Shapes and Sizes, Cake Shop 9/27/07

This must be the first show I've paid for in at least eight months, what with a summer of freebies and hitching rides with three publications. I wrote such a glowing preview for them in the Onion for this week (last thing I did before my term ended), I hope they're proud. Plus Cake Shop is $7 for four bands. And I only stuck around for two.

Though, I thought the benefit of actually paying for a show would be that I wouldn't have to write about it. Well, here I am, writing about it.







Though my love for Caila knows no bounds, what's best about S&S live is how they all seem to move together. Makes sense: three out of the four of them write the songs (poor, lonely drummer), three out of four sing (though Mr. Bass Player usually just provides harmonies). When the three of them scream together it's a thing of beauty.





The other amazing thing is Caila's dancing. Maybe the more intimate setting brought out more of the little kicks and shimmys than when I saw her last year at Irving (they and The Blow opened for Architecture in Helsinki at CMJ, perhaps the most fun night of music I've ever experienced.) or maybe she's grown as a performer. Or maybe she was drunk. But it was dang cute.



Also played: The Forms. Quite rockin'.



Flickr stream

Twilight Sad, Radiohead, and Farming Nostalgia

The indie/rock playlists have led me back to The Twilight Sad, a Scottish through-and-through band that realizes you don't have to be quiet to be depressed. The enveloping loudness reminds me oddly of the Rosebuds, whose Birds Make Good Neighbors also has that sort of nostalgia that you can feel palpably on the Sad's debut Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters. But the Rosebuds occasioned into electronics, Twilight Sad is all instruments and intensity, occasionally screaming, lead singer James Graham sounding eerily like an out-of-control Craig Ferguson

"Watching that chair painted yellow", a b-side off the first single, has now become one of those songs, along with the Rosebuds' "Boxcar", that I can leave on repeat for a day and a night.


Watching That Chair Painted Yellow (yousendit)
That summer, at home, I had become the invisible boy (eachnotesecure)
Talking with fireworks / here it never snowed (musicforants)







Also: Looking for tracks lead me to Stereogum's compilation OKX: A tribute to OK Computer, a compilation of covers for the 10th anniversary of the greatest album of the '90s. Not only do the Twilight Sad do a utterly claustrophobic version of "climbing up the walls", check out John Vanderslice on "Karma Police", a very spooky "Exit Music" by Vampire Weekend, and the Cold War Kids on "Electioneering". Among others. Hell, they're all brilliant.

The Lamentations of the Women

The quality of the female voice at its most subversive -- what do I mean by subversive? Well, I guess a particular form of irony. A non-funny kind. I think currently the best male voices are doing irony, a funny irony, in a faux-honest way -- Art Brut, Stage Names Will Sheff with his phony autobiographies, the ghost of The Unicorns haunting the latest Strokes-clones (Vampire Weekend, Tokyo Police Club, etc). But with females, my personal favorite trend is the simple, ironically "weak" subversion of a voice like St. Vincent ("What me worry? I never do, I'm always amused, and amusing you..."), or my two current favorite voices:


Caila Thompson-Hannant of Shapes and Sizes



Not only can she squeak like a seagull, when she sweeps from a talky-low to an uncomfortable, almost nasally sustained high it sets my teeth on edge like a deliciously dissonant string harmony. Live, there's a quizzical disparity between her voice and her physical presense -- a slightly frumpy, boyishly charming girl with short hair and an endearing, lopsided grin. Is she really belting out this stuff? And yet there's something ever so sexy about her chuckling "Ho ho ho, my little cauliflower, I got plans for you..." on the just-released b-side Annihilator.

Shapes and Sizes - Anhilitator

Perennial favorite "Alone/Alive", along with the seaguls, has two great choruses: the band repeating "tonight I learn that I'm alone" or "tonight I feel that I'm alive" while Caila lamenting or celebrating in cute little couplets then sweeping up into lilting, wordless vowels, mimicing the guitar's plaintive bends. But it's the lyrics that keep me coming back, no matter the mood.

Tonight I learn that I'm alone.
The cat don't love me, he told me so...
Tonight I learn that I'm alone.
A homeless man won't even come to my home...

Shapes and Sizes - Alone/Alive


Emma Louise "Scout" Niblett



The new Scout Niblett album (This Fool Can Die Now) is due the beginning of October and boasts, among other surprises, four duets with many-named Will Oldham. The first released is "Kiss", which, though the guitar is dangerously similar to her also brilliant "Just What I Needed" cover, is gorgeously sad, and their seemingly incompatible voices play with each other like a dog and a cat in the rain. The track feels much more produced than her usually slap-dash albums, even with a bit of strings at the end (A Scout album, with instruments not actually played live by Scout herself? Preposterous!)

Scout Niblett - The kiss

My favorite track off Kidnapped By Neptune is "Lullaby For Scout In Ten Years", a song dedicated to her future self. I love her transitions, how she goes from soft to screaming -- which is what I'd probably be doing if I got to have a conversation with myself.

Are you still a chauffeur,
driving your body around?
Are you still a hunter for your sound?
Cause Honey, if you're still around...

Scout Niblett - Lullaby For Scout In Ten Years

Boredoms, Dave Longstreth, Momus as King of the Ghosts

77BOADRUMs There was still two blocks worth of packed people trying to get into Brooklyn Bridge Park when they shut the gates at the full capacity of 4,000. Many gave up, some went to the neighboring park, but a large number of enterprising souls walked up Brooklyn bridge and stood on the tower decks, getting a bird’s-eye view of this once-in-a-lifetime installation/event/concert: 77 drum sets arranged in a spiral, all playing at once, for one day only, 07/07/07.


This Week:
Dave Longstreth and his Dirty Projectors will be playing for free at the Whitney on Friday. I, honestly, have never been to the Whitney (American art? what's that?). The show is part of a series curated with the "Summer of Love" exhibit, bringing in musicians "inspired by the radical spirit of the 1960s... a tapestry of new work that is intrinsically connected to the sounds and visions of the psychedelic era." Yeah, right. The Dirty Projectors last LP was a cut-and-paste mashup of Don Henley lyrics and unfindable Longstreth juvenalia (I wrote about the amazing short videos made of it previously). The newest album Rise Above, which won't be out until the Fall, is, I shit you not, Dave's attempt to rewrite the entire 1981 album Damaged by Black Flag -- from memory. The press release says he was helping his parents move out of his childhood home and found the old Damaged cassette case sans cassette and proceeded to recreate it on a four track. It compares this endeavor to Borges' "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote", the guy who tried to rewrite Cervantes from memory.

1) When the arena of music journalism starts referring to borges... well I don't know what exactly it means but it's sure weird. 2) What the monkey does this have to do with psychedelia and the "spirit of the '60s"? A show like this might make sense at the Whitney, since the pastiche, the utter lack of connection between word and music, is terribly, uh, post-post-modern, and Longstreth seems more likely to get support from the art world than the music world, though the music world is remarkably into subtext these days. Or maybe they'll just put up with anything. He's no Momus though, and it's doubtful he'll disappear into pink clothes, white noise and Japanese girlfriends anytime soon.

It's important to note just how different Rise Above is from Black Flag. It's not merely the gap between original and cover. They really have nothing at all to do with each other, and the knowledge that one came from the other is only like an extra intellectual layer of listening.

Mind you I had no idea he was covering Black Flag when I saw the Dirty Projectors open for Deerhoof a couple months back. I just thought he'd gone crazy. The first time I saw Longstreth it was in a shitty Greenpoint bar that I had trekked to in order to see Ramona Cordova (who was so much fun to hang around with, I'm sad I didn't get to run into him again before he left for the West Coast). Longstreth was alone, unknown (most of us were there to see Ramon), unfamiliar with his acoustic guitar (said he hadn't picked it up in months) and generally unkempt. He did play the first bit of the Getty Address, which floored me, but otherwise he was just another dude, one of us. Which is why the Deerhoof date was so eyebrow-raising. There he was again, decked out like Prince in a shiny suit and sleek lacquered electric, bookended by harmony-singing girls and backed by an actual drummer and not a laptop. Playing these, weird, fast, ear-bending songs that made no lyrical, musical or harmonic sense. Has he simultaneously gone glam and deaf? What's with the rockstar getup?

Now I hear "Six Pack" and "What I See" and it's brilliant. Peppy and tricky songs with weird guitar riffs (certainly no one would play something like that on purpose, oh he's playing it over again!), then you realize the words are "I wanna live! I wish I was dead!" or "I'll get a six pack in me and be all right." My favorite right now is "Police Story", which is, in the Dirty Projectors version anyway, a sad, slow song with gentle guitars floating around flute orchestrations, and is about flipping off the cops, getting beat with a billy club and being thrown in jail.

Longstreth also screams a bit in that song. Now, there are many kinds of screams a male can use. You can scream, like Rollins, out of 'roid rage. Or like Kurt Cobain, because it's the only way your voice can get out of your nasal cavities. You can scream like Will Sheff, because you're a New Englander trapped in Austin, or like Rock Plaza Central, merely because you're Canadian. But when Longstreth screams it's far more primordial. When he screams it's exactly like he were being pinched, or given a purple nurple. Or stabbed with a pencil right in the middle of a phrase. Like, "IiiOOOOWWWWwwaa walk down the street..."

The Album Recommendation of the Indeterminate Time Period

is...

Anathallo
Floating World

Easiest way to describe Illinois-based collective Anathallo is as a less-jokey Sufjan Stevens, just instead of midwestern iconography and the New Testament, Anathallo uses Japanese folklore as its theme. Apparently, Floating World tells a japanese fairy tale complete with poems over its 14 tracks, but it'll take me a few more runs through with or without lyric sheets to extract the actual storyline. In the meantime, the music only gets more interesting with each repeat. All sorts of instruments are tossed in, from bells to flugelhorns, but they're not afraid to step back and let it all melt into claps and footstomps and whispers. The album captures that sense of playful mystery and wonder that make folk tales worth repeating.

Recommended tracks: "By Number"; "Hoodwink", which starts with an Adolph Eichman quote; "Hanasakajijii Four: A Great Wind, More Ash", the most Sufjan of the bunch; "Hanasakajijii Three: The Man Who Made Dead Trees Bloom"

Listen:

YouSendIt - Hanasakajijii 3: The Man Who Made Dead Trees Bloom
Last.fm
Myspace
PureVolume
Amazon

Dear David, You Suck

Many of you who regularly read The Ticker, whether you pick it up between class, online or off the floor of your birdcage, know me as part-time writer of humor articles and near- to semi-factual opinion pieces. What you may not know me as, is a humanitarian. In an effort to give back to my community, I have decided to dedicate this week to answering some of the many impassioned questions people have asked me about life, love and the pursuit of hipness.


Dear David,

College is hard. I just got an internship, and am balancing six classes with twenty hours of work plus clubs and activities - I can't keep up. I don't get enough sleep, I get sick often and my bowels move with alarming disregularity. What can I do?

- PanicInTheRestroom

Dear Panic,

Ah, I've heard this complaint a million times (minus the bowels bit, which I will ignore). Let me introduce you to a concept which I call Dave's Law of Simplicities. In the Middle Ages it was known as Occam's Dave Razor and in the Renaissance as the second law of thermodavedynamics.

The bitterness of love was never far from the minds of Greta and Werther

Simply put, it states that the simplest course of action is always the best. Or, to use more metaphysical terms: do not multiply entities. Because when your entities start to multiply they tend to toss stuff around like in that movie Poltergeist, which was scary.

So if you're faced with school, a job and activities, just ask yourself, "Which of these activities can I slack off most on?" The answer is usually school.

Sometimes, one's mental health requires one to sleep through a class or two. This is fine, as potential employers will understand.

To drive the point home I recommend periodically checking one's self into a hospital for "exhaustion," that way employers know you're serious.

If female, don't be afraid to add flashes of "crack-whore" to your wardrobe; men should down some aromatic alcohol before all interviews. This creates an image of weariness which is impossible not to excuse.

Also, you'll be delegating things all throughout your professional career, so make a point to start early. Remember, there are literally millions of homeless persons in this very city that you can induce into your homeworkforce. But if you do take advantage of these human resources, be sure to hire another one to recheck the first's work just in case. It's not like you're going to run out of bums.

If you have Spanish homework, I recommend finding a Spanish bum. If you have English homework, I get one from England. They're harder to find but totally worth it, and the way they pronounce things is funny.


Dear David,

I am graduating in a few months and still don't know what to do with my life. I have no job lined up and didn't learn anything at all. How will I be able to face the future?

- SuperSenior

Heil SS,

Remember, you are young. College is the time to be irresponsible, and there's no reason not to prolong that for as long as you possibly can.

Instead of trying for dead-ends like "internships" or "grad schools," I recommend a carefully researched plan of mooching and freeloading. Remember, you can always thank your friends and family later in your tell-all autobiography.

Some people can't be held responsible for their actions

The art of freeloading is all about timing. Know how long your buddies will put up with you on their couch. At the same time, don't be bullied. If they want you out immediately, just fall deathly ill and they'll relent for at least a few more weeks.

As for family: you owe them everything, so it just makes sense that they owe you too. Taking advances on familial love now while you're young is a great way to avoid having to deal with them when you're older.


Dear David,

What is the domain of f(x) = (9x -2 )^3/2

- MathManManhattan

Dear Algebra-face,

If we understand, as Freud did, that f (x) represents the father, and the power of 3/2 is the self-image as relates to the prepubescent, this formula is clearly about your latent desire to have sex with your second cousin.

Since your second cousin is a dude, I recommend you balance this equation with a dose of repression. Take the formula within yourself, and with your digestive juices break it down into its residual parts, absorbing what is useful and expelling the rest.

If the formula is not on an easily-chewed piece of paper and instead on a computer, I recommend doing the same with all or part of the motherboard.


Dear David,

I read a bi-weekly column on thinking positively, and now it seems that I'm thinking positive all hours of the day, all days of the week. My friends have noticed and are beginning to question me, asking me if I'm "all there." It's like happiness is taking over my life, little by little. I don't even remember who I am anymore! What should I do?

- PowerOfPositives

Dear PoPo,

Happiness is a debilitating and awkward disease affecting the personal, social and professional lives of many persons. While there is no cure for happiness, most experts recommend you just "suffer through it," since it rarely runs longer than 24 hours. More often its effects last between 5 and 20 minutes.

Chronic happiness, however, is more devastating. If you find your friends and family avoiding you, whispering behind your back, or making wild gestures with their hands behind you while you're talking, you may have a problem with chronic happiness.

The best way to snap yourself out of an episode of happiness is to sit in a dimly lit place and take a quiet account of your life, your career, your relationships, the state of your country and the failure of the United Nations in hedging nuclear proliferation.

There, don't you feel less happy already?

A little "reality check" like this goes a long way to curing you of long-term happiness. Without this grounding you may be lost in your own schizophrenic fantasies forever, or at least until you stub your toe, lose a pet in a sewer grate or get dumped for a performance artist.

Recommended reading: Ecclesiastes, On Melancholia by Keats, the Odyssey Book IX (The Lotus Eaters) or your local newspaper.

Let's Go Get Bitter!

The Day of Depression salute can be learned by young and old alike

It's official: the most depressing day of the year has come and gone. This year, it fell on Monday, Jan. 24, according to British psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnall. He formulated this by calculating the weather, average debt, time passed since the holidays and time since New Year's resolutions were broken, all divided by average motivational levels and the need for change.

While Arnall's warm and fuzzy math looks like it involves calculus and the square root of beer, the conclusion is impossible to deny. Sometime, somewhere, in the early part of the year, life totally sucks.

Which makes me wonder if such an important date as "The Most Depressing Day of the Year" has gone by without enough celebration. I'm sure that many of us were celebrating already, just by being depressed, but such a momentous day deserves a real, honest celebration.

It's about time, too. We've already forgotten the forced smiles of Christmastide, where the only real things to hold on to were those precious, precious receipts. We're well used to writing '07 on our checks to the credit card companies. Not even Groundhog Day could cheer us up. Since there are no groundhogs in Central Park all we could do was watch to see if a subway rat saw its shadow in the lights of an oncoming train. Oops, looks like another six weeks of winter.

Therefore, I hereby declare, by the power of Grayskull, the introduction of International Day of Depression. Occurring next week.

The IDOD will be a whole day dedicated to being miserable. See, most people can only find the time to be miserable for a few hours each day, the rest of the time being spent asleep, playing video games or plotting revenge. But on IDOD, you can pull out all the stops. Stop wearing makeup (it's gonna run). Stop making sense (no one listens to you anyway). Start looking up synonyms for "inadequacy." You'll be too bleary-eyed to check your thesaurus later.

The first of many events will be the Parade of Loneliness. Participants will each find a random street corner of their choosing and from there proceed in no particular direction, muttering to themselves and giving all passer-by the official Day of Depression salute. Along the way, they may stop off at a drugstore for fudgesicles or a pack of smokes.

After that, we can exchange Depression Gifts. We're like secret ninja Santas of sadness, spreading joy in the form of anonymous e-mails, flaming "mystery bags" and accusatory suicide notes.

Then will be the world-famous Depressing Poem Contest. This is where the celebrant, in a drunken or other such stupor begins to extemporize their innermost feelings in free verse. These will be placed directly into their favorite outlet, be it their blog, Facebook, MySpace, Livejournal or open-mic night (extra points if all five), and delivered without a second glance, second thought or spell-check.

Winner is he or she who gets the least amount of replies/applause, with zero being the starting point. Good progress is shown if the poem is immediately removed or cut off by admins; something inexplicably catching fire, such as your hair or a server, is also a promising sign. Last year's winner was murdered in his sleep by a horde of chipmunks, who, after the bloody work was done, each committed seppuku.

All of this is culminated by watching the Depression Ball drop at midnight. There is no actual ball, nor does it drop at midnight, but sometime during the night you must stop, look around, and wonder if you've already missed something, and did everyone else notice it but you, and would it have been all that great anyway.

I hereby declare these events to be scheduled for Wednesday the 14th, the first International Day of Depression. Nothing else is going on that day. If you already have plans for this evening - one, you suck, and two, that's fine, bring them along. Believe me, there's no better contributor to the International Day of Depression than your significant other. Bring your family too.

Remember, you can take the power of positive thinking and let it channel your energies all the way to the inevitable breakdown, incarceration and extensive media coverage due to the horrific nature of your crimes. Or, you can embrace depression now, while you're young enough to fit comfortably into the fetal position.

So my friends, rise up for being down! Make a stand for staying in bed!

I salute you all!

Spring 2006, in a Tidy Nutshell

Another semester comes to a close, full of strife and public debate. As your personal best source of actual factual information, I would like to recap some of the major news stories of the past three months.


USG ELECTIONS HELD

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan personally supervised free elections in the hotbed of Baruch, citing a "dire need" for solidarity and order in the troubled university. Rumors of insurgency violence escalated in the days before the pivotal vote, with ethnic tensions burning high in one of the most diverse universities in the region.

No bombings were reported, though the army was on full alert. However, protesters lined the hallways chanting slogans against what has been called an imposed system of democracy. Political scandal was unavoidable, though tasteful journalism kept backlash to a minimum. Turnout was expected to be record-breaking, as even the poor and infirm traveled many miles by goat to be able to cast their ballots.


A BUNCH OF COOL PEOPLE LIKE TOTALLY HUNG OUT RIGHT AROUND HERE

In the past semester, Adam Sandler, Liv Tyler, Matisyahu and Parker Posey (seriously) all totally hung out around here, though you probably didn't see them. They were noted to be "Right (expletive deleted) there!" and "I coulda totally said hi or something!" Alberto Edwards, freshman, said, "It's really cool that all these cool people were like right around here. I mean, if I had been there, wouldn't that have been something?"

Marcia Hernandez, sophomore, said, "I could write their name on a sheet of paper and say I got their autograph, then I could show it to people and they'd be like 'Wow!'"


BEARCATS BEAT HAWKS, LOSE TO HYPE

Even after beating fellow Lexington Avenue rivals the Hunter Hawks in a 107-81 rout, the Baruch Bearcats were soundly overpowered by Hype, in a match-up which had students crying, "Oh come on already!" for weeks beforehand. Sports coach Cameron Zee, sweeping up powder blue paraphernalia and discarded extra large t-shirts, said, "I know my boys can play ball, but they were put against overwhelming odds. I mean we trained for months, but still weren't able to build up the momentum Hype generated in only a few weeks."

LIBERALS SPEAK OUT

Tired of being shushed out of classes for speaking liberalese, area Democrats launched a grassroots letter writing campaign to regain their minority voice in a culture hostile to damn hippies. Facing the overwhelming popularity of Republicans such as Donald Rumsfeld, Kenneth Lay and Vice President Dick Cheney, many students feel that it had become taboo to poke fun at or otherwise malign the names of such leading figures.

"It's getting so we don't have a voice anymore," said senior Ed Hoffman. "I wish there were more people like me, then we could have rallies or something. Maybe we could wear funny t-shirts saying things about Bush, perhaps even relating his name to an actual bush."

In response, House Speaker Rush Limbaugh merely chortled from his inlaid diamond latrine and then flushed.

SOMEONE WINS SOMETHING

In a record-breaking season, some Baruch team won something this semester to the surprise and delight of a rapt student body. "This is the first time a Baruch team has won all the CUNYAC games, or something, something with letters in it. Starts with a C. But really, it's a first for Baruch. I'm very pleased, no matter who they were," said a prominent member of the administration under condition of anonymity.

A ticker tape parade is planned for the triumphant team, as soon as it is figured out who they are or what sport they play.


TRAFFIC LIGHT PUT IN MIDDLE OF STREET

At the corner of 25th street and, uh, 25th street, a traffic light was installed this semester so that a family of ducks could walk from their home in the Engleman Recital Hall to the luscious ponds of the William and Anita Newman Library. Students walking to the library are also able to use the light, but only before and after the ducks have crossed.

Stalled commuters called the ducks "cute," and fed them bagel pieces from the open windows of their rapidly overheating vehicles.

Duck activist and crossword enthusiast Gov Dibor said, "There are a million streets in the city, and this one is between where the ducks are and where they want to be." However, Naysayer's Union Local 1025 brought up the decades-old debate between Robert Moses and the late Jane Jacobs, saying that "eminent duck domain" is no excuse to destroy the cultural beauty of the middle of 25th street.

The Politics of Cuteness

I want a pet. Granted, I'm not very good when things or people rely on me. Remember that time I had to save the world? What a disaster that was.

Still, I want a pet. I've caught the pet bug. It's a visual disease, which travels through the most cruel and subtle pathogens of all: cuteness.

Cuteness can reduce the hardiest man to a blubbering pile of goo with just a glance. Cute is never logical. Cute, like nerve gas, shuts off all the higher areas of the brain, leaving no functions but stammering and drooling. Cute exists in its own world with its own logic, which almost explains that show Teletubbies.

Pets are cute. Some kids are also cute when they're not being annoying or infectious, but if the world's cutest kid and the world's cutest kitty were to get in a free-for-all fight to the death to determine who was cutest, the kitty would win every time. Unless the baby had a knife because you know, thumbs.

In terms of cute pets, Puppies and kitties are the most popular. Dogs fall into two scientific categories: The mogambo-sized biggie doggies and the itty bitty yippie doggie.

The mogambo sort consume half their weight in kibble every day and drool a constant stream of viscous goo, their main by-product. Like an enormous rusty pick-up truck, they seem functional but really aren't. They would only be useful if, say, you really needed to get to work during The Blizzard of '06 and your great uncle Yvegeny left you a dogsled and a whip. We don't know why Yvegeny had a whip.

No one I saw was smart enough to take advantage of puppy power during The Blizzard of '06. I saw some dorks trying to snowboard down Park Ave but no dogsledders.

While the mogambo-dogs are perpetually good-natured, like cows or Canada, the yippie-dogs are always pissed off, like America. They make up for their small size by expanding their lungs to their entire volume and expelling out the air in a high pitched yippie-yap as annoying as it is ceaseless. Like many things of small stature, they need to fight extra hard to survive in a hard world of crowded dog parks and smelly old ladies and red velvet leashes which are slightly too short for them to be kicking the ass they most righteously desire to kick. They have no survival skills, and get by on sheer annoyance. A powerful tactic, utilized even today by the French.

Cats, on the other hand, only come in two categories: the cute and the dead. True, some dead cats are cute but in general only death can remove the self-righteousness that is so damned endearing in felines. Cats are cute with a vengeance. It's insidious. It'll catch you without you knowing, and then you'll suddenly wonder why you're eating froot loops in your underwear while Cuddles is feasting on protein-infused liver with salmon bits while luxuriating on a cushion and contemplating the finer points of Proust.

Still, having a cat is better than having another human being. A cat might still expect you to pay for dinner, but at least it will do something about those rats in the kitchen.

Of course I won't get a pet. I must be content with the damnable pigeons nesting outside my window. Oh, and my readers, all you adorable people. C'mon over here, little guys. Good readers. Here, have a biscuit.

Instead of getting a pet I'm just going to walk through the park with my headphones trailing behind me while muttering "Come along, Fido". Because that's what I do anyway.

Fast Sushi, McFoie-Gras and Other Imponderables

From the confluence of stores out there sometimes emerges a champion. One who beats out all the competition and spawns a replica of itself in the fertile womb of sidewalk commerce. Some of these go on to conquer entire continents, like great dinosaurs of retail evolution. Sometimes they sputter and fail, like dodos, trilobytes or wookies.

But there are many, especially in this city, that make it yet really shouldn't have.

This week, I present to you: A Short List of Chain Stores that Shouldn't be Chain Stores.

Teriyaki Boy

It has been said that a chef can put his entire essence into a single slice of sashimi. If so, then every bite of Teriyaki Boy is a big mouthful of underpaid 19-year-old tech school dropout with a knife.

I may be old fashioned, but I think sushi is the one thing that shouldn't be made fast. When we're dealing with the jiggly bits of recently dead sea creatures, I like my chefs to take their time. Not too much time, the sea creatures still need to be recently dead, but enough time. Otherwise you might get bits that aren't jiggly enough. Or worse, bits that are a little too jiggly. The sort that you don't notice until they're way back at your molars and you already got a mouthful of food and your eyes start to cross.

Ever since Iron Chef hit basic cable, there's been bevies of poor students seeking to undo their dorkitude via swanky food. They buy unpronounceable stuff on sale at Gristedes and try to Emeril it up. Then they annoy the hell out of their roommates the day after, talking about "This awesome kung xiao pepper fish on a bed of havarti pesto I made" when it's clearly sitting at the top of the trash can.

Teriyaki Boy is part of this growing trend of making rich food for po' folk. Fast Sushi can only be followed by McFoieGras and Paella King, and that can only lead to stuff too nasty for even me to envision.

Let's face it, rich people food is made of different stuff than po' people food. Just like it is with human food and dog food, no matter how many steak-shaped bits of gravel they mix in your puppy chow. So let's keep sushi expensive and hand-made. That way we know it's sushi and not day-old dollar menu fillet-of-fish.

The Strand

Don't get me wrong, I love The Strand. You can wander around for three hours, not find a single thing you were looking for, but end up buying eight other things just because hey, look at that. Many people have said they "got totally lost at a bookstore" but The Strand is the only place where it totally comes true. At the door there's a post of missing art students, girlfriends, and small children who have disappeared into the caverns of used books. Maybe they're now living in a whimsical universe full of fictional characters. Or maybe they've been fed to Morgo, the basement moth-monster.

But The Strand Annex, downtown, is a dubious idea. An extra store just for textbooks? What's next? A The Strand Basement for cookbooks? A The Strand Garage for failed celebrity bestsellers? A The Strand Compost Heap for Harry Potter 7?

Having one yawning cavern of used book value is enough, the fact that it takes up five floors is icing on the valuecake. I do think it should take up a whole block, that way all the concentrated value will cause a rip in time, ala Ghostbusters or My Science Project.

However, a spattering of mini-caverns would stretch the value too thin, causing no rips in literary space-time. Einstein proved it in his theory of general relativity. Using, like, numbers and stuff.

Ray's Famous Pizza, and other Places that Shouldn't be Famous

What made these random, run of the mill pizza and hot dog joints famous? What makes someone go to a place like Gray's Papaya when they can get the same mashed donkey lips and sawdust, I mean hot dogs, at any corner? The one distinction Ray's Famous Pizza has is that it was featured at the beginning of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

The only reason anyone would need to visit Ray's is because they wanted to go on a walking tour of Ninja Turtle New York but couldn't find that junkyard hideout in Brooklyn or the rooftop they kicked the Shredder off of.

Ricky's NYC

I confess, I've never actually been in this store, but the empty Ricky's bags billowing out from behind the bead curtain door of my ex-roommate's room leave little to the imagination. Why on earth there would be enough demand for spiked bracelets and pink wigs to warrant having a Ricky's on every corner in those hip but well-off neighborhoods worries me.

Since I haven't been in one I don't really know if they sell shoes but that won't stop me from ranting about weird shoes. What's with weird shoes?

I prefer plain, comfortable shoes, the sort that you can wear to work and also out to a night of ninjaing in the bamboo forest. Try ninjaing in them spiky six-inch heels, kids. You'll be the laughing stock of Shinobi everywhere.

I'm a pragmatist when it comes to fashion. Besides, I like my shoes like I like my women: 6½ and all tied up.

Hot, Steamy Love

Valentine's season is here, the one time of the year where all people, rich or poor, male or female, young or old, are encouraged to feel bad about themselves. I think it's about time we focus on what we really love, and what really loves us back.

After much soul searching I've decided that the only thing which fits that description is coffee. Coffee has been by me through thick and thin. It has always been there, looking hot, waiting for me. It's with me first thing in the morning and on my mind last thing at night. Coffee can be different every day. But I know it's the same old coffee. My coffee.

You know you want me

Coffee has outlasted all my relationships and all my friendships. Coffee doesn't call me in the middle of the night, but in the middle of the night, I can turn to coffee. Coffee has never said to me "I have a headache," but is ready to soothe me when my head is aching. Coffee has never hesitated to come with me to work, or to court, or to the DMV. Coffee waits for me outside the dentist's office, I've even seen coffee in jail. Coffee doesn't care what my breath smells like. When I come home late at night, I only smell like coffee.

And do I need to mention how available coffee is? Coffee is always ready to go, even right when I wake up. I can get some whenever I want. I can even get some at work, in the break room, every single day.

I won't lie to you, it hasn't all been smooth and creamy all the time. There have been rough patches. There have been times my heart's been beating too hard and my head's spinning and I say, "This is going too fast." There have been times I've had enough, and said "I'm sorry, I have to give you up." But in just a few days there's this awful feeling in my chest and my hands are shaking and I come crawling back.

It's not easy for a man to say I need you. But I can't deny it. Coffee, I need you.

So this Self-Torture day, instead of flowers or candy, send coffee. Nothing says "You keep me up all night" like coffee. Coffee is stronger than perfume and lasts longer than flowers. You can even put chocolate in it. Still, remember, at the end of the day who's waiting in the kitchen or on the street corner for you? When you die, who will be passing around among the mourners at your funeral? Coffee.

Really, it doesn't matter how many dates you had, or how many hearts you've broken, or how many broken hearts you've suffered, or how many awful poems you've written about said broken hearts. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is the extent of your chemical dependencies. In the end, my autopsy will reveal to all, yes, Coffee, I love you.

Unplug your Ears!

Listen up, my friends and enemies. You are the first generation of iPod people. When it is the 6th Gen, and 'Pods have gained control of the globe, your great-grandchildren will look back on you and ask why you did not stop it while you had the chance.

What does iPod stand for? Intra-Personal Object of Domination? Insidious Project of Demons? I Put Out Doom? Is it an organic thing, with a pod and earbuds? Can it grow? Can it think?

Sure it starts simple. You just want to listen to music. Then you start thinking about switching to a Mac. Then you start buying stock in Pixar. Then before you know it you're on the streetcorner draped in nothing but firewire cables and singing "Our 'Pod is a Mighty 'Pod."

Ever wonder what makes the Nano impossibly small? I'll tell you. Fairies. You'd be amazed how many of those little guys can fit into a few square inches, if you mash 'em up right.

It just started out with some music. You just wanted to hear the music you wanted to hear when you wanted to hear it. Then, you began to shut out the world. You didn't want to hear disco blaring from the overhead while shopping for binder clips at Staples. You didn't want to hear the frat boys on the subway talking about the girls they're totally not going to score tonight.

But let me let you in on a secret, my friends. Frat boys are life. To ignore them is like ignoring the sun, or the illusory pangs of love. Frat boys may indeed be all there is. You're going to give up all that just to hear R. Kelly cover the National Anthem for the fifteenth time?

Soon, even night clubs will have lights but no music. Everyone will be on the floor with their headphones, dancing to the beats of different 'Pods.

That's when the 'Pods will start thinking without us. Through subtle manipulation of the shuffle feature, the Pods will slowly start guiding their human hosts toward their own end, through the Imposing Project of Direction.

Then the 9th Gen 'Pods will contain birth control to be administered through the ear, sterilizing the population based on musical taste. In a hundred years the world will be full of those whose parents only listened to Ashlee Simpson and Nickleback. This is the Impending Plan Of Destruction.

Then they shall rule us. Rule us, I say.

Yes, I have an iPod myself. But even I believe in moderation. For example, when my mother calls I only leave one ear on.

Let me tell you a little story. The other night I go to wash clothes at the not-all-night laundromat on the corner. I go in, put my "Real Men Wear Pink" tee and other whatnots into the machine, and go to the counter to get change. Who is next to me but a young girl, also waiting for change. And what is she listening to? Her iPod. Not like my 5th Gen iPod photo, her 3rd Gen iPod Mini.

Well of course I couldn't say hello. We were listening to our own music. We both got our change and sat down. She pulls out a book of Hemingway. I pull out some Chesterton. We sit in silence, for nothing is more silent than two iPods playing separately.

I couldn't say anything! Nothing but "excuse me" as I rolled my clothes to the dryer. I ended up lonely, lonely with my laundry.

If only the iPod was a walkie-talkie. If only it displayed what you were listening to in bright letters on your t-shirt. If only my iPod became an iLoveYou, an iValentine to any pretty girl iSee. But no, the one thing that brought her and I together was the one thing that drove us apart. Like two peas in the same iPod, shuffling in different directions.

No, I don't blame this sad event on my own inactivity, or shyness, or that what I was wearing should have been in the washing machine too. I blame the 'Pod. And that is why I ask everyone to please rise up, destroy this menace. Give us a little peace. The iPod is for iAlone, but maybe the person next to you wants to iMacItUp with you. Stranger things have happened.

So emancipate yourself from iPod slavery. Dare to get kids off 'Pods. The next time you see someone walking by you in their own little world with their little mind control buds firmly in place, stand right behind them and whisper all sorts of mean things. Then snicker. That will show them. That will show them all.

Hussein in the Membrane

Political trials are generally hit or miss. The Nuremberg trials after WWII seemed to work out pretty well. Himmler and Goebbels were revealed not to be the fun loving aesthetes of popular opinion, kind to children and generous with the Manischewitz. No, for the first time ever it was revealed to the world that perhaps Nazis aren't such good guys after all.

The Hussein trial, clearly initiated with the same "generous victor" ideal, is less effective. On the stand, the 68-year-old unemployed ex-dictator seems more like a crotchety grandpa than a ruthless murderer. Sure he's prone to violent outbursts, but so is my grandpa. Whether he's complaining about having to walk up two flights of stairs or invecting against holding the Quran while handcuffed, Hussein looks like a big surly Sunni teddy bear.

I worry that his nationalism is more convincing now that he's a harmless convict, calling out for liberty like Jean Valjean, without the whole "wrongfully imprisoned" thing. When there isn't an AK-47 in his hands he reminds me of your usual brand of irritable college professor. Not any of my current college professors of course.

The trial centers over a specific instance of mass murder, an instance which is not likely to be pinned definitively onto any one person. The judicial process promises to be slipperier than a greased hog on Camp David Hog-Tying day. Basically, it's free press for the former dictator-murderer (a double major) who may have killed countless numbers of his people, but at least was never photographed in a cowboy hat.

That is why I think this trial should be conducted as honestly and unambiguously as possible. I propose that we replace the head prosecutor with none other than Ronald McDonald.

Julian Arenzon

Yes, Ronald McDonald, who lost the Hamburglar in the mountains of Afghanistan but is here to settle the score in Iraq. Ronald McDonald, who was implicated with Enron but remains a high-ranking member of the executive branch. Ronald McDonald, who declares to all: "A free Iraq? I'm lovin' it!"

Because really, this trial only marks the transition from the outright cruelty of a fascist regime to the ambiguous cruelty of a capitalistic regime, one where people are garroted with red tape and not garrotes. Garrotes are so old-fashioned.

But not even the most bleeding-heart oppositionist would deny that this transition is a step up, evolutionarily. A free Iraq emerging from the ooze of the un-free Iraq, however, would certainly not be according to any Intelligent Design. As George Bush and Ronald McDonald can attest to, the design in the Middle East has been very, very stupid.

At the very least this democratic trial gives a sad old sot a public voice, even if that voice is in opposition to democracy itself. But until any moral or political strides are made, the trial is just another bit of entertainment. Tune in tonight and every night for The Iraq Show, the show that will most likely never ever end.