Last night at the Doll Hut, Boston's Kings of Nuthin' were on FIRE! The eight man band delivers fiery, ultra-raw, early rock'n'soul - Loud guitar, pounding drums, rhythmic bass, 3 saxophones, haulin' piano, with whiskey growl vocals.

The Kings of Nuthin' are out on the West Coast for a few dates over Labor Day wekend, do not miss them:

August 28 @ The Doll Hut, Anaheim CA

August 29 @ Jillians, Las Vegas NV

August 30 @ Flannery's, Palm Springs CA

August 31 @ The Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles CA

As Wanda pointed out in her review of Manic Hispanic's "Mijo goes to Jr. College":

My anglo friends, my Irish friends, my scottish friends, my friends who don’t have 14 friends of their fathers that they call uncle, tell me they’d like Manic Hispanic so much more if they could “just understand what he was saying.” To them I say “Oye! Listen up!” Learn Spanish. This is how it’s going to be in Orange County. Whites will be the minority within 5 years. It’s time to habla espaÒol, no?

Now those of us, namely me, who learned English and Spanish at the same time, those of us (me again!) whose mother is fluent in Spanish, and those of us (here I am!) who have grown up around native Spanish speakers all our lives, somehow, somehow....I have made it to adulthood with the ability to understand about 45% of Spanish conversations but no ability to speak back. I am not Anglo, I am Scotch-Irish-Californian. Hey, no one taught me my peep's native language, that's because the Anglos' ruthlessly suppressed the Gaelic language for the last 800 years.

So, in an effort not to be associated with those danged Anglos and to not embarrass my mom, again, by asking (in a loud voice) in a public place what "pendejo" means, I have compiled a few Spanish Slang dictionaries:

Mr. Gabe's Slang Dictionary

The Alternative Spanish Dictionary

Most of the folks I know who go to Burning Man tend to be techies and art folk, but I have not heard of any of my music friends and acquaintances talk of the festival in the Nevada Desert. Anyone here going this year or have gone in the past?

Thank the AP and their non-stop infobabble for this one: the Oxford Dictionary, in their continuing quest to be the hippest wordsters on the block, have admitted words like "blog" "eeyorish" and "egosurfing" among many amusing others in their latest edition. "Bada bing" even made the cut.

Thank goodness for The Oxford as well, because I had no idea what egosurfing was until I read that article. Being the shameless hussy that I am, I hereby honestly confess that I have fallen prey to this vice upon an exceptionally bored occasion or two. So listen up all you closeted egosurfers out there - when plain old search engines leave you cold, give this baby a try: Netscan claims to have all data from all usenet groups since 1999. It's from Microsoft, so of course they've been mining every last bit of data that every Joe Schmoe and his sister in the universe post out there. In my case, however, egosurfing on Netscan did little to boost my ego. In fact, it caused the exact opposite effect. When I searched for myself, I found: absolutely.nothing.

heh heh

If you have cable or DSL, watch this "Scene Sucks" movie, it is very funny but large at 17mb. Fey Emo/hardcore boys in women's shirts...

(Thanks to Jish for the link)

This afternoon/evening, I went to my first Pit Fire Productions All Ages Sunday Matinee at the Knitting Factory LA with Channel 3 and Union 13. I am here to report that the show was good.

When I was a small chicklette, all ages shows in the SoCal area were really all ages. They were held at bars that had a license that allowed for the younger set to also attend. Sometime since the late 1980s, this has all changed. With the exception of clubs/bars that have had all ages liquor licenses that pre-date 1987, every club that now has all ages has no bar, only candy and slurpees.

Well, you say, this is good, it keeps kids out of trouble. Bullshit. They just drink or do drugs in the parking lot before the show, and then sit around listlessly during the bands. Ever been to Chain Reaction or Showcase Theatre? Can we say bored, listless, out of it kids? And exceptionally boring if you are over 3...

There is something to be said about a place that the over 21s want to come to as well has allowing the under 21s to attend. There is energy. The youngins get excited, they are animated, they have to act cool because they are with the big kids. The big kids are usually cool and don't buy drinks for the little ones. It all works.

I am glad that the Pit Fire Productions folks have convinced the Knitting Factory LA to have afternoon/evening shows in the front bar/lobby of the venue that is all ages. This evening's show had folks from 13-43, all enjoying themselves, laughing, hanging out, watching the bands, and singing along. The bartender was a wee bit bored, but I tipped him well.

The Nashville Scene has reported on "Southern Girls Rock'n'Roll Camp":

It's July 28, the first day of the first-ever Southern Girls Rock 'n' Roll Camp, a five-day event organized and directed by Middle Tennessee State University junior Kelley Anderson. Held on the MTSU campus, this is a day camp for kids aged 12-18, but there the similarities to other camps end: This one's a crash course on plugging in and rocking out. And it's just for girls. The campers are provided everything from instrument instruction (even if they've never picked up a guitar before) to empowerment workshops, with the camp focusing less on musicianship and more on enabling young women to trust themselves and think independently.

Thanks to Anil for the link.

DJWanda and I were talking tonight and both of us noted that the LA Times' listing of governor candidates did not included TSOL's Jack Grisham. I just went over to the TSOL message board and found that Jack had posted that he has paid his fee, filed his application, and is waiting for verification from the registrar.

Here is the full site for Jack's campaign, including his platform.

Of all the candidates throwing their hats in the ring, only Jack Grisham and Arianna Huffington have progressive platforms and for the people principles that I can back.

...can WWF wrestlers and actors run for (and even become) governor. This race for Calif. gov. is getting kinda funny now... I think I'll go brush up on singing the "Different Strokes" theme song now...

Coleman for Governor

Oh wait, there's more! Gallagher and Flynt have joined too...watermelons or porn anyone?

Others for Governor

Manic Hispanic and Throwrag will be playing a $5 show at the movie premier of Quiksilver's Circle One at the El Rey on Thurs. Aug. 14th at 8pm.

Tickets can be purchased at the El Rey website.

I am not sure why but the Dogtown Fest in Santa Monica this upcoming weekend has been cancelled - postponed until further notice.

This includes both the Skating events on Saturday and the big concert at the Santa Monica Civic on Sunday with the Adolescents, et al. From the Dogtown Fest website:

The Downtown in Dogtown Fest scheduled Aug 9 - 10, 2003 has been postponed until futher notice.

All pay pal customers will have their accounts credited with a refund. All Ticket Web customers will recieve refunds from Ticket Web. All DT shop patrons will recieve refunds from their respective shops.

The event will be retooled and rescheduled at a time in the near future with new promotion.

We regret any inconvienience this has caused anyone, and hope to see you all soon!

Keep Skating!

One of the big reasons that Sampson the incredibly hairy cat and the internet junkies here at Barflies.net love the Salton Sea's Throwrag is that the band not only has a great sense of humor and crazy music, but more importantly, really fun screen savers available for download on their website.

If you go to Throwrag's "More Cool Shit" section, you will find five screen savers that you can download and put up on your computer. We recommend Lemmy from Motorhead or Craig screaming.

May 7-9, 2004
Palm Springs, California
Tickets: $40/person

Rooms booked for the weekend at the preferred hotels include 2 tickets to the festivities. Yes, this is pretty early notice, but this event keeps on getting bigger and bigger!

The stupidity that abounds in this world never ceases to amaze me. More and more my list of people who shouldnít be on the planet grows longer. The link below is to an article posted about an arson fire that occurred just a few days ago down here in San Diego.

SignOnSanDiegoArsonFire

Synopsis: residents/neighbors in La Jolla woke up to find a newly constructed apartment building (it was still vacant) completely engulfed in flames. Fire department evacuated nearby residents to safety ñ no one was hurt, but people claimed the heat was so intense, their window blinds melted.

FBI discovered it was arson by a little group called E.L.F. (Environmental or Earth Liberation Front). Why? Well, being the good little earth-lovers that they are, they claim to be against any and all urban development/growth because it harms the earth.

Okay so fine. Hereís my beef with this knuckleheaded attitude. Letís start with the obvious. Starting fires to burn stuff down: 1) might kill people. Not a very nice thing to do. 2) damages the earth. Hellooooo ñ arenít we trying to save the damn place? Oh okay, so letís damage it some more? Hmm, itís true Iím not a biologist. In fact, I hated that class. I was hungover every day I took it, but really. Iíve yet to find the intelligence in these actions. 3) so these elven yahoos burn down housing complexes, etc. in the attempt to halt urban growth. So youíre saving, what ñ a vacant lot? Itís not like rainforest was getting cut down to build this apartment building. It was a vacant lot in the middle of the city. Not much else to DO with a vacant lot, except build on it. 4) Not to mention theyíre destroying a HOUSING complex! Oh okay so people shouldnít have a place to live? At least a housing complex is useful; youíd think that if they wanted to ìhalt urban growthî theyíd burn something superfluous down, like the Padresí new stadium (ha, what a joke that is. No one goes to see them anyway.). But seriously, imagine how many people donít have a place to live now? If they were locals, well, they might be able to stay in their original places. But what about those folks relocating for new jobs or whatnot? Talk about getting screwed.

Look, Iím all for saving the environment. I recycle, I carpool every chance I get, I walk or ride my bike instead of driving short distances, hey ñ Iíve even planted a few trees in my lifetime. I love the earth, I love the environment, I completely agree that we need to save what little there is left. HOWEVER the sad fact of the matter is this: the worldís grossly overpopulated. People keep producing more people and they all gotta live somewhere. Until stupid people stop breeding I donít think the urban growth is gonna stop anytime soon ñ and terrorism sure as hell isnít gonna do much more to help the situation either.

Hey hereís a thought: instead of burning things down, maybe start handing out more birth control.

The folks at Grindstone Magazine recently sent around an email announcing:

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A Friendster/MeetUp/Tribe.net parody was just waiting to happen.... or a new way to get rid of people?

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