26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

I love that my father finds a way to disagree with me even when I'm in another state...

I've posted a near-nonversation from Maine. Read more!

Since Thursday... photos to follow. Read more!

So google now has a feature that let's you track what people search for in different regions of the world. Wanna hear something obvious? Than guess who searched for "sex" the most? That's right... Muslim countries. Read more!

Man, just this morning I was sitting up in bed thinking "Man, I'm not depressed enough." I mean sure, like most New Yorkers I choose to live with a low level buzz of discontent. The sort that gets us to our sad little jobs in the morning and that can only be drowned out with massive quantities of alcohol and meaningless anonymous sex.

Lucky something came along just in time to remind me that with my tiny studio apartment and a job that pays just enough not to let me starve to death I am among the world luckiest citizens. Someone, at last has been able to speak to the masses of Americans and say: "You there! You are indeed blessed. Sure you are a citizen in a decaying and historically meaningless nation circling the cultural drain into insignificance but at least you're not a 3rd World Farmer.

What's even better is that someone put it in video game form, as if this was the only way we could really 'get it'! Read more!

750 more and I get a free sandwich. Read more!

The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro always stuck me as the world's shitist name for a country.

"Where are you from?"
"The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro."
"Wow, sucks to be you."

Now Montenegro wants out so they can change their name to Monteafricanamerican.

Nothing really to say here, just wanted to get in that cheap joke.

Cheers- Read more!

As you well know things here at 26 Reds come in lists of eight. That would make this the last Yes cover... Hold back the tears... We've had some good tracks here, some bad ones and some weird ones but through it all we never lost sight of one thing:

Right now I forget what that is... I had it on the train.... anyway....

So before I present the final Yes cover I want to give a special thanks to Sophie T. Mishaps who single-handedly made about five of these things possible. Well done little lady.

I'm sure well bring back the 26 Reds cover project. Until then here is your final Yes cover.

Paul Hardcastle - Sound Chaser (Extended Version) Read more!

I'm calling this mixtape the Tet Offensive because like the other Tet offensive it is largely unsuccessful. Also I made it on Chinese New Year.

Don't judge me...

J.R.Knight - The Tet Offensive 01
J.R.Knight - The Tet Offensive 02
J.R.Knight - The Tet Offensive 03 Read more!

Last week I got the latest issue of No Shit Sherlock!

Also May's Astonishing Tales of Astonishment arrived. What can I say, it was... um.... errr.... pretty awesome. Read more!

Does anyone remember mono? When I was in junior high school it was the worst thing that could happen to you. I remember no one would drink out of the same can of coke out of mono fear. It was like sars, bird flu and the cooties all rolled into one. Then, you get to high school and everyone is swapping spit in the hallway. Mono just kind of went away. Like sars, bird flu and cooties.

And what about pink eye? Has anyone over the age of eight ever had pink eye? When you're seven and you rub your eye you get treated like a superfund site. Meanwhile I still have never seen anyone with pink eye. Read more!

Let's get this over with...

Magellan - Don't Kill The Whale

This Yes cover project is sucking the life out of me. Read more!

So I've been banging my head against this track for a few days. Thought you might like to know. Also, and maybe more importantly, this photo was taken in my friend Louis's bar in East Berlin. I'll never forget that cow. If the photo went a little further to the left you'd see were ASJS smashed off a chuck of the bar in a fit of champagne induced pyschosis.

IAMX - The Negative Sex Read more!

… I wrote this post two weeks ago but scraped it because I didn’t feel it was up to 26 Reds’ exacting standards (no, I can’t say that with a straight face). Seriously, it just got out of control and I said “fuck it! I’m going to a bar!” Anyway, there are a few good points in it so I am posting it as is…. AFTER THE JUMP!!!

What’s going on in the Western World these days? There are so many protests and riots these days that I forget who is protesting what.

France has the biggest guns on this one. The French are always a little spiky, even towards other French and they take to the street at the drop of a hat. Sometimes I think they do it just to avoid going to work, or, in this week’s case, finals. There is a lot that could be said about the youth protests this week in Paris. Not the least of which is that they worked (But we’ll get to that)! In response to another set of protests, namely the rioting of angry mobs of unemployed, young French-Arabs, Chirac’s government proposed loosening restrictions that make it nearly impossible to fire anyone in France. Truth be told it was a plan to allow employers to fire employees under 26 for any reason at all. How un-French!

The theory was that with these looser rules employers would be more likely to take on new hires, especially young Arabs, a percentage of the French population that is especially unemployed and especially hopeless. In a broader sense it was an appeal to the Nations of the EU to take on the issues confronting them in a Global economy where they have the wet end of the employee stick. The average age in France is 39. In India it’s 24. Add to the picture an growing national pension program (France has one sweet ass pension program) 20% of the French population is over 65. Compare that to just 4% in India. An aging workforce and uncompetitive hiring and firing practices are part of a formula for disaster. Something has to be done. Something necessary and unpopular.

So when French University students took the cause to the streets they were railing against what they perceived as an unfair changing of the rules. An untrustworthy government striping more of the people’s rights. And they’re right. France, and much of Western Europe have enjoyed pretty cozy labor rules. Nearly ironclad job security and a King’s ransom for a pension. It’s the birthright of every Frenchmen to work very little and get paid very well for it.

Well, every white Frenchmen. There is an underlined hint of racism and classism at play here. University students make an easy hire. They are slightly older, well educated and come from a slightly elevated economic stock. If you had to bet the farm on each new hire you made they rise head and shoulders above the masses of unemployed, poor and publicly educated Arabs. The current system locks out those that need most to be let in, and that’s fine with the University protestors who view French Arabs as little more than a burden. A civil service conundrum. A problem to be solved by city planners and officials down at the welfare office.

Naturally no one is framing the argument this way. The French have always decried racism with one hand and treated the Arabs like shit with the other. It’s the lesson learn at University and it sprawled all over the streets of Paris last week.

But Europe isn’t the only place in the Western World with labor problems. Maybe by coincidence (but maybe not) immigration reform legislation hit Capitol Hill last week as well.
If it’s at all possible America’s labor problems are even more complicated. For starters no one can agree on the language. Are they migrants, felons or guest workers? More important than any legislation were the nationwide protests, particularly in California where thousands of students walked out of school last week in an at of disobedience that was organized on MySpace.com. A la ‘Donna Martin Graduates’ style.

Even as protest continue this week (there was one on Monday by City Hall here in New York) it seems unlikely that they will have much effect on the final legislation. This American protests (One on March 25 in LA was half a million strong) aren’t as sustained as France’s and America isn’t as politically unstable as France. But the point of these protests goes deeper than legislation.

On one hand there is the charge that illegal immigrants are a drain on critical services, that with them comes drugs and crime, and, perhaps most ignorantly, they take jobs away from Americans. Largely this last point seems to have been abandoned in exchange for the battle cry ‘someone else can pick out fruit.’ One Congressman suggested letting criminals pick the fruit. He did so with a straight face. Let’s debunk this crime issue. It’s not true; there, that was easy. It’s true that illegal immigrants make desirable and often willing drug mules but it’s naïve to suggest that without these couriers the drug trade would dry up. Drug transporters are notoriously easy adaptors. On the other hand, illegal immigrants are a strain on public health services, largely because under the current system few of these workers contribute to the tax roll. Every plan currently before Congress would rectify that.

It’s hard to not be stuck by the possibility that there is something more sinister at work here than concern for public hospitals. The real issue with illegal or undocumented workers is an issue of class and race, no different than the one in France.

… so that’s where it ends. This piece was just sprawling out of control and I didn’t know where or how to end it. I’ll leave it up to you in the comment section to take up the conversation if anyone is interested. Maybe you just want more pictures of drunk people and Metallica videos…

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Not to be confused with VD Day, which is something else entirely and the reason it burns when you pee.

A good way to celebrate VE Day would be to do what I did last VE Day. Watch Downfall. It's pretty fucking amazing. Most of the movie is taken from the diary of Traudl Junge, Hitler's personal secretary and one of the few people (very few) who survived those last days in the bunker. The film ends with Traudl Junge now, giving a few last thoughts not only on that last week in April and first week of May in 1945, but on her connection to the Nazi party and to her old boss.

Bruno Ganz does an amazing job as Hitler. Ganz is a major actor in Germany and France. In America he'd most be known for roles in Faraway, so close! (Wim Wenders) and Werner Herzog completely over the top remake of Nosferatu. Also he was in Boys from Brazil. My all time favorite nazi cloning movie set in South America.

On a personal note: Near the Reichstag in Berlin there is the Russian War Memorial, built even before the last of the nazi's had been rounded up. On this massive structure are the names of every Russian officer killed in the taking of Berlin. It's amazing to read the dates. May 4th, 1945 was a bad day to be in the Russian army. Also the ranks. Almost everyone is a General. First you think, 'wow, a lot of Generals died." Then you realize that people were dying so quickly that they kept promoting people up to general.

I wonder is my bother has any thoughts about this... Chris? Read more!

Bevy and I at passerby. Note the copy of LA Woman also note the IMP Log Holland Tunnel Dive album cover silk screened on my shirt. For once that tattoo isn't the most obscure musical reference on my body.









I have to tell you, I don't remember when this photo was taken, who that poor girl on the California driver's license is or what Swervin' Ervin is doing in here. All I can tell you is that according to his watch it's 4:35 so that makes this a picture of illegal after-hours drinkin.








This was taken last month during a heated round of 'people taking pictures of people taking pictures of them'. She has a bunch of photos of me drunk, pointing a cybershot at her, or at least towards her . Also this taken on a Thursday morning around 7 am, clearly before staying up late became old hat.







nothing clever to say, just an awesome pictures from our Valentine's Day party last year.














They totally heart each other.













Love. Rockets. So alive. That just about sums it up. Read more!

Not sure why Crooks and Liars had this Metallica video on it's site but... what can ya do?

This is an awesome video that relies heavily on the film version of Johnny Got His Gun. Dalton Trumbo both wrote the book and directed the movie in 1971. Trumbo also wrote Spartacus but he was blacklisted during Joseph McCarthy's little thingie so he never got screen credit. He also wrote 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, Roman Holiday (awesome), Gun Crazy (one of my faves) and Papllon.

I remember when I was a freshman in high school and And Justice For All was up for a Grammy. There was this guy on my bus who loved Metallica (a senior) and he said if Metallica didn't win he was going to carve "Metallica Rules" into the back of one of the seats. Needless to say Metallica lost to some fucking Jethro Tull album (what the fuck?!?) but that guy never carved up the bus seat and I thought of him as a bit of a pussy for the rest of the year. Of course I said nothing beause he was a senior and twice my size Read more!

Sure, it's a day late and a dollar short. Whatever, we are not slaves to foolish convention... For the third week in a row this comes from Sophie T. Mishaps.

The Ultimate Coverband - Owner of a Lonely Heart Read more!

I happen to know what happened to Jose, do you? Read more!

What would Jesus do? I like to think something like this.

How else do you explain a billion Christians? Read more!

I think this may be too late for Notorious M.O.G. to get for the long flight back from Taiwan but... here it is. This is a much less dancy than the last one. Unlike last week's mix this was NOT recorded live. Each track is about 15 minutes

No More Mister Nice Guy 1
No More Mister Nice Guy 2
No More Mister Nice Guy 3
No More Mister Nice Guy 4 Read more!

In a nutshell? Too much. Too fast. Too often.

My quote of the weekend: In reference to M-CAT's surprise as to the existance of a 34th street in NYC (suggesting that M-CAT lives downtown and works uptown and does little in the middle) "For M-CAT New York City is like the back page of MAD Magazine." Read more!