i know this page is usually a laugh a minute but if i could be serious for a moment (and i’ll keep it editorial-free), please keep the thousands of victims of sunday’s earthquake and subsequent tidal waves in south asia in your thoughts. as of this writing, the death toll is up to nearly 150,000 with hundreds of thousands injured and displaced.

please donate:

redcross.org

unicef.org

care.org

merry christmas everybody! nelson put down drums to a bunch of elocine songs as well as ‘my name is my passport’ yesterday. afterwards we had a tasty dinner at the stone grill then an early gift exchange. kellee baked a cake and we all applauded. matt got a gift card to best buy, nolan got the west wing season 3 on dvd, nelson got call of duty: allied offensive & outlaw golf 2 for xbox, and i got the simpsons season 3 on dvd. monica also got me a shirt that said ‘big doggs’ on the front and ‘baditude’ on the back. what are the odds?

it was a great time, made better by the fact that the revenge & regret cds finally came in. i think they turned out pretty nicely, definitely a far cry from the first pressing of ‘you were right’ all those years ago. they’re available starting next tuesday. that’s it for this admittedly quick update, hope you have a wonderful holiday. i still have presents to buy. ack.

the our friend the atom party was a lot of fun. they were releasing a reissue of clark’s ‘chicken and cashews’. there’s some fantastic tracks on the cd like ‘hedghog’, ’subsonic sifter’ and ‘chinese firedrill’. when i can free up the webspace i’ll post mp3s.

i was a little dismayed when steve ericson played a lot of songs, because i planned on only playing three or four. i ended up doing ‘i was so sure’, ‘blowing out the sun’ and ‘rosalind, your tired heart’, followed by unrehearsed numbers of ‘do you remember the eclipse’, clark’s ’strange attractors’ and finally ending with an impromptu version of elliott smith’s ‘pitseleh’. i forgot the line ‘the first time i saw you i knew it would never last / i’m not half of what i wish i was’ - it’s only one of the best parts. sorry. the night ended with the debut of sworple, which consists of phil on bass, kevin on guitar, aaron on guitar/computer and eric turtle on drums. phil and kevin write the songs. they played for about thirty minutes and they were really good. very noisy and poppy - phil and aaron sound really good singing together. for some reason i was surprised.

apple of discord mark iv had its first rehearsal last thursday. aside from the fact that at 6′4 brian had to practically crawl his way into the basement, it went really well. nelson’s coming home for the holidays so we’re going to record the last song we did as a band, ‘my name is my passport’.

congratulations to our good friends pat mccay and amy moran on their recent engagement! you know, i’d like to think that i played a part in getting them together at a solo show i played on my birthday in 2002. i had just finished and as i’m talking to pat this girl comes up to us. completely ignoring me, she introduces herself to pat (’i met you at a party. you used to play in a band called cameron, right?’ ‘uhhh, yeah…’) and before i knew it, they were off in their own world. meanwhile i was standing outside gradwell studios with matt and kellee watching the singer from oliver’s army surreptitiously make his way out from behind the building where he’d just taken a dump. it was freaking nasty. what was i talking about? oh yeah! we couldn’t be happier for you two and can’t wait for the wedding!

the our friend the atom party for the reissue of clark’s “chicken & cashews” is tomorrow (saturday) night at aaron and beth’s new place in old bridge. me, steve ericson and sworple are playing in the basement. i hope kellee bakes a cake!