My fellow citizens...

As my companion pointed out at last night's concert at Terminal 5, Citizen Cope's lyrics are about peace and love. Yet, the venue was chocked full of thuggish frat boys and obnoxious GIRLS who were incessantly screaming at and, ironically, fighting with each other. I also wondered, while Cope's distinct voice crooned the word "salvation," what half of these degenerates needed salvation from. Their iPhone airtime bills? Perhaps, because this particular group of the oppressed masses were equipped with tons of iPhones, smartphones, still/video cameras, etc. It's as if, as my fellow concert goer pointed out, they don't seem to be listening to the lyrics. Too true. In the words of Andre 3000, "y'all don't hear me, you just wanna dance."

Still in all, the concert was amazing. I'm only familiar with Citizen Cope's first album and, unsurprisingly, found myself drawn to that material, specifically the acoustic stuff he did toward the end of the concert. After his guitar proved to be out of tune for the last song of the night, he and his band decided to launch into an impromptu reggae-flavored version of Radiohead's Karma Police, which was pretty awesome.

As much as I loved Cope, I was equally enamored with his opening act Alice Smith. Her music has that great balance of intimate sexiness and epic weirdness that I quite like. A sample:

Oh, Bo. You scamp.

This is the kind of thing I would do if I were ten years younger and had a modicum of talent:

IPHONE MANIA 2008!!!!

I love love love love love love LOVE LOVE LOVE how disappointed most of the iPhone devotees were with the release of the latest iteration. These people want so desperately to throw their money away on a new toy that the unveiling of what amounts to a faster version (at a cheaper cost) of what they already have (along with much better authoring software) was a smack in the face. Honestly, whatever Apple paraded out wasn't going to be enough. If the fucking thing could be inserted into the user's asshole and had a cloaking device, people would still be bent out of shape about it. Boo hoo.

On the lighter side, my boss wrote me a note about an upcoming project for which I'd have to "adjust my schedule" to accommodate. Well, that's rich. How about I adjust your face with a Stillson wrench, you old lunatic. I would like to rip his legs off and then beat him with his own legs.

Ed? That motherfucker's still around, man.

When I was eleven years old, my mother game me three George Carlin recordings on tape in my stocking for Christmas. An Evening with Wally Lando Featuring Bill Slazo, On the Road, and the classic Class Clown. I don't think my mom knew much about him, and I would imagine that her purchasing them was inspired by my requesting "comedy tapes" for Christmas. Whatever spirit of serendipity guided her hand the day she bought those three tapes, a deep love was built that Christmas.

I suppose I already had an affinity for words, but Carlin taught me how to play with them, how to manipulate them, how to love them. He showed me how beautiful English can be, and how absurd. He dealt in honesty and pinpointed how language can be exploited by the dishonest.

I've tried to read a couple of obituaries for him today, but I just can't. Surely, other heroes have died in the past, but none of them meant as much to me as Carlin.

Of course, in his own words, thanks to the language in this country, Carlin didn't die. He passed away. Or expired like a magazine subscription.

I'll bite your face!

I know there's a correlation between weight training and increase in testosterone, but I'd never experienced it until I actually started lifting weights in earnest. I tend to be on the angry side, but it has always seemed like passive anger. Now I feel more aggressive. It's the difference between wishing I could stab someone in the face and actually thinking I could do it.

I've been reading Final Truth: The Autobiography of a Serial Killer and although it doesn't mention that Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins did any weight training, he was a pretty aggressive fellow. What I find most disturbing about the book is the blandness of it all. Gaskins' account of his murders is done in a plain, straightforward way. Also, his language is blunt and cartoonishly rednecky in support of completely irrational thought. You get this sort of "she was a bitch, so I killed her" vibe with little to no explanation other than that he suffers from what he calls a "bothersomeness" which eventually bubbles up into uncontrollable, murderous rage. I guess we're so inundated with psycho-babble in regards to this ilk of horror that the absence of analysis leaves a massive, eerie hole in the reader's vision of the story. It can't be that simple, can it? I got angry, so I butchered her? Apparently, for the truly insane, it is.

Starbucks rubs it in

Ubiquitousness can be an imposition after all: