“I said a lot of stuff fooling around back then, and I saw it do a lot of harm. I had kids coming up to me and saying, ‘Yo, I listen to your records while I’m smoking dust, man.’ And I’d say, ‘Hey, man, we’re just kidding. I don’t smoke dust.’

Yup, that about sums up that band’s entire career.

Cuz when you have everything, you have nothing.

This peppy little number is about your addictions. Crank and enjoy.

New track, “So Far With You.”

“Enter 1 if you have at least $1,900 of child or dependent care expenses for which you plan to claim a credit. (Note. Do not include child support payments. See Pub. 503, Child and Dependent Care Expenses, for details.)”

So I’m not really sure what to do. What’s a child care expense for which I plan to claim a credit? And do I have $1,900 worth of them? I have no clue. I do, however, have heart palpitations.

I guess I’ll go unwind with a nice copy of Pub. 503 Child and Dependent Care Expenses and see what I can pull together for an answer.

Shouldn’t take more than a week or two. Don’t drop any fractions! Oh, and subtract line 34 after you add line B and complete all applicable worksheets for accuracy.

Editors note: I threw up my hands and entered a zero to be safe. Maybe I could have entered a one, I’ll never know — whatever it would have gotten me in tax savings, I’m willing to pay it – happily! – to not have to deal with Pub. 503 and the propspect of being carted off in cuffs in front of my friends for getting Line F wrong.

To know the answer of how best to respond, please see Pub. 8280Qw!Niner-Alpha “Typical Responses to Random References Embedded in Questions On U.S. Governmental Forms.”

Don’t worry, though, no stress. If you get the answer wrong on your W-4, however, men in black suits from the IRS will appear on your porch and drag you away in a dark towncar, and you’ll never be heard from again. “I wonder whatever happened to that guy,” your neighors will one day ask. “Got G wrong …” with a knowing nod and tsk.

Aren’t you glad that at Launch Day headquarters, there is no math in our debates.

Just be sure to drop any fractions.

* Processor – Intel I7 Quad core 2600k at 3.4GHZ. Smokin’ fast. And since 7 is higher than 5 or 3, clearly the I7 is better than the I5 and I3 processors. Right?? Right!! I liked the quad core because Ableton, our recording software, works with it, as I’m sure everything else does too. So looking forward to some better response times during those mad LD recording thingies. I’d never installed a CPU before, I was surprised how easy it was. Is there anything you can’t learn on youtube? 

* Motherboard – Gigabyte Z68XP UD3. Mainly for the 8 USB ports and the firewire port, which our Firepod FP10 will plug into, plus the two SATAIII ports, one of which I hooked up the SSD drive to, and a handful of SATAII ports. Has the 1155 socket, which is clearly the superior socket thingie. Thanks to some ridiculous deal at Microcenter and a mail-in rebate (yes, even at launchday headquarters we do mail in rebates) I got this board for right about … 65 bucks, which made me feel smug and happy for several minutes. Here’s a giant picture of it:

* Drive – a 60GB solid state drive I picked up through a slickdeals post for 67 bucks after a rebate. Yup, rebated up again. SATAIII connectors, nice and fast. I had been told an SSD machine would boot in about eight seconds but of course that was by a liar. I push the button and about 15 or 20 seconds later Windows 7 is up, which is just fine. I’ve been wanting to give SSD a shot but didn’t really feel like putting a couple hundred bucks into one. For 67 bucks, no problem.

* Case – Antec 300. Great. Big, quiet fans won’t bleed into the mix like my current ones do. You know why I picked this case? There’s a ton to choose from. Because it had 2,500 reviews on newegg and an average of 5/5 stars. Who am I to argue with 2500 geeks? That and some deal combos I picked it up f0r 40 smackers. Seems like the standard goto case.

Considering I’ve put the last 60 songs together on an ancient Dell with … wait for it… 800 MB of ram, Im pretty pleased and can’t wait.

I threw 8GB of dual-channel DDR3 Ram in that slickdeals tipped me off two for 40 bucks. Picked up a 500W power supply and a DVD/CD burner that does the lightscribe thing, which will make it a little easier to print demo discs labelled all nice and purty without having to mess with the stickons. Oh speaking of dvd burner, I picked one up at Best Buy first, big mistake, found the same product on newegg for exactly half. Big surprise. Took it back and ordered from newegg. If it was a mom-and-pop sure I would have let it ride, but bestbuy? Nawww, no Karma points there.

There you go, ladies and germs. The new computer. Welcome to the family. Let’s go spill some diet coke on it to test it for strength.

And I was more or less bemused, looking out upon the world from my top-floor suite in LD headquarters, thinking what a strange world this was indeed, until I got to this little gem:

And I really think that like technology probably has the greatest potential to accelerate happiness, of most things in the world.

Excuse me? My little radar always perks up and spins around whenever anyone starts talking the great philosophical questions, and here was a dandy. Technology accelerates happiness, does it? Hmm. Beg to differ. Respectfully disagree, I do, and was, but I hung in there and then came this:

For me, if I don’t make any money but what we deliver, people love and happiness and connectivity and friendship and health and whatever it is, their education whatever it is that we can deliver that ultimately leads to people’s happiness. I’m fine losing my money, if that’s the case.

Let’s review the Dude, Where’s My Happy list, shall we:

* Love
* connectivity
* friendship
* health
* education

And I can only say, thank you Mr. Kutcher. Perhaps you are a wise man indeed, despite that silly little hat you’re wearing. There you have it kids – love, friendship, health, etc.

Love, friendship, health, etc.

Where’s fame, fortune, chicks, cars, stuff, clothes, prestige, titles, etc etc? I mean come on this is 2011, we have so many tastes to indulge these days.

Alas it was not lost on me, this cute little Ashton’s strange little fixation on chasing — nay, not chasing, providing — happiness. It’s not like he’s the first guy to wonder about that. There’s the Zappos guy, can’t forget about that peach of a shoe salesman.

And if you wanted to get all historic, let’s review our fine nation’s constitution, shall we — life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. First line or something wasn’t it? Quick, who wrote the constitution? Bzzzzzzzzz. Can’t think of it? Ha that’s Ok we’ve got Ashton Kutcher and Silicon Valley to carry the mantle for us now. Who needs old guys in wigs.

So your mission this week, Launch Davidians, is thusly – try to pry your chubby little fingers off your TV remote control and hot pockets long enough to do something, anything, to promote one of the thingies off the Dude, Where’s My Happy List:

Love, friendship, health, etc.

Because we here at launchday headquarters are all about sticking it to the man. It’s basically our life purpose. And nothing sticks it to the man like keeping your money.

Let’s take a thousand bucks. Assuming you were able to forego cramming seven dollar starbucks and 12 dollar cigarretes into your face long enough to manage to actually accumulate a thousand bucks, and you shoved that thousand bucks into an account when you were 25 years of age, walked away, didnt put another dime in, lived your life, and came back at 65 when you were done working for the man, and it had earned 18% compound interest while it was sitting there, that 1000 would have become about 750,000 bucks all by its little itty biddy self.

A cool three quarters million for doing zilcho, buddy.

Your whiny irritating voice: “Oh but mister launchday, there’s NOOOooOO WAY you can earn eighteen percent anymore blah blah blah.”

Hah ha ha, you know who earns 18 percent? Remember the man? He looks a little like this sometimes:

Yeah, go check your statement – how much you paying that guy? There’s a reason banks own the tallest buildings in town. That dude earns 18%, and he does it from your dough. You know how much you earn? Well a quick check of the savings account interest rates at bankrate.com tells me about one half of one percent at “the mans” savings accounts.

So why don’t you at least stick it to the man by taking those little pieces of credit plastic out of your gucci manpurse and snip them up. That stops the man from scraping his 18% off your hide. Then stick it to the man some more — go take your thousand bucks and cram it into some noload mutual fund account somewhere. And cram 65 bucks in there next month. And the month after that. And don’t stop.

Because we here at LD headquarters know that if you give all your dough to him, you won’t be able to give it all to us. And that would be downright tragic.

You have your mission. Report back.

Lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics

Don’t say I never gave you nuthin.

The Can Club Garden Grove
14241 Euclid St
Garden Grove, CA 92843
Here’s a google maps link -http://bit.ly/fGJOi7

Song Details

Appearance Fees – you want me, we’re going to have to work out the details with my people. Which brings me to my next point.

My People – I want to get to that special place where I no longer have friends, rather I have people.

Third Person Plural – We’re going to need to refer to ourselves in third person plural pretty much most of the time. It’s good for you, it’s good for us.

Get Our Message Out There – We have a message, and we need to stay “on message.” Lance fights cancer. Everybody knows that. We’re (third person plural) going to fight two things: adult onset diabetes, and improper tire inflation. The former makes people sick, and by battling it we can get folks healthy again. The later makes people poor, and by fighting it, we can keep them rolling along. Also — there’s absolutely no denying the positive energy boost one gets after inflating one’s tires to proper levels, and if I (excuse me, “we”) can attach ourselves to that moment, all the better.

Raising Awareness — we (“we”) are always “on.” It’s important to be on. Always raising awareness for our message. And we seek to build friendships with corporate entities who share our message. (And sometimes that message is, “the check cashes.” That’s ok. In fact that’s fantastic.)

Press Conferences — if you’d like me to attend an event, I’d really like to make it happen, but the best thing “we” can do to make it happen is for you to contact _[your name here]_. He/she handles our details for the foundation (see next point.) That’s code for first we’re going to work out the fee. Afterwards, I’ll make myself available for questions. Q & A. I don’t like to mingle, that will definitely be a little harder to get done (code for “cost more.”) Rather, let’s form a line, set up a table. Field some questions. Raise awareness. Get our message out there. We’d like to join forces with you in raising awareness for your event and for our message.

Start A Foundation – for our message. For awareness. For fund raising. The Launch Day Adult Onset Diabetes and Improper Tire Inflation Foundation. LDAODITIF. “LiveLoud”. No, “LaunchLoud.” No – “Launch Day”. Perfect! We’ll find an acronym to fit that later.

So ok everyone, let’s get our message out there. Let’s raise awareness. It ain’t cheap, it ain’t easy, but it’s definitely worth it.

“Join Launch Day in the global fight against adult onset diabetes and improper tire inflation.”

I like it.

“He She Us” – Lyrics

“Tired and Bled” – Lyrics

I’d like to pause a moment to pay my respects to a friend who met an unscheduled appointment with the front end of a truck. I’d like to part the cosmos for just a second, if I may, please, and send a small dispatch, if thats just all right with everybody. So hold on. I’m probably not dealing with this particularly well and I just need to send a quick missive. I cant do it on the facebooks or the twitter thing or the work thing. Its just not the right place. This is my home. I will do it here.

You were a hard charging, once-in-a-lifetime friend, amigo. I tip my hat to you. You made it happen all the time. Like nobody else around. I’ll see you at the finish line, you badass, ballsy mother effer. You’re damn right I will.

I guess you’re heartrate’s not that much lower now than it was at resting, is it. Ha ha ha.

I’d say “RIP” but I know you’re not resting. You’re training. You’re climbing up some ridiculous mountain road to the clouds saying what you always said, “whose idea was it to climb THIS shit?? Its cold! Who thought this was a good idea??”

Then you’d drop us.

On the way down, you’d be sure to tell everyone to be safe, and to watch out. And just by saying it, you’d make it true. You’d tell us boring stories about “back in the day” when you raced for Nissan. If someone took a spill you knew what to do, and afterward you’d tell them “Watch out or your wife won’t let you ride with us anymore…” We’d laugh.

You’d call out every pot hole. You’d point out every danger. You’d be the first off the bike to help with a flat. We’d call each other dumbass over some stupid thing. We’d walk to the bagel thing and get some drinks. We’d swing by Corey’s. We’d hit up Louie’s for some tacos or chile. We’d plan. We’d pick movies. We’d talk tech, or whatever. We’d get bored, we’d bail.

Ride safe bro. I’ll see you tomorrow.

I know you had a favorite LD song, I’ll play it for you here. Plus one you maybe haven’t heard it’s an old one, but I wrote it, parts of it at least, with you in mind. It’s ok, I like the chorus. The chorus is all you. Turn it up, amigo, and tune out.

Here’s “God Lives”, your favorite. After that is “Keep Climbing Mountains.”

Rancho man dies in cycling collision
Created: 01/09/2011 08:54:09 PM PST

A Rancho Cucamonga man died Sunday morning as he rode his bicycle on Glendora Mountain Road.

Kevin B. Unck, 44, was riding his Felt road bicycle south on Glendora Mountain just north of Sierra Madre Avenue when he struck a Toyota Land Cruiser that was traveling northbound.

The Land Cruiser was driven by Martin G. Habern, 56, of Glendora, according to a California Highway Patrol news release.

The Land Cruiser was traveling about 20 mph while the cyclist was traveling approximately 30 mph when they both approached a blind curve. Unck was unable to negotiate the curve in the road and his bicycle drifted into the northbound lanes where he struck the vehicle head-on, according to the release.

Unck was airlifted to USC Medical Center in Los Angeles where he later died.

Habern was not injured.

The CHP is investigating the collision.

Read more: http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_17052758#ixzz1AnBgNjkl

We’re not just all about the rock here at the ivory towers of Launch Day Headquarters. We’re also all about the snacks. Which is why the astro weenie christmas tree sent in from Piano Steve is going to be topping the mahogany boardroom table at this year’s LD christmas party. did i say christmas? I mean festivus, duh. charles pheonix, we salute you.

Also. Let’s not forget that Monday is Danceday. The usual monday morning routine of whats-that-smell and find-my-pants-somewhere-outside gets sooOOooo stale. So we’re mixing it up today and pulling in a little choreography. Time to clear the cobwebs and celebrate the start of the workweek. We’re all about the exercise. And you’ll know the real LD fans out there cuz they’ll have nailed the “burst both hands / up punch / shoulder shoulder / double dream hands / jump” move. Thx for sending this in, John de Juan. We salute you … and we salute Planet Rock!

So up at 5 am this morning, as per usual, trying to figure out which end of the boardroom table to sit at today and why, exactly, my pants were on backwards, and just before embarking on my usual strict daily exercise regimen of kayaking, marathon running, breath holding and cramming myself into a small, one-foot box, I found myself discussing something called “calvinism” with a friend, which is some sort of ancient religious cult, apparently, started by Ricardo count Von Calvin in Paraguay in the 1500s — yes, the same Von Calvin who, oddly enough, perfected the art of brewing mead in the large, slightly used flower pots so commonly found in the slums of Paraguay. Originally intended as a 5-point reference guide for the cheap, safe brewing of mead in the aforementiond flower pots, “5 Point Calvinism” has been twisted by the well meaning populace over the centuries into more of a code of ethics — guide posts, if you will, along the road of self-flagellation leading towards the pearly gates of deep, self-righteous smugness. One example of this twisting : the first point, now (incorrectly) referred to as “total depravity” according to its wikipedia thingie, was originally “Totally Deprived,” as in, “Before using the flower pot to brew mead, first determine that the pot is totally deprived of all remnants of top soil.” Just an example. I’m not making this stuff up.

I was directed towards something called ‘TULIP’, which is an acronym for the “five points” upon which a good little calvinist’s hopes and dreams rest, and it occurred to me, right then, right smack dab then and there, what exactly it was that I really needed for the religion I had just decided to start:

An acronym.

I think you need an acronym to truly be successful in this life.

So I posit:

B.E.E.R.

or perhaps the less funny (to SOME):
L.E.M.M.I.N.G

Yes, so just in case you forget what it is you believe, you can refer to these handy little acronyms to remind you, and give you a sense of power over everyone you ever have a conversation with, which let’s face it, is the entire point. Let’s give it a shot:

B. – Something that starts with “B”. “Be funny”. “Be Serious.” Be Seriously Funny. Works for me. A carrot noone can ever grasp. Perfect!
E. – Enter through the narrow gate. It means nothing, but sounds so important. Perfect!
E. – Enjoy Your Life. Such a nice platitude, sure to captivate thousands – no, millions — of practitioners over the coming centuries.
R. – Relax! No, too soft. Revolt! Perfect! Against what? Revolt against laziness! Perfect!

B – Be seriously funny
E – Enter through the narrow gate
E – Enjoy Your Life
R – Revolt against laziness

There you have it folks. Did I say “folks?” I meant — beerists! No – Beerytes! No – Beers! There you have it, beers. A handy acronym, and let’s not overlook its most important quality — it’s only four points, or one point less than the demanding, unpopular Ricardo Count Von Calvin’s.

Perfect!

HEY DEAD KENNEDYS — I WANT MY TWENTY BUCKS BACK.

Nostalgia night is a scary night. Stay away. I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. From here on out, if you don’t have new material you’re touring on, I’m not going ANYWHERE near you. You smell of death.

First off, your openers, the Angry Samoans — good grief, someone get that singer a chair, would you? He had to take a knee the whole set. I could not believe my eyes. That brand of goofball cartoon-character punk rock I guess might kind of worked when you were 17, but dudes youre like, what, a wheezy 50? Hey I’ve got NO problem with age, man, but maybe try playing something that reflects your life as things currently stand, or do the world a favor and stay retired. (Oh one sidenote — your guitar player is GREAT. He’s the only reason I didn’t shoot myself in the face during your set.)

That put me in a sour enough mood, then out rolled the Dead Kennedys, and all I could think was, “who’s that singing Jello’s songs?” And, “is that really a 40-year-old singing about high school football?” Weird. The singer was like Jim Carrey doing a Jello Biafra impression. Just too weird a night for my blood. Nothing new, nothing relevant, no point, smelled of death, left early. I supposed if I had thought about it enough ahead of time I could have figured it out and saved myself the nausea.

How’s that for chipper?

So call me when there’s some new material.

Speaking of which – individually, these guys in DK are great musicians, for what they do. Even the singer, who’s name is “Im not Jello”. I’d absolutely love to hear what they could come up with in this century. East Bay Ray looked pretty cool up there, he’s aged pretty gracefully and I wouldn’t mind hearing what he has to say about … well, about whatever he wants to say. The bass player Greg Reeves at least _appeared_ intelligent and you could tell he really enjoyed what he was doing. Though I’m not sure why. Look — these are the people that wrote Frankenchrist, and now they’re wheeling out a Jello impersonator to sell 20 dollar tickets to 12-yr olds and their middle aged punk rock dads. This is wrong, right?

So as far as Dead Kennedys is concerned, punk IS dead, man. You’ve got a really recognizable logo and a really famous ex-singer, but for the here and now, you got nothin’. Except my 20 dollars. Which I want back.

It’s from some guy named George Washington, who I thought played linebacker for the Rams, but turns out he used to be a politician,too. Wig wearer. Freaky, eh.

Hey, this George character might be onto something. He might be a semi important figure in like, our country’s like, history and stuff. But he keeps talking about this “Almighty” guy. Come now, that’s so 1700s. We’re MUCH smarter these days. Oops, gotta run, my “Friends” rerun is on! Enjoy!

As for my own Thanksgiving Proclamation … I proclaim I’ll talk like Flava Flava the rest of the night and git me some mo’ of that Pecan Pie. Yeaaaahhhh,, BOYEEEEE.

[New York, 3 October 1789]

Page Image.

Thanksgiving Proclamation

By the President of the United States of America, a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor– and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

This one’s called “Last Man Standing.” When the hero of this little number starts out, he’s your typical slick character out scraping his share of the american dream off the backs of anyone unlucky enough to be in his way. By the time verse two rolls around, things have changed a smidge – uh oh, our hero’s been chewed up by his own exploits. So the poor little last man standing finally died, but in doing so, he springed (sprung? sprang? sprunged?) to life, and become the last man standing on the truth. Ah, such a subtle, beautiful difference. Oh and a pumping little retro ska bridge.

Crank it. And enjoy.

Lyrics

So at first all I was gonna do was post this image and let the “initiated” do their thing. But then I thought, screw that. Let’s explain.

So the above thingie is called a QR CODE. “QR” stands for “Quick Response.” They’re popping up in various places, even on T shirts. If you have one of those fancy cell phones, you SCAN IT with your phone’s built in camera barcode scanner.

For instance if you scan the above with your phone using any number of free scanner apps, it’ll open your phone’s browser and take you to launchday’s facebook page, where you can click “like” on your phone to keep in touch with us. (Which sort of reminds me of that scene from Christmas Story, where the cute little kid waits all month for his decoder ring, only to find out the secret message is “buy more ovaltine” or whatever the product was. Total letdown.)

Maybe In 10 years we’ll laugh and say ooohhh my goodness how hilarious we used to think qr codes were cooool as we fly around in our solar Toyota jetpacks and fashion our hair into ironic mullets. Or we’ll get tired of Romanian 9-year-olds using QR codes to install catastrophic viruses into our phones and qr codes will disappear forever.

But for the moment barcode and QR code scanning is some sort of shiny diversion for “fancy phone” users, bringing us right up into, oh, about 1973 or whenever barcodes got invented. If youre standing in a store, you can scan a barcode with your phone and it will tell you where you can get that item cheaper. Including online — so you can be standing in costco, scan that sofa, find the item cheaper on amazon, buy it on your phone, and go home. Yes that’s right you can now drive to Costco to shop at Amazon. And pay Amazon shipping in addition to the gas.  It’s exhausting isn’t it. Or I guess you could have just gone to pricegrabber before driving to costco to scan the item to buy at Amazon and saved yourself the headache, but you would totally miss out on the $1.35 fruit smoothies at costco.

I’ve been plunking around with a free phone app called “ShopSavvy.” I can search for products by either typing the product in (yawn, typing, so old school, even with swype) or just scan that product’s barcode. Um, assuming I have the barcode. And that is a bit of a hilarious assumption, because if I already had it, why would I be …. nevermind. I’ve learned never to ask questions, and to just enjoy the smoothie.

They don’t have the most gourmet selections in the world but it’ll do. Also my neighborhood has few alternatives, unless you count iced fish at the local asian mart.

Speaking of which the local Cold Stone closed down, to my great concern. I stalked that place for days waiting for someone to show up. They eventually turned me away with a firehose. I even tried calling to figure out the dealio. No go. It’s gone. Such sweet sorrow.

So I have to cruise down to the local Winco and deal with the 400 pounders and the neck tattoos. Not that there’s anything wrong with neck tattoos. One time the checkout gal called me sweetie. More of a checkout grandma actually. From here on out, all check out people must call me sweetie by the way.

Winco stocks a brand of ice cream called Umpqua, and Umpqua has a flavor called Caramel Macadamia Crunch.

All that as a lead up to this: Umpqua’s Caramel’s Macadamia Crunch is really, really good.

I just needed to get that off my chest.

Thanks for listening.

Ps. New music is not even close, not by a long shot. However Launch Day the Live Band is playing Friday in Pomona at Character’s and Nov 14 at Blue Cafe in Huntington Beach. Just fyi there.

• Dirty Projectors. $20
• Reverend Horton Heat (with some guy named Jerry Lee Lewis) $30
• OC Scholars (For you ska lovers out there. And hey who don’t love a nice horn section.) $15
• Jimmy Eat World with “They Promised Us Jetpacks”. (I call this “cute band name night.”) $35
• Rufio. (The most cheerful and nicely dressed punk rockers of the bunch.) $13
• Matt & Kim (however I recently called a ban on charming DIY duos so … screw ‘em. But still. I hear they put on good live show.) $15
• Tokyo Police Club. $16
• The National (This will be a peach of a show.) $32.50
• Interpol (with White Rabbits, whom I love! Can I say whom? I can say whom, right? It’s my blog, I’ll say what I want.) (But it’s sold out, so deal with THAT.)
• Polar Bear Club. (Though they’re the openers.) $17
• Mae. $13
• Blonde Redhead (nice to see these folks are still alive). $25

Don’t say I never told you nuthin.

That’s a picture of what you get when you google “russian tanks in afghanistan.”

The sort-of-war’s commanders — that’d be the “suits,” or “executives,” for those of you more versed in corporate lingo than in the oft confusing jargon of sort-of-war — have been encouraging their “boys” to not blow things up unless they absolutely have to.

That comes from the combat geniuses at the Washington Post via this article, which is about another article that’s running in the publication of those other combat geniuses, Rolling Stone (there’s your music tie-in, rock slaves…). The Rolling Stone article has gotten the guy running the sort-of-war, General So-and-So, in trouble with The Man for saying unflattering things about Obama and Joe Biden (The Man and The Man’s Man), two dudes whose expertise on running sort-of-wars is indisputable.

So now the White House has paged General So-and-So to come talk to them about the comments, and it may or may not cost the man running the sort-of-war in Afghanistan his job.

Can I just take a pause here and ask when … precisely when … did the content of rock magazines start literally shaping the running of America’s sort-of-wars? Why are generals appearing in Rolling Stone in the first place, (btw what he says is cold stone fascinating) while there’s a sort-of-war going on, talking smack about politicians? Is this a recruiting technique? And don’t the members of America’s ruling class have more important things to do than read Rolling Stone? Apparently not. Maybe going to sort-of-war is precisely the kind of thing they do to fill that insufferable gap between issues of Rolling Stone and Penthouse. Maybe the whole Afghanistanian thing could be over if Rolling Stone would just go daily.

Here’s a quote from the Washington Post that jumped out at me:

One soldier at the outpost showed … a written directive instructing troops to “patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourself with lethal force.”

Granted, its from the Washington Post, but let’s pretend it’s somehow true, and came from an officer. I’d have a hard time getting my head around that one. “Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourself with lethal force.” Like – the mall, for example? People rarely have to defend themselves with lethal force at the mall. The boys could patrol there, and might also enjoy watching the puppies in the window of the pet store.

Or – Starbucks. I know for a fact I’ve never had to defend myself with lethal force there. The boys (and girls, cuz lets face it gender equality is priority number one here at Launch Day headquarters) could relax in the air conditioning, and sip a mocha caramel frappasomething to get themselves amped up to get like totally unlethal.

Here’s a picture of the type of store one might find at the mall where lethal force has rarely — if ever — been required. It would be safe to patrol here.

I wonder what the servicemen think of such orders — “Hey fellas, try to stick to the areas where you’re not gonna get shot at.” I mean, yeah, HELL yeah that’s what I’d be doing, but they’re not supposed to make it official, right? Still technically a war? You can’t ship a guy to Afghanistan, stick him in a tank, and then tell him to drive around but not get shot at. That’s just not … fair. Don’t the commanders historically say things like, “Go get ‘em, guys,” and the warriors kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out? Or has this changed from a war into some sort of sick, budget padding, vote garnering media event with too many ulterior motives to count — a sort-of-war — that we’ve come to basically accept as a fact of life, something happening “over there,” that we have no control over? It’s tough to know these days what’s real and what’s concocted by our keepers, more or less literally at the expense of the great unwashed’s (that’d be us) lives. There doesn’t seem to be much of a difference anymore. That’s why I try to spend most of my time watching “Friends” reruns. Maybe it’s both a just cause and a cash cow, w/ our keepers cramming us dead and alive into one end of the cow, and pulling enormous taxpayer dollars out of the other end, but all in the name of something really important so we don’t feel quite so vacuous about the dead.

Anyways it’s just this sort of thing that always make me enjoy getting my serious sort-of-war news straight from the serious, no-nonsense journalistic folks at Rolling Stone, the same earnest keepers of America’s rich reporting traditions who every once in a while can set their bongs down long enough to also feature those other perennial (not perineal) newsmakers, Janet Jackson’s boobies.

Thanks, Rolling Stone, I can’t wait to read the story. You continue to do everything you can to flush America down the toilet so you can feel smug and make a few bucks. Y’know, that’s only cool when _I_ do it.

WAVVES @ SWEET TEA from Pete Ohs on Vimeo.

I’d also like to introduce a statistic I’m lovingly calling the Weezerdex. I wrote a valuable utility that fetches a band’s number of myspace friends, and divides it by Weezer’s number of myspace friends. The result gives you an idea of the band’s, um, “fame,” compared to Weezer’s. The Wavves register a 2.4 on the Weezerdex. That means they’ve got about 2.4% the number of myspace friends that Weezer has. (14,231 vs 570,852). Statisticians of the world: you’re welcome.

The Band: Wavves
Label: Fat Possum
Located: Southern California
Weezerdex: 2.4
last.fm/music/wavves, myspace.com/wavves

Btw – you can download the Wavves’ MP3 featured in that video here.