Deviant Days

Took a day off today to catch up on rest. Everything's pretty smooth and good at work and I feel fairly recharged now. I went and got a breakfast burrito and soda a little before lunchtime and then didn't know where to eat it. I wanted to eat outside somewhere and drove by my condo association pool but there were some girls swimming and I was self-conscious about sitting there eating in front of them. I ended up eating in my car in a Target parking lot and read the entirety of Eddie Campbell's The Black Diamond Detective Agency. I'll review that next.

I received a Wilco concert poster yesterday I'd ordered, a pretty cool image with a red talon and blue talon encircling a white dove, a war and peace thing against a greenish khaki background. Picked out a frame and matting at Aaron Brothers--I never quite realize how expensive that is. I looked at a couple books on acrylic painting techniques and checked out supplies but didn't buy anything. I've always wanted to paint but I realize I'm not really ready yet and need to start sketching and getting those faculties together before I start slapping paint and gesso around and all that.

Got a haircut, too, not from my usual stylist. Not that crazy about it but it'll do.

Read some music magazines over an iced coffee at Borders. I was planning to buy both Uncut and MOJO but realized they were largely the same content this month--I think both had stuff on the reunited Jesus & Mary Chain, Squeeze, Bob Marley, and Happy Mondays, and I wasn't that into the "free cds" attached to each that drive up the price of each mag to about $10. I just read what I wanted and put them back, along with Rolling Stone with a decent Police interview and another music mag I already forgot. Sting is kind of a dick but I appreciate that he just has to be who he is and makes no apologies about it. I would like to see them live but chances are I won't. I noticed also that I can recognize Rob Sheffield's RS reviews within the first or second line, as he always works in a pretty funny joke by then, often kind of a passive-aggressive dis on the artist in question. It's true, Bryan Ferry's new cd has a cover that looks kinda like Master P designed it for one of his No Limit releases in the '90s.

My Devil Dinosaur and Silver Star hardcovers arrived, so along with the Eternals Omnibus I'm pretty full up with Kirby Krap for the summer. I skimmed through Silver Star and was puzzled that the last couple issues have much more--how you say? Dimensional? modern coloring at work, while the early stuff is suitably '70s flat, fourkolor. I remember Erik Larsen writing about the challenges in coloring the volume in his column but what happened? Was there a followup column where he conceded defeat?

One fun thing with one of the mags--I think it's Uncut--is a feature where artists/bands answer questions from fans including celebs. In this one, Scarlett Johansson asks the JAMC where the worst bathroom they ever used on tour is, which is a fun questions (she sang backup for them at Coachello during "Just Like Honey", as the song features in Lost in Translation), but Mike Patton has a really dumb stream-of-forced-humor-consciousness question about Jesus and Mary Magdalene that instantly turns him from cool fried iconoclast to awkward #1 fan you need to move away from at a party.

I found the new Happy Mondays cd, Uncle Dysfunktional, featuring frontman Shaun Ryder clean for the first time in his recording career. I'm kind of digging it. It's kind of dated in a way, and yet I'm enjoying every stupid, repetitive, nonsensical track so far. The opener, Jellybean, is a hoot, an up-with-transgenderism anthem with lines like, "I'm a breeder, not a leader", "now I can make crazy babies!" and a hook that goes, "I like to feel the grass on my ass/It's good to press my tits to the floor."