MORE WEIRD LP'S AND KNICK KNACKS FROM VALUE VILLAGE!

After a day spent outside enjoying the warm summer weather here, Miss Ten and I headed back over to the very fine Value Village in Woodinville, WA. yesterday evening to score us some sweet new-old clothes AND revel in the wonder of THINGS and STUFF! My daughter grabbed the iPhone and took some photos for me of some of the more wondrous items we came across. Please to enjoy! Your face would probably look like this, too, if you were put in one of...

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IGOTSUMSCREEN IN MY EYES AND CAN'T SEE A THING

So this is how I rtpe when I can't see anthyhing. I bet it;s very bad You'd think I'd be able to type better than this without loooking at my dingers rignt? O am betting this is not too readable. Sorry, ,anm O ssll this same thing every summer with the sumscreen Every summer! I forget to use a different sunscareen on my face and them I don't and then I sweat or rub my eyes and it gets into my  eyes and then it stings like hell and I can't see...

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MISS TEN'S SCHOOL TIME CAPSULE ENTRY

That's my girl. ...

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A FEW MINUTES OF THE (UNINTENTIONAL) BROADCAST HILARITY OF TV'S "DARK SHADOWS!"

Amidst the drama of the last couple days of extreme political highs and lows in the USA USA USA, I thought we all could use a few minutes of comic relief right about now. My friend Ben had mentioned to me yesterday that he was a big fan of the late-'60s ABC-TV soap opera, "Dark Shadows," and we got to talking about it, which led me to the video I'm posting here. For those of you who might not be aware, "Dark Shadows" was one of the strangest television...

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MISS TEN'S "DEVIL EGG"

That is all. ...

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YOU SHOULD WRITE A BOOK!

It is, I note with genuine awe and awkward humility, something I have heard from quite a few people over the years: "You should write a book!" I know that this is a very high compliment indeed, and I am always very touched that people like my writing so much that they encourage me to bring it to a wider audience (and a fuller bank account, assumably). But no one likes my response; they always look so disappointed when I answer, thank you so very...

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MISS TEN, NIRVANA, AND THE MILLION-DOLLAR QUESTION

Miss Ten, on her own, has discovered Nirvana."Mom, Nirvana is really good!""Yes!""Didn't one of them die?""Yes. It was very sad. He committed suicide.""Which one?""Kurt Cobain.""The singer?""Yes."A pause, then,"How can it be that someone is so good at one thing and so messed up in another?" As my friend Christine put it, that's the "million-dollar question." I didn't answer my daughter, and I don't know that she expected that I would. Nothing I...

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PHOTOS & SHOW REVIEW: THE INTELLIGENCE, LA LUZ, AND PONY TIME @ NEUMOS, SEATTLE, WA. 6/19/13

FUN FACTS: 1. June is my favorite month. 2. Nineteen is my favorite number. 3. 2013 has been particularly lucky for me so far. So numerologically-speaking, 6/19/13 was going to be MY DAMN DAY, and guess what? IT WAS, because three super-mega-rad-rad-rad bands (including The Intelligence, rated "Most Rad of The Rad" by Popthomology, aka ME) came together to form a triple bill of perfection at Neumos last Wednesday night, sponsored by The...

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I MADE YOU A CHILDREN'S MAZE GAME NOT FOR CHILDREN: "TRIP THROUGH ACIDLAND"

(Click to enlarge game. Please to enjoy, man!) ...

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THE SUPERMARKET SUSHI EATER'S PRAYER

Our Supermarket Sushi, which art in Safeway,Aiight be thy Name.Thy Sushi Chefs come.Thy California Rolls be done in the deliAs it is in a OK restaurant.Give us this day our daily soy sauce packetsAnd forgive us our culinary compromises,As we forgive them that undercook rice against us.And lead us not into the Kung Pao Chicken,But deliver us from microbial infections.For thine is the convenience, The limited-selection, and the gyozas, For Tuesdays...

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DADDY'S SONG

I was almost finished with elementary school by the time I met a friend who had divorced parents. I know this must seem very weird in today's world where more marriages cease than continue, but it's true -- in my small-town Midwestern universe, every kid I knew had a mom and a dad that were married. Divorce was rarely talked about, considered an "adult" topic only, shameful and scandalous, with the divorced man seemingly a new middle-aged playboy-on-the-loose,...

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FIVE OF THE WORST JOBS IN AMERICA, AS PERFORMED BY MICK JAGGER

1. Roofer ...

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NANOFICTION: DEATH VS. THE GUITARIST

(Nanofiction is a story exactly 55 words in length.) TWANGGGGGGG! The musician angrily thrust off his guitar, motioning impatiently for it to be grabbed and fixed by one of those shadowy, scurrying figures in black at the side of the stage. “I broke a string!” he spat. “Aaaaannnnd…a stroke I bring,” the Grim Reaper pleasantly replied, as his bony fingers gripped the guitar’s neck. ...

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A SPAM EMAIL ASKS ME QUESTIONS AND I ANSWER THEM

Has anything ever bothered you in life?  -- Never. Do you have any problem you need to solve? -- 99 of them, in fact. A pending court case you want to resolve in your favor? -- I've retained a wild-haired wizard riding a glitter unicorn, thanks. Health, relationship and finance. -- This is not a question or even a sentence. Welcome to the world of miracles and wonders, there are supernatural treasure and power to liberate mankind from all...

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WORST SADFEST AUTOTUNE EVER? "GOODBYE" BY D4NNY

AWWWW, MAN, HERE WE GO! If I believed in hell, I'd sure be thinking I'd be going there because I've been laughing over this poor Indian kid's terrible autotuned and rather anemic pity party video for like 30 minutes now. AHAHAHA! Aw. HAHA! AWW. Please to EEeeNNnnJJjOOoyyY! D4NNY, "Goodbye" ...

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I MADE YOU A BIBLE CARTOON

...

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HOW TO SAY "I LOVE YOU" TO YOUR KIDS WITHOUT GOING BROKE

It's not so great sometimes to be mired in the Consumer Age in the midst of a widening wealth distribution skew crisis. The poor are getting poorer, the middle class are getting poor, the upper middle class is slipping into middle class (which is getting poor), and then there's the 400 dudes in America who have all the real money. But the pressure to BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE never stops. The thing that drove the economy skyward...

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IPHONE PHOTO ROUNDUP: MELLOW YELLOW, A SUMMERTIME ART PARTY, SEVEN HILLS PARK, SEATTLE, WA. 6/8/13

Ingredients: One (1) perfectly-pleasant Seattle Sunday afternoon in early June (NO RAIN ALLOWED) One (1) modest but fully-funded Kickstarter campaign One (1) great idea Combine ingredients in tiny Capitol Hill-area park after application of city permit. Shake modest-but-fully-funded Kickstarter campaign funds over ingredients; mix liberally with art, artists, food, fun, music, musicians, freaks, sweets, local dogwalkers and stroller-pushers and...

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PHOTOS & SHOW REVIEW: MIKAL CRONIN & SHANNON AND THE CLAMS @ TRACTOR TAVERN, SEATTLE, WA. 6/7/13

Do you know how excited I was to see Mikal Cronin play here in Seattle last night? VERY MUCH, I WAS. I had waited with great patience since seeing him perform his own material on 2012's Bruise Cruise, when I was so super-thrilled that I went up to the pleasant, shaggy-haired lad afterwards and babbled my enthusiasm in what I suspect was a particularly froth-mouthed, googly-eyed way. Do you know WHY I was so excited? Because I was thinking, man, this...

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THE STRANGEST BEATLES COVER BAND YOU MIGHT EVER SEE: THE BEENS IN CONCERT ON A JAPANESE ROOFTOP!

There is something very, very, very, very...different about Japanese culture, shall we agree? I see this difference most often in relation to music. I tell you what: there is no pop music fan more HARDCORE than a Japanese pop music fan, not in the whole wide world. I love them. An example of this devotion that I bring to you today is of a Japanese Beatles cover band called The Beens that decided to completely recreate The Beatles' famous January,...

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TEN MORE WEIRD RECORD COVERS FROM THE VALUE VILLAGE THRIFT SHOP IN WOODINVILLE, WA.!

It doesn't matter where I am, in what state or what town...if there are bizarre old albums around, I WILL FIND THEM! Here's today's lot from VV! Please to enjoy! Let's just start right off with a bang here. Wow, sir...just so WOW. ...

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CROSSING THE GLASS: HOW FEAR PROTECTS YOU...AND RUINS YOUR LIFE

My very favorite book from my childhood was a volume from the LIFE Science Library called "The Mind," published in 1964. I cannot even estimate the hours I spent reading and re-reading this. It's really, really INTERESTING! There really isn't anything cooler than the human mind. As I look through the book now (YES, I still have it!), I realize what a huge influence it had upon me, and was surely the foundation in my decision...

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MOVIE REVIEW: "TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM" - SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, EGYPTIAN THEATER, SEATTLE, WA. 6/2/13

The complexities surrounding the concept of fame -- motivations, attainment or lack of it, consequences of either outcome -- is a topic that forever fascinates me. As someone who is peripherally attached to the music business via photography, I've been able to observe the careers of many musical artists over time, followed their triumphs and frustrations, and have often been able to see something of their off-stage lives -- how things are when the...

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