Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

From a few weeks ago, when the fighter jets were practicing for the air show.

These juicy buggers are in my backyard. I should start a vineyard.

As planned, we wrapped up the session last night and everything is sounding real good. Not sure yet when we’ll have some songs to preview but you can bet to hear it first right here! Or there. Or somewhere. It has been a real group effort, with Adam serving as the Fourth MaM. There have been two, three, and four-part harmonies and weird great ideas that turned out really cool. These songs were probably the most undeveloped that we’ve gone into a studio with, so they were pretty open to change and tinkering. I’m really happy with what we have so far.

I guess it’s Thursday. Expect nothing but pictures in this space for the next week or so. We’re taking the Prius out on the road this weekend, up to Michigan, so that should be exciting. Yes, we finally filled up the tank. Now we’re gonna see if we can do some Al Gore, Jr. on the open road.

“I loved it,” 7-year-old William Smith said as the smoke started to clear. “One day I’m gonna blow up my own house.”

Batman sequel inspires kids!

This is what things start to look like after recording all night at the Beagle. That car only served to increase the paranoia; the Thai consulate is in that building, and I’m certain they were keeping tabs on our behavior. We may have to call in a few air strikes.

We’ve spent a few nights recording vocals at the Prize Beagle Studios, the last being Monday night. We will return tonight to listen and possibly, hopefully, close the books on this session of recordings. We also had Mr. Scott Judd in the studios a few weeks ago to record a banjo part on a song called “The Leaning Tower of Astigmatism.” The riffs he came up with will stick in your brain, I can assure you. The song is epic–an ode to bad eyesight and even worse paranoia.

To review: we recorded a total of eight songs, including the aforementioned “Leaning Tower;” “Days of Chastity and Continence (not in rioting and drunkenness),” a plea against abstinence; “Less Love, More Acid,” about the American Dream as seen through the shadow of war and acid; “Kristol Ball,” which should effectively end Bill’s career; “Lost Highway,” a David Lynch tribute song; “Argument to End the World,” which is about two children fighting; “TM,” which is about a very evil person; and “Crushing the Bouquet,” a prom night power-rock-death-ballad.

We also recorded some other stuff that probably won’t go anywhere, a re-recording of an old song (“Wait for No One”), and an instrumental that may become an actual song some day. We have a couple of other new songs that we need to work on that we will try and record in the next sessions, along with a possible cover and another cover for a compilation album, to be determined. So that’s where we’re at.

Happy Birthday, Dad! This one’s for you!

Everyone knows I am a liberal-minded individual. I don’t care if people have sex in a tree or in the sea. I say OK to sex on a plane and say OK if the sex is the same. Sex and scrambled eggs or sex and long legs. Two or three, the more the merry! Six or eight, that could be great . . .

It’s all good fun, as far as I’m concerned. Bill Clinton? Don’t care. All those Republicans that have been caught in sex scandals since 1998? Don’t care. Yep, all 541 of them. Ah, I kid. Kind of.

The problem is, of course, the hypocrisy. And once again, we see it with the latest right-wing sex scandal. These high and mighty mf’er’s should really drop any pretense of “family values,” don’t you think? As Glenn Greenwald says:

How can any rational person argue that a political movement which constantly exploits claims about private behavior like this for political gain ought to be immunized from scrutiny as to whether their conduct is consistent with what they claim? If having “strong family values” is — as Craig claims — the reason “first and foremost” to support someone’s candidacy for President, then, by definition, whether one has “strong family values” is a politically relevant consideration for such a person. Craig’s own pronounced political standards render it relevant whether a married political official with children is having anonymous sex in bathrooms. That is just logically true.

Why are so many of these guys that are getting caught doing “unsavory” things also happen to be Republican? And why do they happen to be the ones who vote against things like same-sex marriage, under the pretense of preserving the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman? I really don’t care if these guys are gay and trolling airport bathrooms for sex or picking up male pages on the internet, I just wish they would quit the party line and come clean instead of legislating morality for everyone else, the hypocritical bastards. Morality is dead in the GOP! Give it up and live free, you creepy old SOB’s!

The LaRouchies were out last week at Huron and State. I like their posters.

Looking around on the trash sites, all I see are stories about Hulk Hogan’s son in a car accident (that’s news?) or Britney Spears or whatever, but I want to know more about Owen Wilson. What the hell happened? He tried to kill himself? Slashed wrists? OD’d? It seems quite bizarre to me. Reminds me of Owen’s Eli Cash in a classic scene from The Royal Tenenbaums:

Eli: What’d you say?
Richie: Hmm? I didn’t say anything.
Eli: When? Right now?

I’m back on the Howard Stern wagon, listening to the show at work every day, thanks to the hard work and perseverance of my Atlanta office (Corbett!). Hopefully this is just because it’s summer, but Stern has been on vacation two of the three weeks I’ve listened. I heard him interview Wesley Willis today from 1996, which was interesting, but I prefer the live shows. Come on, Howie, get back to work!

Last week Stern was on live and, thanks to MarksFriggin.com, I can give you this brief summary, if only to explain a point that must be made:

Howard started off the show saying that he was listening to the replay on Friday and they were talking about the war in Iraq and how proud he was of President Bush back then. He said he had to turn off the radio because he was sickened by what he was saying. Robin said she had to apologize to a few people about what she had said back then too. They said that Bush lied back then and they were fooled into thinking that they should have been over there in Iraq.

Artie said that Bush and those guys played off their emotions and made us think that they had to do it. He said everyone wanted blood back then and that was why people were for it back then. Howard said that the show was making him sick. Artie said he likes that Howard didn’t run from that stuff and it was good to replay it to remind people that we were lied to.

Howard said he was so upset with himself that he had to turn off the radio. Artie said that he remembers what was going on back then and how he wanted blood thinking about all of the people jumping out of the World Trade Center not wanting to be burned.

Howard said he almost called in to interrupt that show to explain why he was thinking that way back then. He took a call from a guy who said that it was very strange to listen to that show. He said that people were thinking like that back then. Howard said that Barack Obama saw through it back then though. He said that guy didn’t think we should be there at the time. Howard said you can’t cut that shit out of the old shows even though he’d like to.

I reprint this only to say that I was listening to Howard during those days, and I was so appalled by their support that I turned it off. For a good part of that year, maybe longer, I stayed away because I was embarrassed to be listening to what I considered then to be such idiotic views. Eventually Howard came around and got wise and I resumed listening, but for a while there I really was looking around going “What is wrong with everyone?” Because that’s how it was. I’ve never listened to Stern for his politics but this was just so unfunny to me, especially coming from New Yorkers who should know better. It was very disappointing at the time.

Anyway, now that everyone has come to their senses and the world prepares to move on, I urge all Rush Limbaugh listeners to turn off their radios for a moment, or a year, and think for themselves, and consider that maybe everything you’ve thought was right for all these years is actually, in fact, wrong. Because it is, you know.

No, it wasn’t the greatest night to come out and see a rock show, but I was glad that so many showed up (even if a lot of them showed up after we played!). I broke a guitar string on the second song and Eric broke his snare too, but we didn’t let that stop us! I actually had a backup guitar for once, so it was no worries for me. Sure, the stage smelled like cat piss, but I’m used to that by now. I talked to the cat later, Radley, and he was typically unapologetic. Sounds like some other felines I know.

Thanks again, Rick, for putting that title in my head!