of looking like somebody's idea of what architects look like, they suggest that they are more united by their designer eyewear than they are divided by the colors of their skin. Add in the white members of the lumpenproletariat in the fake Post ad, and maybe, instead the conclusion is that we are living in a world where class trumps race? In which case, yay? 

-The premise of the Weekender makes me kind of sad, on both the supply and demand side. The Times is saying "Hey, I know we can't ask you to make a real commitment, but maybe we can, like, hook up on the weekends?" The reader is saying "K! I'm too busy to keep up with, like, the Swat Valley and the collapse of the economy, but maybe three days worth of soft news will be kinda like the cultural equivalent of the Today Sponge, and keep me conversationally viable on the jitney." Not to mention that the notion of being "fluent" in a given section makes me want to run screaming in the direction of a big book of Sudoku. 

My Girlfriend was on David Letterman!

Not food related, but The Gurgling Cod's new girlfriend was on David Letterman. The studio version( below) is a crisper performance, but damn. In particular, for a 24 year old girl from the Georgia to cop James Brown's signature cape shtick suggests that Ms. Monae has a set made out of a spaceage alloy of brass and awesome. I like to think the Godfather is pleased.