Percentage Drop

According to Google Analytics, my fucking visitation percentage is down 0.28%. So I need to figure out a way to up my visitation without being a complete knob and buzz-wording my way into readership. That never really works anyways, as you get people for a split second, and then realizing that they’ve been duped, scoot the fuck outta my little slice of heaven, and back into hardcore bondage or whatever specificity they are actually seeking.

Instead, I’ll try to post jams, and keep on unfettered. I’ll try not to shed a tear when nobody downloads the sickest Junior track (as a tip, search out the music video for this cut on youtube, if you want to see the groundbreaking technology employed in Who Framed Roger Rabbit shattered).
Junior – Mama Used to Say

Super Juice

Sometimes I get so fucking juiced up on an album that I actually get “happy”, and my legs go all dumb and jumpy. Someone today was like “What’s wrong with your face”, and I was like, “I’m smiling” (first off that is a bitten joke, and nobody has even talked to me today). So the album that has gotten me mega pumped up to the maxxxxx is Correlations by Ashra, formerly Ash Ra Tempel (remember how I used to write incoherently about music occasionally on this blog?). I read on the nets that Manuel Göttsching (lead guitarist and general creative force behind Ashra) basically set the tone for modern techno with that E2-E4 album of his (the one that has the minimal checkered covered and goes for a buttload of cash), but this is not that album. This shit is that pulsating, psychedelic, synthy, proggy, hypnotic, melodic, druggy, material that I wish I could have experienced the first time around in Germany, but instead I’m stuck at bar I fucking hate (like Amnesia in SF) going to see Jonas Reinhardt (which isn’t a bad thing, those dudes absolutely kill it regardless of the territory) do it 30-odd years later.
Ashra - Club Cannibal

Hate

Fuck you blog. I've got much better things to do with my life, like bend over backwards for a bunch of people I get paid to assist. When do you ever pay me? I've given you eveything, and you've given me nothing more than an outlet to a repetitive, simple activity (in an otherwise endless void). I'm starting to loathe the pointlessness of it all (anyone looking for ad space?), and I'm thinking that instead of spending time developing sentences, I should be bidding on abused puppies on the internet. Ya'know, start my own kennel: do something worthwhile.

In re-reading this garbage, I've realized that this should probably be posted in missed connections on craigslist instead of up here (even though it isn't a missed connection, crap like this gets posted there on the regular, with bad poetry, youtube links, dick pics, giberish, etc... I think thats why they created rants and raves, but nobody seems to check those out). Ahhhh, I'm running low on time and creativity today, and I'm sorta mad at blog for some reason. I've been told that winners don't make excuses...
Xavier - Work That Sucker To Death

Compromised Ethics aka Blog Sympathy

I post up music onto the blog and people do not even care. That is not to imply that people care about my blog either, as I feel that the only people that really frequent it, are people I actually know (and they probably only check it out, because I’ve referenced it and reamed it into their minds in the real world. Sorry about that, cohorts). Enough sympathy rambling for the moment, as there is an issue that I want to explore.

So I record a track or two off some album that I like from the mid 70s or 80s or whatnot, and feed it to the blog. In theory I understand that, without their permission, I am officially stealing and screwing over the artists by posting up their songs (if the albums they reside on are currently in print). Like, if you could buy the Wah Wah Watson album Elementary right now, brand new, from the record store, I’d be preventing a potential buyer from purchasing the album since getting a free taste might just compromise the impulse to make the purchase (especially the case if the whole album is available), even though the album as a whole is pretty amazing and recommended. I do agree with that concept, but, since his album is not currently in print, is it still negative for me to post up one MP3? I’m not putting up the whole album, and even if I did, the artist would not stand to make a penny from an interested buyer. That buyer would have to seek out the album (99% likely it’d be used) in a record store, or on ebay, and there is no chance what-so-ever that a dime from that exchange is going to get back to the artist.

So what does the artist prefer? The free promotion, to get readers interested to either find their albums used (which will get them no money), or to purchase reprints/current albums (which will get them some dough hopefully, based on how they negotiated their deals), or to have no tangible/downloadable auditory presence on the net, and simply be based in print. In my case, it does not matter much, since no one downloads anything off my blog anyways. It’s seriously pathetic how little people are moved by the shit that gets me into the boogie groove, chills me out, etc… It’s almost as if everyone just gets to the blog by accident and then reads a couple seconds of my bullshit and then peaces.
Change - Hold Tight
Wah Wah Watson - Good Friends

100

Well, One Man’s Problem, has made it to its 100th post!!!! Big fucking deal, right?!? Perhaps not to you, but for me, it’s like defeating that one level of Mega Man that gave me such a hard time as an adolescent. There were no significant changes in my life after the boss had been defeated, and it wasn’t like I’d beat the entire game; it was just a checkpoint that I could officially lay to waste. So, at this instant, if “wasting time at work” was a legitimate sport, I like to think that I’d be drafted into the minors, or at least on the radar of some respectable scouts. I mean there is something about the number 100 that is more significant and relevant than say 87. I’d like to say dignified too, but, I could’ve just dug up my 100th grave to have unprotected necrophiliac sex. So I’ll settle for significant and relevant.

On my way back from lunch, while brainstorming a topic to include on my 100th post, I was able to come across something a bit off topic, which I have to include, that I think holds true to many of the sentiments expressed here on the blog (mostly, how extremely depressing events [that don’t involve physical pain or destruction] that don’t relate directly to my personal life, often juice me up. I hate to say that I wallow in others’ sorrow, but if there is a certain sense of humor in that sorrow, where it becomes bittersweet, it just destroys me in the best way). As I just walked back to work from my lunch, I saw a bum in the corner of a packed parking lot, slumped over with his pants half off, singing (loudly and surprisingly in key) “Let’s Get It On” into a Schlitz microphone. I know it's messed up, but it couldn’t have made me happier: instant smiles, among a crowd of horrified tourists.

So, despite the fact that one of my least favorite holidays, Valentine’s Day, occurred over the last weekend, I was still able to have a relatively epic time here is San Francisco. V-Day is always, and I assume, will always, be a tough day to cope with, regardless of relationship status. It either affirms a sense of pathetic loneliness, creates guilt for any half-way, unfulfilling or strictly sex based relationship a person might have (which are either entirely doomed or pointless), and/or hustles one's brain and wallet in an intense rush to sheepishly meet any televised or government-ordained, neurotic Valentine’s Day criteria that has been consumed and accepted by lovers across this continent since birth. Regardless, I was able to spend some money on my true (and partially tangible) love at the KUSF Rock n Swap Record Fair. I could probably write a couple pages that outline just how weird I think these events are, and expand about all the record collector/reseller stereotypes and anomalies that you’d observe in the period of an hour. Perhaps I will in the future, and hopefully I can get that article published in Sweatpants Quarterly. I’m sure that I fit the exact mold of your common record nerd, with impulsive/feeble budgeting skills and odd neurological social ticks, and I could also expand on that. But, for now I’d like to just list a couple stand out moments from the two hours that I spent stimulating my eyes and ears with my so-called “peers”:
1. Watched a guy scratch his balls for a full minute while explaining his pricing system to me.
2. When I asked if the price could be negotiated for a particular record, some seller psyched me out saying he’d sell a $40 dollar record to me for $15 bucks. When I said “really?” with some excitement, he looked me dead in the eyes, paused, and said “No!” and snickered. For the record (not to get literal, waka, waka, waka) I’d never met or talked with this guy in my life before our little conversation.
3. Observing two nymphets (possibly aged anywhere from 15 to 22 years old) in short shorts and revealing tops pass by a table of ugly old men, and watching as all of them stopped whatever conversation or browsing was occurring, to focus their communal energy on staring at these girls' assess in unison.
4. The guy that told me that the DJs are the only ones who buy the “Queer” music off him.
5. The guy, who didn’t have a record under $30 for sale, who lectured me with a straight face (and without me even asking) that his definition of “VG” or “Very Good” condition trumped all other sellers in the building. To put it in his words, “My VG is everyone else’s Mint. Some of these guys wouldn’t know a Mint record if it was still sealed”. I assume he uses that line often.
6. Two jazz aficionados arguing loud and arrogantly about which label was the most relevant: Blue Note, Verve, or Prestige.
7. Lastly, the sweatpants/balding long hair combo, who dropped his piece of pizza, face down onto the dirty carpet (that everyone had been pacing around on all day), and then rapidly picked it up and ate it with no hint of remorse in front of everybody there.
The Three Degrees - The Runner (Loose Shus & Hotthobo Edit)
Incredible Bongo Band - Bongo Rock
Split Endz - Poor Boy
Dynasty - Here I Am
Dynasty - Revenge
Herbie Hancock - Magic Number

Nightshades

I just found out that eggplant has nicotine in it. What the fuck. I seriously fiend for eggplant dishes on the regular, and get them in some format at least once (and often twice) a week. I had a baba ghanoush sandwich today, and a co-worker had to run her mouth about its nicotine content, with the intention of instilling the sentiment of the eggplant as my enemy. There was an episode of the Simpsons where a hybrid crop of tobacco and tomato was accidentally created (dubbed “Tomacco”), which is a hilarious concept, except for the fact that it’s predated entirely by the eggplant which harbors tobacco’s main active ingredient. Tomatoes, Potatoes, and Chiles, which are all categorized as nightshades, also contain nicotine alkaloids. So feel free to never, ever eat them again, and spend countless hours substituting other vegetables in to replicate the recipes that you love. Or, maybe, open a non-nightshade restaurant for all the other dietary cultists, who are also repulsed by trace elements of nicotine in their food. I mean, grrrrroooosss, right?
David Grusin - Condor
King Louie & Baloo - I Wanna Be Like You

Torture

What do you do when you tell someone (in a very professional setting) that what they did was uncouth, and they listen to you attentively, process it, apologize, swear it’ll never happen again, and then do the same fucking thing a week later? Do you throw a fit? Give them the cold shoulder? Do something equally fucked up to them out of spite? Maybe I should just dump a full canister of scalding hot coffee in their face, and pretend like we both just won the super bowl. Of course that would be a waste of coffee, but unlike boiling water, it burns, smells and stains. I’ll probably just hold it inside.

Sorry blog, I’ve got a date with Microsoft Excel today.
Brenton Wood - I Want Love
Brenton Wood - I Think You've Got Your Fools Mixed Up
Codek - Tim Torum

State of Shock

Again, no time for blog, but I’ll take a moment to rant in a caffeine induced frenzy. My job has bent me over, thrusting rapidly, and unfortunately there is no “safe” word that will bail me out. I’m just gonna have to take it until the job gets off, or becomes raw and sore. Not the most pleasing imagery, but it’s also not the most comforting situation, and I felt the need to use the “everyday man’s poetry” to describe my anguish. I’ve somehow become a pawn in a battle of employers and employees; people are acting extremely vague to lead me like a lemming into “traps” which will either justify or prevent the flowage of money from/to the aforementioned parties. I fear that I will be to blame regardless of the outcome (by the group that fails to benefit) and I have the desire to hide under my desk in fetal position, like it’s an earthquake drill. In true American fashion, instead of making a steadfast decision, I’ve just been pretending that the situation does not exist.

I'm putting up one of my alltime favorite Zappa songs (check the guitar solos: fucking EPIC), and make sure to check the bassline on Forgotten Town. If anyone has a dub or instrumental version of that track, lemme know.
Frank Zappa - Uncle Remus
The Christians - Forgotten Town

GROW UP

So GROW UP, the night that I co-promote with some friends, is back in effect, and I'm excited. This may be a repetitive notion, but promoting the night on my blog, will have no effect. The chance that someone from the Bay Area (that I don't already know) will stumble upon this posting and decide to go to the show is highly unlikely. Any Vulcan could tell you that.

So, Come to Madrone, Wednesday February 3rd, (2010, incase you are a year late or something) from 9:30pm - 2am. Special Guests, Loose Shus (Plant) and Pat Les Stache (American Athelete, Cabana Disco) along with residents, Sick Face, ME! (Hotthobo), and Fenstar will be providing the tunes. If I don't already know you, and you tell me you are at the club solely based on this blog, I'll buy you a drink.

Regardless, I have a disco mix that I made at least a month ago or so, which I didn't put up on the blog initially, because I thought that some other blog with higher readership would be interested in it. Ended up not being the case, due mainly to my own laziness and humility (and inability to cold email people the mix and suck on their knobs about how their blog is the greatest and how I'd feel super priviledged to have my mix up with their site's amazing content, yadda, yadda, yadda). So the mix is in its right place, here on One Man's Problem, available to the very few people that accidentally stumble upon the site, based on some combination of words they looked up on google.

Download my mix below!
Hotthobo - Disco Misco

Counter Culture

While at the video store the other day, I noticed that the clerk was moaning under his breath, as a couple near the register discussed whether or not to rent the movie A Mighty Wind. Dude, was fed up with all these fakers not renting the right stuff, and it was clear that he has that complex which a lot of peeps in the retail world have: no one understands me/you people are all idiots. I get it, as I had the same complex when I worked at a record store, and I’d have to ring up Radiohead CDs and listen to people spew about how Thom Yorke changed their lives. But dude, you gotta just step back sometimes and think, I work at the place that harbors all the things that I love, and while it may be an outlet for retards with horrible taste to cop “tip of the iceberg” cinema (or fill in the blank with a specific product), when they could dig for some real meat, it is still a haven for obsessives (like you) to geek out. So to all the underpaid ‘tards who work at places that foster the things that they are actually passionate about , perk up for a moment. You are where you belong, and if your boss and/or management are dicks, just start stealing. It really makes that abuse tolerable.
Kurupt - Calling Out Names