On the bright side, Dave is opening a Tibetan restaurant in Bangor, called Bangor to Bangkor. Due to my ignorance of podunk towns in Maine, I stumbled across the little fact that there is a Tibetan city called Bangkor (how’s that for a consonant cluster!). My searches for Decatkur met with a much lower level of success, but I did uncover this little tidbit: there are more black people in Bangkor than in Bangor (0 and -4, respectively).

Here’s hoping that the math team in Bangkor is gangbusters. And just so this entire post isn’t in-jokes, I’m going to rant about a comic-book movie.

The Spirit is going to suck red monkey ass-checks. Pardon my language, but I’m irate. Frank Miller, perhaps the most overrated creator in the history of comic books, is taking the seminal creation of Will Eisner and trashing it to hell. Who’s Will Eisner and what’s the big deal? Well, ya know the Academy Awards? Comics have the Eisner Awards.

Apparently “grim” superhero movies are in right now. That’s fine, but don’t take a hero who has always starred in light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek adventures and put him in Sin City. Worse, Miller has completely revamped the Spirit’s supporting cast, altering most of it beyond recognition, but going so far as to completely remove perhaps the most important foil for the Spirit, Ebony White. Obviously there are racial concerns (wiki it), but Darwyn Cooke proved in his run on the current Spirit comic series that Ebony can be an extraordinarily strong, interesting character. The Spirit just doesn’t work without Ebony.

And we’re allowed to see the Octopus’s face…blasphemous!

Eisner’s classic take on the Spirit has been called “the Citizen Cane of Comics.” Thanks to the likes of Cooke, Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragnones, and Paul Smith, the modernized version of the Spirit is one of the best comics on spinner racks today and has been for two years. And it’s always been fun. It’s always been happy. You’ve got plenty of grim-n-gritty comic characters to choose from, Frank. You should’ve left the Spirit alone. In the right hands, The Spirit would be a great movie. As it is, I’m afraid I’ll end up walking out on what is sure to be a travesty. The official title for the movie is Will Eisner’s The Spirit, but this bastardization has nothing to do with the great Will Eisner.

Announcements: if you’re in Atlanta September 12th , Deke Dickerson will be rocking Decatur CD and there will be FREE BEER. Be there or be square, babes and bros. Also, Be sure to check out my writing for Paste:Local Atlanta. And I have another tattoo now. I heard Dave got like six tattoos though.

Record: Anthony Braxton – Beyond Quantum. Comic: Showcase presents the Atom Vol. 2.

It’s the Bloomington Tibetan/Mongolian Cultural Center, where you can send your Tibetan/Mongolian children to summer camp so they can, er, “learn their culture” as one volunteer put it. Culture has to be taught at summer camp? When your Specialness is being Violated it does!

Anyway, the place was billions, with a temple (where I failed spectacularly to meditate…like, really spectacularly), two stupas, and seven or eight gers (Mongolian yurts). The grounds are beautiful, expansive, well-landscaped and well-maintained, and when I was poking around Aidi, a Mongolian guy who works there invited me to lunch eat the lunch he had lovingly prepared. It was, mercifully, not too spicy. According to Aidi, Tibetans like spicy food but he does not, because it upsets his stomach. I got along famously with Aidi.

Unfortunately, there were no Tibetans around, since all eleven or so monks who live there were out of town on various errands. Major bummer, since I really wanted to practice my Tibetan. I even tried speaking Tibetan to Aidi but he didn’t understand. Because he’s Mongolian, not Tibetan.

Also, in the middle of my five-ish mile ride home I ran over a nail and had to walk my bike for three-plus miles. While the humor of the situation was not lost on me, I was tired and dehydrated when I finally got home. If you are looking for the most bike/pedestrian-friendly route from downtown Bloomington to the center, this is not it.

(Link to photo, and others, on a map, no less!)

For hipsters? Barack Obama is the king. He can do no wrong. For the hipster, his cigarette habit was proof that he was like one of them! Then again, it’s easy to do no wrong when no one knows what you’ve done. Ask a hipster why they like Barack Obama some time and you’ll get one of three responses:

1) Are you racist or something?

2) He’s really going to bring about change. (NOTE: follow up with “what kind of change?” to get the following response)

3) He’s going to give the people hope!

While some people may criticize hipsters for this mindless repetition of campaign slogans, I think it’s great that we’ve replaced the outdated ideals of “Truth, Justice, and the American Way!” with “Change, Hope, and Massive White Guilt!”

Hippies, however, have no problems with white guilt, as they’ve obviously transcended to a higher level of existence. And higher levels of existence are synonymous with, you guessed it, Tibet. And there’s nothing a hippie loves more than to hold a concert for the freedom of the poor, oppressed monks of Tibet. With hippies, however, it is even easier to perplex them. You don’t even have to ask them why Tibet should be free. Just ask them what Tibet should be freed from.

If their reply is “From, you know…the man!” you have the legal right to kill them.

And we’re going to have to call this one a push for today, folks.

And, Rest in Peace, Skip Caray, you were one of the very best announcers I’ve heard.

breakfast

Originally uploaded by Neilsonnn

I already posted this to Elizabeth’s wall, but I think it has broad appeal for this group given our, er, history. You might want to play it large so you can really see what’s going on.

Boy do I love Bollywood.  Also, I just finished transcribing my interviews.  I don’t I’ve ever typed so many ungrammatical sentences in my entire life.  Ironically, it often turns out that I’m the one that sounds like English is my second language.

I know it’s not fair to compare these two, since they are literally about as far apart as two restaurants can be.  But I really miss greasy, wonderful Tibetan food and am generally feeling very nostalgic about McLeod Ganj (a feeling that is in no way related to that paper that’s due in like a week hahahaha), and a nice bowl of tenthuk is too much to ask, is it?  I suppose I’ll have to wait until I’ve saved up enough to fly back to India and pay a visit to ol’ lazy-eye and the rest of the real Snow Lion crew.

Dalena uploaded some of her photos to flickr. That probably means you can do it, too! So get crackin’. And when you’re done make sure to add them to the group so they’re all in one place.

Also, some sad if not terribly fresh news: the 10 CENTS A SHOW label on my nalgene has been worn down to be almost entirely black.  If I squint real hard I can still make out the glorious letters formerly emblazoned there.

After rushing to wikipedia to remind myself of what “phylum” meant, I’m here to confirm Dave’s hypothesis. Hippies and Hipsters are absolutely of the same phylum. I would go so far to say that they are included in the same genus, “probablydoesnthavemuchmoneyius” However, these two “alternative lifestyles” account for two vastly different species. The question is…which one wins the tale of the tape?

Body Odor

Advantage: Hipsters. It should be noted that a certain kind of hipster (the “dumb emo kid”) showers very regularly. However, the vast majority of today’s “indie hipster” crowd showers about as infrequently as, well, hippies. So why do hipsters win this one? Because they don’t proceed to drench themselves in incense, patchouli, and sage, a group of smells that go about as well with B.O. as Axe. Furthermore, hipsters usually have a lot of clothes to mask their sent, instead of just the 2 tie-dyed woodstock t-shirts their Uncle Joe gave them.

Music Taste

Advantage: Hippies. This may come as a surprise to those of you familiar with my vocal distaste for jam bands, but at least they know what they like and are incredibly dedicated. For hippies, little things like eating are less important than getting that Grateful Dead bootleg 12-disc set. Ever seen a hippie forced to choose between buying a new stash of weed or the new Phish live disc? It ain’t pretty, I’ll tell you that much. Hipsters, on the other hand, are as fickle as it gets, dropping bands from their Facebook music interests the minute Pitchfork gives them a 8.5 or lower.

To be continued soon as hippies and hipsters square off on the political battleground…

oh and…Record of the week: Electric Bunnies – Fantastic Metal Eye (catchy, noisy punk from Florida). Comic of the week: Gentleman Jim, a damn fine indie book from Drawn & Quarterly.

Anyway, one of Bill’s trademarks is doing running diaries of big games, drafts (including yesterday’s NBA draft), etc. Thanks to Bill, you guys now get “A Day at an Indie CD Store,” the unnamed record store I work at. Now a day at an independent record store may not feature as much dashing attire as the NBA Draft, but I’m working the store by myself all day, so I need something to entertain me.

10:52 – Open the store. A woman immediately pokes her head in to complain that the doggie water bowl we keep in front of the store is empty. She didn’t have a dog with her, but I manage to fight the urge to tell her that she can come in and drink from our water fountain if she wants.

11:03 – Fill the doggie water bowl begrudgingly

11:10 – In a highly auspicious encounter, the first customer of the day buys a CD by His Holiness John Coltrane. I do a Tiger Woods fist-pump as soon as she leaves.

11:15 – Scuzzy looking twenty-something comes in, slams a staple-gun down on the counter and shouts “I want to buy Guns ‘n’ Roses!” My instinct is to beg for my life and give him all the money in the register, but I work up the nerve to lead him over to the “G” section.

11:30 – Let’s play the WWWD Game. For the uninitiated, that’s “What Would Warren Do?” Warren is the excessively grouchy and absolutely politically incorrect owner of our fine record dealership.

11:32 – Woman with a buzz cut walks in. Warren would whisper, “There are too many lesbians in this damn city.”

11:37 – Woman buys an Indigo Girls CD. Warren would whisper, “See, I was right,” as he believes everyone who buys an Indigo Girls is homosexual. She did, however, accept a bag when offered. According to Warren, every black customer accepts a bag and every lesbian refuses. Had he been here, his head would have exploded. Don’t even ask how he explains black lesbians.

11:39 – Grachan Moncur III is a great trombonist, but whoever told him he can sing must have been playing a cruel joke. Inner Cry Blues is a good record, though.

11:50 – Customer buys a CD called “Great African-American Gospel.” Its sequel, “Great Caucasian Gospel” is due in stores soon.

11:53 – Customer: “All I want is this one song by Pat Metheny, but I hate buying a CD for just one song with a bunch of bad songs. All of his songs sound the same to me. [Sigh] So I guess I can’t go wrong.” She looked just like Sebastian’s mom.

11:57 – Same woman pulls a CD off of our listening station and asks “Is there any way I can listen to this?”

12:24 – Hipster with slicked back hair, drinking coke out of a QT Big Gulp starts talking to me about Jay Reatard. I smugly tell him I have the “Hammer I Miss You” seven inch. “On Goner?!?!” he gasps, “will you sell it to me?” I tell him no and offer him the Reatard singles comp on CD. He says, “CDs are dead!” and storms out. I think there was rum in that coke. What was he doing out of his natural habitat anyway?

12:28 – At last Friday’s in-store show, someone must have spilled beer in our “give a penny/take a penny” thing. All the pennies are stuck together. Kinda cool.

12:47 – Purchase, all on vinyl: Budos Band, a Tribe Called Quest, HH John Coltrane, Miles Davis. My inner music snob gave the guy a blow job.

1:03 – Oh my god new UPS driver.

1:24 – A 90-year-old woman who undoubtedly wants a classical piece whose composer she doesn’t know just walked in the store. If you don’t get any more updates, it’s because I killed myself…

1:47 – Turns out she did know the composer, but not the work. Which is a bit of a problem when that composer has done 486 pieces. Her, um, babysitter finally shepherded her along after we looked at the first 84 or so. Then we had to look up an Australian Aborigine singer that she’d tried to look up 6,000 times before. Persistence counts for something. I guess.

2:12 – Sniveling indie kid buys Fleet Foxes tickets, an Iron & Wine LP, and a Bright Eyes CD. I offer him a free pair of testicles, but he declines, saying he had them removed so he could wear his pants as tight as possible and hit high notes like Jonsi

2:38 – A blind man walks in: “I want this disc from this comedian. He was real short and fat.” I ask for a more concrete description and he can’t give one. Disappointed, the man asks for George Carlin.

2:40 – Blind man: “JEWISH! He was JEWISH! Lord he was funny though.”

2:45 – Wait how did he know the comedian was short and fat?

3:13 – Okay I guess if you want to spend $23 on that Neil Diamond CD, I can’t stop you.

3:24 – Call the people who special-ordered CDs. Today’s highlight: “Is this Danny?” “No. Who’s calling? ” “Independent CD Store. Can you tell Danny his Osibisa CD has come in at Independent CD Store.” “Oh this is Danny, I’ll be right over.” Paranoia, America’s new favorite past time.

4:13 – If you’re scoring at home, that’s HH John Coltrane 3, Coldplay 0 today at Independent CD Store. But if you’re sitting at home scoring blog posts, you should probably reconsider a thing or two about your life.

4:44 – Ahhh are we going to run out of amos lee nooooooooo

5:11 – Austin arrives. Hunh. Guess I’m not working all day by myself after all. At some point later, I will make fun of Austin for how little jazz he listens to. Next, I will lick my Giuseppi Logan special order that came in today.

5:37 – Rushing to get the order in because I’ve spent too much time blogging, I’m distracted by a drunk dude pestering me about…Jethro Tull. You know how when you get drunk and fuck an ugly person, you wake up and think, “Oh no what have I done!” Imagine that but ten times worse and you’ll know how this guy’s gonna feel tomorrow.

6:08 – Submit order. Store’s empty.

6:24 – Store’s still empty. I’m currently talking to the Bruce Springsteen lightbox.

7:22 – I take a phone order for Skyy Line. In addition to not knowing what record store she had called, the woman on the phone delivered the classic line, “Now I’m not talking about no rock band, boo” and proceeded to call me “Boo” throughout the entire conversation.

7:58 – Made fun of Austin for not listening to jazz. Filled doggie bowl again.

8:04 – Austin leaves. I am alone again. Trapped with only a cardboard cutout of Michael Buble to keep my company. oooh the braves are on.

8:15 – Customer attempting to be a gentleman by opening the door for his lady throws the door open and knocks over all the Creative Loafing magazines. She apologizes for him and they bicker before retreating to separate listening stations.

8:16 – I will not talk about what Jair Jurrjens is doing right now.

8:21 – Jinxed it! I knew I would jinx it!

8:35 – Sell a Fairport Convention CD by playing it. The voice of Sandy Denny works its magic yet again. I’m ecstatic!

8:45 – Rio calls. Rio is famous for getting drunk and buying CDs. Should we be worried about Rio drinking and driving? Nah, because, Rio is, in his own words “driving and drinking.” He asks me for Robert Johnson, we we of course have. He begs me to leave the store open and I agree if only because we are PACKED.

9:03 – closing time technically but we have FIFTEEN people in the store, but no Rio…yet.

9:12 – Rio shows up in an orange tank top and boxers, absolutely blitzed. I guess he expected the store to be empty, but…not quite. Rio personally greets each customer in the store and tells them how much his wife loves our bags. Awesome.

9:23 -last customer leaves. Coldplay made a late push, but our final score…HH John Coltrane 4, Coldplay 3.