Today’s ridiculous news story comes to us from the…

Today’s ridiculous news story comes to us from the great city of New York, a place where your devoted Robot will be most of next week, on business. It seems that this gentleman has some issues. I mean, really. Cell phones are a dime-a-dozen, just get another one, dude. Did he really think it would work when he retrieved it? Even if it did work, would you want your mouth and your head even near it anyway? Eeeeek.

I strongly appluad the Red Sox move to rid themselves of Manny Ramirez. It will, unquestionably, hurt their offense, but that contract is a ten-ton albatross for that team, especially for a guy who’s really a two-tool player. That kind of money, as ridiculous as it is, should be going to a five-tool guy, or two guys who add up to five tools. All that said, this was their year and they blew it. I have reservations now as these players start to age. I have reservations about the offense, full of guys who had career years and most likely will not see similar outputs next season. I have reservations about the pitching staff. It’s going to be a very interesting offseason.

Song now playing: REM – “Bad Day”

Yes, I am trying some new shit out here. Bear with…

Yes, I am trying some new shit out here. Bear with me…….

I’ve been picking through the most recent offerings from Cracker and The Bottle Rockets. The new Cracker album, called Countrysides, gets the early nod, more for the story behind the album than anything else. Generally, I’ve liked everything that Cracker has ever done. In fact, I’ve rarely been able to find a bad song on any of their albums. The story behind Countrysides is this – on each of their previous albums, the band always had a country-tinged song or two on it, towards the end, so the beast was lurking in them for a while. During a tour stop in the East Village in NYC, band members noticed that a few hipsters were actually starting to sport mullets and they had a conversation which essentially ended with them agreeing that the mullets were being worn as a ironic statement and not necessarily being worn to show off or to be be fashionable. It was then that Cracker decided to do a small tour and call themselves “Ironic Mullet,” a great band name in and of itself.

Touring as Ironic Mullet, though, they chose a different path, instead deciding to play out-of-the-way bars and roadhouses on the outskirts and fringes. It’s quite likely that everyone who saw Ironic Mullet on this small tour had no idea whatsoever that they were seeing a very talented, respected, pretty successful rock band playing country tunes in a crappy bar. What a great story. So this new Cracker album is a result of that tour – some old country standards and a few great David Lowery-penned songs, as usual. To me, it’s not a true Cracker album, but they remain one of my favorite bands of the past 10 years or so – inventive, professional, clever and not prone to the trappings of trying to create “radio hits.” If you don’t have any Cracker albums, particularly “Kerosene Hat,” you’re really missing out.

The new Bottle Rockets album, titled Blue Sky, on the other hand, is quite a curve ball for these guys. Known predominantly as a band whose three major influences appear to be something along the lines of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hank Williams and Slayer, their new album, upon my first listen, sounds much more pensive, more reserved and more, uh, grown up, I guess. Normally there’s 2-3 songs on each Bottle Rockets album that just grabs you by the back of the pants and wallops your ass all over the place. Those songs are not found on Blue Sky. What you get instead are 13 introspective, very tight, clean, crystal clear sounding tunes. You get a lot of acoustic strumming and the occasional rock romp, although they never, at any point, put the pedal to the metal like they have on previous albums. Having only listened once, my personal jury is still out and I suspect I’ll come to appreciate it much like all of their other truly great albums. But I’m coming to grips already with the fact that I’ll have to appreciate it in a much different way – a way that doesn’t make me want to pound beers and sing out loud – and that’s okay.

It appears that this pretty great piece of writing was Elliot Smith’s last interview. I hadn’t known that he didn’t want to release his new album on Dreamworks, nor did I know that he was involved in some kind of altercation with the L.A. Police at the Flaming Lips/Beck show and jailed for the night. I do know that if you stab yourself in the heart with a knife, you are a gigantic mess.

Song now playing: Sloan – “Money City Maniacs”

Things I like lately:- The new Kings Of Leon album…

Things I like lately:

– The new Kings Of Leon album.

– Vlasic Bread & Butter Chips.

– The new Angry Johnny & The Killbillies album. I’m a little biased.

– Mini soda cans. Half the size of the usual can of soda. Great idea.

Things I don’t like lately:

– Websites that automatically play music or sound.

– The TV show “Coupling” – talk about hype. Horrendous.

– No baseball for five months.

Song now playing: Angry Johnny & The Killbillies – “Trains Don’t Run”

Here’s a few pictures of my trip last week. These …

Here’s a few pictures of my trip last week. These pictures were taken in both New York and Philadelphia. There’s one towards the end, picture #7 in the set, that is taken in the Philadelphia twilight, and you can see the city in the background, but in the foreground I hope you’re able to notice that there’s a very large statue of a clothespin. Yes, a clothespin. Does anyone know the significance of this clothespin and why the city erected a statue of one? I’d be very curious to know. Picture #9 is not me, but I feel like the emotion it shows completely personifies what business travel is like – in fact, I believe this picture is the perfect microcosm. It’s the enjoyment you get out of being in a different place and seeing people you usually only talk on the phone with, but it inevitably ends up with a scene like this – alone, calling home on your cell and just wishing instead that that familiar warm body was next to you and you keep on wishing you could just press a button and – BLAM – instantly just wake up at home. That’s the look.

The last picture you’ll see in the set was taken in a rush – I woke up on Wednesday morning in my New York City hotel room to find the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life, running around the room. If you want to know how to click the best pictures, get in touch with Andrew Defrancesco. Other than wondering what the hell must have been going on in the dark while I was asleep, I rushed to get my camera to document the roach, because when I turned on the light, that thing was going MACH1 trying to find cover or at least get the hell away from me. Because this picture was taken in such haste and I wanted to make sure I documented it, I just turned the camera on and pressed the button, so I wasn’t entirely in focus with this picture, but I think you can still tell how big it was. Nasty shit, my friends.

Here’s to the Florida Marlins for not only beating the Yankees for the World Series title, but doing it in dominating fashion, right in the heart of darkness at Yankee Stadium. It salvadges what should have been our season.

Song now playing: Manfred Mann – “Blinded By The Light”

I changed someone’s life last Tuesday. Nothing dra…

I changed someone’s life last Tuesday. Nothing dramatic, really. It was a Philadelphia cab driver during a five minute cab ride. I was down there for a work meeting and after that meeting, I met up with a friend for some dinner. Afterwards, I hopped into a cab and headed to the train station and as soon as I plopped myself down onto the back seat of the car, I could hear Three Dog Night singing “Easy To Be Hard” on the radio. I commented that you don’t hear that song much on the radio and the cab driver commented that he wasn’t sure why it was playing, that tonight was usually the night they had their Motown special. After hearing that statement, I then relayed my own newly found discovery about The Funk Brothers (see my post below on “Standing In The Shadows of Motown”) and he was just amazed, saying, “are you fucking kidding me, man? I love Motown! I can’t fucking believe I didn’t know that!!” After I let him know that I was not, in fact, fucking kidding him, he then went on to surmise, with vigor, that there could only be one reason why The Funk Brothers were not the most famous band in the world and that reason was the color of their skin and how it wasn’t fair they were not well known, etc. Now, knowing the train station was close, I didn’t have time to debate him on an issue in which he was clearly wrong (race is not the reason), so I just pushed out a quick “hmmm” and let it be.

Seconds after that, though, he went on to tell me a specific story about his upbringing in a nearly 100% Irish section of Philly. He was about five years old and was out playing with some of the other kids in the neighborhood, when an old Irish lady told him that “Italian greaseballs” didn’t belong in the neighborhood. He swore that since that day, he would never judge anyone based on their ethnicity or the color of their skin, a fine trait to possess, and one which I staunchly believe in myself. His next quote got me going, though: “I don’t care if you come down in a fucking UFO and have antennas on your head., man. I don’t care if you wear a god damn fucking burlap bag to a black tie party, buddy. I ain’t gonna judge ya.” Laughing, I told the guy that I actually would prefer if someone came down in a UFO to talk to me. He laughed as if he’d just discovered the sweet drug of laughter and the passion of getting a kick out of something. He continued laughing and as we pulled into the station, I gave him five bucks and told him to keep the change. He said “thanks buddy. Whenever I hear a Motown song now, I will think of you. Thanks for telling me that.” I retorted with my own thanks, thought nothing of it and went into the station.

It wasn’t until an hour later when I started thinking about what he said. If what he said was true, that he would think of me every time a Motown song came on, that would really be something. I can picture the guy telling his family, his friends and his customers all about his new-found knowledge, him being proud to know it and spread it and then thinking of me. A positive memory of a foggy night in Philadelphia. In some small way, during a five-minute blip on the huge, vast, lightening fast radar of life, I made a difference with someone.

This might be a melodramatic statement to make, I grant you that. Changing people’s lives, though, doesn’t have to be some kind of huge impact gesture or something – you don’t need to leap into a bustling street to push someone away from an oncoming bus to change their life. Everyone on Earth, simply by being born, changes two people lives. Those are your freebies, like collecting $200 for passing Go in Monopoly. The rest is up to you. I used to think that having a cool car or an interesting job would make others interested in me. While I suspect it worked with a select few, the smart ones know better. They know that those things make no difference whatsoever, unless you’re the one who invented the seat belt for the car or your job was to teach under-privledged adults how to read. Those things make a difference. The car you drive and (most of) the work you’re paid for are stories. So yeah, I hope that guy thinks of me when he hears Motown or tells his friends about his new discovery. The knowledge imparted during what should have been an otherwise mundane cab ride can make a difference. Knowledge and how you share it, and who you share it with is a powerful weapon. Looking back, I’d much rather have shared that info with this man than to drive any cool car I’ve ever owned. My words may leave a legacy, cars only leave me with debt and pollution.

A few months ago while on a business trip to Montreal, I discovered that co-worker of mine spoke French somewhat fluently. I was so jealous. I felt so smugly “American.” Yeah, I took Spanish in high school but at that time, I didn’t care. Suddenly in the heart of Montreal, I cared. I wanted to be able to converse in a different langauge, too. To have more knowledge. I vowed to myself on the plane back to try and learn a new language. Last weekend I finally picked up a book on how to speak Greek. Yes, probably one of the toughest languages for an adult to learn. Why Greek? Well, part of my family is Greek and I always wanted to know what they were saying in Greek around us when I was younger. I’ll never know what they were saying, but if I know Greek, maybe my kids will wonder what I’m saying and maybe they’ll seek the knowledge, or at least be curious and jealous enough to pursue their own knowledge. This won’t be easy. I’m only on page five and I’m already fairly lost, but I’ll keep trying. I’m in no hurry. I’m sure I’ll get impatient (generally, I want it all NOW NOW NOW), but I’m gonna try…….we’ll see what happens.

Today’s hilarious news bit of the day. My favorite quote of the month comes from this story – “By the time the afternoon lessons began, there was no hiding what they had done.”

Song now playing: Mudhoney – “Suck You Dry”