I attended my first political benefit, so to speak, last night. Why sit home and watch "the candidate" blabber when I will get all the analysis (and 1000x more) I need from the media in the days, weeks and months to come. So instead I figured I'd get out and support Kerry, support my pal's new band and in the process run up a totally tax deductible bar tab. I like this concept: the tax deductible bar tab. Note to self: find at least one way to drink on the gov'ment every week.

When's the Bush benefit? Keep me posted...

In other exciting news, jr+sons will continue our rise to grandeur (delusions thereof) at Galapagos Art Space, Friday August 6, 8:30pm. We think it'll be free...come early, stay late. Who knows maybe we'll charge everyone $3, donate it to Nader and then everyone will be able to write the evening off.

Friday afternoon here in corporate America. Enjoy the fruits of my labor:

An interesting, if indulgent, website which includes a nauseatingly detailed history of the legendary indie label SST.

The place to keep track of the political race.

A great site for folks who love to mine deep into the caverns of the interweb.

I think it's high time the ol' cultofsteve convenes.  Since the dearly loved but troubled Skycam has taken hiatus and in the spirit of shameless self promotion (it is the cultofsteve after all) please join myself, the incorrigible Johnny Rock Connell and more famous than he knows Todd Kovner next Tuesday for the coming out of jr+sons....
 


Be sure to say hi and buy your cult master a beer for crying out loud.  You think my endless sniveling is free?  Hell no...

A favorite and most useful free web database has gone to shit. Allmusic.com, formerly as useful for music as imdb.com is for film, has recently updated their entire site including their user interface. It's not only unattractive and poorly laid out, it's entirely non-functional. Surely inundated with complaints AMG put up a response to pacify the angry masses. Their response (actually more a series of poor excuses) was posted online for about a day and then removed. I expected some other regular users would post responses to this extremely poor example of web development so I consulted the almighty oracle that is Google.

Orangecone.com gives a really good analysis of the issue from a business perspective and waxy.org has posted the AMG response and includes a ton of user comments.

PS - I didn't link allmusic.com in this post because the likelihood is your browser won't even load the page and if it does it's so packed with bugs it's not worth your time. Trust me, it sucks.

Expanding on my mention of financial independence in the prior post. I absolutely plan to achieve financial independence on the merit of hard work, ingenuity and networking but in lieu of all of those there remains the notion of luck. I'm not much of a gambling man though I have been successful (my take being greater than my give) to date at poker, horseracing, roulette, blackjack, NASDAQ, counting pennies, counting gumballs, and even the lottery.

Althought by no means have I achieved fame or fortune (obviously), in all aspects of my gambling forays to date I am ahead. I have had losing days but all in all, I'm up. This isn't due to a skewing $2000 win at the Derby or a $3000 run at roulette in Monte Carlo but just regular win some, lose some, win some more. Again, all in all, I'm up.

So I've decided to spend my 35th year on God's green earth exploring how good my luck actually is or isn't. I'll play the lottery regularly relying on my twice weekly stops at the chinese joint down the block for numbers (the fortune cookies you know!). Keep up the poker outtings with the boys. Wander cautiously into any casinos which may cross my path. And of course play out my luck with horses when the opportunity presents itself.

The plan here is not to risk giving it all away but just to test my luck with games of varying skill and chance. Another arena which I will enter with gusto is that of the SWEEPSTAKES. I won't be buying any magazine subscriptions or attending any time share presentations but I plan to enter an online sweepstakes every day and see where my pendulum of luck swings.

My 35th Year Gambling Results to date...
Lottery: Profit - $7, Spend - $7, Net: $0
Sweepstakes du jour: Fine Living, History Channel

I gave up on MTV in about 1993 but tune in occasionally just to take a temperature check of our grand culture. MTV's continual slide into programming that contains very little true content doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is the obvious payola at hand with this Jessica/Ashlee Simpson garbage. Jessica, however atrocious, may have some talent depending on your perspective and what "art" you are referring to...but Ashlee?? I watched 60 minutes of the Ashlee Simpson "show" yesterday. Total disbelief. She is like seriously horrible like. Who the hell is paying for this shit? David Geffen? Some promo arm of Geffen? That would be MTV I guess. What the hell is Geffen thinking? And what is with these Simpsons? Something tells me that either Marge or Homer has some serious shit on David Geffen. Then again, it's America and America loves the Simpson's. America's newlyweds, America's sweethearts. Fuck.

I can't help but think of Walter Yetnikoff and Clive Davis. What would they think of this Simpson no talent phenomena? Ultimately they'd probably just curse Geffen and kick themselves in the ass for not getting them first. Then again, Clive certainly could still run this lowest common demoninator formula but has chosen against it. Cheers to you Clive! Alicia Keys is Streisand and Jessica Simpson is Charro. Thanks for sticking around and keeping some integrity out there.

Today is my birthday as well as that of my brother and Julius Caesar. A milestone birthday but I'm not really feeling the milestone. I'm still 23 in many, many way. Anyway, I've got some boring birthday resolutions that I won't clog the blog with but let's say I'm confident of financial independence by January 2006.

If you weren't so lucky to catch the spectacle that is the Macy's fireworks display over the east river this 4th of July, here's a LINK which will give you a good idea of what you missed.

In other exciting news, some recent celeb sightings:

Gilbert Gottfried just today actually. Turning the corner from 28th onto 8th looking despondent as hell and like he might need some rehab...all 3'10" of him in a SpongeBob t-shirt, baggy nasty shorts and looking like he might be carrying all he owns in that way over packed backpack.

Rosanna Scotto crossing 86th on 1st ave looking great, young and fresh from work in a purple pantsuit.

Maggie Gyllenhaal attempting incognito at Whole Foods on 7th ave in floppy hat and shades but giving it all away with that laid back glide...and the car waiting outside when she exited with nothing but a latte. No wonder the wife asks "Why do you walk all the way to Whole Foods everyday for lunch?" Please honey, you know it's for the organic carrots, cheap water and fresh wasabi.