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 Your Hey Mercedes weblog. The Cast: Robert Nanna Damon Atkinson Todd Bell Michael Shumaker Dan Keehn Chris Bickert Norman Arenas Ryan Snyder 
Ebay: Bob Damon Todd Mike Ryan Go Clock Go: absolute punk all music guide alton brown art of the mix awkward pirouttes bipolar braid heaven c & c drums cadmium chicago shows! critical darling dullest dvd file ebay google news grandtheftautumn invisible city kempa look like kenny michael moore my friend goes left the new top ok plus three panaphobic pirate smiles pitchfork punk news quoc machinery recwreck rocket fuel the scout theme park thieves trouble vagrant weasel manor who would buy work of fiction you look good hallelujah it's the indieblogs webring list random previous next |
June 16, 2001
Robert: 199 Knock Me Down - Red Hot Chili Peppers Only 100 more days until OP908 rears its ugly head... June 15, 2001
Robert: and speaking of the soon-to-be-launched massivewasteoftime.com... i've just been told of menwholooklikekennyrogers.com... You see, we are not alone in our fruitless endeavors.
Robert: Apartment issues. We've put money down on a place and there's credit checks going through today, but we haven't signed anything. Meanwhile, this NEW opportunity has arisen: Get this - it's a 3 bedroom + studio space + attic for only $875! The only catch is: the owner is looking to sell it, and if he does, the new owners might decide to tear the place down. It's an old building. At the very least, they'd raise the rent, because in that area, it's a steal! So i'm fending off landlord #1 until i get a straight story from landlord #2 and it's basically a big frantic mess... I'm swinging more towards LL#1 at the moment, just because it seems a little more legit... even if this new place seems like a better deal for now... Just think of the obsessive projects that could be hatched in that studio! The day has been flying by. I've been keeping real busy. Lots on the plate, you know. Namely, I'd like to thank Susanne and Kai for their awesome gifts. You will be repaid tenfold. Speaking of obsessive projects... Coming soon: www.massivewasteoftime.com
Robert: Woohoo! Poster tubes identified and purchased. Posters for everybody!!! Going out Saturday!!! She is just fine, and she bites you for asking. Vegetarian lard? I'm not sure it's even worth it, but thank you anyway! I apologize in advance for wanton swearing, but this is funking AMAZING!! Simpsons first season on DVD. COMMENTARY FOR EACH EPISODE. Albert Brooks outtakes! Lost episode? Oh my word. Just wait until seasons 2, 3, 4! I can't wait. Does anyone here work for a book publishing company? Just wondering. By the way, that's my favorite lyric from the selection. Thanks to everyone that sent cards, etc. yesterday. You are awesome. More! More! More!* *posts, not cards etc. June 14, 2001
dan: last day at work here and I've got about 45 min left before I cruise out to meet some friends at ' picinic in the park' It's, again, another excuse to have some refreshments ...and to chat it up.. gretta is passed out right by my feet dreaming about chasing rabbits..I can't wait to be cruisin the 30 on my way to ft wayne in the buick rental unit..I wonder if they put rev limiters on those things..floatin down the freeway with my mind on my money and my money now where to be found..last night was a blast at the cactus club I don't even care that there was nobody there it's the people that were there that matters and the outstanding music that dartangal provided that made it fun..we'll have to do that again..nothing really exciting going on here..gotta go..
Robert: AAARRRGGHH! From IMDB.com: "Jack Kerouac's beat-generation classic On the Road may be on the road to a film production, the British website Popcorn.co.uk is reporting. Without citing sources, the website said that the film will be produced by Francis Ford Coppola, that it will star Brad Pitt and Billy Crudup, and that it will be directed by Joel Schumacher..." When i mentioned the supposed Jeff Buckley biopic to Zach and recommended Billy Crudup for the lead, he replied, "I could watch Billy Crudup play the singer of Night Ranger and it would be amazing." You know that Brad would have to be Dean.
Robert: Why do i have to speak with such rude, ignorant people on the phone? Don't they know what today is? Seriously, I should've just gave the guy a piece of my mind... and then started the t a little early. But it's inevitable. I need the monkey. Especially now with the apt. Woe. Just a reminder for all of those coming to see us at the Vagrant America shows: Get there early, cause we're playing first at all of them. The best part about eating saltine crackers for lunch is: they're free! There's a huge box of them in the break room for the taking. Let me know if i can score you some. I went to the Red House Painters show at the Double Door last night. I have to say it was leagues better than Mark solo, especially in terms of organization (even though, he visibly/audibly taught the bass player a song midset). The place was packed and it was terribly hot but after a few Warstiener, i got into the swing of it... and forgot about everything around me. The one annoying thing is how much he has changed the songs from the recordings. I had the same "problem" the last time i saw Will Oldham. I realize it gets old playing the same songs the same way every night, but they were changed so drastically that they were hardly recognizable.... like completely different songs with the same lyrics. Call me crazy, but I love those songs that i (and thousands of others) play in the car every long trip, and now i want to actually watch you sing them. Change a word here or there, sing some different notes, but all i ask is: don't play Deacon Blues and sing Peg, OK? What am i talking about. Oh that phone guy got me all riled up... They did play a good version of that Don Henley/Stevie Nicks song, the title of which escapes me. Sunday, Ron Sexsmith. OP906 time. Thursday, coffee time. Come coffee, caress me out of this slump.
Robert: Panic attack. I try and keep days like today on the down low, but somehow there has appeared a big banner over my desk. Blush. Broke account so i broke a sweat. If you have ordered any posters from us, I'm sorry for the delay, but i'm having a bit of an issue, finding small enough wide enough tubes for those darn silkscreeners. They just won't roll tight enough to get into the tubes that i usually use. So be patient. I send shirts out faster than you can say paypal, but the posters take a little while. I'll have it all straightened out by Saturday, i promise. I'll even throw some extra stuff into the tubes. I hope everyone likes Richard Marx. I don't know what that means... I found an apartment. Nice and spacious with a deck with a lovely view of the skyline. I just got a great idea... Nope, it wasn't so great after all. June 13, 2001
Robert: So i just got this cell phone, ok. And I've decided to not be one of those people by setting the ringing option to vibrate. I figure this makes for a much less embarrassing scene. But i was wrong. So far I've gotten three calls, and every time, when that thing vibrates in my pocket, it scares the living shatner out of me. So much so that I physically jump and look around disoriented for about 3 full seconds before I realize that i'm not actually getting electrocuted. Scary... So imagine seeing me, looking normal, hanging out, and then all of a sudden, I jump and flail around for no reason... until I figure it out... I guess i'll get used to it, but i'm seriously sitting here on edge. Shaking, sweating. Please... Nobody call me. I'm excited. There's a lot to be excited about. Tonight, I'm going to try and get some more junk up on the site. I'm moving the whole photo section to a different directory, so that should be a fun month worth of work. Please, don't think of this complaint as a plea to stop sending pictures. Keep sending them! We like it. While you're at it, send us some pictures of other stuff as well. Believe it, we get sick of looking at our selves all the time. If... it's a temporary lull... why'm i bored right outta my skull... What a great song. It would be fun for the OP908, but it came up 101 notches short. Climber, new entry, re-entry. Yes Janelle is a part of the madness. Ditto for Marky Mark Kozelek. But as of 6/13/01, i have no members of his funky bunch.
Todd: Sitting in front of the computer, listening to a mix of Buffalo Tom, Travis, Ben Lee, and Jimmy Eat World in the CD player, starting on my second cup of joe out of my new fabulous "thermometer" mug. Picked it up on the way to Las Vegas in Baker, California. Heres part of the inscription: Baker, California is located on Interstate 15 between southern California and Las Vegas, Nevada, and is home to the tallest thermometer in the world.... Why do I fall for such touristy crap? Don't know. I'm always excited about that stuff. I'll always think twice about getting a real souveneir at an established place, but when it comes to the "worlds longest covered bridge" in Canada, "worlds largest ball-of-twine", Wall Drug, the 'Thing', or big thermometers, forget about it.. Heres a score if you're a fan, these are nearly out of print and normally sell for 119.00. It comes with a 5 pound coffee table book! Only 6000 made! Going to go to Chicago tonight and see a rock show (I mean that in the lightest sense of the word) with friend Janelle, who if I'm not mistaken, has already been apart of secret OP906. We'll meet Bob there, and officially at midnight, I can give him his birthday present: A kick in the stomach.
Robert: I'm excited and it's not the coffee talking. Coffee on such a hot hot day? Don't ask. Went out to dinner last night. An early BD din. Cafe Babareeba, i believe it's called. It's on Halsted just north of Armitage. They serve Tapas - Spanish side dishes to be devoured with some bread, and in our case, a half pitcher of champagne sangria. What the? It was fabulous. We ordered 6 dishes and they were all amazing. Cold: Garlic potato salad, Olives, Eggplant. Hot: Stuffed mushrooms, Marinated mushrooms, Spicy red potatoes. Brilliant. And cheap, too. Thumbs up... Hmm. Do i sense OP909 brewing? By the way OP906 is still going strong. OP907 is draining my pocketbook. OP908 will be unveiled in 101 days. And i just registered a separate domain to handle all of this nonsense! So, that should be coming your way soon. AYWAW? shark-jumping point: the day bob registered a separate domain specifically to host obsessive projects. Coincidentally the day after the shameless lucky dog photo. Hot damn. More apartments today, a search for compatible poster tubes, and a late night show show show. I'll be back. Just you try and stop me.
dan: I've moved up to typing with seven fingers now, but it's really hard with an ergonomical keyboard..went out with todd last night to the vox. we met some friends there and yes, it was fun..90 degrees in the shade today.phew that's hot..looks like we'll just have to make lots of lemonade..gotta go..this machine doubles as the cash register so I bess get the hell outta dodge..peace be with you......and also with you...thank you, i go now..
Robert: 202 I'll Be You - The Replacements A few changes over at the shows page, otherwise i'm workin! Makin it work. Lucky. June 12, 2001
Robert: I figure since all of the club's websites have us listed, i may as well let you know that we're playing all of the Vagrant America shows from Kansas City to Portland. Lucky for us, that ticketweb is on top of it.
dan: holy krieps..I've been getting tar off of my brick house, which takes a looong time..chisel and hammer here chink chink there...rest a little here..sip sip there..it's lookin' pretty shweet though..next saturday I'm having a couple friends over to help me scrape..it's kinda cool cause you kinda get this feeling when you're scraping like indiana jones looking for the temple of doom or something..I'm telling ya I'm scraping off bits of history..the house was built in 1894 so I'm redoing the paint and everything else that has to do with the fascia and soffet..and after a certain accident It's kinda hard to get 3 stories up in the air on scaffolding with a scraper..scrape skrape skrizape...as long as theres some ice cold ones down stairs to think about it's not that bad..and friends to help..todd, what are you doing next saturday.? do you like heights..? I just had this litlle punk ass bitch guy in here sending something back that wasn't his and ..oh man wheres my camp beat stick that muther f*cker!..sorry he was all gettin in my shit.. so I'm going to this wedding in indiana this saturday they're gonna have a pig roast..I rented a car (fullsize sedan) and me maws gonna bring her lappy lap so choice and I can watch movies..so team that with some bottled water and some apples for good measure and you've got a nice little road trip.. so now you know....I'll talk to ya later maybe from the baymont inn..oh yeah.. I saw the lovlies last sunday at the garage and also ran into jesus jeff..he gave me his number to help scrape..thanks bro.. I mentioned scraping eight times..well thats 9.. number nine....number nine...
Robert: Nature Valley Oats N' Honey granola bar. The breakfast of penniless champions, as stolen from the parents pantry. Yum. Goes good with coffee. Speaking of which, I'm going to get some more. Saw an apartment yesterday. Space-wise it was choice. It even had a nice view of the skyline from the dining area... however, it was a tad bit rundown. Even though the neighborhood isn't necessarily a bad one, the girl had a steel gate in front of her door with a padlock! It was the inside door to the hall, not even the one that leads outside! And to top it all off, the back porch had an interesting slant downward and looked like a termite party. The girl even said, "I'm afraid to go out here." Knowing my luck, that rickety sham of carpentry would collapse as soon as i went out there with a full drink. Suddenly Des Moines is looking real good. According to dvd file, there's a huge Godfather 5-DVD set on the way, and along with the American Werewolf in London DVD will be a full AWIL theatrical re-release! Wow. Let's get this party started right.
Todd: Can't sleep. Jet lag mixed with fatigue. Looking for Torker bikes on eBay and tooling arond the intr-a-net. Stormy outside with Tornado warnings and rain. Dashboard is on and i think Ben Lee is next. Nothing to say. June 11, 2001
Todd: Back. Safe n' sound from vacation. Glad to be a bloggin'.. Congrats on the puppy Nannas. Maybe it'll spring some life into that other old pooch Gidget. The dog that, no matter how often I'm at Bobs parents house (off and on for 8 or so years?), she still barks at me, every time I enter the house. Like when we used to load in our gear to practice in numerous different bands at Bobs parents she'd start barking at me, have'nt we met? Then she'll stop and be friendly in her little grunting way, she'll walk towards you wagging her tail but still have that shake in her legs like she's walking on broken glass, growling... Carry in some stuff, barking again. Leave. Carry in some guitars(Gidget barking, then stops), leave to get guitar cabinet, then re-enter(Gidget barking again), leave to go out and park van in the street, come back in and Gidget is barking like I have'nt been in and out of the house 10 times in the last 1/2 hour, barking like shes never seen me before in her life, and maybe she hasnt? I think she pretty blind. Bless her.. California in reprise: Stayed at an awesome place an hour south of LA right off the beach in Laguna, went to LA everyday, shopped, did the walk of fame, went to the MTV movie awards, kicked it with Jimmy Fallon(kidding), Lindsey Roberts, Hung with Kevin Knight, saw George Lucas from 50 feet away (never saw a billionaire in real life!), saw many stars, did'nt see Ringo Starr, saw Suzanne our booking agent for lunch @ TOI on Sunset, sawwed off Suzannes' leg, left it in a gutter on Sunset, swam in the Pacific, got some free records, grew a beard, went to the Alkaline Trio show in Anaheim, they rocked! Saw all the kids including the Vagrant posse, saw the Dashboards saw the Hot Rod Circuits, cut off most of beard except 'tash, saw Jaws and King Kong at Universal studios, rode the ET ride, rode in the Delorian, rode the Jurrassic Park ride, gave mustache rides for 5 cents, rode some other lame rides, rode it erode it wrote it down on loose leaf paper, listened to our record through the crappy car stereo on cassette while going to Vegas in 110 degree heat through the Mojave with the engine light on in our rental car, walked around Vegas at night when it was still 95 degrees, stayed in "Little New York", lost 120 bucks in Vegas, shaved off the 'tash, came back to LA to stay with our friend for the night and flew home the next morning(Sunday) after dropping off the rental at 6:45 am, got bumped from flight to fright thanks to LAX and Priceline all day on the sabbath, arrived home in Milwaukee many complications later after leaving LA a total of 13 hours earlier, 15 if you count the time change, our bags arrived an hour ago(1pm, Monday) thanks to US Airways screwing up and sending them to Timbuck-two. That is about it in a nutshell. Got to go do some laundry now and see about getting my job back before tour, I'm broke.
Robert: It looks like somebody can't hang with the OP crew... and i would also like to say that i will do my darndest to see that AREYOUWEARINGAWIRE never jumps the shark. There is fun fun fun to come. This week is officially "no spendy money" week, due to... well, you know how charging stuff on a credit card isn't really spending money? I just found out that it actually qualifies. You know what that means, people... Imagination Christmas. Also, I've been slacking on the apartment hunting lately. Maybe i secretly want to move back home to spend more time with ol Luck. Got my OP906 on last night. Uh-huh. Big plans for Friday. Sunny Day Real Estate broke up again. The reunion should be around 2004. It's all just a big Simpsons episode. It's hot in here. I remember watching some show that was documenting this service in Japan, whereupon businesspersons can rent out a special room and then break everything in it... You know, as stress relief. You know what would be great? If i could turn my stress worries into exercise. Have you seen Bananas? Where Woody Allen is testing a desk / workout device where you're actually sitting on an exercise bike, the drawers are connected to weights you have to lift, and the cabinet shoots out basketballs? I need one of those. Maybe i'll just yell. The exact moment when AYWAW jumped the shark: puppy dog pictures. (coming tomorrow)
Robert: I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's Monday. But i just feel out of it. Could barely get up this morning, and i barely even touched the sauce at the Owls show. Perhaps it was the thick soupy atmosphere of the Fireside Bowl. They really need to get some kind of ventilation going in there. Or if it's soon to be demolished, maybe that's not really a priority. Anyway, I hope that they can at least have a grand string of "last shows" before it's demise. I think it's deserved. So my parents just got a puppy. A yellow lab. My dad and brother found it while on a fishing trip in northern Minnesota. Apparently some vagrant dog had a litter and the little guys were running all over the grounds. Since they didn't belong to anybody, my brother grabbed one and brought it back to Lombard. The vet said it's about 10 weeks old. It's a girl and her name is Lucky. At first, I thought it was sort of an odd name for a girl dog, but it's grown on me. It's not like they named her Bill or John or anything. It's a nice neutral name like Spot or Patches. Personally, I would have named her something else. In fact, I'm rather proud of the name I gave our other (now ailing) pooch - Gidget. But whatever. I don't even live there anymore, right? What say do I have? They said she was "lucky" to get outta Dodge. AKA Cass Lake, Minnesota. The dog loves me. I've been home 4 times since they got her and she is always so psyched to see me. We run around outside and play fetch and she'll act like she's going to bite, but then she'll just run at me top speed and curl up in my lap. It's really a quaint little scene. She's already a part of OP906. Tommorow, I'll have a nice picture up of her. She's adorable. I want one. I walked her down to the park near the house on Saturday. It was sad, kinda, because the further we got from the house the more nervous she got. So I had to pick her up and carry her most of the way. When we got there I thought she'd enjoy all that wide open space to frolic, but instead she resigned herself to eating the woodchips coating the playground. So we just went back. On the way back I had to carry her past some guys doing construction work cause she was afraid of them. She's also afraid of vacuums and cameras. Haven't got the word on thunder, though. Gidget hates thunder. I need more coffee and i'm upset because i just missed the ending of an important auction i was going to snipe. Curses.
Robert: 204 The Other Side of Summer - Elvis Costello This song really has some great lyrics, i tell you what. It is definitely a rocker that you should track down when you get the feeling. In fact, I wish it was higher on the list, but, oh well, part of the OP code is that you can't change the rules halfway through the contest... It's a lengthy legal battle that involves much deliberation and negotiation. Angels in the architecture. Amen and alleluia. Got a cell. Call you a little later. June 10, 2001
Robert: More glory in the store. Now off to photograph the parents' new puppy dawg. Yellow lab. Not a bulldog, but it'll have to do. Lucky.
Robert: 205 Twin Falls - Built to Spill It's another beautiful day outside. Extra annoying when parking spots are so scarce. |
