My final post of 2003 will be a short one. This morning I woke up with the truly awful song, "Rockin' The Paradise," by Styx in my head. How do these songs get into my head? I've really had some interesting songs in my head upon waking up lately and this one takes the cake. Embarassing! I had this album on vinyl as a little kid - the one thing I remember about it is that on Side B of the vinyl, there wasn't the usual sticker with the song listing on it - there was nothing. But if you help side B up to the light, you could see a fancy Styx logo, holographically etched into the vinyl. I thought that was totally sweet back then. What a horrible album, though.

Have a safe & happy new year!

This is classic! If you see someone you don't know carrying an almanac in the next couple of days, John Ashcroft now gives you permission to kill that person as soon as possible. Seriously. Don't wait for them to hit you over the head with the almanac - take matters into your own hands before you are brutally assaulted with a binded, soft covered book by a man most likely over 65 years old. I have officially increased my terror code to red.

Saw Something's Gotta Give last night, the newest Jack Nicholson film, which also featured Diane Keaton. Both were excellent in the film, which fell a little short in the truly compelling category, but was still good for many laughs and well worth your $9, which is a rarity these days. Some great scenes in the movie.

By the way, I am not sure which is funnier, suspecting someone with an almanac or watching and hearing Michael Jackson say "doo-doo" on 60 Minutes the other night. Still deciding on that one....

Song now playing: The Byrds - "Nashville West"

Greetings Robots! 362 more shopping days! I'm basking in the aftermath of what was a terrific Christmas. I'm also relieved at the completion (finally) of my home theatre system, with the addition of a Cambridge Soundworks Newton Subwoofer- thanks mom & dad! Now when I watch movies, it hits you right HERE (I'm banging my chest). It's going to be fun in 2004, watching sports in HD and movies on the big screen with the full arsenal of audio power to go with it.

Back on November 1st, Stephanie and I drove up to Salem, MA to have dinner with our friends Dan & Kerry and we had a great time witnessing the Halloween leftovers the town had to offer. There were still some strays left, decked out in their costumes, as we wandered around the streets of a downtown that has really made great strides in recent years, much like a lot of Boston's surrounding areas. Salem has a lot to offer. The highlight of the trip, though, was our visit to the Peabody Essex Museum, one of the largest museums on the east coast.


We didn't get to see everything, but we'll save the rest for another trip. I was able to get some good pictures, though, documented here. Simplebits Dan makes a hilarious guest appearance in this slideshow.

It might be a bit early, but I'd love to hear some feedback from all of you folks who received one of the "Top 10 CDs" which I was sending out. I'd be interested to know what you think of my taste for the year.

The weather, dare I say, has also been so delightful 'round these parts. If only it would stay this way all year. On my way to work this week, I was at a stop light when I looked up, opened my sunroof and shot this picture:



Song now playing: Nothing. It's 12:07am.

Hey! Does this come with "cat & pinion steering?"

Uh, does the smack in the head and the kick in the balls come with this?

Bah, humbug, right? This guy thinks so. The story isn't nearly as ridiculous as his name.

RustedRobot update: I've added a "Fiction" section to the site, over there in the right-side column. I occasionally get the hankerin' to write some fiction and I feel like it should see the light of day instead of me reading it over and over and over again, trying to make it perfect. So screw it, I'll post some here now and then and hopefully get some feedback from readers. Hopefully. Hint hint. I've only posted two stories. Note to Rick Crawford: one of them has an ending. Kinda. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. These are works in progress!

Merry Christmas to all! I find it surreal that people I don't know read this page on a regular basis. I appreciate that.

Song now playing: Nick Lowe - "Only A Fool Breaks His Own Heart"

How great is tin foil? I try to incorporate tin foil into my life every single day in which I possibly can. You can have your ziploc bags. You can have your tupperware. I loves me some shiny, tinny tin foil. I once, by accident, placed some tin foil into my mouth - that was wrong. So wrong. One thing I would advise that you never do with tin foil is put it into your mouth. Ever. Trust me on this one.

Anyway, tin foil is the savior of everything kitchen-related. It hugs and grabs snugly. It tightly seals. Screw your saran wrap. Let me tell you one thing about saran wrap - it's worthless crap. Screw Saran Wrap. I can't even get that shit to stick to the side of containers to give me the complete, tight seal that I so desperately need for my sealing purposes. Don't even get me started on trying to rip an even piece of Saran Wrap or keep it flat. The only thing Saran Wrap sticks to is itself. Damn you, Saran Wrap - you are the biggest scam since NyQuil (don't ask).

You know what else I use a lot of - paper towels! Oh, how I love the paper towels! I use paper towers for everything. Ever since my friend Dave Klug sent me an article a couple of years ago that said cutting boards have more germs than toilet seats and that hand towels (sometimes) have even more, I've used paper towels at a rate that could only be described as excessive and ridiculous. Long live paper towels, although I think it's high time that the Brawny dude had a makeover. He kinda looks like a dude in the first row of a Bob Seger concert in 1981.

Remember, my offer below is still out there - first ten people to send me an email requesting so get a CD of ten songs - one from each of my top ten records of 2003. I built it yesterday and it's a killer!

Song now playing: The Thrills - "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)"

For a limited time only and as a gift from RustedRobot to you for the holidays, I will send you a copy of ten songs, one from each of my Top 10 albums of 2003. Dave Klug is not eligible for this gift. I think he knows why. So send me an email (the link to my email is over there to right) and the first 10 people who email me will get a copy. How's that?

Song now playing: Varnaline - "Blackbird Fields"

So I am in the gym yesterday morning, pushing myself through my normal workout and towards the end of my hour-plus, I look up and there's Dan Duquette, former GM of the Boston Red Sox, working out. Bizarre. I had heard he lived in Acton, MA, but one would figure that a guy like that probably made some good money in his day and would have the required gym equipment in his own house? Oh well.

This whole Alex Rodriguez thing is the perfect example of how frustrating professional sports can be. Let's get this straight - the player wants to come here, Texas (his current team) wants to trade him, the Red Sox want to acquire him. Yet the union doesn't want it to happen because something like 4-6% of his original salary (made up of, ahem, $252 million dollars over 10 years) is the sacrifice Rodriguez would have to make to do what he wants. Then he says "I'll do the trade if the union approves it." What a sissy. What a bunch of babies, in fact. The union, which possesses a strangle-hold on those in their employ, is an organization that borders on the illegal and Rodriguez himself shouldn't escape blame for whoring himself out three years ago and then not putting up more of a fight for himself this week. Ridiculous. Love baseball, hate the greed.

A couple of interesting magazine tidbits I found while flying home from Chicago last week:

- For those of you who tihnk Google can do no wrong and are ready to scrape your bank account clean to get into Google's upcoming IPO, I strongly advise you read this article. Personally, I wouldn't touch their IPO with a ten-foot pole. I'm going off memory here, but I believe they are valuating the company somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 billion, which is slightly more than Yahoo last time I checked. Overvalued? Remember, Yahoo has multiple revenue sources and many businesses. Google has, by and large, one source of revenue - paid search. I shouldn't pick on Google alone, either - most search engines have but one source of revenue - it just so happens that revenue is currently the hottest and hippest form of advertising. Additionally, my aversion to Google's IPO isn't necessarily specific to Google - I tend to avoid IPO's in general. Now that I think about it, I don't dabble much in the stock market at all. Take my words with a grain of salt, but I think common sense is common sense here.

- Also, while thumbing through the Google article at O'Hare, I picked up the inaugural copy of Tracks magazine, a new music publication targeted towards adults. I was completely underwhelmed. I should have known because they put Sting on the cover. I don't feel like Sting has written or sung an important song since 1983. The whole magazine, in fact, feels like fake white-boy blues to me. You know what I mean? It's almost too carefully put together, constructed with all brains and no guts whatsoever. I'll probably leaf through another issue or two, but my first impression is not a good one.

Song now playing: Kings Of Leon - "Happy Alone"

She's got legs
She knows how to use them......

My four month journey has come to an end. I have, for the first time in my life, lay defeat to "the man." In August I received a letter from the IRS stating that I failed to pay a significant amount of my taxes in the year 2001. The claim was that there was an "extra" W-2 that I didn't file and my income for the year was roughly double what I reported, which would have been a fairly hefty tax bill had I not decided to fight it. But fight it I did. The main problem was that the "missing" W-2 in question came from a company that doesn't exist anymore, so I couldn't simply go back to the company and straighten it out, because they weren't there. Several letters went back and forth between yours truly and the IRS. I sent copies of W-2's. Twice. I sent typed letters making my claim, defending my turf. Finally, just a couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from the IRS stating that I was, in fact, correct, that at some point in 2001 the company in question changed payroll providers and both providers sent them W-2's and it was just a little mix up at the IRS factory. I win!

Song now playing: The Autumn Defense - "Tuesday Morning"

I am on a roll here, aren't I? In addition to the mouthy wrap-up of my Chicago trip, I also posted another small tidbit of fiction below. I'm inviting anyone and everyone to post their opinion about it, I'd be quite anxious to know if you think it's good or if it sucks. I can take the criticism. No really, I can.

Anyway, you got a Chicago wrap-up, you got some fiction, and now, from the home office in Maynard, MA, I offer you my top-ten albums of 2003. To steal the thunder of my friend Dave Klug, rave on.....

1. Tim Easton, "Break Your Mother's Heart" - the guy just keeps getting better and better. At some point, he'll get to the point where he crashes head-on into the "good" wall and can't go any further or do any better. "Poor Poor L.A." might be my song of the year.

2. Drive By Truckers, "Decoration Day" - This is the album I've been waiting for from these guys since I first heard them. I remember getting a CD from them back in the Tar Hut days and I specifically remember thinking to myself "Patterson Hood's got a great voice." Boy, have they come a long way since then. What an excellent batch of songs. "Outfit" is quite an emotional song if you think about it for a few minutes.

3. Sloan, "Action Pact" - this was released only in Canada in 2003 (no U.S. release yet) but I don't care. At some point, my current favorite band in the world will get the respect and attention they deserve. "Action Pact" is, yet again, an almost entire set of unstoppable power pop, filled with gooey hooks and not one, not two, but three great singers. I believe it now more than I did before - I'll take the last few Sloan albums over any Cheap Trick album anyday. Okay, I might keep "In Color" over "Pretty Together."

4. Graham Lindsey, "Famous Anonymous Wilderness" - at first listen, you might flick this CD like a frisbee into your pile of records and write it off as a Dylan wanna-be. But don't. Please, I beg you, do not do that. Lindsey, without a doubt, wears some of the Dylan speak-sing on his sleeve, but he can write a song. God damn, he can write a song. Buy this album. Right now.

5. Kathleen Edwards, "Failer" - I am not a sexist, I promise. For whatever reason, I'm just not terribly fond of many female singers. I'm also not incredibly fond of many Rounder releases, but that's another story entirely. Edwards's talent is too much for me to ignore and this album was the surprise find of the year. A delight to listen to. Imagine me in my James Lipton voice saying to Kathleen Edwards: "YOU are a deLIGHT!"

6. The Tyde, "Twice"- What a surpise this was. My good buddy Dave Klug sent me this one day and I listened to it and thought "hmmmm....not bad." Four months later I went to see The Pernice Brothers and King Radio at The Paradise in Boston, and The Tyde was slotted in between. Hoo-boy did they rock! They also have a sweet Japanese keyboard player with her hair down to her butt. The Beach Boys kinda meet Pavement. I went back and listened to the album again and now I'm a fan. A big fan. The album is, front to back, loaded with great music. Hated Beachwood Sparks. Love The Tyde.

7. The Autumn Defense, "Circles" - take two of my favorite 1970s bands (Bread and Big Star), put them all on stage and abracadabra - you've got yourself The Autumn Defense. All hail Pat Sansone. Oh yeah, there's that Stiratt dude, too. But after seeing them live last weekend in Chicago in what turned out to by my favorite show of 2003, this band is ALL Sansone's. I am now trying to secure everything Sansone has put to tape. What's that? You say he sung in the 2nd grade Christmas play? Get me the fucking tape. Now.

8. Kings of Leon, "Youth and Young Manhood" - whooo! Some good old-fashioned, fun rock and roll with a little twist, just a tiny smidgen of '60s blues (Stones-like Blues?) thrown in. Love the long hair. Love the voice. Love the album. Love that there's a band called Kings of Leon.


9. The Wrens, "The Meadowlands" - I don't know much about the Wrens. They haven't out out an album in like 42 years or something. All I know is that this jangly, indie-rock 13 song set of near-perfection keeps sticking in my head as much as eggs stick to the pan when I forget to use the Calphalon. "Ex-Girl Collection" is also a great name for a song.

10. The Darkness, "Permission to Land" - Finally. The combination of Queen and Def Leppard that I've been waiting for since.....I was born. Long live bombast. Oh yeah, they're kidding, sure, but don't let it fool you - they play every note with precision and talent and as a bonus, the lead singer wears a leotard. It don't get any better than that. It probably does, actually.


Song now playing: The Wrens, "13 Months in Six Minutes"

Rob looked at his dry, cracked hands, which had an odd, reddish hue from the biting New England cold. When it got this cold, sometimes it hurt the skin on his hands to do simple, ordinary things such as wrapping his hands around a steering wheel or holding the nozzle in the tank of his car at the gas pump. He still couldn't make sense of why the nozzles were so much harder to hold than they used to be back in the '70s and '80s. Why did everything have to be so much more difficult? Why did they remove the small ridges at the bottom where you used to be able to flip the little latch to make the handle stay in the "pump" position? Back then, he could flip the latch and go sit back in the car and wait until the tank was full. It was just a damn gas nozzle. He never bothered to find out why they changed them.

He got back into his car, a light brown 1988 Ford Taurus. Except it wasn't really light brown anymore. Fifteen years of cheap General Motors paint and exposure to the sun had slowly whittled most of the paint to a sad, worn-out and peeling brownish-gray. Nasty. For a fleeting moment, he thought about what a total piece of shit the car was, then remembered what it was like to walk to work every day for so long. In the New England cold.

He pulled into the parking lot of the The Clipper and got out. He stopped here every day. Just for one. He vowed to never again have more than one before going home. He had responsibilities - for now only his 3 year-old half Doberman (and half some other mutt). It was his only responsibility, but one he took seriously. He loved the dog enough to have its name and picture tattooed on his arm and he made sure to get home every night in decent shape and at a decent hour to make sure the dog was fed. He felt, perhaps, this was his last chance at true responsibility.

He closed the car door and heard the same rattle that he'd been hearing for the past year. He barely heard it anymore, the same way he'd heard about people who lived near the airport not hearing airplanes flying directly over their roof. He thought his own life was like that - that even though he was always around, nobody really saw or heard him anymore. He started walking to the door and glanced at the bumper sticker on the back bumper of the Taurus:

"92.7, The Light."

At one point, the sticker was probably orange - it also had streaks of darker orange, clearly what was intended to be sun rays. "The Light." How clever. Time, though, had again bared its teeth and pounced, rendering most of the sticker merely a dark shade of white. The sticker had also split into about five different sections, a result of too many humid summers and too many cold winters. The real sun rays destroyed the fake ones.

He pretended he saw the bumper breathing. Expand. Contract. Expand. Contract. He visioned the sticker splitting into five. Expand. Contract. At one point that radio station actually existed. He walked into the bar and ordered a Miler High Life.

Fresh off my trip to Chicago, here are a few highlights:

- The Autumn Defense had their record-release party at sold-out Schubas on Saturday night. While the most widely known member of the band is Wilco's John Stiratt, it was another member of the band who stepped up to the mike and just sent us reeling. Pat Sansone (guitar, keyboards) has got to be one of the biggest talents I've seen live in a long, long time. His voice is pure heaven - somewhere between the higher pitches of Neil Young and the sweet sadness of Alex Chilton. The guy is just amazing. They performed most of thier terrific new album, Circles, then added a couple other great nuggets: Stiratt's "It's Just That Simple" from Wilco's first album and then a rousing cover of Big Star's "You Can't Have Me," with Sansone singing lead, administering high leg kicks and windmilling on guitar. The Autumn Defense boast super, syrupy-sweet melodies, soaring harmonies and a distinct crispness that is rarely seen in a live enviroment. They reminded me of Big Star and Bread all playing on stage at the same time. When I am 75 years old and sitting in a rocking chair, ruminating my favorite live shows, this one might end up in my Top 5 of all time.

- On Monday night, we were back at Schubas for the pure American rock and roll display which we were treated to by a band called The Yayhoos. The Yayhoos are the probably the world's finest, completely unrecognizable supergroup, made up of Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites), Eric Ambel (Steve Earle) and backed up on drums and bass by Terry Anderson and Keith Christopher, respectively, both of whom have plenty of material on their own to brag about. I must tell you that Dan Baird has still got it and then some. He might have it more now than he did back in the '80s, in fact. The guy is a never-ending fountain of energy, talent, humor and fine personality rolled into one. You just can't help but smile when you see the genuine fun he's having and the band is just an unstoppable force of great riffs and delicious choices of cover songs. Their originals are also tremendous. Catch them if you can.

- I also got to see my friend Dave and his family, which was a hell of a treat. Other than our two forays into Chicago, we pretty much kept ourselves sequestered out in St. Charles, Illinois at his house for most of the weekend, telling old war stories from our days as record label owners and laughing a hell of a lot at some of the things we did and some of the things our bands did. We also saw two reindeer humping, as my latest slideshow will attest to.

FYI, the first band picture is The Autumn Defense (Sansone is on the far right) and the other band pics are The Yayhoos. The Chicago "night and day" shots were taken from the same spot of the 39th floor of my hotel room.

Song now playing: Ed Harcourt - "God Protect Your Soul"

Greetings from Chicago! I've not been lazy. I've been in Chicago, working. And stuff. More on my trip later, including two tremendous rock shows (one of which might have been the best live show I've seen in ten years!), but for now I have to sit here and laugh at the hotel I am staying in here in the heart of one of America's finest cities. This hotel has a gym with a couple of floors, elevators and employees who walk around while you're working out, offering you water. How can I not laugh at this? I wonder if they'll actually work out for me? I would just sit there and watch while they use the elipitical, but I would get the health benefits from it. If the hotel could do that, they would. I should add that a co-worker of mine knew someone here and got us a super cheap rate. Crazy. More later........Song now playing: The Lyres - "Love Me Till The Sun Shines"

Well, I went and did it. I bought myself a high falutin' widescreen, HDTV. I am leaving for Chicago for a week, so I won't have adequate time to really dig deep into the guts of this thing, but boy, so far it sure is a nice little toy. I bought it after much internal deliberation - I wasn't sure if I should get the standard tube TV (generally the best quality picture) or a larger screen, thin TV, which are generally better overall, lighter and more suitably equipped for future generations of TV. I opted for the latter. My research and investigation indicated that most, if not all, shows will be formatted for the 16:9 widescreen format and in high-definition. This TV is optimized for those two features. For now, I'll have to watch some TV in the 4:3 format, which means there will be bars on the left and right, but soon enough all TV will be in 16:9 anyway and most shows that I make it a point to watch are already offered in HD, so I'm good. Totally good. I feel like a bit of a capitalist pig, but I'm good.

Song now playing: AC/DC - "Girls Got Rhythm"

And so it was. The lovely Stephanie and I found ourselves driving around Maynard on Saturday night, fresh off a sub-par dinner at the Sit N' Bull Pub. I had the ribs, she had the chicken. If you've never eaten there, let me do you a favor - don't. It's 47 minutes you will never get back. The food was about as generic as those new-fangled housing developments that are sprouting up everywhere. At least they put barbque sauce on the ribs - you don't get barbeque sauce on your generic housing development house. What?

There we were, at 7:30 pm, wondering what to do with the rest of our night, when it hit me. Bowling! Dammit, we'll go bowling! She agreed! Bowling it is! Bowling! Pressing the gas to the floor out of sheer excitement, we pulled into FastLanes Bowling, situated in the center of nearby Stow, Massachusetts. FastLanes only offers candlepins, which is a bit of a bummer, but hell, at least it's something. In we go.

Upon walking in, I knew we were in for an interesting night. Oh, lemme tell you. It was one of those "bowl in the dark" nights. I can't even say it was "glow-in-the-dark" bowling, although that very well might have been the event they were half-heartedly attempting to achieve. It was more like "let's put some blinking christmas-type lights in the lanes, shine a few flashlights on the disco ball and turn off the lights in the alley and see what gives."

What happened was the ultimate 30 minutes of candlepin bowling. Let's put it this way, as I stepped up to the alley to bowl my very first ball, Quiet Riot was the musical selection over the crappy PA, one of those sound systems that was just plain embarassing where any remotely deep bass was fuzzed out. I remember the lyrics so clearly as I made my initial approach to bowl:

I'm frustrated and out-dated
I really wanna be over-rated
I'm a finder and I'm a keeper
I'm not a loser, and I ain't no weeper
I got the boys to make the noise
Won't ever let up, hope it annoys you
Join the pack fee the crack
Well now you're here, there's no way back!!!!!!

For the record, that's Quiet Riot's "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)." I just started laughing as I bowled my first ball. I mean, really laughing. We just couldn't stop telling each other how ridiculous it all was. We were also treated to Ratt's "Round and Round," Rick Derringer's "Rock and Roll (Hootchie Koo)," and Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." It was pure bliss and pure cheese all rolled into one. Chiss? Bleeze? I dunno. Suburban bowling, you just can't beat it.

Song now playing: Elton John - "Burn Down The Mission"