I don't know how I feel about this. The Washington Post reports that "An Icon of the '90s Hears Footsteps; Dr Martens, Going for a Lighter, Less Soleful Look" Couldn't they just be happy selling fewer shoes to non-yuppies and non-frat-boys?

Critic Jim DeRogatis lets loose a caustic analysis of Ozzy's current fame and success in today's Salon. But it's pretty incisive, not holding up the man for a good thrashing, but instead holding up what he's been engineered into for a good critique. I have to admit being an Ozzy fan from way back -- I saw him live in Philly back in '92 and met him backstage. He was warm, seemed kind of befuddled but wanted to make sure that every person in the carefully escorted group got to shake hands, an autograph and/or a picture. Somewhere in a back issue of CMJ there's a publicity picture of me with him... (see, every month they run photos of radio people mugging with artists backstage in order to keep the radio and record people happy and subscribing to their wretchedly expensive "college radio journal").

It is kind of sad for me to see Ozzy turned into a clown. To me, it's always been kind of a heavy metal inside joke. For so many years, Ozzy was satan incarnate for the mainstream -- the kind of artist whose LPs parents took away to burn down at the parish. But fans secretly knew he was kind of a doofus, a little fried and mostly good hearted -- especially since he kicked most of the drugs in the early 90s. But now he's a doofus to everyone, and it's more acceptable to be a fan... yeccch. (Though I actually like a few tracks off his new album, mostly because I really like guitarist Zakk Wylde who is so appropriately over-the-top -- he was a crucial missing ingredient on Ozzy's last two albums).

And I completely agree with DeRogatis' indictment of the artistically vapid nu-metal that supports the Ozz Fest. Though the tour's occasionally had bands I'm interesting in seeing, like Tool or Pantera, I could never put up with the whole line-up and the fans it attracts. Give me the underground shit!

We need more of these: Central Pennsylvania town "Gallitzin graced by Atheist Station." It's amazing with churches on every other corner that people get their panties in a bunch over a building dedicated to non-believers. What annoys and amazes me most, however, is how believers (especially certain brands of Christians) don't realize that Atheism is NOT an evangelical faith (er, lack of faith) and that we Atheists wouldn't be "brazen" if y'all would just leave us the fuck alone. Get god/jesus/allah/jaweh out of my face and I'll keep atheism out of yours. Unfortunately, the door never swings both ways in church, so the deal has to be off.

Late night college dorm room conversations come true: Doors to tour with Cult front-man Ian Astbury. I'm not the world's biggest Doors fan, though I have nothing against 'em. To be honest, I like the Cult better. But I always thought that Astbury borrowed a bit from the Morrison book of tricks -- except the parts about getting fat and dying. If the Doors+Astbury tour around here for not too much cash I might have to check it out. Though, what would be even better would be the Doors with Glen Danzig, who more closely apes Morrison's most histrionic moves. I've always considered Danzig to be the spawn of demonic group sex between Elvis, Morrison and Satan. Either one is better than that Christian monkey from Creed.

I'm coming to the conclusion that the Who is just about my favorite 'classic rock' band, maybe even ahead of fellow Brits, Beatles and Stones. I think it's the power of their attack and their musicianship that appeal to me -- not that either the Stones or Beatles were lacking in the latter. But the Who moreso laid the groundwork for what would turn into hard rock and metal, Pete Townsend elevating the power chord to the apex of hard rock significance. It's not that the Who are somehow 'better,' but they do rock harder and kick more ass, and I like ass kicking. I'm currently rocking out to the 2 CD deluxe edtion of Live at Leeds.

But, all praise aside, I have to admit that the real Who haven't toured for nearly 20 years, and current Who minus a not-even-cold dead Entwistle tour is a indeed a sham. Here's a primary rule of rock -- if at least half your original band (or it's most successful/enduring lineup) is dead, hang it up!

I love old, obsolete tech -- especially stuff that never quite even caught on. Like the Scopitone.

File-sharing check-in:
I'm always looking for better methods for file-sharing, especially since too many clients -- like Kazaa -- have spyware. My favorite up to now has been WinMX (2.x), but I'm having trouble getting it to work through my new wireless set-up and firewall. It used to be that I could route the necessary WinMX ports to my computer, but for some reason it's not working right now. Then I heard about a new Gnutella network client called Xolox, and it's working out pretty well.

Like the new 3.x version of WinMX or Kazaa, Xolox allows you to download a file from multiple clients, speeding up the transfer and also minimizing your drain on a single user's bandwidth. At first I hadn't really used this type of client (note current failure of WinMX), and so was disappointed at what seemed like slow downloads of files I'd just chosen -- it brought up fond memories of the dying days of Napster when songs would be on my harddrive in mere moments. But I inadvertantly left Xolox running in the background (it's default) and when I checked the next day everything -- including some 100 MB files -- had downloaded. Xolox had intelligently kept looking for hosts offering the file I wanted and eventually pieced it together. I traded in instant gratification for better reliability, since with earlier single-host download clients like WinMX 2.x I gave up on big downloads because it seemed like a single peer never stuck around long enough or had enough bandwidth to support downloading a big file. But with Xolox and similar programs every peer that downloads a given file and keeps it up for sharing only increases it's availability to everyone on the network and decreases the load on any given client. Pretty cool.

There is a wide variety of content on the Gnutella network (audio, video, programs), but I've noticed that it's not quite as music-intensive as WinMX, openNap or other nets. Thus, it's easy to find a recent, popular release -- like the new Weezer album -- but finding older, more obscure stuff is not as easy (a search for the late 80s Black Sabbath album The Headless Cross has thus far borne no fruit). Nonetheless, I recommend Xolox quite highly... until the next big thing comes along.

I had planned to go to at least 2 different cookouts, but instead I got to spend my July 4th with Mr. Rooter. My partner and I somehow decided to spend the hot, sticky daypart trimming back the overgrown jungle that is our back yard so that the planned small get-together for the following day would be a little more pleasant for our guests. After sweating off a few pounds of water weight, I decided to take a shower, my partner noting to me just before that the drain seemed a little slow. Shower went fine, though it did drain slowly as I was warned.

Next was her turn, only she deided to use the toilet first, and she found that the shower drain gurgled quite a bit when the toilet flushed. Closer examination of the shower drain showed that there was material you just don't want backing up into your shower. So we pulled a poor Mr. Rooter man out of a barbeque somewhere in town to send a 125 ft. snake through the lower bowels of our house's drainage system, and paid $300 for the privilege.

And, for two paragraphs, I've tastefully avoided any use of the adjective "shitty."

When I'm doing relatively mindless stuff at work I sometimes leave the TV on (hey, I'm the Audio/Video Supervisor) and watch Tech TV, because it's one of the few free signals left on satellite TV. It's OK, doesn't require much brainpower and better than most daytime TV. Occasionally they point me to some cool tip or piece of software I want to try out. Today, it's an mp3 DJing program called Mix Vibes. Looks like it works in realtime, unlike looping software like Acid. I'll let you know after I try it.