The Good Kind of Death
Reading Chunklet Magazine is an exercise that not enough people undertake. The irreverent, but insider look and indie music is good for a laugh even given the stilted scope that the staff takes on music covered (or mocked) in each issue – or in this case web posting.
At some point during April, Dirbomb’s drummer Ben Blackwell sent Henry Owings a few tracks from a band called simply – Death. That one post apparently helped spark enough interest in the group as to spur indie label Drag City to issue that band’s work.
The tracks are still up at Chunklet and show Death to be a really solid hard rock band. There are some fast tempos chosen and an undeniable ‘70s influence on the group. Punk is easily a reference point, but that would only serve to deaden the talent espoused on these tracks.
Some folks have referenced this as one of the first punk records, which makes a bit of sense given the fact that they hail from Detroit – home to the Stooges and MC5 – but there is such a litany of discs prior to 1974 that could qualify as the first punk album that such claims might not be too useful. A very accurate reference point could even be some of the more simplistic Hendrix tracks, but again comparisons won’t do this any justice.
The album, made up of a scant 7 tracks is due out in February, but keep listening to those two already available tracks and look forward to adding this release to your proto-punk collection.
Tracklisting: 01 - Keep On Knocking 02 - Rock-N-Roll Victim 03 - Let the World Turn 04 - You're A Prisoner 05 – Freakin’ Out 06 - Where Do We Go From Here??? 07 - Politicians in My EyesUniversal Mind Control
Being a fan of Common has become a frustrating endeavor over the last decade. But dating back to 1992 and Can I Borrow a Dollar?, Common always seemed to displease some segment of his listening public. That doesn’t mean his recordings aren’t good, but there really isn’t any way to placate everyone in your listening audience. Even on that early disc that many revere, Common lays out a few misogynistic lyrics. Universal Mind Control, is again another animal completely.
Throughout the rest of the ‘90s, Common continued to grow his reach in the hip-hop community as well in the general perception of the US music buying public. At the time of Like Water For Chocolate’s release, Common was considered one of the most important voices in either underground or commercial rap. And even if there were a few tracks from that album that seemed a bit distant from what rap fans were looking for, it sold magnificently and made Common, well it made him a common name.
His subsequent four albums have met with middling responses as Common flies through producers and stylistic flares.
This latest disc begins with a dance beat that sounds as if it should be coming from an Antipop Consortium album, but Common easily handles that beat – even if he chooses to employ a bit of the old robot voice for the chorus.
Kanye West’s influence over much of this affair has been discussed at length in the press. But really, Common possesses such a unique flow and personality, no producer can outshine him on his own record. Every change that this rapper has undergone has been of his own construction. If Universal Mind Control gets panned by fans and the press, it won’t stop Common from his continual quest to see what hip-hop can do and what it is.
Welcome!
When you ask people about food and the Northwest, they almost always think first of salmon, then possibly oysters, clams, chanterelles, or specialty cheeses. Some might be aware of the many apple, cherry, and berry orchards, the amazing local specialty potatoes and onions, the wineries and micro breweries, or the popularity of wild huckleberries, blackberries and mushrooms. But there's far more to Northwest Specialties than that— we'll be talking about all of those, but also, many others, including locally grown hazelnuts and walnuts, and grape seed oil, artisan bakers, millers, wineries and breweries— including mead and cider brewers, and locally grown beef and organic poultry, vegetables, fruit and greens.
No matter what you're making, the results can only be as good as your ingredients. We're incredibly lucky in the Pacific Northwest, in that fresh, local, in-season ingredients of excellent quality are readily available, year-round. Whether you shop at the Pike Place Market, your local food co-op, or one of the big chain grocery stores, you'll find terrific and fresh choices in the produce and meat departments. You don't need to be a gourmet chef to know how to pick out good fresh fish, meat, or veggies. All it takes is a little interest, and close attention.
One of the benefits of abundant local farmers, ranchers, bakers, orchards, wineries, and craftspeople is that it is increasingly easy to skip the middle-man, and buy direct at farmers' markets. Increasingly, restaurants are buying their own produce locally as well, to the extent that many restaurants are enthusiastically participating in the slow food movement. The slow food movement is all about using fresh, local in-season ingredients. Slow food works especially well in a climate like ours: Winter in the Northwest is a terrific time for fish, shellfish, nuts, apples, cranberries, squashes, soups, stews, and chowders. You'll find a good variety of organic greens still available, as well, and there are a number of locally-made cheeses that bring zest and flavor to your winter cooking.
For example, you can brighten nearly any meal with a simple salad of mixed greens, tossed with dried cranberries or thinly-sliced pears, topped with a zesty goat cheese and freshly-toasted, chopped hazelnuts, dressed with a local sweet vinaigrette. (We'll talk about making your own seasoned vinegars and olive-oils, as well.)
Whether you're entertaining friends and family this holiday season, or simply want to prepare something festive for yourself, you've got an amazing variety of wonderful and affordable ingredients to choose from, and you'll find yourself quickly developing an aversion to the kinds of over-processed, chemically-altered, frozen, pre-packaged stuff that many of us cook, serve, and consume; there's a better way to eat, and a better way to live.
So pour a glass of Columbia Valley wine (possibly a Washington Shiraz, or an Oregon Riesling), settle back in your favorite chair, and this week let's talk about holiday cooking in the Northwest.
Organic bovine colostrum
Butter: The Fickle, Crucial Ingredient
Finding the right comps for Joe Shlabotnik
Doc…Delgado is NOTHING like Teixeira.. :- ) :shaking head:
=== Slow Down A Minnit, Johnny ===
When comparing two hitters, there are any number of criteria you can use to match them:1 RH/LH 2 Walk rate 3 HR rate 4 Phenotype 5 AVG/OBP/SLG 6 Speed score 7 etc etc etcWhich of these you believe to be most important is a matter of judgment. Your judgment can be tested; we'll talk about that in a moment. ................ In comp'ing Teixeira, I'm looking first and foremost for these things:
1 Lefthandedness 2 Extreme talent (130-140 OPS+ demonstrated level of performance) 3 High OBP (.400) 4 High HR's (30+ at least) 5 Good BB/K ratio 6 Big guy with natural powerThe rest is negotiable. But the MOST important thing is ALWAYS how GOOD the comp is. Aging depends first and foremost on whether you're good at age 30. Players are skiing down a slope. How long they stay at high levels, depends on how high they started! You don't want to start with a hitter's G/F ratio and use that before you use OPS+. You'll wind up comparing Brad Wilkinson to Jim Thome. Start by asking, "who was at this hitter's level?". Give me every ballplayer who was truly MVP-caliber at the plate, and that pool of players all by itself will be an excellent comp pool for many purposes. Show me everybody who had three straight years of 140+ production, and that group will have a LOT of things in common... ................... Now, my criteria could be right or they could be wrong, but to say that Mark Teixeira has "NOTHING!!" in common with Carlos Delgado is .... weird, and it doesn't take the discussion in a constructive direction. I've listed what he has in common with Delgado. Where do we take the discussion, if you're going to claim that Mark Teixeira does not have 30+ homers a year in common with Carlos Delgado? Suppose you say that he doesn't share the attribute of having two nostrils, and I post internet pics, and you still disagree? What do I do then? :- ) Tex has ALL of my six main criteria in common with Delgado: he's a lefty masher, with natural power, who controls the strike zone beautifully. Of course you can find things that don't match. You might then say, "Personally, I feel that the most important attributes are X, Y, and Z, and therefore don't accept the Delgado comp." . === Let's Check It Out Dept. === Are my criteria the right ones? Here's how you tell, in a first cut at it. Let's acknowledge that there DOES EXIST such a thing as a pool of players with high HR's, high OBP, lefty swings, 210 lbs. plus, have proven 130 OPS+ production, etc etc. ...whether this is the RIGHT pool isn't the point. That pool of players exists. And you can measure them. And Mark Teixeira is a member of that pool, by definition. I'm claiming that if you go measure this pool of players, they don't fall off the table at no blinkin' 32 years of age. Go check it. .............. SABRMatt can, and no doubt will :- ) propose his own set of criteria: a certain G/F rate, and switch hitter, and white rather than black, and whatever. Mark Teixeira will be a member of this pool, also, by definition. Matt can then go measure this group, but if he's not careful, it will include a bunch of guys like Pete Rose and Julio Cruz, etc etc. But he can measure this group and see how it ages. ............. Both groups will be (semi-)accurate representations of a guy like Mark Teixeira. If Teixeira is a member of all three groups, Group Yellow, Group Orange, and Group Red .... and EVERY member of group yellow achieved at least a 100 OPS+, and EVERY orange got at least a 110 OPS+, and EVERY Red got a 120 OPS+, which one forms Teixeira's lower bound, seeing he's a member of all three? . === No Cooking the Books, Now, Dept. === Caveat: it is true that you don't want to set the lower bounds of Teixeira's comp-group right at Teixeria's own performance. In other words, you don't want to take a guy with a 140 OPS+, and comp him to ten guys with OPS+ of 140 to 170. The broadcasters do this: "Dante Bichette is a member of a very select group with .300 AVG's and 100 RBI a year." Bichette winds up getting comp'ed to a whole lot of guys who are better than he is. ................ But we're not doing that with Teixeira. Teixeira's OPS+ level is 150, hard on the barrelhead. We comped him to guys 130-160. Teixeira's OBP the last two years has been .400 and .410. Carlos Delgado's was .383. etc etc. You compare Mark Teixeira to a group of players, half of which are a little better and half of which are a little worse, and you're going to have quite a group of stars, amigos. Go out and find all the big lefty 30-homer guys who ran .400 OBP's and who were as good as Teixeira, kiddies. You're not going to find them collapsing at age 32. Cheers, Dr D
German Shepherd Posthumously Named "Valor Dog of the Year"
bike trainers
Tunguska Explosion of 1908
1. The blast force was in the vicinity of 15 megatons. It was the largest impact event in recorded history, including from modern nuclear testing. 2. There was no trace of any impact crater. 3. Trees at ground zero were stipped of bark -- but still standing. 4. Sampling of plants, water, and earth yielded few clues or residual matter; the clues that resulted tended to be inconsistent with the theory of a large impact. 5. Around 80,000,000 trees from 3 to 10 miles away from ground zero were knocked over, their tops falling away from ground zero. The total area of scorched trees was about 30 miles in diameter. 6. The resulting earthquake would have registered about 5.0, if the Richter scale had been devised at the time.Here is an account of the explosion, attested by S. Semenov who was 40 miles south of ground zero (footnote 1):
"At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara trading post, facing North. [...] I suddenly saw that directly to the North, over Onkoul's Tunguska road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire Northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few yards. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn a part of the iron lock snapped."Speculation on the cause is an industry both in printed books and on the internet: UFO explosion? "I need more power, Scotty!" "I kinna hold 'er togetha inny longa, Keptin!" UFO buffs often view alternative explanations as cover-ups. Just for fun, we might note that although it's hard to imagine anything happening to stress a UFO "warp coil" :- ) once it's gotten to earth after a long journey ... still, simple malfunctions could be attributed. Black hole collides with earth? Accounts such as "the sky split" and the multiple waves of energy have sparked the speculations revolving around sci-fi applications of laws of physics. Albert A. Jackson and Michael P. Ryan, credentialed physicists at the University of Texas, maintained that a black hole passed through the earth. The questions here would be, where was the exit event, and where are the cataclysmic effects to the earth's mantle? Speculations have included theories revolving around antimatter falling to earth. However, there is no evidence for the existence of "chunks of antimatter" in the Milky Way galaxy. Russia explodes an H-bomb four decades early? If you are interested in the general field of anachronisms, this explanation might interest you. But it is hard to imagine Stalin's Soviet Union not exploiting such technology in, say, 1940. As well, the entire Soviet research industry of the 1920's and 1930's becomes nothing but a vast, flawless coverup. ............... The scientific consensus is that a "lightweight" (low-density) asteroid exploded about 5 miles above the forest. The asteroid may have been composed of space debris and ice, and when the ice melted in the atmosphere, the explosion occurred. The asteroid therefore would not have hit the ground, though the shock wave would have. The hypothetical speed of the asteroid is placed at around 7 miles a second. The shock wave was easily equivalent to that of 2,000 Hiroshima bombs; if the asteroid had arrived 4 hours and 47 minutes later, all of St. Petersburg would have been destroyed, every human being killed for at least 10 miles in any direction. Opponents of this theory, of course, point out aspects of the evidence that are not consistent with this understanding. ............. Slight alterations of the trajectory or timing -- if the Tunguska explosion be due to an asteroid -- would have wiped out London, Rome, or Munich, in nature's equivalent of a (mega-) nuclear strike. As it was, not a single human life was lost. The Earth caught a very, very big break in 1908. ................... Astronomers tell us that if Jupiter weren't serving as a "shield" for Earth, then the Earth would suffer 1,000 times more asteroid hits than it does. The craters on the surface of the moon are sobering. None of us worry much about asteroids. An odd serendipity that Earth's citizens live their lives free of fear from asteroids. Cheers, jemanji ......... (1) N. V. Vasiliev, A. F. Kovalevsky, S. A. Razin, L. E. Epiktetova (1981). Eyewitness accounts of Tunguska (Crash)., Section 6, Item 4 bottom image: http://www.psi.edu/hartmann/pic-cat/images/488_Tunguska-A_Minute_After_E... (artist's rendition, of course)
