Anticipating nothing being random on Thanksgiving, I'm once again doing the Thursday Random Eight on Wednesday. As always, the first eight songs of the morning after setting the iPod to shuffle play.

Stewart Copeland - Gong Rock: Another song from The Rhythmatist that I mentioned a few weeks ago; very upbeat and entertaining.

Robyn Hitchcock - Queen Elvis II: The solo-electric version of Robyn's semi-famous song from the fantastic Eye release. For as much as I like Robyn Hitchcock's music, there is no doubt these days that he works without much of a filter and sometimes releases music that, frankly, could be better. Eye, however, is really a fantastic package of music from beginning to end, and closing it with a reprise of this song is very fitting.

Archers of Loaf - Strangled By the Stereo Wire: The opening song to All The Nation's Airports; a good opening but needs to be followed by the next couple tracks on the recording to be appreciated.

Butthole Surfers - I Saw an X-Ray of a Girl Passing Gas: I'm pretty sure this is technologically impossible.

Michael Petak - Mr. Smile: I was introduced to Petak's music when his band opened for a Love Spit Love show in Baltimore years ago. Pretty Little Lonely was his only solo release (his band, Carnival Art, had two releases that I am aware of); it is a fine collection of dismal songs with a certain similarity to the band Low Pop Suicide.

Poster Children - Idiot Show: Again in this post I'll say that Tool of the Man is another recording that is just a fantastic package from beginning to end. Idiot Show is one of the slower tracks, but still driven with heavy guitars and haunting vocals.

Boomtown Rats - Dave: The reissue of In The Long Grass a few years ago allowed a bonus track of Dave to be included, the (at the time of release) controversial single that was ultimately changed in title and lyrics to "Rain." The controversy was regarding the lyrical content involving Dave dying from AIDS which apparently wasn't appropriate for release on a pop record. A song about a man dying from, at the time, a vicious yet misunderstood disease changed to a song about the weather. History does have a way of indicating how f*cked up we as people can be sometimes.

Nico - No One is There: These days, people criticize Nico for all sorts of things, from being a poor musician to being a pretentious and selfish diva to being a self-destructive junkie. I don't care about any of that. Go listen to The Marble Index and understand how brilliant of a performer she could be.

Sasha is our little girl; at six years (and only six pounds) she is the oldest of our three guys, having quickly been promoted from youngest baby to oldest cat in a little under two years.

Sasha has always had a bit of an independent streak, disappearing somewhere in the house for hours and showing herself when she wants attention or it is time to eat. With her attention-hogging baby brother and kitten-sister, she has found herself in front of the camera less recently. But, with the tempting sunlight shining this past weekend, she was front and center for my focus.

Her personality has really expanded these past few years, having gone from a goofy kitten-girl to the boss of the house, demanding attention from her people with snarky yelps, mrowls, and sassing. She really loves being manhandled, and being more fur than meat, she looks like a giant disarray of fluff after a good, long patting.

She still loves to play with Oz. Coco and Sasha have been slow to get along with each other, but we expect they will tolerate each other once territorial lines are drawn (and respected, an act Coco has yet to adopt). She kneads me when I pat her and sleeps above Nicole's head, probably favoring me a little more as her person but accepts attention from both of us whenever she can get it.

And now I don't feel so bad about having so many more pictures of Coco and Oz over Sasha on this site.

With the recent Sirius station shuffling, I've been trying to program in new favorites to scan through on the drive to work. I decided to give the "40's Music" channel a shot. Although many of the songs are well beyond my appreciation, the occasional minor-key woodwind progressions that can be found in music from that era always amuses me.

This morning, I heard a Cole Porter song called "Get Out of Town." Get these lyrics:

Get out of town
Before it's too late my love
Get out of town
Be good to me please

Why wish me harm
Why not retire to a farm
And be contented to charm
The birds off the trees

Just disappear
I care for you much too much
And when you're near, close to me dear
We touch too much

The thrill when we meet is so bittersweet
That darling, it's getting me down
So on your mark get set
Get out of town

One has to love the concept of a song sung by a man that basically threatens a woman to get out of town and somehow twists the argument to make it appear he is the victim. Pointing out sexism in our culture, especially the early part of last century, isn't exactly enlightening, but there is a point where it just gets disturbing. "Get out of town before it is too late," is essentially a threat of violence in today's society, and I can't imagine it wasn't back then as well. Plus, rhyming "farm" with "harm" was way too forced; the least they could have been done was to make the rest of the song sensible.

In fairness, it appears the song has been covered a number of times since Porter's 1938 release, notably by Ella Fitzgerald and Linda Ronstadt who were perhaps making an effort to even the woman's score against Cole's aggression years prior. But perhaps the real lesson here is to stick to the AC/DC channel on Sirius; songs about who has the largest testicles all of a sudden seem way less offensive.

Smog - Wild Love: I talked about this release a number of weeks ago; this is Smog (Bill Callihan) at his best.

Snog - Real Estate Man (Ubin Offer Affordable Solutions Mix): Not to be mistaken with Smog, Snog is a Australian mix artist with a political focus, saving the world with one illegal sample at a time. Real Estate Man is one of my favorites, which is a good thing because there are about five remixes on the Relax Into the Abyss release which this sampling is from. This mix replaces the general rant against the Real Estate Man with, albeit catchy, nonsense words. Perhaps the artist had foresight into these dark days for the real estate industry and wanted to lighten the mood.

Paul Westerberg - All Over This Land(???): A free mp3 from the Westerberg website, I actually have no idea what the name of this song is, although since he repeats "All Over This Land" numerous times, I have a feeling that I am either safe with that title guess or folks in the know will be able to figure it out easy enough. I'm glad Westerberg has had success past the Replacements, but I miss the Replacements, so let's just leave it at that.

Ondar - Kargyraa Rap: The morning's required throat singing track.

Tom Waits - Trampled Rose: This seems to be a favorite of Tom's works as it tends to show up in most live shows he has played over the past couple years. It is a somewhat unique track which is, of course, a somewhat normal thing to say about any Tom Waits song. The lyrics are typically compelling and the music follows a strange progression even if it is a bit repetitive.

Thuja - Track 04: Well, this will give me 18 minutes to relax. A psychedelic collection of spooky noises from the Pine Cone Temples CD, this certainly falls into one of my "acquired taste" categories.

Meat Beat Manifesto - Repulsion: A band I don't know much about. I think they gained some popularity from the Mission Impossible soundtrack a few years ago, and I think I picked up the CD just because it looked kinda funny. It is bouncy and repetitive - a pretty fun listen.

Salaryman - New Centurions: The alter ego of the Poster Children, this is one-drummer, three-keyboard playing exercise in throwback electronic music. The initial self-titled release that this track is from is my favorite and I happily saw a few live shows from the experiment (I think opening for Luna, back in the days where it seemed perfectly normal to see a show in DC and then drive to Baltimore the next night to see the exact same concert).

If you haven't gathered by now, I'm not real adept at writing reviews. I try hard, but I end up repeating words like, "neat" and "good" and "interesting" eighteen times in the span of two paragraphs, which is neither neat, good, nor interesting.

Nonetheless, let me try again.

Will Self's books contain some of the most complicated prose I have ever tried to read. It may be cultural (English versus American), it could be that the stories are so creative that it just takes my brain a while to wrap around them, or I could just be a little dim. But at the end of every novel, I feel like I've been put through the works to earn a good story. And for books like The Quantity Theory of Insanity and My Idea of Fun, I was never disappointed with the effort I needed to extend to read a great story.

The Butt was actually a much easier read with, albeit a complicated story, a fairly simple premise: ignorant tourist in foreign country inadvertently commits a crime against a local tribe...wackiness ensues. Not Animaniacs wackiness, but the "yer stuck in our country now, rich boy" kind that we all probably secretly fear when traveling abroad (or, you know, south of the Mason-Dixon line if you happen to be from the North in the US). The cleverest thing about the story is that nobody is assigned a nationality; it can be implied that the lead character (ignorant tourist) is American...or English, and that the locality is Middle Eastern...Austrailan...Central American...see, that is just it: Self's scheme is to make us build the characters we want them to be and put them in the place we least want to have a conflict. Hell, I never even thought the setting was the Middle East until I read a number of reviews (after reading the novel)...and actually, I still don't...but some folks do, which I guess is the real trick.

Not unlike Self's Dorian, which was a modern-day take of The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Butt does have a loose resemblance to Heart of Darkness, and ultimately the journey of our lead character becomes the anticipation of confrontation with the novel's own Kurtz. Self's reputation for the bizarre actually makes the conflict slightly anticlimactic, but it is still stranger than the average bear.

It is a fun read; fairly quick, somewhat miserable, and a peculiar commentary on current world relations without prejudice or bias.

When I haven't kept up with uploading new photographs, I fall back on some older shots I've yet to display here. Our trip to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond a few weeks ago has provided me with a wealth of shots.

The extravagance that the grave markers have at Hollywood is very interesting, especially when time and weathering degrades the statues. Many of the apparent posthumous one-upmanship graves are lined with angels missing limbs and sometimes scarred beyond recognition. It makes for some neat photos, but I'm not sure I will ever understand the point of such a display.

The weather turned from pleasant to nasty to really awful to pleasant, and repeated, all day. Consequently, we stayed indoors almost exclusively.

Oz just can't handle this. He follows us everywhere, and by time evening comes around, he is so tired that he can barely move.

But still, he has to sleep near us, so even then he can't rest very well cause some dope with a camera keeps bugging him by taking his picture.

But at least I finally have a shot of him where he doesn't look like the saddest cat in the world...now he is the sleepiest.

It has been a couple weeks since I mentioned Zooborns, and since I spend a good deal of time every day just looking at the snapshots there, I feel the need to plug it again.

Again, I copied these shamelessly (but with complete respect and admiration).

This site isn't really popular enough to start any type of campaign, nor am I political enough to really care to start something partisan-motivated.

But I am a jerk with a head for catchy tunes, so I started thinking it might be fun to send Joe Lieberman a bag full of worms to see if he would eat them. And if a whole bunch of people sent him worms, well, that would be real funny for obvious reasons.

Researching this little campaign, I learned a couple things.

1. The "Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me" song wasn't, in fact, created by The Kids In The Hall, although I can't say I ever heard the tune outside that show.

2. I didn't know the song had upwards of nine verses and/or five versions. Look at this:

Version I:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.

Version II
Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms
Long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones
See how they wriggle and squirm

I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice
And throw the skins away
Nobody knows how fat I grow
On worms three times a day
Ohh...nobody loves me.

Version III:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Think I'll go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm.

Chomp off their heads and squeeze out the juice
And throw their tails away
Nobody knows how I survive
On worms three times a day.

Version IV:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me
I'm goin' down the garden to eat worms
Long thin slimy ones, short fat fuzzy ones
Ooey gooey, ooey gooey worms

Long thin slimy ones slip down easily
Short fat fuzzy ones don't
Short fat fuzzy ones stick to your teeth
And the juice goes slurpin' (slurping noise) down your throat

Version V:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
think I'll go eat worms...
big fat juicy ones, little slimy skinny ones,
hope they don't have germs!"

So, cursed by my own unpopularity, perhaps Joe Lieberman won't get bags and bags of worms in the mail. But at least I learned something today.

Moscow Groove Institute - 1/4 South Vietnam (Metro Mix): From the "various artist" collection Moscow: The Sex, The City, The Music, this is one of a many entertaining, bouncy electronic tracks.

Skinny Puppy - Amnesia: Another song from The Process, the Puppy at their most industrial.

Ixox - Space Cadet: From Pierres Brulantes, a self-released CD by a French artist, a great composition and a prime example of solid self production.

The Replacements - Left of the Dial: My favorite band forever and ever and ever, this is one of the more notable songs from the Tim release.

The Boomtown Rats - Elephant's Graveyard: You could insert my rave about the Rats made a few weeks ago here. Even though the Mondo Bongo release departed from their earlier, more punkier sound, I never lost interest in their later recordings.

Philemon Arthur & The Dung - Jag Mar Si Illa: The award for the weirdest band of the random eight goes to this song with little chance of the remaining two unseeding it (even if a goofy Boredoms song shows up). The Wikipedia entry probably sums up the band better than I can: Philemon Arthur and the Dung is a mysterious music group from Scania, Sweden, consisting of two members known only by the pseudonyms Philemon Arthur and the Dung. The band formed in the early 1960s under the name The Popbeams, which they changed before the release of their first album. The duo's true identities are most likely known only to a few individuals at Silence Records, the record label that the band has worked with since 1971. Philemon Arthur and the Dung do not want their identities to be known, lest those who live in their small village find out who they are.

Jeff Beal - His Name Was Michael: From the Carnivale soundtrack, the HBO show that died an unfortunate death after two seasons on the cable network. The show had great, moving music.

Gang of Four - I Will Be A Good Boy: A nice, haunting track.

As the days grow colder, tolerance for sharing food amongst the stray cats is growing thinner.

While the guys will generally huddle around the large pans or bowls filled with crunchies and canned food and share peacefully, some days they just constantly annoy each other with swats to the head and hisses, basically making it so nobody really gets a square meal with the exception of the alpha cat who is above it all.

I am somewhat happy to say that Oz Junior is that alpha cat, and enjoyed the bulk of the food amongst his grumpy companions at our last feeding.

Fortunately, we typically give the guys enough food that, at the end of all the scuffling, they are well fed. The territorial battle becomes little more than unintended comedy...at least for us to watch.

Oz, our fat fluffy kitten-boy, is one of the most lovey creatures around. He'll snuggle with us, crawl on our laps, roll on his back when he wants his belly rubbed, squeak like a baby when he wants to play, and drool all over the place when he is getting attention (to the extent that I fully expect him to short-out my laptop one of these days).

And I've never once taken a picture of him where he didn't look like the saddest cat in the world.

It is to the point of near frustration that I can't capture his goofy, playful side. The problem likely started when we first brought him into the house and I took about 100 flash-pictures of him. The curious yet certainly frightened little boy was probably very unhappy about his first exposure in our house being dominated by a nasty, mechanical, lightening-producing monster pointed within a few feet of his face.

Since then, every picture has a worried little sad face where our happy Oz is supposed to be.

For better or worse, I'll keep trying.

...or fingers...whatever gets in range of their bills.

He'd eat you if he had the chance.

Looking at the photographs of the stray cats I post here, it doesn't take long to understand why we have dubbed the lot as "team monochrome." They are gray, black, white, gray tabby, and occasionally a peculiar mix of those shades. Only once did I see an orange tabby in the bunch, and based on his belly size, I suspected he was actually a nearby house cat who was slumming with the local gang for a few days.

Orange tabby: "What do you eat around here?"

Team monochrome rep: "Mice."

OT: "No, really..."

Mono: "Mice."

{Orange Tabby waddles back to his safe suburban home.}

The Smokies started as a couple of solidly gray cats, but have exploded into a significant part of the population. I eventually gave up in trying to differentiate them...I started safely with Smoky, then Smoky #2, then Smoky #3, then SmokyKitten...but then it just got out of hand.

Although you can't see it here, the guy in this picture has a very unique tabby tail. His face looks young, and like our domestic Coco Cat, I suspect he will grow in/out of his coloring as he ages. It is fascinating to watch; they are remarkably beautiful cats.

Through earphones on a morning DC Metro ride, the first eight songs from the iPod set on Shuffle Play:

Hella - Top Twenty Notes: A good plug here; if you are into legal decent live recordings of bands who don't object to having their shows shared, archive.org is a place for some fun stuff, including this Hella show from 2002.

The Byrds - Eight Miles High: It seems to me that any band with half an ounce of talent can cover a great Byrds song and make it sound beautiful. With this in my head, a few months ago I was dwelling on the computer at about midnight and got the idea that I should get a recording that had a 15 minute jam of Eight Miles High from the actual band (not the spastic two minute version Husker Du covered years ago, although that is beautiful in its own way) and ordered the live Untitled album. After listening to it a few times I decided I just really don't get these wacky 60's bands, and couldn't begin to imagine how boring it must have been to be at a show when they played this goofy jam fest (although I'm sure some aged hippy would fire his bong at me for having said that). Nonetheless, if I had to pick one song from Untitled to hear in the random eight, it would be Eight Miles High, as it is still kinda fun at times.

The Books - An Owl with Knees: The Books play very minimal music with lots of audio clips interspersed. While this is a good track from Lost and Safe, I'd highly recommend getting their The Lemon of Pink release.

Boredoms - I'm Not Synthesizer: I think the thing I like about the Boredoms is that sometimes there is really no reason why anybody should like the Boredoms. Somehow this song makes that line make sense.

Matmos - Public Sex for Boyd McDonald: Funky electro; mostly I was just glad Boyd McDonald wasn't on the same metro car as me.

Skinny Puppy - Downsizer: From The Greater Right of the Wrong, pretty standard fare from this era of the band.

Sebadoh - Sister: Yeah, smash your head on the indie rock, literally.

Lou Reed / John Cale - Black Angel's Death Song: Great, eerie acoustic version (guitar / viola) of the haunting track.