Dusty Chalk

Happy birthday, Mikey and Dr. Chris! I hope y'all are both having the best days possible under the circumstances. (party favour noise)

Utah King would need room for one or two more? AYE KEED, AYE KEED...

Nice little post-punk number. Medigs. Comments seem to like them.

Same. That song. Just...so bleak. The video is amazing. I really love "Ancestral" off that album. Learned that huge riff in the middle. Mikey, I recommend The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories next. PS Your friend obviously has excellent taste.

Pork, Okra, Green Beans, half a can of mushrooms in... Very delicious.

Participating in the Spotify Boycott, so cancelled my Spotify subscription and renewed my Tidal. Have to figure everything out all over again. Started, of course, with Al1ce's latest, As Above, So Below. Turns out, they're already working on another dimension. As Within, So Without.

June Lockhart 😭

Happy belated birthday, Marc! (party favour noise)

My favourite band in the world had their friend Clint Carney make a video for them as part of their Kickstarter. The song itself already tugged at my tear ducts, it's so powerful, and the video is everything I would have wished for and more: For those that don't know, or haven't followed Al1ce since 2020 (like I do), it is very rare that Tash goes without her stage makeup. I think there is meaning behind that choice in the video... For reference, the previous video that Clint Carney made for them is also a favourite:

😭

No, I don't think so, but that's okay, their fanbase has grown by like a Brazillion since 2020, and I'm happy for them for that. Thanks everyone!

After indulging in the Deluxe Box Edition that is OMD's Crush 40th anniversary, new release from a week ago, Squeaky Feet, Overview Effect much progly:

Happy birthday, Carl, Peter, and Iain! (party favour noise)

Just finished listening to OMD's Crush 40th anniversary edition Just starting Joe Pass and Ella Fitzgerald, Take Love Easy and Fitzgerald and Pass...Again ...then, I don't know what, probably Tatekieto by Pulciperla (French band Pulcinella with Colombian female trio, La Perla)

Yeezh.

Yeah, sorry, good point.

Not a chance. He can talk all the talk he wants, the world does not believe his bullshit. I recently posted on Facebook: "How out of touch does one have to be, with how one is perceived by the world, to even fantasize about one's place in the world like this? He is literally getting people killed, illegally kidnapped, and trafficked, there is nothing "peace" about that. Release the Epstein files, MAGAt." The world won't put blinders on to the atrocities that he's committing on an accelerated basis TO HIS OWN FUCKING COUNTRY. And then there's the murdering of the Venezuelan fishermen. No, he won't be getting a Nobel Peace Prize just for stopping one war. Stop even acknowledging his fiction! We can't normalize his delusions of grandeur. That would be like stopping counting and saying there is no infinity.

I recently thought about joining ICE...yes, really, but not what you think...not the evil ICE that we see everywhere, but HSI. https://www.ice.gov/about-ice/hsi The ones who investigate the real terrorist networks domestically. Mostly because I have had it with what the Russian plants did to get Trump elected and cement his position there, but also...because it would be easy. I get pinged all the time, recruitment pings on LinkedIn from obviously Russian organizations. One of them even had the audacity to communicate with me in Russian. I got as far as filling out The Questionnaire. There are a lot of questions of the "are you now or have you ever been" variety, but there are also questions that are much more to the point (see attached). I have zero problem killing bad guys. The above video is why. I do realize it's a lot easier knowing who the bad guys are in the above scenarios (they're shooting at you!), and that's kind of what I was imagining, but I do also realize that real life is not so clear cut. I had to bail (on working for ICE) for other reasons. (They wanted to be able to dictate whom I investigated and whom I didn't, being the biggest one.) But I remain staunchly pro-2A, and needed to renew my vow to myself to remain grounded and moral. There may not be people worse than Trump and Hegseth and Miller and the Heritage Foundation et al, but they wouldn't be so bad for life on this planet if it weren't for the extremist MAGA and Russians who are the real terrorists. And armed.

My new guitar idol -- so virtuosic, yet so melodic And a collaboration:

I made stroganoff the other day. I put too much black pepper in, but other than that, it was delicious. It was super spicy, and I wasn't even trying to make it so (the spiciest thing I put in there was black pepper, but I put my usual amount, which is about 1 cubic inch).

RIP Ken Parker, designer of the most advanced guitar ever, the Parker Fly Deluxe. This one hits hard, I regret having to sell all my Parker Fly Deluxes over the course of the last year, they were the most amazing guitars. I just pulled the bass out of storage to fix and sell (it's just the battery compartment).

Thanks! I will have to check out Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets tomorrow. (2:05 on Swan Stage at Right Coast time, presumably.)