Closing the year on a good note...

So when I went to Boston to visit Kath and company around Thanksgiving I received a kick in the balls Monday afternoon when I made it back to where my car was parked and found a lovely orange note from the Boston Police Department thanking me for my stay and requesting $40 for parking in a residential zone...Kath lives in Alston or Balston or Brighton or Bridgeton or some other communist municipality in "Boston" where on street parking is not permitted so I had to park the Blue Angel in the middle of Godknowswhere no less than 3 miles from where my head rested every evening I was down there. So needless to say I was pissed, threw the love note in the back seat and drove off. Forty mothertrucking dollars for a parking ticket?! I wasn't in a handicapped zone, I wasn't in a fire lane, I wasn't parked in a drive thru line at Wendy's, I was on the side of a street in a quiet community.

So, per usual I made it home and forgot about it until about 2 hourse before I was headng to VA and three days before the ticket was due. And then I had an idea...why not be a subtler "spider guy..." I've made my appreciation for the spider guy apparant so I decided to write the city of Boston a kindly worded letter that conceded I was in the wrong but would like to be forgiven because I'm an out of stater and I actually hate the city of Boston and would prefer to never reside there. But I said it nicely, and the city came through by dismissing my violation. I'm not mad at that...

Also, I apologize for always seeming to write blogs very closely together and then sitting with a thumb up my ass for the next three days. Just, to be honest I don't really do much and when inspiration sparks I don't pour water, I pour gas and fan the flames. Straight brain dumps and random ass streams of conciousness is all I can really provide, like it or not. However, if you have some asinine topic you would like to hear me rant on you just let me know and I will see what I can do. I'm a giver, really. Cheers.

"Knee Jerk" Good Read

As a year closes it causes many folks to reflect on the year gone by, the good things and the bad, and their expectations for the upcoming year. I am not one of these people. But that's not really the point. What the last couple days of the year has brought is the end of one of the best written weekly pieces on the internet during the Professional fooseball season, and that my friends is the "Knee Jerk Reactions" to Patriots games by Barstool Sports contributing writer Jerry Thorton.

Two to get you smiling:

*It's purely an act of faith on my part, but I like to think someone on the Pats roster spent the day quoting "Twister" because that's what I would've done. "And Matt Cassel walks up to the wind and says 'Have a drink' and he chucks the ball into the wind and it never hits the ground, man. That's why we call him The Extreme."

*At the very least someone should've been calling Ralph Wilson Stadium "The Suck Zone."

Seriously. This guy pulls together a gem every week. I just had to touch base on my undying support of Jerry Thorton because of the numerous Twister references he made during his chronicle of the blustery Pats finale in the Greater Buffalo area. Any one can toss around three of four Twister references and work them into a story about an obsencely windy day, but when all of your references are tweaked quotes from Philip Seymour Hoffman in an incredibly underrated role from the earlier portion of his career it's truly something remarkable. Seymour Hoffman played Dustin "Dusty" Davis, who himself appeared a little bit twisted throught the movie (As I reflect right now I don't think anything could have been more appropriate than this Dusty character being the first commercial endorser of Twisted Tea...Dusty hands bottles to throngs of young adult men at an outdoor party, clouds come over and after sips everyone of them starts spinning and flies off into the sky, the camera comes back to Dusty saying like "It's the suck zone...it's the point where the twister, basically, sucks you up..." Though having to include Bill Paxton's confused and constipated face at the end with a, "That's why they call him the Extreme" reference would have doomed that campaign...but, it's still fun to dream...) and some of his lines are gems. Even playing an asshat this guy could always bring it. But I digress, back to Jerry.

Basically, I got caught up in the 'Stool a couple of years ago and it was new and fresh and catchy. A rather amusing self-centered host and his merry men (UB, Manzo, JT) to cover the bases of everything that is and is not Boston-based sports and random pop-culture. But now it's basically just Pres being a clown and JT bringing it once a week with heavy hitting Pats coverage. Good random movie references, and also an above average knowledge of the game. Not a football-Enstein-genius like myself, but still far batter than almost anyone on bigtime TV today outside of Tom Jackson and Trent Dilfer. And I'm serious about Dilfer, that guy knows the pro game.

So, Mondays are manageable...everything else is getting pretty weak. So, I just want to apologize for not bringing up my appreciation for these earlier in the year. I like the Giants, you all know that, but Marie watches the Pats every weekend so I have a frame of reference for his genius. Check the back issues and then tune in next year...but not until then. Unless you watch The Hills...

Cheers.

Welcome back

Hello all. I apologize for not having anything to say recently, I've been battling a pretty significant food-borne illness which swept through the Capone household in the wake of Christmas morning. Luckily, my immune system was (somehow...after Christmas Day...) strong enough to not succumb to said illness until the wee hours of of the morn on December 27th, following a joyous and gay time caroling and carousing over the river and through the woods from Portland to Auburn and in and around those two fine towns. Those of you who were there for the duration or who ran into us over the course of the evening feel free to smile now. Those of you were were not fortunate enough to cross our path, let me apologize because you will never understand. Just another example of how otherworldly the young adult folks from Auburn, Maine are. Per usual, we are playing Battleship while the other young whippersnappers today are playing Connect 4.

In other news I have no plans for New Years, 50/50 on me even making it out as of 12:30pm Monday. If you have interesting ideas please feel free to let me know. Also I'm pretty sure I'll end up in the Bean this weekend - I need to see The Wrestler ASAP - so I may be contacting some of you in the area to line up a couch to crash on. I appreciate your hospitality in advance.

As I said on Christmas Day and haven't yet reiterated like I had hoped to, in all seriousness it was great to see everyone who was/is home for the holiday. It was a special and memorable few days and I know soon enough it will be our last big one together. If it turns out to be the case that this year was it I'm glad we went out in white, 14 passenger style. I love you all. Cheers.

So, this is Christmas...

Waxing poetic as I polish off my second Irish coffee of the morning and fiddle fart around the house until 5 when I watch the Celts at Gipper's prior to the annual Christmas party at the Goose...

...Christmas isn't Christmas without Burl Ives. If you opened presents to any other musical act this morning, you are an infidel...

...it's official. My mother has no qualms about my problem drinking and now actually condones it. We had a low-key Christmas this year. I think I had 8 presents under the trees (Yes, trees. Instead of a fine fur we've buckled the last few years and now have three tabletop fakes. Call me Grinch, I deserve it) and three of them were the following: NY Giants shot glass (best present, in my humble opinion), Celtics shot glass, fifth of Jack. Merry Christmas, indeed...

...the Capone's say f-you to typical traditions. We cooked our Christmas turkey last Sunday, whattayathinkaboutthat?!?!?! Today is straight snack food and finger sangwiches, no reason to get a food hangover on Christ's birthday...

...believe it or not, as of 10:15 Skip is the only one in the family not to have had a drink today. Sorry for the cold temps today, but he just caused Hell to freeze over...

...I apologize to my mommy for falling asleep at 7:30pm last night and not allowing us to keep with the tradition of watching a Christmas movie together Christmas eve (Like two years ago when my mom and I watched American Psycho...Ho, Ho, Ho!!)...Guess we'll have to make it up today with a True Romance screening after lunch...

...even around the holidays I still get shit on by my family. Last night I was belittled because of my fondness for silver (not plastic) ware, and today my mom threw out the "I don't care if you think it's a waste, I still warpped your presents because I (!!!!!) like to!" I say to you: It's the holiday season, excess at this time is okay (at least this is how I rationalize coordinating an H2 limo rental for a mobile holiday party tomorrow evening to my green side...). 'Tis the season!

In all seriousness, I am glad to have the opportunity to spend Christmas with those who matter most, and I wish only the best to everyone and hope you are as lucky as I am. Have a Happy Christmas and I look forward to see many smiling faces tonight and in the coming days. (Holiday) Cheers.

Mineswept

As those of you who have seen me at a computer know, I'm a pretty big gamer. Not World of Warcraft, not Counterstrike, but solitaire and minesweeper. And none of that spider shit flies with me, just give me good old reliable. But at any rate I starting playing minesweeper fairly regularly when I was (not) writing my thesis and it's kind of carried over into my professional life. Beginner is perfect because you can pound out a few games in a couple of minutes and take a break from whatever you're usually doing. But since I started playing on the regular three or so years ago I'd never been able to beat expert. It's a 16x30 rectangle with 99 mines, so basically you've got a 1-5 shot at clicking on a mine when you begin. But I decided now that I'm on vacation I could spend a couple days (well, late nights, because being a lazy piece of crap I try not to do anything during the day) going after a W. Last Wednesday around 3am I got to a two by two square left with two mines to go and just a guess to solve (those of you who've played know what I'm talking about...when you've got the mines at a kitty corner and it can go either way...It's a royal pain in the ass). Needless to say, I guessed wrong. So I took a break and went back to work Friday night (Saturday morning would probably be more appropriate), and sure enough around 4:15am I got the job done. I've got some visual evidence but I haven't taken any photos off my camera since the trip to the VA, so whenever I get around to doing that I'll throw up the proof. 298 seconds, not a great time but it's a starting point, I suppose. Other stats are: Beginner - 2 seconds (no big deal), and 53 ticks for Intermediate, though I think I got to 47 seconds on another computer in a lab back in my younger days. I don't know (other than the beginner time, I'm a stud in that department) if these are actually good times or not, but it made me feel all warm and fuzzy when I finally saw the sunglasses on expert. This just goes to show if you have a goal and work hard to achieve it good things will happen. Cheers.

Chinese Autocracy

The snow kept me indoors all day, and I’ve been listening to G’N’R for about the last 5 hours. I think I’m about ready to begin dissecting Axl’s new work. Before I being I need to preface this by saying Axl and I have had our ups and downs over the years. I’ve always liked him, but we had quite a falling out my senior year of college when the donkey cancelled a show in Portland which I had primo tickets for. The Guns website claimed it was because the Civic Center wasn’t going to let them shoot some of the pyro they used on the regular. This was also back up by the friend of an ex-lover who worked at the Civic Center at the time, though well after the fact. The roadies on site that evening, however, claimed it was because Axl drank his face off until 6 in the morning in NYC and didn’t want to drive to Maine just to head back south that night. Since then I’ve mellowed in my old age and have forgiven him. So I’ve come to purchase this new work, Chinese Democracy, with open ears.

With all that being said, after multiple listens of old and new material this afternoon and now into the evening I feel I need to say “Axl’s new work” because this shouldn’t really be called a Guns N’ Roses record. This was Axl wanting to make a record. In my opinion he did a pretty nice job. I like Axl on a mic, I always have, probably always will. But Slash’s absence from the album is glaring. To me, Guns without Slash is like lamb without tuna fish. It’s just not the same.

It was also very clear how overproduced Chinese Democracy was…the liner notes told this story as it took two pages to give proper credits for the 14 tracks. Six guitarists contributed, two bassists, three keyboardists, and it continued on down the line to digital editors, mixers, and orchestral arrangements throughout. All this lead me to the conclusion that there’s no possible way to compare this album to Appetite. It’s just not possible. In the case of Appetite there was no excess, it was just 5 or 6 guys in complete synergy bringing it with no regard on every track. The new work was a Roman orgy of sounds with very little natural chemistry.

Right from the start it was certainly apparent Axl can still bring it. He still has the range to hit many highs and still has his patented snarl that can kick a song up a couple of notches. From the very beginning of the first track he’s wailing away and getting it done nicely. Of course, for all we know his vocals were laid down in 1995 when he was still young and foolish and have just been placed over new background vocals and instruments, but the world will never know the answer to that…

There’s no question this new album built substantially off the experimentations which were present on the Use Your Illusion albums (FYI: I consider these the last works of Gun’s N’ Roses. Shut your mouth about “The Spaghetti Incident?” If you try to bring it up, I will hit you.). The vocals were a lot more emo as a lover scorned than earlier songs about blatant drug use and explicit fornication which Appetite was wrought with (Nighttrain, Mr. Brownstone, My Michelle in the case of the former, Anything Goes, Rocket Queen for the latter). While there was still death and destruction present I have to say I found it much more subdued. This isn’t to say the lyrics were deeper or better-crafted, just mellower. They were still in most cases simple as shit. “Street of Dreams,” which I found to be fairly similar to “Estranged” on UYI-II, contains the verse “So now I wander through my days / and try to find my ways / to these feelings that I felt.” Just read that a couple of times and it should be apparent what I find lame (Just in case: “feelings” and “felt” within 4 words of one another…that’s just lazy.)…

Before hearing I guessed this would be overproduced, and that prediction was spot on. However, as I also said earlier with 17 years to dicker and rework everything 600 times I’d expect nothing less. This brought with it plusses and minuses. I liked the tight, crisp feeling which was present thoughout; however, t just felt like Axl was striving for perfection on every song, and if you’re going to set yourself up with those kinds of expectations if you don’t get there people are going to notice. I noticed in some instances. It sounded “together” because of how much time was put into combining the myriad elements of each song, not because the people making music were actually together feeding off one another. Again, the absence of Slash was hard to handle. Never before had I heard Axl getting back on the mic during a guitar solo and that continually caught my ear throughout the record. I found this to be rather sad, and my biggest complaint. The guitar work wasn’t always there. It was a lot less complex than Slash’s work, and that was tough to take.

With no idea what’s been released as singles, I thought the middle tracks on the album were strong. “There Was A Time,” “Catcher In The Rye” (shitty name, though), “Riad N’ The Bedouins,” and “I.R.S.” (corny subject matter, but a lot of their songs were built on corny subjects so I still found it catchy) were all good tracks. I also thought “Prostitute” was a decent closer. Still, the old times of Guns were simple times. The track titles were the hook. Not the case on Chinese Democracy. Just another case of Axl trying too hard. Overall: 13 out of 18 stars. A little better than middle of the road. Not Appetite, not Lies, but I’ll still give it airplay here and there. Cheers.

Well, the weather outside is frightful...

So I'm hunkered down at the Capone ranch for the day. I don't plan to vacate, we're supposed to get 12+"...WELCOME HOME, SAM & NICK HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Marie and Skip decided today would be a fine day for a turkey dinner, so I'm not mad about that. Another 20+ pound bird and all the fixings. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, if I do say so myself. Fresh Shipyard Export 1/4 barrel on tap, plenty of supplies for caucasians. Could be an interesting afternoon. If you can make it out of your house you're welcome by for open faced turkey sandwiches and other vittles. Talk to me. Cheers.

Coming Soon

Picked up Chinese Democracy today at Bull Moose. I don't have a quality CD player at the house anymore, my old reliable stopped reading discs about 3 years ago so I had to import it as .wav files to make sure I kept the high fidelity...Axl would appreciate this. Liner notes are impressive, that's about all I've gotten through thus far. Plan to listen tomorrow Sunday morning, and into the afternoon if the fooseball games are shitty. Stay tuned, I'm pretty excited to hear it. Made an impulse buy of Lies used, too. It's kind of cheesy because they add crowd noise to the first 4 tracks and tried to pass it off as a live performance when they first released it, but closing with Patience, Used to Love Her, You're Crazy, and One in a Million make it more than worth the $5.97 i had to pay.

Sam hates when I do this but Mr. Deeds was just on and it made me think of Adam Sandler movies and a hilarious outtake from Punch Drunk Love involving one of the best actors of the last 10 years, Philip Seymore Hoffman. The dedication he shows to to his craft is remarkable and will keep him on top for years to come...though I guess not in this case...cheers.

Dead Weight Loss of Christmas & Future Plans

So today's a Friday, the last Friday before Christmas, come to think of it...I should do some Christmas shopping one of these days. I don't need many gifts, I don't really like the idea of gift giving. This stems from an article I read by Joel Waldfogel, written in 1993. His research suggests that gift givers generally pay more for gifts than the receivers would actually pay themselves, this creates a dead weight loss of money that comes from giving gifts. He suggests gift givers spend significantly more, on average, than the receiver would actually spend if they bought the gift on their own. Waldfogel is now the chair of the Business and Public Policy Department at UPenn's Wharton School of Business, so I'd say he knows his shit...here's his position on gift giving from his personal website:

...in 1993, after my first few holiday seasons at the receiving end of uninformed good intentions, I published a little paper in the American Economic Review called “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas.” The point was simple: elementary microeconomics teaches that consumers are better than others at eking the most satisfaction out of their shopping dollars. If this is true, then the sweaters, fruitcakes, and cribbage boards we receive as gifts should produce less satisfaction than cash gifts of equal size, putting aside sentimental value...The result: holiday gift giving destroys about a sixth of the value of gifts, in today’s dollars perhaps $10 billion annually.

Consumer sovereignty, the idea that the consumer is best situated to make his or her own consumption choices, is one of the foundations of many economists’ disdain for government. So if you dislike government because of its damaging effects on allocative efficiency, consistency requires you to have reservations about Santa Claus as well.

He backs this up with a study in 2005 that demonstrated people feel 18% more satisfied with gifts they buy for themselves than gifts they receive, but I don't plan to go into those details here. Basically, this is just another reason why I continue to follow the RandU motto: Deal in straight cash, homey.

--

On another note I've been meaning to write a lengthy review on the new Guns N Roses album, Chinese Democracy. It's been about 17 years since Guns (well, now really just Axl but that's a story for another day) put out their last album (well, albums, because they released Use Your Illusion I&II as separate albums in 1991 with far too much filler...I still hold the position that a singular Use Your Illusion album with only their best works could have been a top 5 album of all time. Maybe not quite as good as Appetite because of the shock and awe that came with it in 1987 - from the now-banned alien rape scene cover to the audio overlays of Axl banging out drummer Steve Adler's girlfriend in the studio on Rocket Queen...it really had it all - but still far better than almost every other hard rock album that's been released in the past 25 years.), and I think it's only fitting to give this new work a listen and form an opinion. I've heard it's over-produced, but with 17 years to dicker with the 12 or 13 tracks on it I'd expect nothing less from that angry, anal-retentive rock genius. So, when I finally break down and buy it I'll let you know my thoughts after 6 hours of continuous listening...

I've also gotten caught up in the buzz surrounding Mickey Rourke's new film, The Wrestler. It's about...wait for it...a washed up wrestler. It's directed by the same guy who directed Requiem for a Dream, a movie that gives me the willies but I feel the need to watch it about every 3 months. I find his work with a camera and scene set-ups captivating, especially because I know very little about movie making other than there can be a lot of money in it if you get lucky. I'm a big fan of money. I like it. I use it. I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. I haven't been excited about seeing a movie in quite some time (funny story. I couldn't remember the last movie I was excited about seeing so I wasn't going to try to make one up just to be clever. But as I'm grammar checking a commercial for the dvd release of Burn After Reading came on the boob tube. That is the last movie I was excited to see. The Coen Brothers are crafty.), so I don't care if it doesn't play in L/A. Or in Maine, or New England. If I have to go to NYC I'm seeing this movie before the new year. It's caught my attention. Stay tuned...

--

When I sat down I only planned to write about Chinese Democracy and The Wrestler. Consider my microeconomics lesson and the random Guns facts free gifts for this holiday season. And free gifts, my friends, are priceless. Cheers.

Snowballs.

Virginia has come and gone, with just enough ballyhoo and poppycock for all who were involved. Back in the great state of Maine - the way life should be. And in December that means about 4 inches of snow with more predicted for Friday and Saturday. Awesome. Just finished beinga good son and shoveling the driveway so my mommy can pull safely into the garage when she gets home from school at 2:30. It's the least I can do for living rent free.

Anyways quite a bit went on this past weekend. I was reunited with LittleJohn's, arguably the best sub shop in the world. And I wouldn't lie about something like that. If you're a sub shop and you're open 24/7/365 you need to come correct, and that, my friends, is exactly what this fine establishment does. I only made it twice: once late night, once for lunch, but more than worth it both times. This was quite a bit under when I was last in the VA for 5 days and made it to LJ's 7 times. No big deal.

Upon my return I also feel like I gained quite a bit of culture while meandering around the Greater Charlottesville area with KathV. We made it to the UVA Museum of Fine Art, which really didn't have much on display other than some "futuristic" art made by some Russian. I wasn't all that impressed. They did have a nice surreal piece but I forgot the name of the guy who painted it and what it was a painting of. But trust me, it made an impact. Works by Picasso and Mattise will be on display in March but I don't believe I'll be able to make it back down to view that exhibit unless I do something crazy.

Also made it to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. From what the tour guides and pamphlets said, he was kind of a big deal. But, hey, if my old man was one of the richest men in the country at the time and gave me 5000 acres I could probably do some pretty rediculous things in my lifetime, too. But that's neither here nor there. I also never reailized Monticello was on the back of nickels. I don't really like nickels, so that could be why I'd never looked at one closely. I think I also just assumed it was some building in Washington DC. But overall it was a pretty neat place. The beds were really small. I don't think I would have enjoyed sleeping in them.

The outside was interesting, too. There were some old buildings, one of which was called the workman's house. KathV and I both thought that "workman's" was some new pc-term for "the enslaved," and we found that rather amusing. However, when we walked about 20 feet to our right and found "stone foundation of a 16'-20' slave house" we realized the folks who made the signs at Monticello weren't pulling any punches. Especially the one we read next that said something along the lines of "Thomas Jefferson felt slavery was the 'greatest abomination.' That being said, he only freed seven of the 115 enslaved workersat Monticello during his lifetime..." Nice work, JT.

The pr spin team was in full effect during our tour, however, when absolutely no mention was made of JT and the "extracurricular activites" he engaed at least one of his enslaved female workers in. As the tour concluded one of the women who was on our tour inquired about how she felt it odd no mention was made of Sally Hemings (It is widely believed that Jefferson egaged in coitis with Hemings and fathered at least one child with her. As I use the world wide web I find Jefferson actually freed four of her children...hmmm...). Our tour guide, a man in his late 50's with a gift of gab, smiled, giggled, and began to flub his words. We didn't stick around to hear the end of it...

All told it was a fun extended weekend. The Blue Angel made it back in one piece, and broke the 150,000mile club as we got just outside of NYC on our return north. It was a good day. That little bird is just getting broken in. A swell time was had by all.

Live from the VA...

My apologies to all who have been awaiting posts this week. I've been house sitting without internet since Monday so I haven't been able to get anything of substance up during the day between practices, usual business and my need to sneak away form the office for extended lunches most days last week...so, I'll come up with something soon.

Now I'm down in Charlottesville, VA at the University of VA and preparing for a fine weekend...my last two experiences have left nothing but the fondest memories...so, more to come over the next couple of days...

cheers. (and cheers, and cheers, and cheers...)