I could have told you Vincent...

I like cover tunes. If I'm flipping through the crates or digging through some archives, I always get stoked to recognize a song title whether I know the musician or not. I'm instantly attracted to the recording if only for the fact that I'll get to hear someone else's take on someone else's song. Seriously, jazz up a pop tune, speed up a slow song or tone down a rocker. Even if the cover doesn't sound better than the original, it's still cool to hear a fresh perspective on an old tune.

Cowboys are cool. Look how hard these dudes look. Maybe they're bad guys, maybe they're good.

thar she blows

Members of the Makah tribe are to be prosecuted in tribal court for their roles in an illegal whale-hunting expedition. The Native American group, based in Northwest Washington, grew tired of waiting for federal approval to carry out the hunt under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So they just went ahead and did it. What's worse, the hunters didn't even bring home the bacon, er...blubber. They stuck the great beast with a few harpoons, shot it up with a high-powered rifle, cut the buoy lines keeping it at the surface and watched it sink. Aren't they suppposed to take it home and eat it or use it? I understand that whale-hunting is a proud and time-honored tradition for their people, but what gets me is the fact that they just killed the poor creature. The hunters, who live on a reservation and are likely poor, are each facing $25,000 fines. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just seems like a total waste and a foolish thing to do.

In other news, a McDonald's employee was arrested for making a burger too salty for a police officer's taste. From the Associated Press:

UNION CITY, Ga. - A McDonald's employee spent a night in jail and is facing criminal charges because a police officer's burger was too salty, so salty that he says it made him sick. Kendra Bull was arrested Friday, charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct and freed on $1,000 bail. Bull, 20, said she accidentally spilled salt on hamburger meat and told her supervisor and a co-worker, who "tried to thump the salt off." On her break, she ate a burger made with the salty meat. "It didn't make me sick," Bull told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But then Police Officer Wendell Adams got a burger made with the oversalted meat, and he returned later and told the manager it made him sick. Bull admitted spilling salt on the meat, and Adams took her outside and questioned her, she said. "If it was too salty, why did (Adams) not take one bite and throw it away?" said Bull, who has worked at the restaurant for five months. She said she didn't know a police officer got one of the salty burgers because she couldn't see the drive-through window from her work area. Police said samples of the burger were sent to the state crime lab for tests. City public information officer George Louth said Bull was charged because she served the burger "without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it."

They sent it to the crime lab! Tax dollars at work!

never been to spain...

...but I kinda like the music

The Whistler Tree in Portugal is the most productive cork oak on record. It is nearly 220 years old, is 45 feet tall, has a 15-foot trunk diameter, and yields more than a ton of raw cork per harvest—enough to make 100,000 wine bottle stoppers.

aah, nature's bounty knows no bounds. It's self-sustaining, it replenishes itself. It's ours for the taking! Timber, oil, coal, fauna, gems, ore; it's all ours!!

no pickles no mayo

you're too old to run away

I just read something about the Shaolin monks, the real dudes in Shaolandia or China or whatever, and they're demanding an apology from some random guy on the internet who claimed that a ninja could beat a Shaolin monk in a fight. So ninjas, I gather, are Japanese assassins and not too noble. The Shaolin monks, on the other hand, are committed to peace and nobility; they only resort to violence in defense of the weak. My suggestion? Settle it once and for all. Fight! Actually, violence is uncool. Maybe they oughta sit at a table with some hot soup and talk it out. Miso or eggflower. Either way, I bet the guy who originally made the claim was just some turd in a basement with orange cheeto residue on his fingers and cold, half-eaten hot pockets within reach. It all seems petty.

KEEP LISTENING TO THE BLACK LIPS

$2 off

Check this out. I got this pack of gum at the Korean corner store by my house. It shocks you if you try to pull out the stick. It seriously packs a big jolt; it's so cool. I've had it for two days now and it has proven to be an endless source of amusement.

But seriously, what's with bum kids? Sometimes they seem so dedicated to being bums. I wonder if they decide one day to move out of mom's house, cram a bunch of junk in a backpack, throw out the deoderant and get a dog on a rope. It might be a seasonal thing. Once it gets too cold out, they all move back home and resume normal life. Or when they go back to college in the fall, they say they spent their summer living like a hobo. I saw one panhandler, dog in tow, holding his cardboard sign in one hand and talking on a cell phone with the other. "No mom," he said. "I don't want salmon tonight."

There's lots of hipsters in Portland too. It's a hip place man. Go to New Seasons or almost any bar in NE or SE and you'll see what I'm talking about. But I'm probably a hipster sometimes too. It's a pretty subjective call. Biased too. I think it's a term of condemnation but it seems to get thrown around a lot by hipsters as much as squares. The Libertines sang about it: "Did you see the stylish kids in the riot..."

LISTEN TO THE BLACK LIPS.

hail to the beef

It's a strange feeling I get. I'm stoked that I got to bear witness to GW Bush's time in office. As his empire crumbles around him and his appointees and allies resign amid turmoil and controversy, I feel somewhat privileged to watch it happen. After these eight years of utter ineptitude, incompetence and ultimate failure, I will be able to say that I lived through two terms of what will go down as the worst presidency in history.

Do cows have boogers?

big brother

Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colors from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion...

sit on it

I went camping over the weekend with some folks. It was kool and the gang man, hella Fonzie. Nothing gives me a better sense of nature and the outdoors than stinking cess pit toilets, screaming children on bicycles, and loose dogs on the prowl. But seriously, it's always nice to get away from the normal day-to-day. One day I was rowing m'lady in a boat, singing sweet songs of lily and lace, when a screaming harpy plucked a soon-to-be devoured meal from the water. It was actually an osprey retrieving a trout--a trout on a fisherman's hook and line. As the bird flew away with its catch in its clutches, the line kept spooling out from the fisherman's reel. At one point, the great raptor appeared to be held back by the fisherman as both wrestled for what they thought was rightfully theirs. The line was cut soon after and the osprey took its prize to a treetop, with the trailing fishing line gleaming in the sun.

tinkle tinkle

Skateboarding. Though the Xgames and the Mountain Dew Huck Jam bring it to a wider audience, skating is still multi-faceted, _____ing with its __________. What you won't see on any televised extreme 'sporting' event is the true essence of skateboarding. Some dudes don't do it for the money or fame. Check out Jeremy Reeves on Youtube. he's not alone

pulling the rug

This lady just won a hefty sum in the lottery. Something like a million bucks! Hella dolemite! So she goes to claim her winnings and they check her ID. Turns out she bought the winning ticket with a stolen credit card. So no dough for you, lady! What a chump.

Cheaters never prosper. Crime doesn't pay--at least not all the time.

you heard it here

barry bonds is on drugs man. that fool is uncool. throw the ball back, i say.

i cut my tongue to change my new year

For real! It's official! I thought this was cool. I didn't make it. I don't even know who the hell did, but there it is. Our name in lights!

BOO HOO

Nobody reads my blog, nobody comments, nobody thinks I have anything cool to say...blah blah go to hell....

Check this out though, it's a pillow for lonely ladies!Now they can sleep soundly in the comfort of a man's armpit. Sure, the pillow man doesn't smell like Old Spice and it doesn't grope you while you try to rest, but it's always there and it never talks back or has bad breath. What the picture doesn't show is the pillow's head. When you purchase it, you can choose between Ryan Seacrest, Charles Barkley or the Bounty Paper Towel guy. The latter comes complete with lifelike facial hair.

Do you think women will actually buy this thing? Maybe gay guys who long for the touch of a strong man might be a better target market. Some dudes might want to get one for their clingy gal even though I think jealousy might end up getting the best of them, "DAMN YOU, PILLOW MAN!"

a breath of fresh hair

The Hives are the shit. I just mined the depths of youtube hoping for a taste of their new album. My appetite was further whetted with newer footage of some unknown songs they've been playing in Europe lately. Needless to say, i was as stoked as a hormone-dripping teenybopper catching the eye of Donnie Wahlberg at a late 1980s NKOTB concert extravaganza. The first clip I found was a sublime seven-song medley covering the likes of the Hellacopters, Saul Williams, Outkast, Three 6 Mafia and the White Stripes that culminated with the band's impassioned version of their own 'hate to say I told you so.' It was super cool. The next clip I found was a song I hadn't heard before and, judging by the band's outfits, it was indeed a newer composition. The song was in the vein of some others off their last album--influenced by 1960s pop and punctuated with drum breaks and happy, danceable choruses. If this is any indication of the new album, it is a likely possibility that I will be the happiest of campers. Also, I found an older clip of the band playing a festival in Germany in 2003. The song could've been an old girl-group or doo-wop cover but, upon further investigation, it's a newer song by a band called the Compulsive Gamblers. They're a group from Memphis who clearly owe something to the super-fun-jubilant-melancholy bands of the past. I don't want to get my hopes up, because they've been dashed before on occasions like this, but HOLY SHIT i can't wait for the Hives' new album.