The continuing adventures of an extended delay

Future updates: c/o More Cream Please
In honor of my cat Chloe face-planting on the loveseat and for the purpose of writing about music (about anything, really, following a six-month period of exile), here are my favorite albums of each year from 1964 to two weeks ago. I figure 1964 is as good a year as any to mark the beginning of the modern music age. Think of this as a warm-up for my best-of-2009 list, which I promise to consider finishing sooner or later.

For your consideration: the Biffys^®. You're welcome.

1964	Beatles – A Hard Day's Night
1965	John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
1966	Monks – Black Monk Time
1967	The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced
1968	Pretty Things – SF Sorrow
1969	Led Zeppelin
1970	Stooges – Fun House
1971	Groundhogs – Split
1972	Curtis Mayfield – Superfly
1973	Hawkwind – Space Ritual
1974	Kiss – Hotter Than Hell
1975	George Brigman – Jungle Rot
1976	Ramones
1977	The Damned – Damned Damned Damned
1978	AC/DC – Powerage
1979	Chrome – Half Machine Lip Moves
1980	Motörhead – Ace of Spades
1981	Black Flag – Damaged
1982	The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour
1983	Bad Brains – Rock for Light
1984	Metallica – Ride the Lightning
1985	Mission of Burma – The Horrible Truth About Burma
1986	Dead Kennedys – Bedtime for Democracy
1987	Big Black – Songs About Fucking
1988	Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
1989	Mudhoney
1990	Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet
1991	Black Sheep – A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
1992	The Jesus Lizard – Liar
1993	Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
1994	The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange
1995	Six Finger Satellite – Severe Exposure
1996	DJ Shadow – Endtroducing.....
1997	Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
1998	Six Finger Satellite – Law of Ruins
1999	Make-Up – Save Yourself
2000	Deltron 3030
2001	Fugazi – The Argument
2002	Mr. Lif – I Phantom
2003	White Stripes – Elephant
2004	Comets on Fire – Blue Cathedral
2005	Sleater-Kinney – The Woods
2006	Jay Reatard – Blood Visions
2007	Dungen – Tio Bitar
2008	Black Mountain – In the Future
2009	Flaming Lips – Embryonic

My favorite album from a young 2010 is Fuck You, First Alert, Maker of the Combination Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Alarm Outside My Bedroom That Boasts an Indecipherable Voice Feature and Enjoys Going Off in the Middle of the Night for No Reason at All, Even After I've Replaced the Goddamn Batteries Twice. It's a concept album about violence.

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Edit: Let's keep this going into a grungy new decade. Biffys^® forever! Apologies for duplicate band appearances but I've deemed it artificial to disqualify excellence because of familiar excellence. It's also become impossible to avoid with my disdain for/ignorance of Modern Music—look for a revolving door in the vicinity of Ty Segall and friends in the coming years. This writer shall not be held responsible for busted retcons elsewhere in his archives.

2010	Dead Meadow – Three Kings
2011	Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler/The Dream
2012	Off!
2013	Ty Segall – Sleeper
2014	Shellac – Dude Incredible
2015	Fuzz – Fuzz II
2016	Ty Segall – Emotional Mugger
2017	Thee Oh Sees – Orc
2018	Thee Oh Sees – Smote Reverser
2019	Ty Segall – First Taste

A program for mass constipation in the form of an old mixtape review

Back for more! I'm tearing the hell out of June like it's 2005. Rebirth, indeed.

Enough about me. Let's talk about my past. I'm new to this retroactive self/music criticism so I'll provide some context. By 1996 I had been listening to WZBC for two years and felt I had a good grasp of the underground music scene (honestly, I was right). That year I took a co-op job at what used to be Digital Equipment Corporation (since bought by Compaq and then HP, I think) so was in the car forty-five minutes each way to and from Acton. Definitely got nice and cozy with the likes of "Psychotic Reactions," "Mass. Ave. and Beyond" and other great WZBC shows, but sometimes I needed to control the playlist. (It's remarkable what a great invention the iPod is.)

So I was making mix after mix, mostly for myself, which is a little sad except for the fact that the girls in my life ranged from unpredictable to blasé. I was mercilessly selfish about my music anyway. I had a friend at the time who tended to glom onto certain favorite bands of mine and attempt to ruin them for me—luckily he could always be trusted to slink back to Alice in Chains. And though I didn't date a whole lot in college, I had no confidence in any girl's ability to like what I did. One of them played that Bush album early on, for crying out loud. I didn't want to be rude so I pretended it was "OK" when she asked. Then she admitted to wishing she had "cool" taste in music like I did, and I almost broke up with her on the spot. It's ridiculous to be envious of another person's taste in music, or taste in anything, because taste by definition is personal. Why aspire to something just for show? Should I force feed myself a lobster just because it's popular, even though I don't like it? So anyway, yeah, I hated that she liked Bush, but I'm glad she liked something, as opposed to not caring for music one way or another. I felt no need to introduce her to different music… and it's a good thing, since she dumped me a few weeks later anyway. My heart was broken for a solid weekend! But whatever, I did the legwork, spent the money at Newbury Comics (remember when they sold music?) and spit out a mix every few weeks or so for—more or less—this guy. All thanks to these two clowns who haven't been in my life for a dozen years.

Today I present Interrupting Cow Blues, about ten deep into my career and the first I really nailed. It must have been early 1997 because I've only got one song from that year and eighteen from 1996. (That year's inferior Shaft vs. Godzilla provides the recreated-from-memory artwork above because ICB didn't have any for some reason. It beats the abstract photographs of cassette tapes I originally posted. Mass Art tuition well spent!) Something that jumps out though is I have absolutely no hip-hop, which is strange because I was listening to a lot at the time (before and since as well). Guess I was in a straight rock & roll mood that day. And whatever you call Chokebore.

Side A
Brainiac – I Am a Cracked Machine
Shellac – Killers
Guv'ner – Coitus City
My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow
Girls Against Boys – Vera Cruz
Cibo Matto – Birthday Cake
Railroad Jerk – Bang the Drum
Polvo – The Purple Bear
June of 44 – June Leaf
Man… or Astro-Man? – Planet Collision
Make Up – International Airport
Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater
Halo Benders – Don't Touch My Bikini
Dandy Warhols – Ride

Side B
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Can't Stop
Stereolab – Percolator
Beat Happening – Pinebox Derby
Chokebore – Cursor
The Nation of Ulysses – Diphtheria
Quivvver – Mermaid
Guided by Voices – Watch Me Jumpstart
Dub Narcotic Sound System – Robotica
Six Finger Satellite – Padded Room
Retsin – Loon
Unwound – Corpse Pose
Jonathan Fire-Eater – The Beautician
Combustible Edison – Solid State
Boss Hog – I Idolize You

The title refers to my favorite joke of all time: "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Interrupting cow." "Interrupting cow wh–" "Moo!" I told so many people that joke that I unwittingly told the person who first shared it with me. And so I got the blues for running out of laughter targets. (Second favorite joke? "Three musicians and a drummer walk into a bar.") So what? So let's dance!

A1. Brainiac – I Am a Cracked Machine¹
Love starting with "I Am a Cracked Machine," one of my favorite songs from Hissing Prigs in Static Couture, which is one of the best albums of 1996 (and still in my regular rotation). Excellent job by me. A friend of mine saw Brainiac at the Middle East Upstairs (I'm not sure where I was) and told me they had a ton of technical problems during the set before closing with this. By the end of it they had obliterated a keyboard out of frustration. I'm glad they went the irony route there.

A2. Shellac – Killers²
This Shellac song is from The Lounge Ax Defense and Relocation Compact Disc, a 1996 compilation that is exactly what it sounds like. I guess they couldn't have sold enough of these because the club still closed down a few years later. And I sold the disc awhile ago too (salvaging this and three or four other MP3s). I dig this song and have been getting into Shellac again. They're so goddamn tight! It's exciting. "I side with the defenders!" Nice progress so far.

A3. Guv'ner – Coitus City²
"Coitus City" is from a series of split singles eventually compiled and released as the soundtrack for some movie called Screwed. I know nothing about it, except that it once upon a time must have been called Porn because that was the name of the original single series. Super-catchy song for the three-spot (where a lot of album sequences seem to lay the first single) except it's mega-filthy. "Tweaking my speed bag the way that I taught ya." I love it. Not to be overlooked is the near-nonexistent break between "Killers" and this—a practice designed to suffocate each second in an effort to milk every millimeter of that tape. This quick transition sounds great.

A4. My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow²
My Bloody Valentine. I'm not adding to the eighteen-plus years of blather about how blah blah blah they were/are. Suffice it to say, I think I included this song because I liked it (still do, sigh) and because I was days away from selling Loveless. Now I want to puke whenever they're mentioned—we've come a long way. Next.

A5. Girls Against Boys – Vera Cruz²
Nothing against Girls Against Boys, but I saw them open for the Jesus Lizard once (still one of my favorites) and all this does is underscore the fact that I excluded Yow & Company. Worrisome and shameful. Possibly because I had all their albums on tape already? Anyway, GVSB's "Vera Cruz" was great live and is still a good song. Sort of slowing things down a little. See what I mean? I really knew what I was doing with these things. Sad follow-up: House of GVSB is currently in a pile of discs I plan to sell, right next to their earlier Cruise Yourself. I have ripped most of the tracks, though, and am going to hang onto Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby. They're a great band, I just think their songs are better broken up. That's why "Vera Cruz" works well on a mix.

A6. Cibo Matto – Birthday Cake¹
Cibo Matto's Viva! la Woman is in another pile next to the one of CDs to sell. This pile is of stuff I probably will sell, but only after listening and harvesting the good songs. I'll keep most of this one, I'm sure, and certainly "Birthday Cake." You have to bounce to this. Wasn't it in Brain Candy too? Appropriate, since the best line from that movie is "Can you get me something to eat before I chew my fucking hand off?" and this whole album is about food.

A7. Railroad Jerk – Bang the Drum¹
This is definitely the fun portion of the tape. I first heard "Bang the Drum" on WZBC during one of those Acton drives and was hooked. Aside from the Blues Explosion and the Jesus Lizard I'm afraid a lot of the straight-up rock bands I was into were pretty dry and self-important, so discovering Railroad Jerk (on their third-and-a half album, so what?) was fresh air. This song moves the joy along but I hope I brought in some weightiness soon. (Alas, One Track Mind is in the harvest pile too, though maybe I'll end up keeping it and selling The Third Rail instead.)

A8. Polvo – The Purple Bear²
No weight here. "The Purple Bear" is a straight-ahead pop song that Polvo did so well. If I knew better I'd write coherently about how they had the most wondrous distorted-but-not-really-distortion sound available. I sold Exploded Drawing quite awhile ago now, but not before the birth of MP3s because I was clever enough to hold onto this song and a number of others. It was a fairly ambitious album, if I remember right, but clearly by this point the Polish guy was writing better songs than the Helium-screwing guy. (How's that for analysis?) Also, if I wanted to sell my copy of Today's Active Lifestyles on eBay I could apparently get $40 for it, since it has the tigers image that was later pulled. I'll keep that in mind and tell the whores to watch out.

A9. June of 44 – June Leaf ^ø
In case you were wondering, I still like everything I've heard so far. "June Leaf" is the first misstep, and the first song I no longer own in any capacity. Don't know why I didn't choose the same album's "Anisette" or the earlier "Take It With a Grain of Salt" instead, maybe they were already compiled or introduced time constraints. I should have just skipped June of 44 entirely—they have a handful of good songs and all, but definitely queue up in the dry-and-self-important line and aren't really worth it. "June Leaf" takes too long to get going and doesn't do anything once it arrives—slow boilers generally don't work in a mixtape format. The Polvo-to-June of 44 transition is sort of organic, I guess, but the song no longer does it for me. Check minus.

A10. Man… or Astro-Man? – Planet Collision²
Yup, "Planet Collision" is a Man… or Astro-Man? song alright. (Though I think they dropped the ellipsis by this time?) It's a good song too, but pretty shoe-horned on here. I suspect I needed something short in order to fill out the side. I was pretty particular in constructing in that I basically knew the songs I was going to use, but the order was open to whim. And usually the fine folks at TDK would bless each side of your ninety-minute cassette with an extra minute and a half, so a little improvisation was required. A generic two-minutes-and-change MoAM song, bookended by some old sci-fi dialogue of course, did the trick. I wish I'd gone with the "Television Man" cover instead.

A11. Make Up – International Airport¹
"Airport! Airport!" I still loooove the Make Up. "International Airport" is from the fake live Destination: Love. Excellent short rave-up near the end too. Everything about this band is phenomenal. I've even hung the "Substance Abuse" sleeve on my cubicle wall. Q: How cool am I? A: Very.

A12. Yo La Tengo – Autumn Sweater¹
My introduction to Yo La Tengo was I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One. Years later I remain baffled by the title, but it's either my favorite or second-favorite (after Electr-O-Pura) album of theirs. I showed some real restraint in burying "Autumn Sweater" toward the end of side one, because it was one of my absolute favorite songs of the year. Still like it a lot too. These guys stylistically are all over the map and it's awesome how well they pull everything off, particularly once James McNew became a full-time member. Perfect song. Funny story, when I was working in Stoneham there was a girl who had a crush on me… and on every single guy who ever walked through those doors. But I happened to be the flavor of the moment. Anyway, she asked to borrow this CD and I loaned it to her for what turned out to be months. I was New York pissed. She's the type who thought irritating equated cute, so she was always getting on my nerves on purpose, thinking I'd wear down and realize "Wait a minute, I love her!" I'll tell you what put a stop to that though: I drove a red-hot Corolla two-door then and was very particular about the position of the driver's seat, and that it never be adjusted because I had it set just right. This one time I drove a few of us to a Chinese place up the street for lunch–I always volunteered to drive because one of the other girls was an internationally recognized terrible driver, as in I'd feel nauseous within a mile–and the annoying girl sat behind me. When we returned to the office I wouldn't let her exit on my side because that would have meant moving the seat. She thought I was joking so she reached for the lever and I slammed the door in her face. To quote Mayor Quimby, I could not have been happier with the way that turned out.

A13. Halo Benders – Don't Touch My Bikini²
With the Halo Benders, Calvin Johnson makes his first of three appearances here (really, no room for the Jesus Lizard at all?). He must have forced himself on me the way he did to all those K bands. "Don't Touch My Bikini" was a big WZBC hit the Summer of 1994 when I first discovered the station—it's a fun little song. On paper you think this band would sound like a fifty/fifty mix of Beat Happening and Built to Spill and that's exactly what it is, plus some boingy sound effects. I'm curious to know if they even record together or if Calvin goes in after to layer nonsense vocals onto fully formed Doug Martsch recordings. Either way I like this one, even if they could have severed a minute out of the middle there somewhere. Our A-side is getting a little tired and I'd have welcomed all efforts to tighten it up. Good thing this is second-to-last.

A14. Dandy Warhols – Ride²
Is there a sillier band than the Dandy Warhols? Posing nude in the liner notes, selling songs to The O.C., accepting roles as receivers to Anton Newcombe's giver. And the fucking name. And the fucking singer's name. Still a catchy song, and I'll hang on to it even though the CD is going away. Maybe if I draw red lions on the cover I can make another $40 for those whores.

Entr'acte. I will say I know how to close a side, since "Ride" ends perfectly as an "Ahhhhh… let's regroup" transition.

B1. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Can't Stop¹
With that said, "Can't Stop" is a mistake. The sound is raw enough compared to the slick Dandies, just not overly raw as to be a deliberate shift in tone. Oh well. I like the song, it has a great riff, but it's an awfully weird choice for a mixtape. The Blues Explosion were my favorite band at the time (Orange still slays) and I had a whole mess of songs to choose from. Must have felt compelled to pull something from Now I Got Worry since it was their latest at the time. Whenever I hear something from this album I flash back to my senior year of college, living in a great duplex near Symphony Hall in Boston. And I mean flash back in that I flash straight to the exposed-brick wall of the small dining room where I kept the stereo, because I played Worry a lot. I think I was trying to convince myself that it was as good as Orange and Extra Width when it was not (and is not—in fact, "Love All of Me" is the dullest thing Spencer has ever done). So back to "Can't Stop": I do love the Iggy shout-out "'Cuz your girlfriend still loves me," and maybe that was enough to favor it at the time. But something like "Skunk" or "RL Got Soul" would have worked better.

B2. Stereolab – Percolator¹
To this day, "Percolator" makes me think of a particular intersection along that drive to Acton, right at routes 2 and 126 (where you'd turn to go to Walden Pond). I must have heard it for the first time right there one morning. (Funny that "Bang the Drum" reminds me of a spot a couple hundred yards eastbound, probably where I heard that for the first time.) I'd been familiar with Stereolab since Mars Audiac Quintet came out in '94 but "Percolator" is the song that made me a real fan. Emperor Tomato Ketchup is easily my favorite album of theirs—I can listen to "Metronomic Underground" for hours. "Percolator," also, is cash money.

B3. Beat Happening – Pinebox Derby²
Welcome back, Calvin! What was I thinking? "Pinebox Derby" is a good song but I really should have opened things up with Dr. Octagon or something (I like "Wild and Crazy" here). Anway, I'm not about focusing on past mistakes. This is Beat Happening in down-and-dirty mode—down-and-dirty for them anyway. I do like the guitar sound here and definitely prefer this style over the lesser "Indian Summer" stuff.

B4. Chokebore – Cursor ^ø
About those past mistakes though: Chokebore. Really? Misstep number two. Dull, repetitive, overlong, real momentum-killer. I hate when bands think they've stumbled across something oh-so-clever and just can't let it go ("indie" bands are particularly guilty). That describes every element here: the noodly little riff, the retarded crunchy riff, the megaphone vocals and the "slow" parts. I'm really annoyed with myself for including this. I pulled it from an Amphetamine Reptile sampler with cars on the cover. Clearly, excluding "Percolator," this B side is not winning again and again and again.

B5. The Nation of Ulysses – Diphtheria¹
Ian Svenonius makes appearance number two with his Nation of Ulysses comrades. If you excise "Cursor" and make this number four then suddenly I'm not so hard on myself. Theses guys excelled at weaving in and out—their albums are so perfectly sequenced that I had to steal "Diphtheria" (from 13-Point Program to Destroy America) as my a chill-out track before getting loud again. I'm pretty sure Steve Kroner handled the backing vocals on all their stuff because this style of contribution is absent from The Embassy Tapes, recorded after he quit/was booted from the band. I think he is fantastic and really makes songs like this and "Mockingbird, Yeah!" stand out against contemporaries. (I don't know if the intention was to amuse, but "DEE-NIGH-YULL! DEE-NIIILE!" is amazing.) In one hand it's a shame these guys broke up after only two proper albums, but in the other we know that a band's first or second album is usually its best. I guess it worked out.

B6. Quivvver – Mermaid²
"She's a mermaid!" I think this version is different from the original single version I first heard in '94 or '95. I remember that being a little slower and probably better, but I only owned the re-recorded album version. Super fun song—I wonder how Quivvver didn't become mega-stars.

B7. Guided by Voices – Watch Me Jumpstart¹
Pretty safe GBV choice, indeed, but I'm still enamored with the chorus. So grand and earnest that I want to cry whenever I hear it, and I don't usually go for grand and earnest things. I'm not talking about the words because I don't understand what he's saying, and if I did I wouldn't pay attention anyway, but the melody is beyond catchy. In-and-out harmonies too. I love this shit.

B8. Dub Narcotic Sound System – Robotica²
Ho-hum, Calvin Johnson again. I still enjoy this song but I don't know why I felt the need for some Dub Narcotic. It's a better song but sort of accomplishes what "Cursor" did earlier on by killing any type of vibe I was building. Practically an instrumental, and when an instrumental is the best song on a lousy Dub Narcotic album (Boot Party) then you might have an overbearing singer.

B9. Six Finger Satellite – Padded Room¹
Thank god for Six Finger Satellite—"Padded Room" wakes this party right the fuck up. Every few weeks their four albums (and now the new/old/awesome Half Control) end up right back in my regular rotation (I love listening to them at work, for some reason) and there aren't many bands I'd take over them. Like Shellac, I get such a kick out of how tight they are. I like my roving sixties psych workouts as much as the next guy but I definitely have a soft spot for straight-ahead, focused, rehearsed volume. For when I die it will also be from severe exposure.

B10. Retsin – Loon²
What the fuck was I thinking by following 6FS with Retsin? Trying too hard for variety? When I die will it be from sincere cooing? "Loon" is a pleasant little song on its own but to cram it between two of the best rock songs of '96 is lunatic and unfair. A friend of mine once made out with Tara Jane O'Retsin backstage at a Rodan show so maybe this was a shout-out to him. Or I was justifying buying Egg Fusion in the first place. Frankly, I should have to justify buying something called "Egg Fusion" that doesn't cook me omelettes.

B11. Unwound – Corpse Pose¹
Yes. Unwound's Repetition was a welcome bounceback after the somewhat lackluster The Future of What. That album grew on me over time but Repetition is immediately and thoroughly excellent. WZBC might have played "Corpse Pose" before the album was released since it was the single (in a slightly different mix that I don't remember) but I'd be surprised if I didn't trek down to Newbury Comics (seriously, remember when they used to sell music?) and buy it the day it came out. Great song, and though I prefer their first two albums and the earlier singles, this post-punky type of stuff still does the job. Sounds to me like that direction started on Future, reached its apex with Repetition and especially "Corpse Pose," grew a little stale by Challenge for a Civilized Society and then got old and dull with the monumentally overwrought (but not bad) Leaves Turn Inside You. "Lazslo" from a 2001 Troubleman compilation victoriously redeemed the band for me (not that I ever stopped liking them) but I don't know if it was recorded before or after—I only heard it after. (Not that LTIY was without great songs, but the overall sprawl—sixty minutes of music split over two discs… when's that a good idea?—really crimped my crack. "Scarlette" and its video were amazing but I could not have sold that album faster.) But anyway, yeah, apex and "Corpse Pose" are near synonyms.

B12. Jonathan Fire-Eater – The Beautician²
Let me check Wikipedia: yes, Jonathan Fire-Eater is American. Tremble Under Boom Lights is good, if slick, but the band's Anglophilia tends to get annoying. I'm surprised they didn't name themselves Jonathan Color-Favor so they could spell it Jonathan Colour-Favour. It's a good thing I liked "Cherry Red" so much (it was the first song I heard off this) because I certainly would have balked at the oh-so-English cover art with the oh-so-Wire band photos. And then they sprinkle in phrases like "night on the tiles" and name their singer Stewart Lupton. I have to admit it, though: "The Beautician" grooves along nicely for some pasty wannabes. The whole EP does, really. Who's the asshoule now?

B13. Combustible Edison – Solid State²
Combustibly Edisonic! I haven't used that modified adjective in far too long. Who would guess "Solid State" works so well here, fitting wonderfully after those fake English guys and setting up the finale. (It doesn't matter that I don't speak whatever language they're singing because I don't pay attention to lyrics.) I still have their first album and I bet I haven't listened to it in fourteen years. What's that about? Maybe I'm afraid of no longer liking it? Of course "Solid State" is gold, and anyone who disagrees is… well, they're probably OK I guess. But I dig it. I dig you too.

B14. Boss Hog – I Idolize You¹
But Jon and Cristina idolize you, baby. A slightly tongue-in-cheek Ike & Tina cover is better than no Ike & Tina cover at all, but that's underselling the song. Big Jon Spencer makes a B-side curtain call and fares much better this time—terrific closing number. You can almost hear the nudity.

Término. Well that took some time. Worth it? I don't know, but it was fun to listen and write. Overall my original assessment was correct and Interrupting Cow Blues is a very good mix. I still like most of its songs and that can only mean I'm old and tired. Diffuse pastness rules!

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I've denoted songs whose albums I still own with a superscript 1; a 2 means I've sold the CD but kept the MP3; null means it's dead, baby. The final count: twelve source albums still in possession (and this is significant because I'm in the middle of a second large-scale selling wave, though a couple of remainders are on the bubble); fourteen songs that live on as MP3s (so, fourteen CDs gone); and two songs I no longer like enough to possess in any capacity. Strong ratio—especially, I'm sure, compared to earlier attempts. "Hero" is a strong word.

Have you seen this man?

Greetings, internet enthusiast! I'd like to thank the Revere RMV for this glamour shot, taken a few weeks ago for my renewed license. I told A. afterward that if I ever go on a killing spree and they show this picture on the news, people will say "Well of course he's a murderer."

One thing about moving to the suburbs is you have to drive everywhere, so a valid operator's license is like prison cigarettes. In Cambridge I went quite awhile without a car and did just fine for the most part, since everything was within a ten-minute walk. It only got annoying when I had to meet people outside the reaches of the subway, such as the time I had to rely on a friend to pick me up at the blazing-hot South Acton commuter rail station when that friend is never on time for anything, so I stood there a good twenty minutes with my golf bag and a developing sunburn. Or when my bike and I rode the train out to Concord (bikes are just the clumsiest goddamn things when you're not riding them) and then biked for three miles to Minuteman Park so I could… go on a bike ride. And then ride back when I'm done riding. And then realize there's apparently a clan of hippies that does this every weekend, and they seem to be in cahoots with the train conductor, so the conductor hoards all the bikers into one car and doesn't make them buy tickets, which made half of my prepaid round-trip ticket an absolute waste. But even then, the Porter Square commuter rail station was ten minutes from my apartment. Not terrible.

In our new hometown the station is a five-minute walk from our front door, which is excellent since the train zips me back and forth to Boston in twenty-five minutes. Otherwise it's not particularly helpful (we'd rather drive to, say, Newburyport than commit to a schedule)—therefore, simple tasks like buying wart remover at CVS and bagging my own groceries at Stop & Shop require hopping in the car. Aside from walking to the beach, the library and this amazing Italian place we discovered, there's not much to walk to. But I guess those are pretty awesome things to have close by.

Which makes me one of those assholes who drives everywhere. I know it and I'm not proud… but it can't be helped. Feel free to walk that hour and a half to get me some damn eggs. Still, except for occasional trips the car sits in the garage ninety-five percent of the time. And one benefit of driving is I'm getting to know the area. I never had much connection to the North Shore. (And by "North Shore" I mean the part of Massachusetts north of Boston that's actually on or near the coast, and not landlocked towns that happen to be north or northwest of Boston, miles from the ocean. Semantics is semantics, but geography is geography—people need to stop pretending Andover and Melrose are seaside.) Occasional touristy trips to and family obligations in the area would bring me northeast every now and then, but that's about it. You don't even drive through these towns if you're going to New Hampshire or Maine because they're east of the interstates. But A. and I enjoyed these visits enough to put it on the eventual list of settle-down destinations. And here we are today.

Driving is the best way to learn what's what in these parts. And all the driving means a lot of radio-ing. Commercial radio stations are so weird, not only do they play the same newer songs over and over but they latch onto the same older songs. Sometimes you can attribute this to Rock Band or whatever, where people want suddenly to hear "Tom Sawyer" over and over. But other times I swear all the program directors are listening to each other. Since not one of them is capable of independent thought, they steal each other's "ideas" and turn the whole charade into some kind of circle-jerk for mimics. It can catch you off guard, like "Wow, you never hear 'Creeping Death' on the radio, cool!" But then you hear it on the next station too, and realize that a lot of people own and like Ride the Lightning, so it's not at all a bold programming decision. They'll probably follow it up with "Enter Sandman" anyway.

(The alternative, if I'm lucky to be driving on a weekday, is listening to WZBC or WMBR, though that always costs me money—a couple weeks ago I was compelled to buy "Erase You" by ESG and "In a Rut" by the Ruts after hearing them one recent morning.)

But on a trip to Target or something I might have to pop in a tape—I think I've mentioned before my excitement over our cassette deck. I get a kick out of this because I can revisit my salad days of music taste supremacy, when I openly judged people by the music they like. (Please infer that said judgment is merely silent today and not dormant. Aging and maturing are different things.) Lately I've dug up some old mixtapes, and it's high time to judge that elitist twenty-something asshole, show him who's boss. Or, perhaps, learn that he was a cool shit, and wonder whether continuing to like what I did a dozen years ago is good or bad. Have I progressed as a person? Have I erred in my own estimation as a wise and chiseled future-man? In a matter of days you will know. (Seriously, it's almost finished. And beyond excessive.)

What’s wrong with Peter King?

Say what you will about context, but Peter King is writing some real crazy shit this week:

"Wake up, Washington. You know what I dug out of my closet the other day? Form-fitting Detroit Tigers pajamas. Now we'll see if all the sweat pays off… nausea and terminal ugliness… miso soup… people would watch that. Not to be preachy but there's hope both for the killer and the killed. What happened when the action was really live? Discipline! The redemptive quality of accidental death grips you. Taut. Sounds like the script for a commercial. An altogether needless Brett Favre leads the nation in screwing, scurries from one explosive reacher to the next. How about throwing it to Jay Mohr? I've been staring at that dude since I was a kid, and it's time I do something about it. 34 inches! He's used to giving, struggling to fit, now I'm ready to take all his powerful stuff out of spite. Just wake up every morning and go. We've been in here 45 minutes? I thought it was 10 or 15. Pick him up and have it done in two days, only with more aggression, dripping with sweat in the center of some hotel. I tell you, there's nothing sinister about packers, and I feel very good about the nuns, but you can only mow your grass so many times. Tell them to eat balls. Who knows? We'll all make it. You're welcome."

The death of quick sizzle

A. and I moved to the North Shore last week—we're the proud owners of a shiny new condo! (Actually it's a converted house built in the thirties, but you get the idea.) We're really happy here and are looking forward to being adults. Since we are now a short walk to the beach (well, I don't suspect it's much of a beach beach where you go to get all bronzy, but it should be a nice stretch of sand to clear one's head, enjoy a fantastic view of Boston and snicker at ugly Lynn residents; and I don't like the sun anyway), I figure the late Spring and Summer months offer the best time to become acquainted with and take in the local offerings. And maybe become a townie.

Anyway, the point of this post is to really rechristen the blog. I started out figuring I'd write mostly about music, and I have here and there, but too often I've posted only a sentence or two commenting on something that, for the most part, wasn't worth the effort. Even worse, sometimes I just copied and pasted a Bill Belichick quote I fancied, with no context whatsoever. Little did I know I could have turned that idea into Twitter and been done with it. (I almost made a remark about raking in millions by creating Twitter but it sure seems like one of those enterprises that earns no revenue at all.)

Therefore, I promise to knock it off with the lazy little posts about whozits and whats-his-nose and the like, once labeled "quick sizzle." From now on I'll write only in-depth, well considered, fully baked art. Anything I'm compelled to relate in few words for the sake of it—like all those posts about how I never post anything, or my long-ignored rule that required me to post at least once a month—isn't worth relating at all. Who needs it? I've deleted most of that old shit, including a handful of peculiar and uninteresting Cambridge tales, even as I remain proud of my "Hating a movie in three words" post that read "Screw you, Prada!" Gold, Jerry.

I wish the blog to be reborn with more music writing in the coming weeks and months. On the agenda are a recap of the new (to me) music I've gotten into since my last such list (over two years ago!); the long-promised review of one of my old college mixtapes (probably from 1996 since I was making one every other week around then); and, for no real reason other than my inability to shut up about things I dislike, an unabashed assault on Nico's The Marble Index.

Last thing (and call this the final "quick sizzle" entry if you'd like, since it's the type of thing what earned the label): I was straightening up our storage area in the basement, sweeping and organizing (and discovering that attaching a dryer hose is deceptively frustrating), and my hands were getting really dirty. So the old Lava jingle popped in my head: "I don't need no Lava soap, nope. Ladies' hands don't get that dirty. I don't need no Lava soap." Ladies' hands? How did they get away with that?

Also, the real last thing: I was listening to classic-rock radio for like six hours down there and I heard a live version of "The Joker" rearranged as a reggae song. It was like chocolate and peanut butter, only if the chocolate were anal rape and the peanut butter were AIDS.

Item! Manufacturing sports opinions is not journalism

I'm listening to Thursday's Pardon the Interruption via the podcast and I simply cannot take it anymore. Analysts, writers and announcers are killing sports. Wilbon is riffing about "clutch" (defined as "he hits the shot when his team needs offense") players in recent NBA history. These are Paul Pierce (discussion of whom kicked off this whole thing), Moses Malone, Reggie Miller, Dwyane Wade and Dennis Johnson. He glossed right over Bird and—laughably!—Jordan (I guess Craig Ehlo wasn't consulted). How many championships did Miller clutchify for himself against Jordan? How many championships did Jordan single-handedly win? It's insane that people forget how good he was.

The context of this whole bag of nonsense was: would you rather have a player like Kobe/LeBron (like how I switched to first names there?) who can score at will against the world, or Pierce (I am not bashing Pierce here, he turned the corner with every Celtics fan last year, and he's inexorably fun to watch, let's just be realistic) who can selectively/intermittently come up big? I'm no basketball scientician but it seems to be the sport where it's most common for one great player to lead his team to success. So I'll take the player who's great seventy-five times out of eighty-two, thanks.

More anger: watching one of the all-time most exciting football games I can remember, Pats–Jets, Thursday night. The Sanctimonious Christopher X. Collinsworth and some other dude are calling it on the NFL Network, your home for programming I'm excited to have but never watch. Pats are down big, game seems hopeless early, but our man Cassel remembers what team he plays for and turns it into a nail-biter. The bad guys won, but what a game.

Highlight was naturally Randy Moss's exceptional game-tying catch at the end of regulation. Seconds earlier, Collinsworth was all "Moss is lazy. He is a lazy dog. Watch this replay of the last play. What a dog he is. Look at that, he's lying on the ground! Who does he think he is? He never even won a Super Bowl. I didn't either but I'm white, and I'll be damned if anyone ever calls a white athlete lazy. People would rather stick their tongues right up David Eckstein's gritty asshole than pretend a non-white man can selflessly hustle. I mean, have you seen Manny Ramirez? That guy should get a haircut. Touchdown, Randy Moss." (Verbatim.)

Lastly, the Fire Joe Morgan guys are hanging it up! So long to one of the few sources of common sense and realism in sports media commentary. Drag. If only there were commercials where coaches' postgame press conferences were edited into a bunch of hilarious out-of-context quotes in a way that told me what kind of beer to drink.

This is Wal-Mart do not panic

This goes back a ways now, but I'm sitting here at work staring at my dual cinema displays (fanciness!), getting a headache because my right earbud is fried and zapping me with non-artful distortion, and I've been meaning to write about this. And I'm bored.

Background: I own an Xbox 360. I enjoy using it to make Lego Chewbacca dismember Lego Stormtroopers and to pretend Tom Brady is still alive. And lately, A. and I have taken to setting the world ablaze with our color-coordinated riffing via Guitar Hero 3.

When I first heard of this game I thought it sounded ridiculous, and I'm sure it is, but I guess I enjoy ridiculous things (Love's "Revelation" comes to mind). But after an all-night session of Rock Band at a friend's house, we really couldn't deny how fun it was. We were hooked. So we played until 3 a.m., woke up the following morning (luckily a Saturday) and shot straight to Target to get GH3, because that's all our small PRC apartment could handle. (We're in a much bigger place in Mitt-Town now, and are currently in a heated debate over Guitar Hero 4 (her) versus Rock Band 2 (me). Frankly, I will not be denied RB2's set list.) The game came with only one guitar, and since we wanted to play together the way adorable couples should our next mission was to buy a second wireless guitar, which is indeed sold separately with some assembly (stickers) required.

Last Christmas my brother- and sister-in-law were nice enough to buy us an iPod adaptor for the car, one of those you have to wire into the back of the stereo. But it sat unopened because our car has a tape deck (old school!) and we already have one of those flimsy-yet-functional cassette adaptors that are much simpler, and we had held onto the gift long enough that the return/exchange period lapsed. It came from Wal-Mart online so who knows if we'd have followed up on that shipping nonsense anyway. It took a planned visit to my dad's in New Hampshire to start the let's-get-away-with-something wheels rolling, thinking that if they sold the same item in actual stores then they might take one back.

More background: sometime last year we saw the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. I was easily and illogically (and uncharacteristically, but I'll get to that in a second) swayed against ever shopping there again, even though I recognized the film's point of view as purely one-sided. I'm the guy who complains about unions and, while living in Northampton, thought local shops that couldn't compete with the Wal-Mart up the road should stop whining. Still, I was so repulsed with the way the chain was portrayed that I took all the bullshit and made a nice quilt, and then burrowed into it with the effortless cuteness of a purring kitten—my naiveté was darling. (On a related note, unless I let my dark soul pull the lever for Ron Paul next month I'll be voting for Obama simply because I don't squirm and turn away from the television when he speaks, whereas watching McCain in action is the most uncomfortable thing I'm capable of doing. During the debate the other night I went into Kennedy/Nixon mode and watched during Obama's turns but closed my eyes and only listened during McCain's turns. I figured it was the best way to fairly judge the discussion. This plan worked until I closed my eyes too successfully and fell asleep.)

Anyway, I figured Wal-Mart must sell video games and stuff, and they certainly must be able to afford a little red ink. Why not try to return the iPod thingy for store credit (we had the receipt, but the date would debunk my "We received this as a gift, um, last week" cock-and-bull) and see about getting ourselves a gee-tar? So after dinner we hit the nearby Jaffrey Wal-Mart for some scam-o-rama. Nice, right? Nice.

Except: not nice. The plan was a brutal failure, with the no receipt and the no return. ("But I do have a receipt, see?? Wait, let me scratch out that date and barcode and everything. Are you calling me dishonest? Well you smell funny. Eat that truth.") To make matters worse we ventured back to the electronics department after the monkey-wrench incident and saw that they did carry the individual GH3 guitar we were looking for. Drag. So we went home empty-handed, and for some reason held off buying one on Amazon or wherever for a couple of weeks. Soon enough we had plans to head to Wal-Mart country again for a dinner date at my mom's in central Mass. The Lunenburg store wasn't too out of the way so we figured we'd give the return trick another shot. This one's close to where I grew up, and I knew that whole strip-mall sat on a manufactured hill that used to be a lovely cow pasture. I always loved driving by those cows when I was a kid. I figured the awareness of this attack on nature and childhood wonder might shift some points our way when we stopped in on the way home.

And—huzzah!—it did. The nice old lady working customer service accepted it without question, even going so far as to cut open the security tape (we never opened it since we always planned to return it) and taking everything out to make sure nothing was missing. I didn't mind this overt mistrust because it meant they had to take it back, since she was the one to ruin its pristine newness. So now we had like a $60 credit, which as we learned in Jaffrey was an even swap for the guitar. Sweet! We practically ran to the electronics section, and I had that feeling in my stomach like I was shoplifting. It was exhilarating. But rats! They didn't have the prize in stock. Fucking shit. Luckily I anticipated this at my mom's and mapped out other Wal-Marts more or less on the way back to Cambridge. (Rest assured, you pinko bastards, there is no Wal-Mart in the People's Republic) Hopefully we would get lucky in West Boylston, Hudson or (the inconvenient last resort) Framingham.

Route 190 is a scenic highway I enjoy touring. It's the only direct north-south passage in the middle of the state, and I'm always amazed at how little traffic it carries on the weekend (I guess Worcester isn't quite a Saturday night hotspot, unless Vince McMahon and friends are in town). So I had no problem with a southward detour to West Boylston. Unless, of course, the West Boylston store was also sold out. And naturally it was. Getting lost on the way to Hudson was not as fun as cruising 190. I had a bad attitude going into that store and a worse one walking out, after learning that they "only sell the Wii version." This was not working out, and I was in no mood to deal with route 9 and its Framingham/Natick Shopping Madness Spectacular. But I also didn't want to go home without that friggin' guitar. So off to Framingham it was, even if we should've been home an hour and a half ago.

As it turns out, the fourth (fifth, really) time was the charm. They had like ten of those fuckers on the shelf, and you're damn right we took our time picking out the perfect one. Of course we got home too late to even play, but who cares. We'd just gotten away with something, however minor in the grand scheme of things, and that's what counts when it comes to dealing with The Man. But you knew that, right?

In case you’re wondering, my blog is the shit

I was just perusing a fairly professional-looking sports blog written by (let's see) my wife's coworker's husband, who coincidentally is also my ex-conjoined sister (I find the wife's-coworker's-husband story easier to explain). The blog's OK, not good enough to name here, very Sports Guy rip-off-ish (territory I've admittedly come close to at times). And since the Sports Guy seems to have had his recent articles composed by those people who post on IMDB message boards (save for the Manny diatribe, which I think is strong and coherent if you discount a couple of (natch) forced A Few Good Men and The Usual Suspects references, and for the fact that he never called Boras out either, which really deflates his whole argument, which really devalues the article, which is now an oozing pile of turd-flavored pixels) I don't think this is much of a compliment anymore.

Anyway, sis is a Sox fan who either gets paid to write the thing or has crazy amounts of free time. He wrote about the first win against the Angels the other night, at one point posting the Sox lineup and noting that it contained "no easy outs." Meanwhile, The Adulterer Jason Varitek is in the ninth spot where he belongs, swinging at every first pitch in the world and being reduced to sacrifice bunts—I hate bunting because making outs is the one thing batters are supposed to avoid, but I suppose it's better than the inevitable double plays. Still, the scumbag is such an easy out he's actually making outs on purpose. So this blogger's judgment on easy versus difficult outs is, at best, lame-brained. (And in case you think I'm being overly critical based on one written opinion, a few weeks ago he posted multiple times about replacements for Tom Brady, and one of them was entitled "Bring in Daunte Culpepper. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BRING IN DAUNTE CULPEPPER!!" Emphasis his. Nitwit.)

Meanwhile, Manny is the most talented consistent offensive player the Sox have had since notorious asshole Ted Williams, and he gets run out of town for another white guy. New England's baseball priorities are misplaced since getting that 1918 shit off our backs. Before October 2004 everyone would have overlooked Manny's occasional ho-humness and pointed to his outrageous offensive output. That's what every true Sox fan did—the only ones complaining about lack of hustle and grit and gamer-ness were the casual fans who couldn't spell Youkilis (or Belichick, for that matter) and the exact same media types whom the Sports Guy properly (though not often enough by name) calls out in the article—"exact same" because they will never leave us alone until they are destroyed, and even when they do leave an outlet they just jump from one sinking ship (the Herald) to another (the Globe) like notable fucktard Tony Massarotti. ("Mazz." Really! Can we stop applying sporty-sounding nicknames to sportswriters? And can they stop calling each other by their last names like they're sporty teammates? Also, that link is purposely and hilariously transposed.)

As a baseball-related aside, I noticed baseball-reference.com changed the address for Youkilis's stats page from www.baseball-reference.com/y/youkike01.shtml to …youklke01.shtml, even though it defies the site's standard first-five-letters-of-last-name-followed-by-first-two-letters-of-first-name convention. Would they have made that change if he weren't Jewish? The pure version still works, for all you anti-Semites.

I have no words

Straight couture, homey

How to top last year's NFL preview?

1. Actually write it before the season starts.
2. Elaborate beyond a single sentence per team.
3. Relate a team's eventual success or failure to its uniform design.

I know, right? Time to put that graphic design degree to work! This should be very exciting. Speaking of school, I am one hundred percent pumped for football to start because this will be the first full football season in three years where I won't need to put games on the back burner in favor of homework. No more "OK, after this drive I'm totally getting started on the typography assignment," followed by hours of whimpering. Because you know what I'm going to do after every 1:00 Pats game this year? I'm going to watch the 4:00 game, bitches. Anyway, division by division this year.

Buffalo Bills
Let's start with one of the great wasted opportunities in professional sports. It's time for this to stop: go back to the old uniforms! Whenever a team participates in a throwback game, and that team's entire fanbase goes apeshit with the "Why don't they wear those every week??" talk for a month afterward, it's time to make the switch. Nobody in the league has that shade of blue (whereas everyone has navy). You can even modify the charging buffalo logo, which I prefer to the old one that's just standing there. You're almost there, you just need to change most everything: 4.8

Miami Dolphins
The one team where the home town necessitates the color palette—welcome to Miami! And hey, I was just there! I saw some dude on South Beach wearing a shear netting sack type of thing, along with a Catwoman mask and a well placed belt with dollar bills sticking out. And this was at 3:00 in the afternoon. That outfit earns a 10.0 from me if the Dolphins change their names to the Weirdo Cock Whores, but that's not happening this season (because they've already printed the media guides, you know). So I guess we're dealing with the current design. I must say, as cutesy and that little helmeted dolphin is, Miami is the only city that can get away with it. Great colors, great tradition (no needless revamps like too many teams are doing) and the wise choice to let the color white carry most of the load. I'm as surprised as you are: 8.1

New England Patriots
As with Buffalo, what in the worldwide fuck? The new uniforms are passable, and have grown on me over the years (though there have been numerous tweaks). And we can't ignore the fact that they've won three Super Bowls while wearing them. But still… those old Pat Patriot reds are killers. George is getting upset: 6.0

New York Jets
Now here's the inverse to the style quagmires that have sucked up the Bills and the Pats. Reverting to the Namath-era look was the best thing this team has done since the actual Namath era. It didn't take a lot of work and they had the foundation in place: great shade of green and keep it clean. Don't be so mean: 8.9

(Aside: I like how I'm only through one division, and it's my home division, and the analyses are already demonstrably shorter. At this rate my review for the Seahawks will read "Turd.")

Baltimore Ravens
There's nowhere to begin but with purple. You know what I never once muttered to myself in twenty years as a football fan? "Boy, this league sure could use another purple team." I know the organization was kind of put on the spot when they weren't allowed to keep the Browns name (and hey, it's their own fault so fuck them) and Ravens is actually a clever name for the city, but purple? If this wasn't the great opportunity for a pure black and white uniform, then nothing ever will be until the Columbus Crosswords come into existence. I will say the raven/B logo is pretty good, and that shield/crest thingy is interesting in a soccer-y way that I would totally appreciate if I cared at all about soccer. Still, the whole lot is much too close to the Vikings to earn the team any props. Purple and white might have worked, but purple and black with some gold trim does not. Quoth me: 6.4

Cincinnati Bengals
I inexplicably rooted for the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, which is funny because I totally appreciate Joe Montana much more now than I ever did while he was still playing (also inexplicable, because the "go upstairs and masturbate" SNL sketch alone should have sold me). I'm now convinced I wanted them to win because they had awesome uniforms. Now, like everyone else, they tinkered with them until they could say "Yup, we've made them worse, well done everybody." Luckily they didn't touch the helmets, which might be the best in the league. But this is a great example of how the NFL is making the world a worse place with pants. Plain stripes down the side don't do it anymore. No, let's occupy that space with some extension of what's on the helmet, maybe that way people can learn to hate a helmet they once loved because they're associating it with horrible pants. But it's a damn good helmet: 5.0

Cleveland Browns
Nice and simple. I love the brown (natch) home jerseys especially. Here's hoping any expansion teams or redesigns keep their eyes here and in Chicago to see how a basic design can be a strength. Even the dog masks some of the superfans wear are pretty cool, in an I'm-so-preoccupied-with-the-Browns-I-don't-even-notice-my-wife-is-sleeping-around kind of way. Everyone's happy: 8.5

Pittsburgh Steelers
Absolutely classic, even if they did run out of money before they could apply the steel logo to the other side of the helmet. Don't know what's going on with the slim oblique numbers, they look a little soft against the bold black and gold. Still, almost as good as they come: 9.1

Houston Texans
Shit but these unis are the bomb. The oil rig logo is a little staid, but I love the powder blue! Oh snap, that's the old team. Seriously, it's nice to see a straightforward design come through on a new team. The logo is a bit over-logical but anything would appear that way so soon after tiger pants up there. Make the alternate red jerseys the full-time attire and you might win more than eight games for once: 5.9

Indianapolis Colts
Hard to praise this team after what happened last season but these are beautiful. It's like the blue of a thousand skies. I don't understand why shoulder/arm stripes never seem to go all the way around, but I'm not a seamstress so probably I just don't understand how difficult a pattern that is: 9.5

Jacksonville Jaguars
Teal baby! How about that late eighties/early nineties teal explosion? The helmet jag-you-wahr is alright, minus the teal nonsense: 4.0

Tennessee Titans
Here's an example of a helmet logo absolutely signifying the team name. Cute little cosmic flames, enchanting stars, a T that kind of looks like a pixie… there is no better way to represent the Tennessee Tinkerbells. What? They're called the Titans? My bad. Lucky for them the rest of the uniform (unique and effective colors, sort of a college look) isn't too bad. Can't understand why this team wasn't called the Nashville Kings though, that would have been incredible: 4.7

Denver Broncos
The helmet (except for the pointy median line, what's up with that?) is markedly better than the old Big D, but I gotta say I miss the overwhelming orange of the old jerseys. Everyone's wearing blue fucking jerseys now: 3.2

Kansas City Chiefs
OK, by this point I'm no longer surprised that I like all of the old-school teams' uniforms, so long as they haven't changed much or at all. Kudos to my lack of living in the now! And kudos to the Chiefs for embracing the color red. I wish the Pats had the same respect: 8.2

Oakland Raiders
Ooh baby. We haven't gotten to my favorite uniforms yet but these are as close as you get. The eyepatch dude might be silly, but the whole package is the antithesis of Al Davis in a white warm-up suit. Badass: 9.9

San Diego Chargers
Leave it to a loser franchise like the Chargers to tweak their design in a nod to the Air Coryell era, only it turns out to be a barely perceptible nod that might be mistaken for a Tourette syndrome tic. Shame on them. I can't wait for the Pats to electro-shock dance on them again this weekend: 7.5

Dallas Cowboys
You know, I've never been crazy about their silvery blue pants. Bleh. It's too bad, because the helmet is right up in there. I also like their navy jerseys, which they never get to wear because they choose the whites for home, and most others choose the darks. Still, I see Jerry Jones as football's equivalent to Ted Turner and I'm impressed he hasn't gone insane with color: 8.0

New York Giants
Love that they went back to the older style. Solid. The NY is an improvement over GIANTS, but it could use little more work. Still, it's simple and it grows on you like uptown AIDS: 8.8

Philadelphia Eagles
I remember awhile ago when they went from that pure forest green to the current slate-sort-of-green thing they have going on. It's not even a color, it's like someone soaked the jerseys in mud all offseason. Drab. The winged helmet used to be elegant but they used a Sharpie to over-emphasize the edges and ruined it. This whole city needs to settle down: 2.3

Washington Redskins
Yeah, yeah, "Redskins" is horribly offensive (I got into it with the Rapscallions last year), but theirs is a great design and color combination. Just acknowledge basic decency and do something about the name and logo—again, go with that cool R! Nothing major, you know, who really remembers what a team is called or what symbol they use to represent themselves? Regardless: 8.4

Chicago Bears
Best uniforms in the league. Fantastic football colors, intelligent sense of tradition. Enough said: 10.0

Detroit Lions
These are fine I suppose, but enough of the prancing circus lion. They could switch the logo to a cursive D with whiskers on it and I'd be more impressed. Colors are good though, sort of associate them with the auto industry I suppose. Whatever, it's the Lions: 4.9

Green Bay Packers
Another classic. Can't go wrong with anything here. Good example (even though it's used elsewhere) of defining a letter as your logo. I guess they kind of had to though, because how do you stylize a packer? Don't answer that: 9.0

Minnesota Vikings
I mentioned this in last year's preview: what's with the Viking horn on the pants? Just get together with your friends in Cincinnati and have an intervention—NFL pants are functional and should stop there. And while we're at it with Minnesota, the helmet design is a clever idea (clever or obvious, you decide) but I was never impressed with the execution. I think it needs to be revisited. And maybe it's high-definition television but I don't remember the purple being so fucking purple in my youth. These get worse every time I look at them, so they get my lowest rating: 2.0

Atlanta Falcons
Loved the total about-face they made a few years ago: after switching from red helmets and jerseys to black (in the Great Pre-Millennial Purging of the Red that also claimed the Pats), they wised up and performed admirably by re-instituting the red jerseys. They retained the nice black helmets but incorporated cool red highlights to the falcon. Now that's some flair. (I know I said earlier that we need a pure black-and-white team, but the Falcons just weren't doing it for me.) Nice work: 7.2

Carolina Panthers
More teal, please! One of the all-time blunders for the city of Charlotte, embracing a trendy color to the point that I expected the sidewalks to be painted teal when I visited a few years ago. I think they could just change it to another shade of blue and stop there because it's a pretty decent uniform. Even the helmet logo is alright, which is rare for expansion teams: 5.6

New Orleans Saints
This is some fantastic under-the-radar shit these guys are wearing! All-time-great helmet, stunningly good all-black pants. If only this much consideration was present elsewhere in the city… well, you know. Anyway, a great marriage of name and look: 9.2

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I saw some old clip the other day of that ridiculous orange uniform. Orange is my favorite color but even I couldn't stomach that. I love how the new look unabashedly rips off the 49ers, with pewter (pewter!) in place of gold. That showed real mettle. They did a good job with the helmet though—pretty nifty pirate flag. But I wish the Spaniard with the dagger in his mouth was still around swarthing it up somehow. One can dream: 6.9

Arizona Cardinals
OK, the Sports Guy stole some thunder last week but these guys need a new name, pronto—there just cannot be a large cardinal population in the southwest. Regardless, this whole package needs some work. The angry red bird is kind of cool, I suppose, and I admire the unembellished white helmet. But as with Miami, Phoenix suggests a certain color palette and brick red isn't it. Don't make me sick the S1Ws after you: 2.5

St. Louis Rams
No one else in the league embraced mustard the way the Rams did in Los Angeles. And then they moved to St. Louis and eventually swapped it out for gold, thereby emphasizing the navy… just like everyone else in the league. That's why the Pats went for it in 2002. Still love those helmets though, and blue and gold is pretty sweet after all: 6.7

San Francisco 49ers
OK, we had that extended misstep with the white pants awhile ago. I have no idea what that was all about. Luckily they got their heads together and said "Up yours, Tampa Bay, we had the red/metallic thing going first and now we're taking it back." Until Frank Gore came along, it was the best decision the team made in like twelve years. Gotta give props to the logo too, I totally appreciate these typographic ones when they're done right. And it's the best they could have done outside of a bearded old coot kneeling in a dry riverbed: 7.0

Seattle Seahawks
Muddy blue? Neon piping? Turd: 2.2

To review:
Chicago Bears – 10.0
Oakland Raiders – 9.9
Indianapolis Colts – 9.5
New Orleans Saints – 9.2
Pittsburgh Steelers – 9.1
Green Bay Packers – 9.0
New York Jets – 8.9
New York Giants – 8.8
Cleveland Browns – 8.5
Washington Redskins – 8.4
Kansas City Chiefs – 8.2
Miami Dolphins – 8.1
Dallas Cowboys – 8.0
San Diego Chargers – 7.5
Atlanta Falcons – 7.2
San Francisco 49ers – 7.0
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 6.9
St. Louis Rams – 6.7
Baltimore Ravens – 6.4
New England Patriots – 6.0
Houston Texans – 5.9
Carolina Panthers – 5.6
Cincinnati Bengals – 5.0
Detroit Lions – 4.9
Buffalo Bills – 4.8
Tennessee Titans – 4.7
Jacksonville Jaguars – 4.0
Denver Broncos – 3.2
Arizona Cardinals – 2.5
Philadelphia Eagles – 2.3
Seattle Seahawks – 2.2
Minnesota Vikings – 2.0

Count it! Kinda funny how a lot of these pundit jokers are picking a Colts/Bears rematch. Huh. Of course it's some combination of silly and fruity to judge teams by their uniforms, so I've applied a complex, re-machotizing algorithm to the ratings and reached this conclusion: Pats over Seahawks in Super Bowl XLII. Count that!