Some Stuff

I saw my daughter holding her Cat in the Hat stuffed animal close to her Cinderella or Barbie or Barbie Cinderella doll and thought it was cute that she wanted inanimate objects to love each other. Then I walked by and she was making smooching sounds while her dolls pressed together. I'm screwed.

Former Bicycle Face bass player and singer Brian Huskey is somehow involved w/ the VH1 show Free Radio. His name makes the opening credits. Otherwise I would have never known that he plays the uptight station manager. I would hope his next step is to be the Maytag repairman, but that might be a stretch.

There is a doubleheader rock show I'm going to follow if you are interested. Radiohead plays in Charlotte on Friday May 9th. Then Polvo reunites on Saturday May 10th in Carrboro. Let me know if you want to go to either or. I promise not to bring any earplugs.

The Replacements - All Over But The Shouting

I wasn't going to read any rock books for a while, but a book on the Replacements was too much for me to stay away. It was just a bunch of quotes by the band from old interviews, people telling stories about what the band meant to them, and a few stories of hanging out w/ them. Kind of lame except the guy who ran Twin/Tone is featured heavily and the band's lawyer (believe it or not) provides a lot of interesting insight about what they were getting into signing w/ Sire. There were a couple of important things I learned. First, Sleeping Nights of Jesus from one of the greatest live albums ever released is a Robyn Hitchcock song (I previously found out that the Vertebrats sing Left In The Dark). Also, the recording for that show was done w/ 2 boom mikes from a balcony that someone in the band's entourage set up. Most importantly, the tapes the band stole from Twin/Tone and threw in the Mississippi River only contained a few outtakes and weren't the master tapes of all their early recordings. Somewhere there is an interesting book that Paul, Chris and/or Tommy will write but this isn't it.

Random Stuff

There was an excellent article in National Geographic about the Mexican border. Except this was about the southern Mexican border. If the media makes you think Mexicans are desperate to get to the United States, you should read about Guatemalans.

Around the Horn may not be a great show, but Desmond loves it. I don't think he cares about the sports topics they discuss. He just wants to see who wins. I can walk in the room when he's watching it and ask who's winning and he'll give me a scoring update. I guess since it's on ESPN he just assumes it really is the show of competitive banter.

I finally bought one of those reusable shopping bags at Harris Teeter. It's from their "My Earth" collection yet it's made of polypropylene. I guess for 99 cents I shouldn't expect it to be made from fair trade organic cotton.