Knuckledragger

Matisse and cats.

School cots for Sami children, Jukkasjärvi, Lappland, Sweden.

^ That baritone goofball sounds familiar. The Titanic in dry dock. Click for a little bit bigger.

Having recently gone from 1080p to "1200p" (1920x1200), I must say I vastly prefer 16:10 over 16:9. Most (all?) good 30 inch monitors are 2560x1600, which is the 16:10 equivalent of a 2560x1440 "1440p" 27 inch monitor.

Numeric Birthday, JP!

Click for big. Credit to the photographer.

Nate has been busy on Reddit today. Lou Reed and John Cale, 5th Ave NYC 1968. Lincoln Assassination conspirator Lewis Payne in custody, April 1865. Click for slightly larger.

Rip, 1941. Rip was a search and rescue dog who found one hundred victims of air raids in London between 1940 and 1941. He received the Dickin Medal for bravery in 1945.

Screaming birthday, Happy Oranges!

Naked, uncooked McRib. Click for slightly larger.

Sup Heads? My show is once again on the air, for the full two hours tonight. WAMH's new web streaming page is right here. My show's website is still around as well.

A girl named India whom I did not know very well OD'd on heroin earlier this week. I'd met her in the club scene sometime in 2010. She was nice enough but suffered from the telltale sings of a low self esteem. I saw her follow around one deadbeat guy after another. I lost contact her due to a variety of factors. I've been working a lot fewer lighting gigs this year, and she sunk deeper in the drug-fueled end of nightlife. The news of her demise came out on my friend's 30th birthday. He had been quite close to her and was pretty devastated by her passing. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about India's death. I'm certainly more hardened toward the subject of opiate abuse and overdose than others. Heroin killed two kids in my high school in the early 90s, and nearly claimed a third. India would have turned 24 later this year, and that's certainly too young an age to go. I've been dealing with whatever my deeper feelings on the issue by listening to a lot of Morphine albums. After years of listening to Mark Sandman's music, I have concluded that he was most likely a raging asshat in person, but man could he write a tune.

This is pretty much impossible for me to answer. According to last.fm, these are my most listen-to albums: 1. The Knife – Deep Cuts (784) 2. All India Radio – Once A Day (688) 3. Dick Dale – King Of The Surf Guitar: The Best Of Dick Dale & His Del-Tones (648) 4. All India Radio – These Winter Dreams (642) 5. All India Radio – Permanent Evolutions (630) The number at the end is how many times I have listened to a song off that specific album. Of course, the above just reflects the last 9 years of listening for me, and is further skewed by the fact that I have listened to a lot of A.I.R. in the last 4 years. It's an amusing list, but not representational. I could only name four right now. These are not in any order: Biosphere - Substrata: Probably the greatest ambient album of the 1990s; possibly the greatest ambient album, period. Black Sabbath - Volume 4: The best album from the best period of the best metal band, full stop. Tom Waits - Bone Machine: IMJO, the last great Tom Waits album. He took an extended hiatus after it. Everything that has followed has not impressed me nearly as much. Tom is still capable of writing (and performing) absolute gems, but none of his albums have been anywhere nearly as consistent as Bone Machine. I'd also list Rain Dogs, Swordfishtrombones and Frank's Wild Years, but I consider them to be one album in 3 parts (with Big Time being the live counterpart.) Orbital - Orbital 2 AKA The Brown Album: The album that got me in to electronic music, over two decades ago. The US CD edition has a sticker on it with the review blurb "Pure, heavenly technology." That term was something of a rallying cry for Orbital fans in the 90s. Also, Seeing Orbital perform in 1999 remains the best live live electronic music show I have ever attended.

Spectators standing upon couches, tables and chairs to get even a glimpse of the Versailles Treaty being signed, France, 1919.

Electricians working on the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, 1937.

Bunkered British children watching aerial dogfight, 1940.