My days these days are filled with:
1. My brand-spanking-new iPod. I know, I know. I feel like such a.......yuppie. But, like Bruce Springsteen said when he inducted U2 into the R n R Hall o' Fame: "Now, what I know about the iPod is this: it is a device that plays music." I tend to agree. This is a device that plays ALOToffuckingmusic. So, I will be sitting on the bus and I can hear The Smiths, Ray Charles, The Replacements, New Order, Ella Fitzgerald and The Misfits in the course of a 15-minute commute. This is rad. This is musical ADD and I like it.

2. Regularly watching three shows a week: No Reservations-- Tony Bourdain's new show on the Travel Channel. He is so kick-ass. I could hear him quip about delicious bloody meat or why France "doesn't suck" for days. He unapologetically smokes like a fiend and has a razor-sharp wit that surpasses anything on TV ever...Except maybe Denis Leary.

Which brings me to the second show I now religiously watch: Rescue Me on the F/X channel. It's mind-blowingly great. Great Leary-style-asshole comedy thrown together with intense drama. The key here is that it's on F/X, this crazy "normal" cable channel that lets everyone swear it up, sex it up and beat it up. R.M is filled with themes of religious guilt/imagery (Leary's character sees his dead cousin/best friend who died as a firefighter in 9/11, as well as a bloody Jesus and Mary Magdalene. yeah, I know), Irish-heritage-alcoholism, various other addictions, being gay, being homophobic, single parenting, adultery, and, well, smoking/swearing/being brutally funny/honest as only Denis Leary can.

The third show is an oldie, but a goodie. Six Feet Under has had me especially depressed lately (but in a good artful way, y'know?). It also has me identifying with Claire (Lauren Ambrose) more than ever and...well, that is kinda scary. And everyone already knows all about Six Feet...right?

3. I am listening to the fucking Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra right now. Why? Because the best radio station in the universe has the best dj in the universe playing it for me, right now. That would be Mary Lucia on The Current. Another obsession of mine. Ooooh, here comes Ted Leo; oh, Mary, you're the breast!

4. A mix that a 13-year-old girl made for my friend Jim that has now found a cozy home on *my* iPod. It's brilliant. It has the song "Thirteen," by Big Star on it. Yeah, I know-- this girl rules. And there is this incredible song on it that I have been listening to every day now, for over a week. It's by a band called the Capricorns and it's called "New Sound," and I cannot get enough of it. It features this totally mad, sick organ that menacingly plays this crazycool riff while these chicks speedsing about rockers and rock shows "the curtain goes up and the lights come down/ want to see the new look/ gotta hear the new sound...the crowd starts to dance when you hit that chord" AUGH!! I am SO IN LOVE. It's the sound of bored (can you hear Johnny Rotten snorting, "BORRR-ring!"? or is that just me?) girls that are excited about something-- that new sound.

So. I want to meet this mystery girl. I want to interview her. I will keep you posted.

kisses,

B