How to Not Kill Yourself in the New Year / 13 Years Ago I Made a Cassette Tape

Oh, bloggy blog, how I've missed you! The hustle and bustle of the holiday season have kept me away from your warm embrace for over a month. But I've returned, lover...

Ew. Gross. I end my cliche analogy of a relationship to blogging right there. "Lover" has to be the ickiest word ever uttered. If I'm reading a story where someone refers to their significant other as that ew-ickiest-yuckity-yuck-ick-yuckest words, I'm done, I'm out, I drop the book, close the webpage. If my wife ever referred to me as "lover," I'd throw her out of bed. And I'm proud to say, she'd do the same to me. Just imagine your parents calling each other that icktastic word and you'll wanna shoot yourself in the face.

Anyway, missed ya', ya' old blogeroony.

I have a new piece up a the Prague Revue. It's the New Year, and folks do a lot of reflecting around this time, and sometimes they air their holiday grievances or start regretting what they didn't accomplish in the previous year. In this new piece, I say F all that. Let's look at all of the wonderful things we get to regularly enjoy in this wonderful life. Among other things, my list includes Robert Fripp solos and pretty ladies. And then I encourage others to create their own lists of awe and wonder. 

You can click here to read HOW TO NOT KILL YOURSELF IN THE NEW YEAR. Then please go ahead and leave your list of neato things about this universe we call home in the comments section.

I'd also like to add, despite the fact that I've lived this long does make me sorta wanna kill myself, today is the thirteenth anniversary of the first cassette I sold under the Thirsting Quench moniker, Mmm, 4-Tracky! named after the fact that it was recorded to 4-track tape and an allusion to a line in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because even at 18 I was just that cool. It consists of a bunch of 4-track mucking about I, at the time, called experiments, and sappy, teenage lovey dovey romantics.

If you're into that sort of thing, download MMM, 4-TRACKY here.

The Court of the Crimson King

Last month at the Prague Revue  I wrote about my second favorite thing ever: Batman. This month, I wrote about my very most favoritist thing absolutely ever: KING CRIMSON (the only band to ever inspire me to get a tattoo!). The piece is essentially a brief history of progressive rock with King Crimson as the lynchpin that's held it all together since their 1969 debut with a whole bunch of Youtube videos so you can immediately get immersed in the music. Plus it's pretty funny, if I do say so myself (it's not to take a few jabs at a musical genre known for its lyrics about wizards and dwarfs).

If you've ever heard of King Crimson, but not actually heard them and had some curiosity, my goal was to get beyond that curiosity and into the band. If you hate prog rock (as most sane people do), there's even a section on how the Crimsos have often crossed over into pop working with the likes of Blondie, Talking Heads, Bowie, and even being sampled by Kanye.

Check it out. If you're pretty into music, there should be at least something new to enjoy!

And now because I'm sure you're curious, and because it so very sexy: my King Crimson Discipline tattoo...

It looks wet because I had just gotten it and cleaned it. It is not dripping tattoo juice. 

"How to Enjoy Batman Comics: a Love-Letter"

I've begun writing a monthly column for The Prague Revue. Before I was asked to be a regular contributor, I'd previously published a piece there titled "How to Waste Five Hours on Wikipedia" (a tongue in cheek how-to on pre-gaming before going out the bars while simultaneously filling your noggin with useless knowledge!) I'm running with the how-to angle at least for the foreseeable future. This time around it's how to read and enjoy Batman comics (hey, it's right there in the title!). I've been reading Batman/Detective/all the shorter-running spinoffs since about 1989, a child of the great Batman: the Movie  hype that sweeped the nation that year. I saw Tim Burton's film for the first time as a triple feature with Ghostbusters II and I think Bambi at the now long-gone Skylight Drive-In Theater in Wisconsin.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the caped crusader, my favorite storylines (which, you'll see in the Prague Revue piece, are a bit biased based on the period I started reading), and favorite characters (Jason Todd, because he was my first Robin, even when everyone else hated him enough to vote to kill him off). But I already go on and on enough in the piece, which you can read at "How to Enjoy Batman Comics: a Love Letter."