the little ipod headphones are telling me to go to L.A.

well, i suppose it's time to tell a tale or two.

i got nothin'.

and it's been that way for a while. oh, here and there something mildly interesting takes place, but i look around at the big picture... bubkes. work, the dog, the gentle love of a good woman, this and that, time in the jeep, a drink and such. the author exhales a resigned sigh. where is the... adventure? some folks, well, they claim adventure as their middle name, though i was pretty sure it was "farley" or "william"... the first name of a patriarch, like my own "robert". yep. disco boy bob perkins. with a name like that, i could stalk someone on myspace.

so, let's talk about music. first, let's talk about the how; girly-girl made christmas all that much more lovely by springing for the big ipod. 80 gigs of music, at my beckon call, all packages in shiny black and chrome. my best efforts have only left it half-filled, and that's probably just fine, because at this rate, it will play music for 15.3 days without repeating anything. those kind of choices can confuse, and my own DJ tendencies can be frustrated by the shuffle function, which at times can pick way, way better songs than i could have programmed (beaten by a machine with the brains of a digital wristwatch? motherfucker!) and at others, play inappropriate outbursts such as andrew w.k.'s "party hard" directly after such delicate mood selections as harry nilsson's cover of randy newman's "love story". so, best to listen to the shuffle feature with a thumb on the advance wheel. that's a minor complaint, i really can't say enough good things about the mighty mighty ipod, it goes everywhere with me, and i find myself using it at any given opportunity. i find that the little white headphones also keep the dirtbags from trying to talk to me. remember, i work on capitol hill, so there's never any shortage of dirtbags.

so what's been rockin', and what's been shockin? i've recently discovered the quirky genius that was warren zevon, and i'm currently repeating his "desperadoes under the eaves" from his first album... during a time when everyone was high on the good life in L.A., warren was pretty sure the bright beloved sunshine was out to get him. along the same lines, "mama" cass elliot's "california earthquake" predicts her untimely demise... only she was sure the ground would swallow her whole. there's a joke to be made there, but it's low hanging fruit. and since we're talking songwriters who found fortune in california, i've been checking out judee sill, a talented junkie ex-con who could have ran alongside joni mitchell in the lady-folkie championship... she was actually the first artist on geffen's asylum label, but lack of support and nurturing left her confidence shaken, and she literally disappeared after two records, and OD'ed in the late seventies.

i got this oddball record at the store called "a mountain of one" that doesn't have shit for info on it, but it's been glued to the turntable. sort of a mix of the late last gasps of the prog sound in the early eighties and and "faith"-era cure.

you know who was really fucking good, but you'da never known it? scritti politti. yeah, he sounds like the most fey, limp-wristed haircut nancy, but he wrote some really brilliant songs, with completely bizarre lyrics. here in the states, he'll always be remembered for "perfect way" (which charted quite high in 1985) but even that offers "you want a message, a confession you wanna martyr me too.. you want a margin of error for two", which, you have to admit, is pretty solid for synth-pop. but it does get way better than that. the guy attracted the attention of miles davis, worked with roger troutman, and ignored the silliness of the biz for a good 8-10 years before coming back and making "anomie and bonhomie" a criminally underrated soul/hip hop album that closes with the sublime "brushed with oil, dusted with powder", a strange song about getting arrested in... well, again it's another song about L.A. i've been tempted to buy his latest "white bread, black beer", but i want it on vinyl, and the import copies are up near the $30 mark.

i'm cutting this short. i've stared at the computer for as long as i can. we'll continue this soon.