HUNTER-GATHERER

What have the internets truly wrought? Among others, the world of digital downloading and a forum or stage for the uniquely talented. So, given the opportunity to download so many songs, which one is the first and only to attain double platinum status (2 million downloads)? Perhaps in a sign that we collectively haven’t given up romantic hope or the fact that itunes shoppers may have very dodgy taste, Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing is head and shoulders above all other songs in downloading frequency. Now, I understand who reacts to those New Music Tuesdays email messages
In my own loving tribute to this drama-drenched power ballad and karaoke stalwart, I give you one Gerry Phillips, AKA “The Manualist”. Perhaps one of those lucky two million that have never stopped believing.

I never imagined that I would be posting a video from Fox News. But today’s post election euphoria just keeps on getting better, courtesy of a news outlet that has long been accused of a right-wing agenda. What makes these clips “official”(?) is that they are not being reported by Olbermann or Maddow, but by Carl Cameron, Fox News’ Chief Political Correspondent. This is almost surreal, no, it is surreal. I was mildly surprised by Shepard Smith’s reporting on this, but when Bill O’Reilly throws the woman who only 24 hours earlier was the darling of the right under the bus……..WHAT IS GOING ON? Am I hallucinating? All I can say is that America dodged a major bullet on election night, but I still don’t think we have seen the end of this hockey mom. But don’t wait for a Meet The Press appearance anytime soon………

Shepard Smith Interviews Carl Cameron:

Still think you’re hallucinating? Cameron backs the bus up over and over on O’Reilly’s The Factor:

St. Marks Place between 1st and A, 2:27 am this morning. Heading home from a party, I heard the crowd and when the cops closed St. Marks at 1st Ave., I feared the worst. Having spent the evening further downtown, I had no idea what was going on in the hood and the spontaneous reveling that had erupted on that corner. Despite the hour and obvious levels of consumption, everyone was very well behaved including the cops. Still in happy disbelief……..

I have made an effort to stay out of the political fray in this very contentious campaign season. Not that I don’t have strong opinions, it is just that others handle this subject matter much better than I could. Given that the 24/7 presidential saga now extends to almost two years, the only thing that still surprises me is that anyone could still remain undecided.
I have also never been inclined to volunteer for any political campaign, especially a presidential one. But a week ago I was invited to attend a phone bank event for Barack Obama. I went, spent a little more than two hours calling voters in Pennsylvania and came away with a feeling that I wanted to do more. Not only because I supported Obama’s candidacy, but because my fellow volunteers shared a sense of community and actual eye contact that we seldom experience as we hurry past each other on the street. There was a feeling that we were all involved in something historic and a genuine hope for something better. I spent four evenings at Obama/Biden HQ over the past week and as I left there last night I felt really good about the people I share this island with. No matter what happens today, I won’t soon forget that. Now, get out and vote.

In 2007, I spent a total of two months living in the City of Angels. My client of two and a half years had originally encouraged me to move there shortly after I began working for them back in 2005. There is the almost cliche’ attitude about New Yorkers’ dislike for Los Angeles and in many cases it is both prevalent and unfounded. I went there for the first time in 1999 with an open mind and encountered a terrain foreign, yet luridly inviting.
En route to LA back in January of 2005, on my first assignment for the aforementioned client, I left behind a massive blizzard bearing down on Gotham and boarded the silver bird headed for LAX. Reading about the fury of the storm wreaking havoc on NYC, already poolside in North Hollywood with cigar in mouth, made me realize that there might be worse things in this world than a sunny existence surrounded by palm trees, stucco and amazing Mexican food. For the better part of the ensuing years I fantasized about living in a small beach side community riding my bike to an imaginary fish taco stand and the possibility of even dating a porn star. Stranger things have happened, I thought.
Alas, after spending one too many afternoons stuck in traffic and learning that a 90 mile trip to San Diego often takes over four hours I realized that there is a unique form of purgatory that is a prerequisite to life in SOCAL.
Furthermore there was a quality to the population that remains a mystery to this day. A social je ne sais quoi that never allowed one to realize whether or not the locals had allowed you into their club even though you were warmly invited. Although many of them questioned their own inclusion, as a social creature even bravado failed me as salve. The perceptions we gather be it external or internal is how we process our role among our cohorts and sadly, I never really got called into that big reindeer game……..
So where am I going with this? I never moved to LA. I still like winter and here in New York I know exactly where I am welcome, warts and all. I did however retain a bittersweet fondness and curiosity that is piqued whenever viewing stories that revolve around life within the sun-gilded sandbox.

For the first two seasons I watched Entourage with a certain knowing appreciation. But the sense of entitlement and full frontal embrace of all things bling that buoys the plot eventually grows stale. Perhaps the absurdity ran a little too close to some of my own personal experiences. Having been at the beckoned call of the artistically entitled too often, the celebration of the marginally talented eventually falls flaccid enough to negate 36 hour Cialis,.. Brah. Is Entourage the Sex And The City for the frat class?
However, I recently came across Showtime’s Californication, as the MTA bus adverts worked their magic even on this cynic. Although the theme of tinseltown’s absurdity and excess is once again on parade, somehow there is a sense of consequence revealed that makes the portrayal less escapist and actually inspiring. As rare as good writing is in this era we find ourselves in, I’ll take what I can get even if sometimes I have to turn my head.
The X-files was a 90’s phenomenon that completely escaped me. If it was out there, I couldn’t give a monkey’s as I was too engrossed in my own failed attempt at the business we call show and a short lived era of misogyny. If that wasn’t enough, I was enduring that particular version of hell in a place that invented social candy-coating with an additional infusion of religious hypocrisy. NashVegas, y’all.
But after viewing the first season of Californication, and staying current with the second, I am a new fan of David Duchovny. What makes his character (a drug/booze/sex addicted and writer’s block stymied New Yorker living in EL-LAY) all the more genuine perhaps is the fact that Duchovny himself was recently released from a sexual addiction treatment program. Not just talking the talk, but in the method acting sense truly walking the walk.
What endears us to Duchovny’s character is a clarity of his own chosen Hades and the resulting demons that he suffers. The EL-LAY accoutrements that define (clothing, cars, homes), serve him now more as utilities than veneer. The dirty, dented Porsche earned in former, more prolific days is now merely tattered transportation and a powerful, painful metaphor of his career. He stumbles from one social car wreck to another in a vain attempt to find his identity. In a world where he has been to the circus and sadly seen the clowns sans grease paint, he bravely continues to swing the verbal broadsword.
There is still the requisite wince-worthy, sometimes craptastic writing that plagues much of Showtime’s spawn (Weeds? Blecch!) and an almost complete cast of irredeemable characters. But Duchovny’s Hank Moody is blessed with the lions share of noteworthy lines and just when we think he is totally hopeless, we are often proven wrong.

Duchovny’s Hank Moody and Henry Rollins:

Until recently, I made my living on the road. Everything I bought involved size and durability as the leading consideration. As a result, I have always only enjoyed the view of a laptop screen. But several hours a day hunkered down in front of a screen and the prospect of my first pair of reading glasses looming hastened the search for 22 or 24 inches of relief, hopefully, on the cheap. After breaking my piggy-bank, I realized that a cheaper TN based display was all that this kid was going to buy with his saved lunch money. [Read more →]

By now, y’all know how I feel about the current state of pop country music AKA the soundtrack of Walmart Nation.
In a sign that Nashville knows how to spot talent, Samuel Wurzelbacher, (Ohio’s 15 minutes and ticking man) has inked a publicity, management and possibly………wait for it………a record deal. YES!

According to Politico

“ “Joe” — aka Samuel Wurzelbacher, a Holland, Ohio, pipe-and-toilet man — just signed with a Nashville public relations and management firm to handle interview requests and media appearances, as well as create new career opportunities, including a shift out of the plumbing trade into stage and studio performances.

The Press Office, a PR firm based in Nashville, Tenn., represents an eclectic array of other clients including country stars John Anderson and the Gatlin Brothers, quirky folk singer Leon Redbone, NASCAR driver Chase Mattioli and animal repellent firm Liquid Fence. The Bobby Roberts Company reps several of the same acts, in addition to Juice Newton, Merle Haggard and Jon Secada.”

This sounds almost remarkable, except when you have a gander at what is tearing it up in NashVegas these days. Behold a recent performance of Music City “phenom” Taylor Swift, channeling her inner Avril Lavigne while sexin’ it up like a real shower-dance stripper should. PLEASE, watch this car wreck long enough to witness the Flashdancesque shower sequence, complete with the lyrics emblazoned in the awaiting wall o’ water ready to cool this red-hot siren with a stunning aqua-crescendo.

As the title of the song says, Should’ve Said No. Perhaps we all should heed her request.

It isn’t often that my former industry is featured in a TV ad. What is even more rare is when they almost get it right. Bravo!
I spent 8 years in the touring industry and few people have an appreciation of how difficult the work actually is. Tell someone that you tour with a rock band for a living and they conjure an image of some kind of nonstop drug and sex fest. Not that it doesn’t sometimes ring true, but usually it is more about pulling rabbits out of hat under the worst possible circumstances. The only possible omission in this portrayal is the pre-takeoff huddle where the crew got together, smoked a bowl, and sussed it out.
The camaraderie that develops when you are out on the road with the right mix of guys can only be compared to friendships forged in battle. Our gang of tattooed and pierced gypsies looked out of place almost everywhere we showed up except the venue, but that never kept us from going anywhere we wanted to. We knew how to drink and we knew how to eat and a communal meal at a swank steak house almost took a page out of the Sopranos playbook. In a bus you live literally on top of each other in bunks the size of coffins, learn more than you would like to know about each other and develop a unique language of slang that no one else understands. When the day started off to sh*tting the bed, there was nothing that couldn’t be figured out or rigged to make the show happen.
Though at times you hated everyone on the bus, after you were home for a week, you couldn’t wait to go back out again. Yeah, I miss it.

Motorhead’s anthem dedicated to all the real road warriors out there “We Are The Road Crew”

There are more than a few ads that send me scrambling for the mute button. But they all pale in comparison to the band of slacking cretins that shill for FreeCreditReport.com. What makes the adverts (there seems to be a new one every month) all the more irritating is that they all feature beyond annoying little jingles that recount the financial plight of the hapless imbeciles. A plight that could have been theoretically avoided had they made the prudent choice of handing over their credit card number to this online scam. A credit card that theoretically they would not be qualified to possess.
If there was anyone deserving of a one-way trip to Gitmo it would be the guys that created these ads and the idiots they feature.

For those of you that don’t know, by law we are all allowed a free, yearly credit report from the three reporting agencies. What Freecreditreport does is charge you for “monitoring” for a monthly fee of $14.95 if you don’t cancel the “free” service within seven days of signing up. Apparently, in the past they were not quite as forthcoming with the details and had been fined for their efforts.

But what makes this company as endearing as a dose of crabs is that they have a long history of deceptive practices.
What they won’t tell you, and a quick google search will, is that once you have provided your credit card information and signed up for the service, canceling within the 7 day period becomes an exercise in frustration. Crashing websites and fear mongering “retention” agents work to thwart customers trying to cancel before the free introductory period concludes. Reports from angry customers also document examples of charges even after they thought they had canceled the service.

Really worried about your identity being stolen and used for nefarious fiscal activity? Then freeze your credit. It’s free and will keep anyone else from opening anything in your name. New York Residents look here.

Why am I familiar with credit freezes? Because last summer someone got a hold of one of my credit card numbers, my address and my unlisted phone number. If they had scored my social security number they could have had their way with my financial identity instead of just leaving a list of annoying bogus charges on my card. As part of my credit freeze, I reviewed the reports of all three companies: Experian, Equifax and Transunion. What I found was 3 different spellings of my name, 3 different social security numbers and a former home address in Texas (a place I have never lived) ALL linked to me. If you don’t check your credit report on a yearly basis, I suggest you begin.

What makes this even more interesting is that FreeCreditReport is owned by Experian, one of the big 3 credit reporting agencies. Basically, they are trying to scam you into paying for something that they are required by law to provide free of charge. One of their other “helpful” services is Triple Advantage, another heavily advertised credit monitoring service with a history of complaints almost as long.

Recent reports, now growing in frequency, have warned that the next financial crisis will involve the astronomical amount of credit card debt that the country is awash in. And yet, I am amazed that people still provide credit card information for something that sells itself as being free. Does anyone else remember the premise of the final scene of Fight Club? Would the general public just open new accounts?

And we all go back to zero……..until that new credit card offer comes in the mail………

For many Americans the idea of watching a sporting event where only one goal is scored after over 90 minutes of play remains an enigma. For the rest of the world, one goal is all it takes to inspire euphoria.
As previously mentioned on this site, Liverpool Football Club reigns supreme over here at HG HQ. Sunday, Liverpool ended Chelsea’s 86 match unbeaten streak at their London grounds that dated back to 2004. What made the victory all the more sweet was the fact that the result was achieved despite the absence of Liverpool’s injured striker/phenom Fernando “el nino” Torres. Instead, fellow Spaniard Xabi Alonso brought home the panceta. Liverpool now stands 3 points clear in sole possession of first place in England’s Premier League and in true serious contention for the Premier League crown, the only remaining honor to escape them for the last 18 years.
Xabi, Xabi, Xabi!!!