
Okay. Let’s get started with the best news I’ve heard all day. Wilco’s new album is dangerously close to the horizon. I’m in the retail music biz – just barely – so I can use annoying jargon and say that the new album “streets” on June 30. But you can hear the album now. Wilco’s official site is streaming the album right here. I’m about halfway through my second listen. It’s very, very awesome. I can’t really compare it to any other album of theirs, because they seem to reinvent themselves each time around, and this is no different. It has a lot of the laid-back feel of Sky Blue Sky, with a bit of an AM radio vibe and still retaining the experimental tilt of the last several years. Oh, and it’s self-titled.

I did a thorough overhaul of the iPod over the weekend. I’m trying to rotate in CDs that I hardly ever listen to but deserve huge swaths of my time. There’s a lot of dissonant classical and experimental jazz, in addition to other things I say I like but don’t pay enough attention to.
Such as:
Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony
Autumn Defense: Circles
Carmen McCrae: Bittersweet
Charles Ives: Concord Sonata
Pierre Boulez: Repons
Bela Bartok: 44 Duos
Kate Bush: Aerial
Arnold Schoenberg: Erwartung/Pierrot Lunaire
Bill Frisell: Unspeakable
Francoise Hardy: The Vogue Years
Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
…and so on. I’m also on a major Charles Mingus kick. And I love Pandora radio. Fuck real radio. This is the future.

In case you haven’t already heard, a few weeks ago I drove a car for the first time since 1999. I won’t get into why I let my driver’s license lapse and waited so long to get back on this particular horse (it’s really just because I’m lazy), but Liza and I were in possession of my sister’s car while she was away on vacation and I took the plunge by getting behind the wheel once again. I drove around our neighborhood one night, daring to venture out to South Bay Plaza. Then on a Saturday evening, we hit the highway – literally – and drove up to Nashua to buy pants at the Pheasant Lane Mall. That’s right – three separate highways. Interstate 93, Route 128 and Route 3. I was vaguely nervous but frankly quite surprised at how easy it was to pick things up again. Merging onto highways will take some getting used to, though. Hey – I drove in Italy. I can handle these stateside pansies.

Liza and I are done with Battlestar Galactica as we await the DVD release of season 4.5. This show really blindsided us. Sci-fi, for sure, but with well-written and well-acted characters and excellent story lines. Oh, and spaceships too. The summer will see more DVD releases of shows we’ve grown to love over the years (24, Weeds, Mad Men). In the meantime, it’s back to Netflix the old-fashioned way: movies. We have Vicky Christina Barcelona and Rachel Getting Married at home, and just finished Burn After Reading, which was a lot like Fargo (inept crooks get in way over their heads) without a lot of the Fargo awesomeness. But I laughed a lot.

I also purchased the most highly anticipated DVD release (for me) in recent memory: the Criterion Collection version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I haven’t checked out the movie proper since it blew me away in the theater back in January, but I’ve been gleefully plundering the supplements disc. Lots of behind-the-scenes what-have-you for a film geek like me. If you were hesitant to check out this three-hour epic in the theaters, try renting it and watching it at your leisure. It’s really worth your time. Beautiful filmmaking with Fincher working his usual magic.

I don’t normally talk much about my day job around here, but I will say that I’m staying busy and that my job has become a lot more interesting lately. And I’m getting a summer intern. It’s going to be weird having a college student around to help me with various projects, but I think it’ll be a positive situation for both of us. And I’ll finally get out from under this backlog.
I’ve decided, after ingesting a staggering amount of jazz on Pandora, that I really like Freddie Hubbard.

So what about Borders, you ask? What about it? It’s still the bane of my fucking existence. I’m closing in on ten years at that place. Can you believe it? It’s only 12 hours a week, so I guess that’s what keeps me going. Oh, and Liza has gone back there, part-time. Three days a week, all opening shifts, so I never see her. I’m kind of frustrated at what Borders has become in these struggling retail days. Do they really believe that we’re going to get back on our feet with all this pushy sales tactics? I mean, come on. Look at Newbury Comics. They haven’t changed their attitude one iota and they still pack ‘em in. And I don’t know about you, but I feel creepy recommending a book I’ve never read simply because the suits in Ann Arbor tell me to. I can play Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage or Coltrane’s Blue Train on the second floor and there’s a really good chance that a customer will bring that disc to the registers. That’s how you recommend product. But nobody listens to me there.

I’m walking a whole hell of a lot lately. In the morning. I leave the house at 6:35 am, walk to JFK/UMass (one stop further than the closest one) via Morrissey Boulevard (the long way, past the Boston Globe), get on the T and then exit promptly at Park Street, walking all the way from there to Kenmore Square. That’s a 95-minute commute, with about 80 minutes spent walking. There’s nothing quite like the Commonwealth Avenue mall at 7:30 in the morning. Especially with the preponderance of dogs being walked. DOGS IN BACK BAY! I LOVE IT!
Okay then. I don’t think it’ll take quite this long to update the next time. Stay cool, interweb.
