guess i’m only a spudboy

this past week was much less eventful than the week before it. my power has continued to stay on. there are a few people where i work still without power at home, but most of the people i know have power again. there are a bunch of traffic lights not working — either off completely or flashing. it has made getting to work and home pretty crazy for most people i think. fortunately i don’t have too far to go, and i work 9ish to 6ish so i miss the worst of the traffic anyway.
the lawn crew was scheduled to come by sept 12th but didn’t happen, seeing as there was a hurricane and all. they ended up coming the next friday (19th), which i hadn’t expected, and cleaned up a fair bit of the leaves and small sticks. the big limbs and small tree were still there, so i called jack to borrow my electric chainsaw. he ended up coming by and cutting up most of it while i was at work. he left behind a few bigger pieces. i got him to leave me the chainsaw so i could finish up. then friday when i got home from work everything was cleaned. the lawn crew had come back on their normal scheduled day. this just further proves that laziness pays off.
i did go out this morning and cut down a big dead limb that has been resting on the roof of the apartment behind the house. after spending about an hour doing that, i remembered that i don’t really ever do any physical labor or ever spend any amount of time out in the sun.
friday morning (yesterday) i decided i would take the bel air to work. i moved the pickup onto the street, then hopped into the bel air. but when i was backing out of the drive something didn’t feel right. i got out and walked around to the passenger side and the front tire was completely flat. i don’t know when or how that happened. i guess i have to find a shop that repairs tires now.
i got my other order i’d made awhile back. i ordered a couple of things from the website for the band cake. i bought a gas bird coffee mug (such a cute and courteous little death-dispensing bird! it’s the one on the cd tray insert for b-sides and rarities…and that one smells like gasoline if you scratch it.) and a cake crown t-shirt. seeing as i was looking for a xxl, my choices were extremely limited. fortunately, the shirt i got was one of the few i liked a lot. the pig hoodie is pretty nice, but i don’t wear hoodies much.
last night i watched unforgiven. it had some nice visuals and was pretty good, but sometimes it felt like they were working too hard to make every person have both a good and bad side. i know it’s become very popular in film to not have black-and-white good/bad guys, but it seems to me much of the time the films doing that make their characters do something joltingly out of character to add some complexity to them. crash is perhaps one of the most perfect examples of this phenomenon, in my opinion. when a character does something that makes you think “they just did what?! why did they do that?!” then they didn’t build the complexity of the character very well. (although obviously there are cases where having someone do something seemingly completely out of character can be very unnerving for the audience and used for beautiful effect.)
as a wee lad — way back in 1981 — i was spending the night at a friend’s house with a few other guys. we watched fridays (the tv series andy kaufman pissed everyone off on when he stopped doing the skit without any warning), and on this particular night my world was profoundly expanded. that’s the night i saw devo for the first time. it was the first musical salvo into my psyche, the first time a band clicked and i said “this is my music. not my parents’, not my friends’, not the radio’s, but mine.”
thanks to the miracle of the internets and youtube, i was just able to relive that moment for the first time in about 27 years. here are two of the visions that brought me into the world of devo (and eventually post-punk/new wave in general) way back then:
[] devo – super thing (instrumental version) + jerkin’ back ‘n’ forth (from the tv show fridays, 1981)
[] devo – i saw jesus + through being cool (from the tv show fridays, 1981)
[] devo – working in the coal mine (from the tv show fridays, 1981)
in addition, here’s a wonderful and entertaining video + live performance…
[] devo – smart patrol/mr. dna
and two beautiful devo interviews from back in the day:
[] – freedom of choice era (1980)
[] – new traditionalists era (1981)
these interviews are brilliant! those spudboys were intelligent and subversive. what a great combination.
“guess i’m only a spudboy
looking for a real tomato
[…]
wait a minute, something’s wrong.
he’s a man with a plan. his finger is pointed at devo.
now we must sacrifice ourselves, that many others may live.
ok, we’ve got a lot to give. this monkey wants a word with you!”
–devo “smart patrol / mr. dna”