From my replica Sears Catalog from 1909, check out this bogglingly weird selection of records available for order (click picture for much larger image). There’s a whole section of ‘Laughing Songs’, for example, including a little number called ‘And Then I Laughed’. If laughing stories are more up your alley than laughing songs, you’re in [...]

(This time on a Sunday, for no particular reason.) When I was much younger, I used to assume that the existence of any album I liked was essentially predetermined, as though god had decided ‘Let there be Rocket To Russia’. As I got older, I began to realize that a lot of these records were [...]

Lately I’m getting more and more emails that contain a quick line of conciliatory auto-blather at the bottom like this: Is this a new “thing”? (Yes, I’m squinting and making quote-mark signs in the air right now). What could possibly be the value in this? Imagine extending this same convention to spoken conversation: “Hey, I’m [...]

I’m deeply enjoying the 2010 NBA playoffs these days, and have noticed that most of the Czech guys who I play basketball with every Tuesday have a meticulous knowledge of NBA players and teams. This is interesting when you think about the fact that basketball is the only truly American game, having been invented by [...]

My father was visiting last week. It took his discerning eye to draw our attention to the name of our current toilet paper brand, which I hadn’t noticed before: Happyend, a German brand. No word yet on the specific terms of this guarantee. Meanwhile, Mr. Clean has become Mr. Proper: Same guy, but over here [...]

Around the time that Charles Mingus was having his psychologist write the liner notes for his albums, he released The Clown, whose title track centers around a made-up-on-the-fly story narrated by Jean Shepherd (the same guy responsible for A Christmas Story). Musicians are forever bitching about how their listeners don’t really ‘get’ them, but Mingus [...]

“It’s eerily familiar, but bigger. I haven’t been this impressed since I saw the giant 40-foot laptop at the Museum Of Novelty Oversized Technology in Tacoma!” – Dan Mayer, April 23 “It’s like 17 iPhones stitched together!” – Dan Mayer, May 21

Mine punched me in the face the other day and started crying because he hurt his little fist. I’m pretty sure that has something to do with it.

Yesterday, we lost one of the great voices of 80s metal– and popularizer of the “Il Cornuto” devil sign– Ronnie James Dio. I thought it would appropriate to lay him to rest with a passage from that Christian screed The Devil’s Disciples that I blogged on a few weeks ago. In this section, the perpetually [...]

[ed note: the following is an excerpt from the travel journal of my old high school friend Andrej Mucic. In 2005, Andrej bicycled over 7,000 miles through Siberia to raise money for the American Anti-Slavery Group. Previous installments start here. In this-- the final installment-- Andrej comments on the political kertuffles taking place just as he's leaving [...]