Sweet. What is hipness? If you have to ask… well, you didn’t. It was a rhetorical question. But here’s a quote from the hip manual:

It must be borne in mind at all times that Hip is not just a language but an attitude — indeed, a whole culture unto itself. If some of the definitions in the dictionary seem inadequate or puzzling to you please remember that the true hipster has the Taoists aversion to pinning down the changing world. To define something completely is to embalm it intellectually. (Emphasis added)

Who’s the Lonliest? The Lonliest monk?
That would be Thelonious Monk. Thelonious Sphere Monk.
Composer, Pianist,
The High Priest of Bop.
Exiled to his own Kingdom, New York.
A giant man, The Dancing Bearking,
He never came to you,
You were summoned.
He comped too Badass for Miles,
Had to send Trane away,
When Nelly was sick,
The Duchess helped out.
He stood up for Bop Wizard Powell
So the Man snaked his Union Card.
A king without a sword,
A kingdom without a king.

Monk, born today in 1917, is without question one of the most unique as well as significant American composers of the 20th century. His compositions were earthy yet complex, capricious and sometimes dark, and are like staggering postcards with pictures of ballet-dancing hippos sent from far across the ocean of a vast, lateral intelligence.

I mean, the man was bad. He could blow like no one else. His crawling and crabbling lines. The paw prints in the dirt, the pondering hoverance. A drunken giant climbing down that biggass beanstalk. Single-cell organisms. Yo Mama so fat, she jump in the air and get stuck.
And legend has it that once he secretly demonstrated to another musician that he could burn it down just like Bud and then said “Don’t tell no one.”

Studying comp in school, Monk tole me to write music that has not yet been written; that’s hard to do with regularity. Turn on that radio and you know what I mean.

Taco Bell pranksters

Ig Nobel PrIze Winners 2003.

One thing I found amusing during my stateside stay was the current AOL commercial. You’ll notice a shot of a computer screen with “favorite” websites listed on it, one of them being whitehouse.org. Go look.

Bees. An ode to Hamlet, I suppose.
(more…)

Today I would like to introduce the third member of the Nashville four, or as I like to call it, the Nashvier.

The Nashvier is a small group of four geniuses with whom I went to school in Nashville, of course. The first two members, you may recall, are Graham Spice, funkster and Criss Cheatham, rock sentinel.

Member no. 3 is a Cincinnati poet, Ian Walbrech, former bandmate, former roommate, and best friend. He’s a video game composer, a valet, a husband and a great cook. His e-music is pretty wicked.

Looky here what I found at M?cGeiz yesterday. For the man who has nothing.

{{popup beershampoo.gif beershampoo 404×540}}Beershampoo.

Dubya Tee Eff? Use without scruples?

Whoda thunkit? A Stupa in Spain? For real. My pal Odi is attending the christianing ceremony this weekend, but the rest of us can watch it online streaming.

Streaming video has a ways to go, but that isn’t stopping people from using it for all sorts of events, like
euthanasia as a spectator sport

Now if I could only watch the Titans play online I’d be all set.

Another reason to visit Torsten’s Sp?t Schicht on Bischoffsweg:

{{popup fraga.jpg fraga 500×601}}Das Magazin von Bischoffsweg

Preis 1 Eu
CDU W?hler erm?ssigt 3 Eu

So go visit Torsten on Bischoffsweg. Tell him I said hi.