8/30/10

crank dat.


I decided to post a new mix. Really don't have a reason why...why not? Maybe people want some new jams and this is what I have been cranking lately. This is definitely the most chill mix I have put up, just in time for that new fall semester of studying. It is a bit heavier on the electronic side as well. Please take note of Twin Shadow which is the recording moniker of George Lewis Jr. Twin Shadow is also one of Chris Taylor's production products at Terrible Records. Extremely good stuff. Leave me some feedback on what you enjoyed and what sucked. Happy Mondays.

Viernes : Entire Empire

Teen Daze : Shine On, You Crazy White Cap

Glasser : Home

Blackbird Blackbird : Pure

Beach House : White Moon

Zola Jesus: I Can't Stand

Ducktails : Art Vandelay

Sufjan Stevens : Heirloom

Teengirl Fantasy : Cheaters

Twin Shadow : Slow

No Age : Glitter

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8/27/10

More Sufjan: "I Walked"


More Sufjan Stevens. A few days after dropping a new EP online, All Delighted People, Sufjan Stevens has more great news for sensitive indie kids everywhere, a new full-length album, The Age of Adz, scheduled for release October 12 via Asthmatic Kitty. Aaannd if that wasn't enough, how about a track from it? Yes, I know I feel like fricken Santa Claus right now. Stream or download "I Walked" below.

<a href="http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/track/i-walked">I Walked by Sufjan Stevens</a>

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The Bulleted List, August 27 (Late Night Edition)

Bars I (Happily/Unhappily) Remembered Tonight

  • 3rd Street Techer (Laramie, WY) -happy
  • Morgan Street backroom (St. Louis, MO) -awesome
  • Rockin' Horse (Bridgeport, NE) -totally sweet
  • Starr Street (Broadwater, NE) -unhappy
  • Silver Dollar (Chamberlain, SD) -bummer
  • Oregon Trail Lounge (Gering, NE) -yikes
  • Cheema's Blue Star (Scottsbluff, NE) -fantastic
  • High jump (Bridgeport High School track and field practice) -cramps

8/25/10

Here's a Thought.



Think how confusing The Decemberists album The Crane Wife would be to someone who didn't understand the concept of homographs/didn't know much about birds.






8/24/10

Beach House "White Moon"

Beach House released a new song today called "White Moon" via their exclusive iTunes sessions EP. The EP consists of 5 other songs of previously released work from their past two full-length albums. It's new Beach House and it's really good. Stream it below, download it on iTunes (obviously).

Beach House - White Moon (Itunes Session) by subpop

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Another Nursing Post


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Yes, that's right. I'm back with Nursing stories. Tomorrow my senior year of college begins. But what do you expect, we are old and should have seen this coming last year. Anyway, school has yet to begin but what do you know people are already complaining of difficulties and inconveniences it causes them. This doesn't surprise me, but I still don't understand it. At the start of every clinical semester you have a Math Exam that you must get a 100% on in order to start your rotations. This is our 3rd time to take this exam and still, still nursing girls are shocked that they have to have an Exam the first day of school. "OMG school hasn't even started and im already studying, thanks Nursing School!" To the Nursing School I would like to say thanks. Thank you for making sure we don't kill our patients with errors. Thank you for flustering the girls and giving me something to write about instead of studying. And finally thank you nursing school girls for complaining and pretending the nursing school is hard; and letting all the other majors know how difficult we have it. I am sure they care and give us their sympathy.
Even the book above knows its simple!

My senior year is far from over and it may be one of the most fun years I've had.

Phony Ppl: "If This Is How Love Feels"

These kids are sick. They just won a couple "battle of the bands" type deals in New York and this song is starting to get some traction. My boy Alejandro Pablo and I dig their jazz influences and there's something about the lead singer's voice. Enjoy.

If This Is How Love Feels - Phony Ppl

8/20/10

Sufjan.


<a href="http://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/all-delighted-people-ep">All Delighted People (Original Version) by Sufjan Stevens</a>

Oh hey, apparently this Sufjan Stevens character dropped a new EP, All Delighted People, online this morning. Wonder if it's any good? Stream it above on our badass site or give this website $5 and you can download it for free.

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8/19/10

Welcome The Undertaker.


Attention: 31/Chi would like to welcome our newest team member.
Long time cohort, common law spouse, co-conspirator, personal masseuse, drunken lecher, UltraBag sharer, and dear friend The Undertaker will be chiming in from time to time with whatever bubbles out of his mind between "huge accounting tests" and detailing cars.
It will probably be very odd, yet curiously awesome and occasionally sexy.
So, gang, give a warm welcome to The Undertaker.

This isn't a picture of him, but he kind of has the same haircut.

Ronald Reagan (Ronald McDonald)

This morning I was lying on the couch in rural paradise when I had a very sudden and jarring thought. Normally, I wouldn't share this kind of thing with the world, but lately the general readership seems to have developed a distaste for my past posts (they're a lot more fun to read if you were there, I swear) so instead of going the same route as most people loosely affiliated with this blog and never (fucking ever) post anything of note again, I decided to type up this little nugget of thought. I hope it's to your liking, noble audience.

I think Ronald Reagan and Ronald McDonald are the same person.

Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States/Conservative Messiah
Ronald McDonald, Hamburger Shill/Clown

Now, I know this sounds a little zany, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately (full disclosure: by 'a lot lately' I mean 'during breakfast and a little bit while watching Food Network') and I think there are a few facts that stack up in my favor. Read on if you want the truth.

-McDonald's was founded in San Bernadino, California; Reagan would later become governor of California.
-Ronald McDonald's first appearance in advertising: 1963. Ronald Reagan elected governor of California: 1966.
-McDonald's HQ is located in Oak Brook, Illinois, not far from Reagan's birthplace in Tampico, Illinois.

Photographic evidence: Ronald Reagan was called "The Great Communicator." Ronald McDonald was a clown. Below we see Reagan 'clowning around' while McDonald gets on the mic and does a little communicating of his own.

You can't refute that.

Some people might take offense at this and say, "Wow, man, Ronald Reagan defeated Communism and you're going to do him like this?" To that I'll say, "Wow, man, that's true, but did you ever wonder why? Ronald Reagan was so hell-bent on bringing down the USSR?"

Then I'll give you an answer.

The Soviet Union's Communist system disallowed a lot of things: freedom of the press, freedom of the market, freedom of association and assembly, and the freedom to start McDonald's franchises.

Reagan/McDonald wanted to get into the Soviet Union and sell Big Macs to its 130 million potential customers. Communism hampered that desperate desire. The "brand loyalty" of the Soviet people was to the Hammer & Sickle, not the Golden Arches.
Reagan/McDonald wasn't having this, and with a glasnost here and a perestroika there, the Berlin Wall fell, communism collapsed and the Russian people were free to pledge their fealty to a new global superpower: McDonald's.

I suspect some type of Gorbachev/Grimace connection to this, but that's another discussion for another day.

Former Soviet leader/prominent birthmark owner Mikhail Gorbachev

Purple doorstop Grimace.

Another similarity existing between the two Ronalds is their ability to polarize people. Some people love McD's, some hate it. Some people love Ronald Reagan, some hate him. People have made movies about both of them, claiming that they harm America and it's people, specifically the poor, and that their ideas are somewhat deleterious to children. Below: a quick primer.

These kids love Ronald McDonald.

These guys love Ronald Reagan.
This guy hates Ronald McDonald


These guys hate Ronald Reagan.

Ronald McDonald made these cheap and available and it was bad for people (via drive-thru windows in suburbs).

Ronald Reagan made this cheap and available and it was bad for people (via CIA in Nicaragua).

Crazy, huh?

I think I'm onto something here. I think I'm only a few steps from blowing the lid off a huge crack rocks/Quarter Pounders/cash for guns for capitalism for McFlurrys conspiracy. Hope the CIA doesn't read our blog. I hope disgruntled readers find their appetite for non-alcohol related posts satiated. Pretty sure no one will fact check this. The internet is full of crazy stuff.

The Bulleted List, August 19

Better Ways to Stay Regular

  • iCal
  • moon/tides
  • Activia yogurt
  • Metamucil
  • Raisin Bran
  • regular bran
  • Wondermark

The Bulleted List, August 19 (faux-edition)

Reasons why Lightweight should bring "The Bulleted List" back from the dead....

  • It made me LOL :)) more often than not
  • Probably the best/only periodical posts this blog has
  • Eases up on the constant, slightly monotonous booze adventure recaps (maybe)
  • So no one sleeps easy at night
  • For "Jeff" and any other unknown fans of it
  • So no one has to go through this shitty rendition of it again
  • So I don't feel like an asshole for attempting this post
  • Because this guy would still be making them...




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8/18/10

Flying Lotus Dropping New EP


Flying Lotus - Camera Day (taken from Pattern+Grid World) by Warp Records

Already having released one of 2010's best studio albums in Cosmogramma back in May, Flying Lotus is prepping to drop some more new material. On September 21, the Los Angeles beat-smith will release a new seven-song EP called Pattern+Grid World via Warp Records. You can stream a new track "Camera Day" above.

Do The Astral Plane - Flying Lotus

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8/16/10

This Movie Was Cool.

I'm not sure what to tell you guys about The Expendables.

As a movie, it failed to pass any test of engaging plot, developed characters, believable dialogue or even the ability to weave a discernible narrative. In fact, Incrediboy walked out of the theater saying, "What was that movie about?" So, strictly as a film, the verdict is a thumbs down.


However, despite the shortcomings as cinema, The Expendables more than qualifies as a kickass action fest. I think the average spacing between explosions and people getting shot was (on average) about 2 minutes. Totally awesome.


My other main beef with this movie is that Stone Cold Steve Austin was one of the guys. This was a total bummer. Do these writers/directors/filmmakers really expect us to be able to not root for the Texas Rattlesnake anytime he takes the silver screen? To give you a grasp how disconcerting it was to not be on S.Cold's side, here is a picture of him with only half his goatee. I shuddered.


The Expendables came through on another level as well. As a social function, this movie was top notch. Going to the midnight showing gave us an excuse to drink the heavily caffienated, heavily alcoholic Four Loko. This stuff tastes like Hawaiian Punch mixed with cough syrup and EverClear. It tastes pretty disgusting and makes you feel like you're going to fall down, both of which aren't enough reason to keep me from drinking it.


Also, it gave us a super-duper excuse to drink tiny airplane booze bottles and drop them on the floor of the theater and hear them go click-click-clack all the way down the aisle. This was a problem when I dropped one during the only quiet part of the movie.


Ok, that's it. Pretty lousy movie, pretty awesome evening.

8/14/10

Green Trees


Green Trees is a solo side project by John Freidel in Lincoln, NE, where he currently resides. His sound could best be described as an experimental, lo-fi electro-pop. I would compare it to an early Grizzly Bear sound from Horn of Plenty with a bit more shoegaze and a few more light-hearted lyrics. Listen and decide for yourself. His influences are far and wide including The Beatles, Elliott Smith, Brian Eno, Al Green, Noah Lennox, Jimmy Ruffin, and many more as you can tell from his sound. He just released his Weather Ethics EP as a free download at this Green Trees host site.
John is also one of three members in the electro-pop group Powerful Science along with Peter Kapinos, and Joshua Miller. Powerful Science has a show upcoming at Duffy's Tavern in Lincoln, NE on Sunday, August 22 at 9:00pm. Look for more in-depth coverage on both Green Trees and Powerful Science in the near future, till then enjoy the free (yeah free music) Green Trees EP below, including a brand new tune "Meganet Mouth".

02 Meganet Mouth

<a href="http://greentrees.bandcamp.com/album/weather-ethics">Organic Cow by Green Trees</a>



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8/12/10

Expendable.


Ok, team, let's talk about this movie and why it will more likely than not be totally awesome. Of course, this film will benefit from ubiquitous gunfights and stuff blowing up, and someone's head might even get blown off. But that's not why Incrediboy and I are lining up at midnight to see this little number. If we wanted to see guns and explosions and someone getting their gourd squished, I think I have Predator 2 on the DVR.


No, no, no, the anticipatory high for this flick stems from its surfeit of hardasses appearing the credits. It's like a buffet of badasses. Check out the poster, there are a lot of terrifying dudes in this movie. And the poster doesn't mention smaller roles from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Holy smokes.

Last fall, I put together what I thought was a pantheon of righteous machismo. This movie makes that group look like a junior varsity volleyball roster. In my defense, my picks were based more off a "party-hard" skill set of boozing and looking cool rather than a "hardcore" rubric of shooting two guns at once and ripping people's faces off. But, that's a digression we don't have time for.

The real question is: how did this happen? These are not SOME of the the biggest action stars, this is ALL of the action stars in the business. I'm not sure how much each of these guys is getting paid and I'm not in the mood for a quick Google search, so we'll never know. The point I'm getting here is these guys had to have taken a pay cut. That, or T. Boone Pickens has bailed on Pokes football and taken to making badass movies.


I am baffled by this movie. How did something this colossal come to fruition? I imagine it came to be in way very similar to the way this lame-ass picture below happened.

But The Expendables guys weren't sitting down to lunch with each other like a bunch of pussies looking for ways to cut corners to the elusive championship ring. No way. This movie's inspiration was likely born while Mickey Rourke and Stone Cold Steve Austin sat in a dimly lit room eating raw sides of beef and still live wriggling catfish, brainstorming ways to max out their badassness. The answer was clear: make the most badass movie of all time. So they called up their friends and over meals of slabs of ribs and deep fried everything, the details were hammered out. Then, everyone drank a quart of whiskey and smashed all the windows. Party.

I have no idea what ths movie's plot is and I'm not sure what to expect from it. I'm a little bit worried it'll be like the All-Star games where everyone is really good but then there aren't any role players and it's no where near the spectacle it should be. But it probably won't turn out like that. I'm not worried about that kind of drop. Why? A. it's scripted. B. machine guns are cool no matter what. Also, even if Terry Crews aka Office Linebackers 'Terrible' Terry Tate has only 5 minutes of screen time, it's totally worth it.

The review is forthcoming.

8/10/10

Not Lolla.

Alright, I didn't go to Lollapalooza last weekend.
I had work, deadlines, that kinda stuff, plus I hate crowds and I was scared of running into the guy in the picture above.

Yikes.

But just because I didn't spend a couple days in Grant Park with a few thousand sweaty weirdos doesn't mean I didn't have a swell weekend. Well, I had one swell night, and another spent in enervated recuperation. Things got a little rough.

Friday afternoon began with some good news. Two dudes, Incrediboy and Wonderbread, had recently had their internships upgraded to bigboy jobs. Celebrations were in order, and these guys were apt to throw around some cheese in lieu of their newfound careers as white-collar party animals.

To begin, we hit up our favorite midtown hot-spot (actually, more like lukewarm spot) Don & Millie's.



Here we chowed a burger and quenched our sturdy thirst with a class Don & Millie's one-two punch: the $1.49 longneck and the 99 cent margarita.



From here we headed up the road to Wonderbread's new house. All summer we have watched this house (an alleged former meth factory) get gutted and redone. Approaching the house felt kind of like the closing minutes of an episode of Extreme Home Makeover, except we were toting 30-packs of Natural Light, not our fragile hopes and dreams for our future.

One quick aside: not sure if the guy in the below picture is the host of Extreme Home Makeover, or a very deserving special little guy who just got a new playroom. Either way, I'm glad he wasn't there on Friday.



We got inside and the new digs are looking spiffy. A full rennovation job. One rooms even has carpet. Carpet, in a house where a bunch of ruggish college-types live. If you ever see carpet in a a college rental, it's gross. But this was new, and presumably clean. So, not wanting to waste an opportunity, a few of us stretched out on the new plush and enjoyed a few minutes of repose. It's the little things in life. Also, college has done strange things to my brain. So, we got about 3/4 hammered and headed downtown.



For some reason, downtown is rarely memorable while we are inside the bars. This night, there was one meager exception. We wandered into some type of odd Jersey Shore knockoff type tavern with an awkward dancefloor. This was a semi-saving grace, as me, Wonderbread and longtime associate P402 broke out our classic "rain, thunder, lightning, rainbow" dance, inspired the sausage commercial screenshot below.



Following our shutting down of the dance floor/getting kicked off the dance floor we began our weekly walk home. Once again, this passed with only a few moments engendering much consideration.

First: I don't know what got into our systems, but people were puking.

Someone puked behind a sign. Not this sign, but one similar in construction.


Someone puked inside a bush. Not behind it or on it. Inside of it, precariously perched among its various branches and boughs.



Someone puked down a storm drain. This was a feat worthy of mention because extra effort was made to get to a storm drain so vomit did not stain the sidewalke. I wanted to shout, "Keep Omaha Beautiful!"



Outside all the barfing, the only other incident worth committing to posterity is that, at one of the many intersections, while we waited for the "Walk" signal to light up (safety) we made strange eye-contact with a guy stopped at the red. In a Chrysler LeBaron convertible. With the top down. At 2:30 am. I guarantee this guy was on an adventure.



Some people just never stop partying, I guess.