Beer and football IV — week five

The game: Patriots at Bengals
The beer: Martha's Exchange Olde London Stout
The result: Loss, 13–6
The commentary: Bob Socci must be stopped. The new radio voice of the Patriots lied to me four times in an hour during a rainy second-half drive to Nashua: an interception (not an interception), two receptions (two drops) and Julian Edelman's amazing "touchdown catch." The world's smallest violin.

Why the hell was I wasting time in the car during a playoff-implication game against a tough Bengals team? Because my old friend Ivan and I ventured north on Route 3 to witness the Misfits declare war on Nashua, New Hampshire. The last time we saw them was one of the greatest nights ever, so who was I to refuse? (No pantsings this time, but they did play "TV Casualty.")

The evening (afternoon, actually) started at Martha's Exchange in downtown Nausea. I was frantically flipping between the FM band and the Bluetooth receiver to hear the driving directions and drove right by the place, of course, just as the Pats' chances were dwindling. I parked and Ivan pulled up right next to me. He had gone ahead to the concert venue (improbably called Bernie's) to get tickets and asked me to guess how many opening bands there were. "Six," I responded in jest. "How did you know??" Uh-oh, I wasn't going to home before nine liked I'd hoped, and the "No nap" text I got from A. halfway through my first beer didn't make me feel any better. We got inside Martha's (which was attached to a gourmet chocolate shop because why not, so of course I grabbed an enormous peanut butter cup for A. before leaving—she had earned it) as the hurricane hit the fifty yard line and there was just a feeling of malaise about the game. Bob Socci and a mediocre stout will do that to a man. The inevitable loss couldn't get us too down though—we had a long night ahead.

Next stop was Boston Billiards across town. That's the thing about New England, you can stick "Boston" in front of anything unless you're in Vermont. I think it used to be a bowling alley and it was enormous—there weren't many people there and it felt like even fewer. The waitress was practically waiting for us at our pool table, and when I picked up the modest beer menu to ask "Is this what's on tap?" she answered "These are our craft beers." I stared blankly at her for several seconds, wondering what kind of world she lived in where craft beer cannot be found on tap, and she stared back at me with equal puzzlement, wondering if I could sneak her into Bernie's. I broke the silence by settling on a "Sam Adams, please," settling because their selection of "craft beers" didn't move me. Nice safety beer though.

Ivan and I are pretty evenly matched so we traded wins and losses, much as the Broncos and Cowboys did touchdowns on the eight thousands TVs about the place. Did you see that game? Far out. Speaking of far out, we'd better motor if we're going to catch the last three opening bands.

We arrive at Bernie's and it's exactly what I expected, in that it was Good Times North. Bad highway weed was everywhere. And the Misfits fans? The Misfits fans! And the Sunday Night Football! The… Sunday Night Football? I was thankful for the Niners and the Texans as some local shitstorm belted out its nonsense onstage.

The place was the place. We got a couple of beers (slumming with Captain Budweiser & His Magic Trots) and went upstairs, which provided the best view of the game and the din. Mohawks, cleavage… you could smell the damage. Bring on the Misfits already.

Our timing was perfect because Local Shitstorm closed amateur hour (amateur two-and-a-half hours). We made the educated guess and returned to the lower level, got some refills and moved to within fifteen feet of Jerry Only's eventual microphone. Not three minutes later he entered from the parking lot via the general admission entrance (somewhere Glenn Danzig chuckled as he searched his couch cushions for autopsy photographs). Jerry and Dez and not-Robo were full-on and they opened with "We Are 138," if I remember right, and I probably don't. And look! Jerry's wearing a MISFITS shirt. Just like everyone else in here!

Vest-less! What do you call a combination receding-hairline devil-lock? That poster makes him look a little fuller on top, don't you think? We ended up in a perfect little spot, right between the pit and a wall. Maybe not everyone's idea of perfect? It was like old times except I'm pushing forty. I impressed myself by not overreacting to some knucklehead spilling my own beer on me. It should have been water anyway. Finding that Dunkins on the way home was a bit of a life-saver.

Text message, 12:02 AM: "Wow, just leaving Nashua now. Mistake, but still fun. XO." I survived a shirtless Jerry Only (not documented here), I survived that skank in the wheelchair, I survived nine-ball, I survived Geno Atkins and, thanks to G. crashing hard to sleep at some point in the evening, I survived the wrath of an exhausted wife and mother. Part two in a series of great nights with the Misfits.

Up next: Did you hear Dr. John's comeback album last year? It's pretty good. Cheers!

Beer and football IV — week four

The game: Patriots at Falcons
The beer: The Tap Sassy Rabbit Rye Ale
The result: Win, 30–23
The commentary: One night last week I stayed a little late at work and walked the Greenway to North Station for my ride home. I knew the carousel had finally reopened (great idea to renovate over the Summer, fellas) but I was not prepared for how G-ready the work had made it. Owls! Squirrels! Butterflies! Whales! Turtles! It's a favorite-animal extravaganza, all we're missing are elephants and monkeys. I texted A. that we must venture into the city on Saturday and blow G's little mind. So that's what we did.

After breakfast at Flour, where G. devoured an egg sandwich and made eyes with a friendly old haberdasher or statistician or something, we walked along the missing shadow of 93 and found one of the whimsical "Play Me, I'm Yours" pianos scattered about the city (a series of public art installations). A. and I temporarily got over our fear of germs and plopped G. right onto the devil's bench, stepped back and listened to her bash out a passable version of "In the Court of the Crimson King." Impressive talent! Impressive parenting.

The carousel was the expected hit. Mom rode with G. first and dad the second and third times. It was wonderful, though the moments when your child's heart is actively breaking as you walk away from all they desire are the hardest. After an extended stop at the Artist's Impulse Jewelry Purchase Fair we swung by Atlantic Wharf, watched some tourists throw tea into Fort Point Channel (the same body of water that swallowed my old phone) and helped some Boston expats take a family picture, marveling with them at what that part of the city had been only a few years earlier: the Federal Reserve, the Harpoon brewery and a mile-wide parking lot in between.

Passage of time is a remarkable thing. Forgetting for a moment that my daughter is two—two!—we've owned a home for five years. I've been at the same job for more than seven and married almost as long. Publishing, resignation and unemployment are ten years behind. Weekly Friday visits to the Common Ground (who only started calling themselves "CG" after we did) ended a four-year run a dozen years ago, shortly before I moved to Northampton. $9.99 Harp twelve-packs. Jedi Outcast. Parking in her landlord's driveway. Butthole Surfers on the "beach." ER at Boston City. Patrick Roy. What were you doing in 1992? There's just no way.

The game… I don't remember. Not much actual football writing so far this year. The late comeback was a little daunting and reminded us that, no matter what any homers have to say, this defense still sucks. Nice progress by the offense though and hopefully that can keep improving. The beer? "Bunnee!" Not as good as its label.

Up next: The Patriots travel to Cincinnati. The Misfits travel to Nashua. Cheers!

Beer and football IV — weeks two and three

Week two
The game: Jets at Patriots
The beer: Maine Peeper Ale
The result: Win, 13–10
The commentary: What's the sound of grown men crying for a solid week? All I remember from this game is four hours of Mike Mayock talking about Geno Smith's lousy "internal clock" and how the Patriot rookie receivers "can't get on the same page" as Brady. That's it: lousy rookie quarterback for the Jets, lousy rookie receivers for the Pats. No analysis as to what led each team to rely so heavily on these rookies or any culpability on the parts of the coaching staffs or veteran players. It's easy to criticize rookies, that way you don't injure your personal relationship with Belichick—maybe it's a blessing to be stuck with ESPN on draft night after all. Admittedly, it did seem to be Thompson's or Dobson's fault a lot of the time (mostly giving up on routes or, egregiously, just standing still along the sideline or at the back of the end zone) but I don't know anything about football—just ask the fucking Bears. Elsewhere, the most exciting sequence was "playmaker" Aqib Talib forcing a turnover by accidentally kicking a ball out of someone's hands after that someone scorched him for a thirty-yard reception. The post-Ty Law defense will surely be the death of me.

I wasn't kidding when I said Maine produces nothing but good beer: the Peeper is a stone-cold stunner. What?? This is one of the ones I picked up in Northampton a few weeks ago. It was closer to an English pint than an American bomber (standard measure of volume) but I didn't mind. Too much.

The Thursday game allowed us to go apple-picking on Sunday, along with every other Patriots fan in the world. I think the farmhands were knocking down trees all day to accommodate more cars. We didn't actually pick any apples because that required riding in a wagon to go somewhere else, and that seemed a little silly. So we let G. play with some pumpkins and then went off to visit a few farm animals. We also ran into everyone A. has ever known in her life. It was fun until G. had a total meltdown and we got the hell out of there. Somehow it didn't take forever to get back to the main road.

---

Week three
The game: Bucaneers at Patriots
The beer: Bear Republic Racer 5 India Pale Ale
The result: Win, 23–3
The commentary: Guess what happens when you're almost forty, you're a family man and a fancy new mall opens up a couple of towns away: you go spend the morning there! Market Street (with a very MTV logo) is now open in the sleepy, wealthy town of Lynnfield. We don't even have to get on 128! Whole Foods, Starbucks and bunch of other yuppie stores I've never heard of. I'm afraid we're yuppies now so we got breakfast at Starbucks (G. ate most of my sausage, egg and cheese sandwich) and stopped at Whole Foods on the way out (A. said it was the best grocery store she's ever been in, except for the somehow gorgeous co-op in an otherwise scummy Brattleboro). In between we spent most of our time chasing G. in and around a little play area right outside Starbucks. Clearly she was loving life that Saturday but I promise she wasn't as stoned as she looks.

What's the sound of grown men declaring this the greatest defense in NFL history after three weeks of play? It's all ups or downs here, nothing in between. I suppose I understand the need to manufacture discussion/debate with six (or nine) twenty-four-hour news cycles in between games, but that's only because I'm able to avoid the lot of it. Mike Reiss and PFW keep me grounded, then I watch the games and reach my own conclusions. Like how everybody is calling Aqib Talib one of the top cornerbacks in the league? Well, maybe he is. But the pick off of Freeman the other day was the first of his three that really felt like an interception. The two against the Jets were of the Kyle Arrington variety, in that they were thrown right at him and/or ended up in his hands by chance. A turnover is a turnover, and if Talib continues to create interceptions like this then we really do have the greatest defense in sports history. Let's just relax a bit.

G. missed the game again. That's three in a row and she is pissed. On this day she went to Cambridge with mom so it was just Chloe and I at home. I had some time to myself after the game and went batshit crazy taking pictures of records and CDs to sell on eBay, some of the rarer stuff like the first and third White Stripes singles, the "gold" reissues of the Pretty Things' SF Sorrow and Parachute, etc. So far I've had one listing come and go without a buyer and I expect that to happen to five more later today. Keep on keepin' on, right? My payday will come.

I actually didn't drink during the game. Friday night a few of us went out after work and I pounded four of these bastard IPAs before catching my 8:30 train by a matter of seconds. I seem to be coming around to hoppy beers lately. Or I'm a degenerate drunk who'll take what he can get, as in later that night with wine: the Dexter finale! I haven't read it yet but The Onion's AV Club review gave it an F. They must have finally gone the satirical route along with the rest of the site. Meanwhile, every episode of the last two seasons of Mad Men earned like an A+ from them. One of my favorite scenes ever on the show happened to fall in season five, when Ginsberg told Peggy that he was from Mars. It was powerful stuff and a complete throwaway. Aside from this there are maybe five genuinely special sequences in the entire series: the "carousel" pitch, Kennedy's assassination, the new agency, Don's realization that Joan had already whored herself out and Lane's multi-episode downfall. Don married his secretary? I don't care. Peggy left? And now she's back? I don't care. Mad Men can afford to play "Tomorrow Never Knows" over the credits? Self-aware irony is unbecoming and odd all over. And Roger? Roger! Who cares.

Dexter though? How was it supposed to end? He'd been getting out of no-way-he-can-get-out-of-this situations for years and suddenly it's ridiculous that he can survive a hurricane? More broadly, was a happy ending even reasonable? Hannah didn't bother to cut and/or color her hair so I wasn't expecting her to get away according to plan (even though she sort of did). Someone close to Dexter had to die because someone close to Dexter always died. It's what kept me watching, what made me a little hesitant to whole heartedly root for a murderer. I enjoyed it. (Masuka's daughter though? Who cares.)

Up next: Hotlanta! Cheers!

Beer and football IV: The trick today will be to try to affect fate’s great wheel

Week one
The game: Patriots at Bills
The beer: Samuel Smith Nut Brown Ale
The result: Win, 23–21; Bengals/Jarrod lose, 24–21
The commentary: Longtime readers (!) might recall this whole "beer and football" thing I started years ago when an innocent, shockingly handsome thirty-something guy got drunk on Samuel Smith pints each Autumn Sunday in the People's Republic. I drank any variety I could find during every single game of the 2007/2008 season, otherwise known as "16–0," and we all remember what happened. Later efforts were equally unsatisfying. So where do I get off opening the season with a classic, the first of theirs I'd ever had, the Nut Brown Ale that is fated to doom the season? Ask me in December.

Is it me or was this the week of the safety? I mean the two-point play, not the defensive position—I didn't hear McCourty's name all game. I paid more attention to the score crawl than usual for reasons I'll get to in a minute, but it seemed like every other team had two points or five points. (Funny thing about two-point plays is that G. is now two years old. Fate! Alas, she'll likely—when all goes well—nap through one o'clock games this season.) Just a strange observation, or rather an astute observation of a strange thing, without a single hackneyed Pro Football Talk headline in sight.

It's week one and it's a win. Everyone around here is totally freaking out because the Pats didn't win by two touchdowns. The game was a lot closer than I expected it to be but I was never worried, even when the Bills had the lead and the ball with six minutes left. In a related note, I'd feel encouraged if I were a Bills fan. (Shudder.) Manuel looked pretty good and held up alright during his first pro game. They put some decent pressure on Brady a lot of the day. Their tight end didn't murder anyone. We'll see in a few hours what the Jets look like but I'll be surprised if the Bills finish below them at the end of the year. (Only if Marrone isn't so trigger happy with the challenge flag—I'm impressed he didn't contest Ridley's lost fumble so that's a step in the right direction.)

About that crawl: on Friday a work friend asked if I wanted to participate in a "suicide fantasy league." When I told him I had no idea what that was he clarified that it was a simple knockout pool. "I'm in!" Ten bucks, Bengals over Bears. Rats. Later on, when I explained to A. that Jay Cutler lost us ten bucks, I went on a rant about how fantasy football and the Red Zone Channel exist merely to reward people who aren't actually football fans. What's the point of being alerted that a team is about to score a touchdown if I didn't see how they advanced that far? Why would I care how many catches Calvin Johnson has if I'm not interested in the Lions' success or failure? Fake football fans used to watch a few minutes of Sportscenter to stay in the loop, now they spend all night coming up with clever pop-culture names for their fantasy teams. To hell with that.

Also in this category is channel four's postgame exit poll. Escalating New England's reputation as a part of the country that loves its overachieving white players, Captain Crazy Eyes asked "Which Patriots receiver was more clutch today: Julian Edelman or Danny Amendola?" Shane Vereen—technically a running back, but why not ask "Which Patriots player…"?—had over one hundred and fifty total yards, and (though it wasn't yet known) it turns out he played the whole game with a broken hand, for crying out loud! Definitely to hell with them. With the whole lot of them!

Up next: The Jets visit Foxborough tonight and unveil the Super Bowl trophy they apparently won last week. Cheers!

Beer and football IV — the all-important third preseason game

The game: Patriots somewhere
The beer: Northampton Daniel Shays Best Bitter
The result: Who cares
The commentary: New England, as a region, is comprised of six states:

1. Maine
2. New Hampshire
3. Massachusetts
4. Half of Connecticut
5. Pawtucket, Rhode Island
6. My own self-importance

Despite rumors to the contrary, Vermont is not one of them. Northern New England (Maine and New Hampshire) is wonderful: the people are friendly, the air is clean, the beer is delicious. Vermont? The people are rude and/or hippies. Like real hippies, the smelly homeless kind. The air smells of hippie filth, except when you're in your car driving through the glorious Green Mountains, which is the best way to see Vermont anyway. And OK, the beer is pretty good. I'll give them that. But Colorado has delicious beer too. Pennsylvania. Fucking Old England. And they don't need to fly under the New England flag (a triptych of me barfing in the Hub Bowling Center in 1982, outside the Small Planet Bar & Grill in 1994 and on the inbound platform at Arlington station in 2002). Vermont is another part of the country and perhaps a whole other country altogether.

Guess where we went last weekend? Brattleboro, Vermont! We'd been curious about the town for years and chose it as a quick getaway. Urban! Artsy! Pubs! It read like an upscale Northampton without the baggage. Unfortunately: hippies. Ten years ago we probably would have been alright. I'm sure A. and I could have found a nice restaurant followed by late-into-the-night drinks at a funky bar. But, see, we've got a toddler now. Dinner starts closer to 4:00 than to 8:00. And even if we settle in somewhere nice, as we did on the roof deck at Whetstone Station Brewery, G. enjoys the scene for a limited amount of time until "Geddown… geddowwwn!" Needless to say, vacations aren't what they were before G. came along. Also needless to say, we wouldn't trade her to pretend we're still young. Our independence will return once we're old and pissing ourselves.

Skipping the details of the trip, we recovered by detouring through—yes—Northampton on our way home. It's been almost a decade since I've lived there and we've been back once or twice. Weird time for me, ten years ago. But it was nice to be there on a beautiful day, enjoying lunch at the Northampton Brewery. The beer, the catfish bites, A. across the table. And G. alongside us now. She was great throughout this meal, better than at any of the Brattleboro stops. It was good to be in New England again.

We walked around awhile, found a nice little playground, a really nice farmers market, a really, really nice craft beer/wine/specialty foods shop called Provisions (where I picked up four bombers, including a couple from Maine; Maine produces nothing but good beer; I purchased none in Vermont) but somehow didn't duck into Turn It Up, since I'd left all my shit for sale at home. There's one in Brattleboro too. What was I thinking?

Anyway, the hometown team played a preseason game last week and got schmucked by the four-win Lions. I didn't watch a second of it because I forgot they were playing—Project Runway is on Thursdays, you know—and apparently I missed the end of the Brady/Belichick dynasty. Again. Oh well, somehow G. and I will survive a doomed season. You say they're playing another tomorrow night? The unimportant fourth preseason game? "Well… the line was so long I said 'Fuck it!'" They'll still win the AFC East.

Lastly—and if you're reading this then you are he because no one else does—a sincere shout-out to my old blogging friend Steve, who has had an unfair run of horrible blogging fodder for too long. Here's to Jay Cutler elevating his game to that of a serviceable spot starter in Steve's honor. Also, go read his blog. He has interesting things to say and excellent taste in music. Too bad about the creep who keeps harassing him to write more, goddammit! Cheers, my man.

Beer and football IV — training camp

The beer: Green Flash West Coast India Pale Ale
The commentary: My plan was to go Friday morning. On the road by eight, Foxborough by half past nine. But the rain! What happens to the first day of training camp when it rains? I knew of the Dana-Farber Field House, as in "Practice has been moved indoors to the Dana-Farber Field House because it's snowing like a motherfucker out there." But the first day of training camp, which people had circled on their calendars, which I had circled on my calendar? Took the day off, arranged for G. to skip daycare, her little 2T Patriots dress (not yet worn) all set to go. But the rain!

Mike Reiss always says "Be sure to call Gillette Stadium or check Patriots.com in case it's snowing like a motherfucker out there." So that's what I did. Gillette's training camp hotline? "Training camp starts on Friday, July 26 and is open to the public." I've known that for a month! Patriots.com? "Aaron who?" Eventually I decided that if it were to still be held outdoors (which it was) and, thus, open to the public, did I really want to drive an hour and back to stand around in the rain? To have G. stand around in the rain? The answer, of course, was no. It's ridiculous how long it took to realize that.

So the dream of bringing G. to training camp was dead for the second year in a row. Friday was the day, it had to be the day. Who wants to go to training camp on a weekend and deal with all those… people? Monday's session was to be restricted to season ticket-holders and Foxborough residents. Tuesday… Tuesday? Hmm, I'd have to take another day off. And what if it rains again? This Summer has been batshit crazy when it comes to weather.

On second thought, how about Saturday? Sure, the crowd will be enormous. Also, there will be a lot of people (har! har!). But the majority of these enormous people will want to get there right at nine, right when it starts, and for what? I wouldn't even want to stay the whole two-and-a-half hours anyway, what with the logistics of a toddler's survival (breakfast/lunch/nap). So it was "Hey mom, would you like four hours to yourself?" G. and I were on.

(I should clarify that I still took Friday off to spend the day with her. We drove mom to work and when we got home I taped a bunch of newsprint to the hardwood floor and tore open a new pack of "washable" markers. The resulting artwork—pictured—was stunning, as was her desire to use every single color, but the dark blue she used on our red couch sent me into panic mode. Only after several applications of mom's amazing internet-inspired vinegar/Dawn dish soap concoction did it wash out. Seriously though: panic.)

We left the house at nine and though it was later than I'd hoped it actually worked out better. After a stop at Dunkins (where stereotypes came alive and we waited behind a Revere cop at the drive-thru) we cruised all the way to Foxborough. No expected 93 South delays (I will never, ever live south of Boston), no Cape traffic (!). The only hitch occurred upon arrival at Gillette Stadium when I stupidly followed signs that read TRAINING CAMP PARKING. I know! After nearly circumnavigating the entire grounds, no doubt to take in all the shopping and dining it had to offer and determine there was always time for a Victoria's Secret shopping spree followed by a Red Robin burger, we reached LOT 20. Lot 20 was, yes, about the size of twenty football fields. "G., just remember we're near the porta-potties."

We followed the crowd (cautioning her to almost always avoid doing so) toward the stadium, and after a quick stop in the shade of a hotel to lather on the sunscreen we were on our way. Hey, here's that "Fan Zone" I read about! Nothing but lines of people in there—I'm glad the Fan Zone wasn't on our agenda. We followed what remained of the crowd (I can't believe how many of them stopped off at the Lines and Lines of Fans Zone) through a peculiar and unnecessary maze of sorts and arrived at the practice fields, or at least a stretch of pavement behind the aluminum bleachers that overlooked the practice fields. By this point G. had been saying "Football, football!" for about five minutes. She's the best. Her enthusiasm, though, did nothing for my hygiene. I was sweating like a bastard.

To our left was a nice grassy knoll (look out!) that I'd spotted from some point in the maze. A perfect place to settle in, give G. a little breakfast and maybe catch some of the on-field action. I'm no good at describing things unless they are guitar distortion so let's allow pictures to relate our story. (I apologize that some of these are a bit dark. It's difficult to adjust their exposure without washing out the blue sky.)

Ah, some nice shade under a nice tree. "Let's eat!" And look, it's the Dana-Farber Field House! Somewhere it is snowing like a– well, I won't drop that bomb next to her picture.

"Whadat?" I think we should see what's down there. Immediately.

"Hurry!"

OK, back to the stroller. That was fun! In truth, there wasn't much for us to do as we got closer to the viewing area. Clearly I couldn't just let her run loose amongst the crowd ("Toddler runs onto practice field, injures Danny Amendola") and she refused to be held ("Geddown!"), so I kept directing her toward the knoll (duck!) and asking "Where's the stroller?" Then she would run and find it. I did this like five times and she never tired of the fun of finding it. She's my little detective. Here, after finding it again, she somehow doesn't look like herself (she's in mid-song or something) but it's still quite stunning and precious and beautiful and I love her so much.

Bless you, dear tree, for your dad-cooling shade.
With my milk and his coffee we've both got it made.
No way he pays five for a small lemonade.

I vibrate with joy as I dance in my dress.
All this black mulch will make a fine mess!
To get the stains out, which cycle works best?

Here. Here! This is the coolest cool thing.
Maybe it will fly like a kite on some string.
So many songs and just one voice to sing…
E-I-E-I-O!

G. is nothing if not a social butterfly but she has her shy moments. Several kids were hanging around this tree but she only opened up after they drifted off. See that woman in the white jersey behind the fence? I'm pretty sure either she or her obscured friend later said "I can't believe he's changing her diaper in front of everyone" when I did exactly that, right there on the grass before leaving. I only suspect as much because I heard one of them say (presumably in response) "What's he supposed to do?" I'm not overly narcissistic and I realize her remark could have been in reference to any other "he," anywhere, doing anything, but I still think it was this guy. So thanks for coming to my defense, white Patriots jersey woman or obscured woman. And go to hell, white Patriots jersey woman or obscured woman.

Time for a series of unprovoked Project Runway-quality poses. Please note that the practice field is in the complete opposite direction from where she is looking. (Gillette nosebleeds at upper left.)

Based on the first two episodes I think the competition is Bradon's to lose. Then again I thought the same thing about Anthony Ryan at this point in his first season a couple of years ago. Ken is my sleeper.

Nice to see Kate got her single win out of the way. She'll keep making the same dress, will get warned by the judges to do something different, then scolded, then yelled at. And she'll be out.

Before finishing the first episode, figuring she was safe (we watched it the day after it aired), I googled Angela to see if I'd heard of any of her bands. Of course the first result was "Last night, Richmond designer Angela Bacskocky was eliminated from the first round of Project Runway." It was my own fault but jeeez.

The two Alexes: Alexander and his ridiculous eyebrows surprised me with their skill and sophistication. Alexandria betrays the genuine (physical) beauty of her youth by aging into a weathered, damaged woman with the personality and warmth of an applied math textbook.

I think it's going to be a good season. Sandro and Helen are clearly insane, which makes for good television, which means they'll stick around awhile. Sue is only a few years older than me but, courtesy of the sun and/or tanning salons, looks significantly older and thus will boost my self-esteem. Timothy is a fruit loop who "cares about the environment" but doesn't consider the ill effects of burning synthetic fabric with a cigarette lighter. His run ends this week.

Just to prove we were actually there. If you look closely you might see Tim Tebow missing his target by twelve yards. On that note, although I failed to capture the scene I'd like to offer a big blank stare to the woman we saw wearing a replica Tebow jersey. Hot off the press! She must—must—be married to the dude who commented, in response to a Mike Reiss blog post about the first day of camp, "How did Tebow look? That's all I care about." These are my fellow fans.

Just before we left I chugged a bomber of the Green Flash IPA. Made for an interesting ride home! No, that can't be right, I only felt drunk after witnessing a handful of idiots try to direct a manageable number of cars exiting the parking lot. We left well ahead of the majority of fans still hanging around for autographs, cheeseburgers and lingerie so I can't imagine how horrible it must have been an hour later. Luckily there was no in-depth tour of the facility on the way out because Route 1 was right there. Wish I'd realized that coming in.

Really, though, I did try the IPA that evening. A new wine and beer shop opened recently in the center of town, ostensibly replacing the one by the train station that closed down a couple of years ago. They do a good job with wine tastings (inexpensive wine tastings) and we've walked out with a bottle every time. Decent craft beers are available as well—sooner or later, I figured, a beer tasting would come along. And it did! Saturday, after the three of us drove to Beverly for some delicious caffeine and cupcakes, G. and I took a walk down to the water and swung by the shop on the way home. Pale ales were on the agenda, one of which was featured by some know-it-all hack in January! I didn't much care for it then but Saturday it tasted alright, possibly because I was sweating like a bastard again. Surprisingly, the best of the batch was the Green Flash. I rarely go for these extra-hoppy west coast styles—I don't think there's much art in trying to outdo everyone or be the most outrageous. That's no way to brew beer, to go through life. Whatever they're doing in this neck of San Diego, though… maybe it transported me to that wonderful seventy-five-degree haven again. Maybe G. squished up her face just so when I showed her the purple label ("Purple!"). Who knows, maybe it just happened to be the last beer I sampled (it was). But I walked out of that store with a goddamn west coast IPA! California love.

In the Hall of the Mountain King

Six minutes. At three hours and nine minutes I was six minutes short this year until, before noticing, I swapped out a two-minute pop song for some krautrock. German breadth escorted us to the cherished three-and-one-quarter-hour length we've all become accustomed to here. Once again, internet, I apologize… for nothing! Lots of things take longer to do than three hours but don't quite take three and a half hours. And what are you going to listen to while you're doing them, NPR? Back off!

I've had an expressed, deliberate taste in music for about twenty-two years. I was into stuff before then, sure, mostly Led Zeppelin and the Doors. (That's a pretty good name for a band. "Ladies and gentlemen, here to perform 'Twentieth Century Custard' and 'The Unknown (Roy) Harper,' please welcome Led Zeppelin & the Doors!") The Experience, the Stones and the Animals were on a slightly lower tier, then there was the popular stuff that would pierce through a few times like Living Colour, LL Cool J and other bands that start with L. It wasn't until later in high school and especially college that I was actively introduced to worthwhile stuff of its time, and when that method exhausted itself I became the seeker (the Who were on a tier just below Hendrix et al). This mostly turned up the sixties nuggets that make up a lot of black dots on these pages.

Passion runs deep so I also learned to hate stuff: Billy Joel, the Clash, "Santeria," too many to name. Such is life.

Anyway, I've written about this all before, it's in the archives somewhere. But I saw Mudhoney at the Paradise for the third or fourth time just a few weeks ago and man, was that the stuff. 1992 to 1996 all over again! (I really enjoyed 1995's My Brother the Cow and listened to it a lot for a solid year but fell off somewhere before 1998's Tomorrow Hit Today came out, to the point that I think I said "These guys are still around?" when a friend put it on in the car one time. What a fool I was. Then Lukin left and I, like everyone else, though that was the end… but what do you know, I'm driving home from Westfield State one day in 2002 and one of the area college stations—probably Smith's, which was pretty good—hits me with "Baby, Can You Dig the Light" from the new Since We've Become Translucent. Psychedelic! They were back with horns and so I too was back.) The guys looked the same, they sounded great and the Budweiser wasn't half bad. My three good friends from high school (Ivan, "Oskar" and "Pierre") came as well—we all have kids and are turning forty next year. Instead of taking the T or walking, we've become those old people who drive in from the suburbs and struggle to find parking. On May 10 none of this mattered.

The first two songs were off of the new Vanishing Point and were good… and then here comes Doc Brown. "The Libyans!" Song number three was "You Got It (Keep It Outta My Face)" and that's all it took, we were young again. They were young again (see for yourself). Mudhoney is more than a memory, more than the worn-out T-shirt in my drawer, more than a pile of CDs I'm planning to sell. They were one of my favorite bands and they are one of my favorite bands. I hope G. has that kind of band one day—Christ, I just hope music doesn't suck when she's twenty.

Here's another year of rock and/or roll, defined as the Old Testament dictates (not really) in that it runs from May to April. Nothing surprising, 1968 is even back in charge with help from a couple of neighbors. Mudhoney also offers no surprises and probably don't care to—they still make me happy. These songs do too.

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0. The Little Tikes Guitar Orchestra – In the Hall of the Mountain King
Track zero! No version touches this twenty-second snippet, though it exists (alongside "Oye Como Va" and "Wild Thing") only in a piece of blue plastic in my daughter's toy bin. The perfect unofficial introduction that you can discover by pressing REWIND before the beginning of…

1. The Zodiac – Aries, the Fire Fighter
"Quick, find another fire!" From Cosmic Sounds: Celestial Counterpoint With Words and Music (yes, it came out in 1967). "Aries" officially, ridiculously leads the way since it's the only "celestial counterpoint" that works for me. G. ("Virgo, the Perpetual Perfectionist") and I ("Gemini, the Cool Eye") (nice!) will just sit here unfulfilled as A., in all her Aries glory, faces the flames and scorches the Earth with incendiary diamonds. At least none of us is "Cancer, the Moon Child," laughing the lunar laugh. That's pretty fucked up.

2. Antibalas – Indictment
This is likely my favorite song of the year. I often play the Daptone Records "station" on Songza when hanging out with G. in her room, reading her countless Dr. Seuss books and telling her over and over that chairs are for sitting and not for standing or launching. "Indictment" comes around often, and I chuckle every time Major League Baseball, Seagram's gin and Beefeater gin get called as witnesses. Humor probably wasn't their aim but shit, just be happy I paid attention beyond the perfect, perfect interplay between the horns, the guitar, the organ, the drums and the vocal delivery. Talent all around.

3. Mudhoney – The Only Son of the Widow From Nain
"Soon afterward Jesus went to a town named Nain, accompanied by His disciples and a large crowd. And when He arrived at the gate of the town, a funeral procession was coming out. A young man had died, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, His heart was filled with pity for her, and He said to her, 'Do not weep.' Then He walked over and touched the coffin, while the pallbearers stood still. Jesus said to the dead man, 'Young man, I say to thee, arise!' And he who was dead sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Then they all were filled with awe and praised God. And they said, 'A great prophet has risen among us' and 'God has visited His people.' This news about Jesus went out through all the country and the surrounding territory." "Fuckin' Lazarus got all the fame." I died a million deaths at the Paradise. It was wonderful.

4. Sroeng Santi – Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng
"Riff… from… 'Iron Man.' We're stealing the ri-iff from 'Iron Man.'" Taken from a compilation of sixties/seventies Thai psych called Thai? Dai! The Heavier Side of the Luk Thung Underground. This implies a merely heavy side of the luk thung underground with which I am unfamiliar. That movement must have picked over Foghat and the Guess Who.

5. Chrome – March of the Chrome Police (A Cold Clamey Bombing)
The first Chrome song I ever heard, or at least the first I heard that made me pay attention. And now it's an award-winner! The weird second vocal track still creeps me out, reminding me of Buffalo Bill taunting the senator's daughter in The Silence of the Lambs (and setting up Six Finger Satellite's "Paralyzed by Normal Life"). Can you believe Buffalo Bill went on to become Leland Stottlemeyer in Monk, one of the best shows of the last ten years? Gotta hand it to the guy… "so hard."

6. The Brian Jonestown Massacre – This Is the One Thing We Did Not Want to Have Happen
This is the same group (well, Anton) who updated the Stones with Their Satanic Majesties Second Request among three solid albums released in 1996? Creativity wanes here as the rhythm is driven into the ground—lucky for you and me it's a quality riff, even as the banal chorus of "We were strangers before we met" plods on. Still better than all that Icelandic bullshit he went through a few years ago. Stay fresh, provoke and feed the habit, baby.

7. Cozy Powell – And Then There Was Skin
Uh-oh, I accidentally absorbed a few lyrics from the last song. Time for an instrumental break! At one point I had three instrumentals on here. Uncommon if appropriate in that I pay no attention to lyrics. I hope you're listening in hell, Keith Moon, because a song that features the drums as a lead instrument doesn't have to be all batshit cymbals.

8. The Reverend Gary Davis – I Won't Be Back No More (Live)
From the three-disc Newport Folk Festival: Best of the Blues 1959–1968 compilation. I bought it years ago at the Newbury Comics in Amherst (while slumming as a publishing rep, or perhaps after I'd quit) and listened to it maybe once. Then I ripped and sold it two or three years back and listened to it maybe once more, figuring I'd struggle to filter out much of disc two's "country blues" before dumping the rest onto Sonik Truth II. And yet with fresh ears the entire set sounds great. Don't be deceived by the subtitle: this basically cuts off at 1965, with three exceptions (Bukka White in 1966 and two Muddy Waters numbers in 1968) across fifty-one songs.

9. Pretty Things – Old Man Going
The title track Whoops! Seriously, you'd think that a daughter who's latched onto the phrase "I see yooou!" and smiles her cancer-curing smile every time she says it would render you powerless to exclude a song of the same name. Instead you move a little further along the SF Sorrow narrative and choose one about loneliness, regret and death. I don't know what to tell you, it's a more complete chapter that doesn't abruptly cut off at the end. So I'll tell you that.

10. Gary Clark Jr. – Numb
This was a year of mind-blowing late-night television appearances. Gary and his band were on The Late Show With David Letterman a few months ago and boy, what a performance. You can tell when Dave is really impressed, it's not the usual "Great guys, thanks for coming on, good job… Craig Ferguson is next!" Instead it's "Alright! [Band name], ladies and gentlemen! How about that, Paul? That was great! Thanks for coming on, that was something else! Thank you! [Band name]! Goodnight, everyone!" That was me. I was all "Wow, Gary Clark Jr.! Who the fuck is this guy? Something else! That's what it's all about! I'm going to bed!"

11. Giles, Giles & Fripp – I Talk to the Wind
From The Brondesbury Tapes, recorded in 1968 before Fripp and one of the Gileses went on to form King Crimson and record an inferior "official" version of "I Talk to the Wind" for In the Court of the Crimson King. "21st Century Schizoid Man" is so fucking good, though, that it compensates for any underachievement, anywhere, by anybody (except Billy Joel).

12. Black Flag – I'm the One
"I'm the one, the one you love! C'mon baby, show your love! Waaahhh, give it to me." This is from 1985's penultimate album Loose Nut. Wonderful word, penultimate. Penultimate. I love the recurring Kids in the Hall sketch "The Pit of Ultimate Darkness," particularly when it's discovered that a slightly darker pit exists elsewhere and Simon and Hecubus are forced to change the name to "The Pit of Penultimate Darkness." Evil!

13. Ofo the Black Company – Allah Wakbarr
A Starbucks patron appears. "Ooh! World music!" [Punch.] Look, Starbucks patron, just because something comes from Africa doesn't mean it's world music. This is a stone funk groove by a group of Nigerians that happens to feature the funny little organ so many African rock/funk bands of the seventies used. Was there an African Costco that sold these things in bulk? Anyway: world music. Is Björk world music? Autograph? Do Spanish customers shop for Black Flag records in the world music section? Enough.

14. Pearls Before Swine – Uncle John
I think this is my token anti-war song? "You want us to crucify the enemy for Jesus." Works for me! It reminds of Michael Yonkers, heavy stuff you feel like the band had to put to tape immediately—the entire One Nation Underground album, after all, was recorded in three days. Passionate low fidelity usually turns out nicely.

15. Spoon – The Fitted Shirt
Oh hi! G. is checking in so watch what you say. She usually helps me choose my outfit every day (mom's too) and she pushed hard for the solid baby blue on this morning. "Boo-mahn" ("Blue one"). How could I resist? We've given her flexibility in choosing her own socks lately but, more or less, we dress her in what we want (especially since it's no longer sock weather, certainly not today). So we shift a little power her way from time to time.

16. Them – Gloria
In a battle of embarrassing transitions—frontmen of fantastic rock bands of the sixties to life-draining solo flotsam after that—who wins between Van Morrison/Them and Rod Stewart/the Jeff Beck Group? The answer: not us. And probably not Van either. Did you see those little elfin kicks in The Last Waltz? Every man who was in that theater, who went to the cinema, who just caught it on VH1 Classic is less of a man now. I am less of a man now. And it was all because of the kicking!

17. The Pentangle – Helping Hand
"Gloria" is a hard song to transition out of so I let the grown-ups take care of it. Bert Jansch and Pentangle knock me about with that rich "plugged-in acoustic" sound that few others can really match. Richie Havens, Nick Drake and Elliott Smith come to mind. I like the groove "Helping Hand" picks up a minute in—their harmonies and playing are so well balanced. Excellent music.

18. Yo La Tengo – Ohm
Part two in a series of, well, two live television highlights. Late Night With Jimmy Fallon had Ira, Georgia, James and two additional drummers (one of whom was Fred Armisen) (?) on earlier this year, right before Fade was released, and "Ohm" set my hair on fire. Yo La Tengo is a band that needs to be seen—the albums are great, one of them is even extraordinary, but they need to be seen. Ira needs to be seen. Ira's guitar solos need to be seen. The studio version is good, good enough to feature here, but the Late Night performance is the keeper.

19. Jack White – Fly Farm Blues
Sometime in the Fall I saw the movie It Might Get Loud, featuring interviews with and interactions between Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White. They spoke not only about music and the role guitars play in their music but also the technology of guitars. It was pretty interesting and I thought Page and White were the ideal subjects to represent classic rock and contemporary rock, respectively. But the Edge as the middle ground? The guy who, on camera, makes it sound like he doesn't even need to be there for his "guitar" to play a song? Wikipedia isolates a quote to say "his use of echo and delay effects [allows him] to 'fill in notes that aren't there.'" My memory of the scene is him strumming his guitar once and we hear playback that sounds as if he strummed it a few times. And he brags about it! And his name is "The Edge"! White, meanwhile, constructs a guitar out of found debris in the film's opening sequence and makes for an excellent contrast I'm not sure the Edge would appreciate. (White later performs a solo "Fly Farm Blues," supposedly written on the spot.) I'd have preferred to see Page and White partner with someone like Greg Ginn instead—Black Flag is one of the more high-profile and admired bands of the punk/post-punk/grunge era and no other guitarist sounded like Ginn anywhere from Nervous Breakdown to I Can See You and beyond. I suspect Ginn would speak eloquently about his place in rock history even if he is despised by a gaggle of ex-bandmates.

20. Ice-T – Squeeze the Trigger
"Has it ever occurred to you that the president might be the one who wants you dead?" Every single day. On politics: since John "Where the Hell Was This Guy in 2004?" Kerry became secretary of state, Massachusetts needs to hold a special election in a few weeks to elect his full-time replacement. Hopefully we get it right after electing (not with my help) Elizabeth "After All That, Where the Hell Is This Woman?" Warren last year—I'm pulling for democrat Ed "Fuck Guns" Markey over republican Gabriel "Squeeze the Trigger" Gomez.

21. Grin – Moon Tears
What are "moon tears"? Perhaps they're what you cry when "it's harder to fart," as I'm convinced Nils sings at 1:48. "Moon tears." I like how most of the song is straight out of 1972, as it actually is, but the chorus adopts this strange overproduced eighties sound—I was waiting for solo-era Robert Plant to step to the mic. "Cryin' moon tears." I almost named Volume 5 after this, my whole life after this. "Moon tears, yeahhh!"

22. Major Lance – The Monkey Time
Or, as G. would call it, "Mun-hee Time." Major Lance keeps the monkey theme alive following last year's "Mickey's Monkey." This trend will continue until G. is old enough to read this and scream "Daaad, stop telling everyone how much I like mun-hees!" And she will never be old enough to read this. It's a little boo-mahn.

23. Elois – By My Side
It comes right out the gates "Pow!" and brings it down after only thirty seconds. Could have ended right there, what more was to be done? Ohhh, you're going to do the thing where you say the first word of the line, then repeat it and add the second and third words, then repeat those and finish it out. "You. You keep me. You keep me, girl, satisfied. Satisfied! Satisfied!" Ignite, crash, stop.

24. godheadSilo – Elephantitus of the Night
Elephantitis (el·ə·fən·ti·təs): An infectious tropical disease that is a form of filaiasis caused by parasitic worms which are transmitted by mosquitoes and which causes swelling in the genitals or thighs. Elephantitus (el·ə·fən·ti·təs): An unfortunate typo which causes swelling in the ears and occasional air-drumming.

25. Animals – Sky Pilot
Begin side two! Bonus protest… or is it? Mixed messages. This was once in regular rotation on the deceased Technicolor Web of Sound. One day at work while listening to the bridge too loudly without headphones, my cubicle neighbor asked the group of us "Does anyone else hear bagpipes?" "Um, yeah, that's me. I'm listening to the Animals." "Ohhh." This is actually credited to Eric Burdon & the Animals but I don't go for that shit, either keep the proper name or change it altogether. And definitely don't then change your name to Eric Burdon & the New Animals.

26. Royal Trux – Follow the Winner
Now this is a him/her vocal I can go for, unlike all these modern-day acts that do the cute back-and-forth duet thing. Royal Trux did it the right way with layering, just Neil's and Jennifer's voices competing for attention within the noise. Actually, no, they're not competing for anything—they're adding to the noise, so much so that even if they happen to sing the same lines it all becomes conflated. "Folflolwolowththewnininerner."

27. Milt Matthews Inc. – Can't See Myself Doing You Wrong
Milt & Co. might want to steer clear of Cream in a half hour or so. It's the ones you never see coming that hurt the most. Maybe one of your backup singers can comfort you, mend your heart. They sound pretty foxy. Or you could listen to the first three seconds of your own song and wonder how it's never been sampled.

28. Shannon Wright – Black Little Stray
The sophisticated (or at least dynamic) Six Finger Satellite/Oneida/Eddy Current Suppression Ring slot is occupied by Shannon Wright, about whom I know nothing. This was a free song somewhere (from 2004) and I thought for sure it would be edged out by Thin Lizzy or somebody, but then it just kept on keeping on. Sit still and enjoy this for six minutes.

29. Nina Simone – Either Way I Lose
I'm picking up a real Richard Berry vibe from the "bum-bum-bum-bum" guy. I know he did a lot of session work and this is a dead ringer for the narrator in "Riot in Cell Block #9" so it could actually be Mr. "Louie, Louie" himself. Either way we win because Nina could sing me a letter announcing a private Billy Joel concert in my honor and I'd cry "Shit, but that's some bad news… could I hear it again?"

30. New Bomb Turks – Sucker Punch
Spiritual descendants of the Elois? Exciting stuff this year. I saw New Bomb Turks at the Middle East and they looked like extras for some Revenge of the Nerds sequel, only they were fraternity extras and not nerd extras. All four of them! You had the preppie pretty boy, the jock, the rapist and the convicted rapist. I already knew and liked the band and it's a good thing because they wouldn't have stood a chance with me otherwise.

31. 13th Floor Elevators – I've Got Levitation
"This album has influenced me so much. Easter… uh, Everyday. Everywhere. I love it. I wouldn't be the musician I am today if it weren't for the… what's it called? The first song… the second song… um, the last song?… the first song on side two, because I only listen to it on vinyl, you know. OK, here comes my train. It's the Q. Brooklyn, baby."

32. Billy Childish/Holly Golightly – Demolition Girl
Demolition girl, that's my girl. We call it a G-bomb when we leave the room for a minute and return to find books, clothes and stuffed animals covering every surface. Her mom and I, though, do take pride in the fact that her favorite "toys" are undoubtedly books. We've done our best to pick out ones that are fun and positive and actually have meaning. Unfortunately for me (because I'm the only one in the family who doesn't like them), we're overrun with Sandra Boynton. With one or two exceptions I can't stomach hers in the least—if it takes longer than five minutes to write this crap then she must keep a lot of ether under the sink. So move over, David Baldacci's The Winner. Pajama Time! is now the worst book of all time.

33. Groundhogs – You Had a Lesson
The lesson continues as Tony McPhee and friends appear on three of my last four playlists, and probably only missed 2011 for fear (mine) of having too many repeats from the previous year. (I consider 2010's Volume 2 to be my first great playlist. Volume 1, with few exceptions—Black Angels, Elephants Memory, Yo La Tengo, Split and Mudhoney—feels a little forced. It was written by a boy who wanted to impress the no-one who read his blog. Even my "album covers" have improved.) 1972's Hogwash was to be the inevitable source this year since I had trouble deciding between several of its tracks—the mellotron here probably sealed it.

34. Shellac – Wingwalker
"Now I got an airframe, big perverted airfraaame!" Years ago I read an interview with the Jesus Lizard after they had parted ways with Steve Albini as their producer/engineer. The split must have been ugly because they ripped into Shellac as a band, essentially saying it was a carbon copy of his earlier Rapeman but with inferior drumming. First of all, let's have a little disclosure: the Jesus Lizard's David Yow and David William Sims played in Scratch Acid with Rapeman drummer Rey Washam. And Sims was in Rapeman! From what I can tell, as an uneducated fan of quality drumming (Mitch Mitchell, John French, Jaki Liebezeit, etc.), Washam couldn't pound his way out of Shellac drummer Todd Trainer's hamper. It's Keith Moon vs. Ringo Starr or Neil Peart vs. Phil Rudd: I don't care that you're using all these effects and/or measuring difficult time signatures and that your kit could fill my living room—if you're overplaying then it's going to sound like you're overplaying. Shellac is one thousand times the band that Rapeman would ever be.

35. Sonic Youth – Titanium Exposé
Everyone goes berserk over Daydream Nation. It's all "Daydream Nation!" "Oh yeah? Well, Daydream Nation to you!" "'Teen Age Riot!'" "'Eric's Trip!'" "'Trilogy!'" "Erm, 'Providence!'" "Daydream Fucking Nation!" But how about Goo, the major-label follow-up? I think it's just as good, it even has a throwaway track in "Scooter and Jinx." "Titanium Exposé" feels like an instrumental and would work pretty well as one, but Kim lays one of her cool what-does-this-even-mean choruses on us and, yes, the vocals succeed. Years later, Kim barks out her lines while suffering through fits of constipation during every single recording session.

36. Cream – We're Going Wrong
Last week on Classic Vinyl: "If you've got the coffee, we've got the cream… here's another long one… 'Angry Eyes' by Loggins & Messina." Talk about angry eyes, I was shooting fucking laser beams into that radio! Here I was thinking "'Toad!' They're gonna play 'Toad!'" And they hit me Loggins & Messina? I see your nonsense and raise you the Cream that I pour in my goddamn coffee. I love the riff that comes in at the end of "We're Going Wrong," really brings it home for me (it dominates the demo found on the Those Were the Days boxed set). At three and a half minutes it may not be the long one we were… well, longing for… last week. But it's Cream. You know it got fleshed out at the Fillmore.

37. Betty Davis – He Was a Big Freak
His woman… his mistress… his princess… his housecat… his geisha… his flower… his mother… his lover… his daydream… You think turquoise chains grow on trees? Trees that absorb carbon dioxide and produce pain, ecstasy and other Ohio Players album titles? Who prunes that tree? Who hauls the ladder? Who has the patience for turquoise chain blossoms to become ripe? I hope she had some kind of landscaping stipend.

38. Floh de Cologne – Wir Brauchen Keine Millionäre (Live)
This translates loosely as "We Need No Millionaires." Is it me or do even Germans sound like they don't speak German very well? Look at me, though, including two live songs after declaring them unfit for mixes a mere month before calling bullshit on that with Pussy Galore on Volume 3. Ich spreche nicht mit Überzeugung.

39. Bang – Future Shock
Wikipedia tells me Bang are considered "forerunners to the doom metal genre." So I like doom metal now? Someone clearly nudges the singer with twenty seconds left and says "Dude, we need a title!" The singer, he takes a huge hit off a Velveeta bong and mutters "Future shock" before moaning the smoke away.

40. Sunforest – Magician in the Mountain
Methinks Sunforest gone a-pentanglin'. Each year I seem to feature a song about magicians, mountains or magicians in mountains. Say hi to Eric Burdon & War for me, or Eric Burdon & the War to End All Wars or whatever they're calling themselves these days. Speaking of war and mysticism, the opening sentence of my eventual Great American Novel (I mean, let's get serious here, right?) will be "The sky was a pale blue and promised a war." It's a line from Sebastian Junger's collection Fire that I misread and corrupted, one that actually read "The sky was a pale blue and promised a warm, clear day." I don't know, mine's kind of better!

41. Guilty Simpson – My Time to Shine
By pure coincidence I had "My Time to Shine" and Damon's "Don't You Feel Me" on the short list, which is actually like eighty songs. Listening through the lot of them I got to "Shine" and thought "Didn't I already hear this?" Nope, no Guilty Simpson duplicates in there. Huh, time for coffee. In the kitchen, the Bomb Squad were brewing herbal tea. I patiently waited my turn and then one of them turned to the other and asked "Remember when sampling was an art?" Prince Paul, who was gazing out the window while his lunch was heating up in the microwave, glanced my way and said "I heard that."

42. Soledad Brothers – The Weight of the World
Let's welcome back Jack White, who engineered Soledad Brothers in 2000. (The Edge would have done so by working remotely and pressing a single button one time.) "The Weight of the World" might have made for a good closer to this set but what are you going to do, first-world problems and all. "This is where the heaviness sets in!" Um, did you guys miss godheadSilo?

43. Richie Havens – Run, Shaker Life
We lost a good one this year (this actual calendar year) in Richie Havens. I'm mesmerized every time I watch his opening sequence in the Woodstock film, a performance that might not have been half as good if either (a) Sweetwater hadn't been stuck in traffic or (b) Tim Hardin hadn't been a degenerate drunk. His resulting "Freedom/Motherless Child" is the obvious choice here, the one everyone wants to hear, you want to hear, I want to hear. There's more to him than that, though, and to prove it I offer an eastern-tinged "Run, Shaker Life." As a bonus, our friends Royal Trux from an hour earlier covered it on their sparkling 3-Song EP.

44. Rotary Connection – Life Could
Don't you love when defunct internet radio stations tease you for years with something in heavy rotation, something with a wonderfully fuzzy guitar track, but it's nowhere to be found… and then it finally gets a proper reissue and you can't click those mouse buttons quickly enough to download it? I love that shit: Aladdin, available as of last Summer. (The Bob Seger System's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man," which was a near miss this year, falls in the same category. Like a rock!)

45. Black Angels – Telephone
An appendix to Gary Clark Jr. and Yo La Tengo, in that it was an amazing Letterman performance from 2010. On that night, the Black Angels put aside their I'm-in-a-band tendencies and belted out this retro gem. Paul and the CBS Orchestra (see, Mr. Burdon, they walked away entirely from the superior if subsequently inaccurate "World's Most Dangerous Band") were so in love with it they hammered out the chorus into the commercial break. There was a genuine enthusiasm to the whole affair that you don't see much on television anymore. It relates today because of G. and her infatuation with telephones—she claims her mom's phone as "mine," she claims my phone as "mine." She makes calls to her caregiver using remote controls and macaroni. This one time she "took a call" and said "Hello? What?" and I laughed so hard I almost pooped.

46. Bobby Womack & Peace – Across 110th Street
More Pimps, Players & Private Eyes action! Pushers? Junkies? Across 110th Street is a hell of a testah. I haven't spent a lot of time in New York but from what I've seen it's ugly all over. Bobby, check out Kansas City, I had a great weekend there once. This one jukebox was nothing but Kinks! That might be an exaggeration, I was really lit up the whole night.

47. Cupid Car Club – MP Skulkers
This sounds as though it was recorded in my basement. By me. Certainly not by the Edge. It's a Kill Rock Stars compilation highlight, and strung alongside the four songs on the Werewolves! single we end up with an undeniably strong rope bridge between the Nation on Ulysses and the Make-Up, a rope bridge so sturdy and well crafted that no machete in the world can cleave it, saving you, me and my low-quality recording equipment from plunging to an ugly Thuggee death.

48. Juicy Bananas – Bad Man
You like music? Think your girlfriend loves you? Bring us home, Sy Richardson. Let's give it up for the Repo Man soundtrack, home of Iggy Pop, the Circle Jerks and a third version of Black Flag's "TV Party." It was a hard CD to sell and I can't hear anything from it without thinking of Emilio Estevez puking off a bridge. Several things likely trigger that image in others.

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In closing: another fifteen songs from the sixties ('67 and '68 leading the way with five apiece); twelve from the seventies (five from '71); three from the eighties (can't catch a break!); seven from the nineties; six from the aughts; and five from the teens. Floh de Cologne predictably comes away with the longest song while the Black Angels leave their girlfriends unsatisfied. I thank you, Mudhoney thanks you and G's future favorite band thanks you. God bless you, daughter, for maybe those last two will one day be the same.

More furious madness: Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4

Beer and football IV — the draft

The beer: Battle Road 1775 Tavern Ale
The commentary: Michelle, who early on seemed overly confident for no good reason (certainly not from a talent perspective) only to turn things around when it counted, won season XI of Project Runway. She deserved it, I suppose, after Stanley went all "What do you mean it's tomorrow? Tomorrow??" on us and Patricia euthanized Nina's parents.

What does all this have to do with football? Or fucking beer? Well, goddammit, we had a "town hall" meeting at the office last night which included a race-to-the-bottom-of-as-many-(three)-free-Sam-Adamses-as-possible cocktail hour capped off by two more at the Littlest Bar, which in its current state (still Massachusetts, har! har!) (actually it's a commonwealth, har?) is no longer the littlest bar. And then I had to go to Salem to get my hair cut, after which we were finally able to start watching Project Runway while the DVR plugged away at preserving round one of the NFL draft. Surely, while drinking the Tavern Ale (fitting, I thought, given the events of Patriot's Day the week before), I would remain conscious and coherent enough to chronicle three hours of television. I was going to quasi-live blog that bastard, as I hope to do with The Ten Commandments someday. Oh, Moses!

Realism comes and goes, and I did not remain awake. Instead I dreamed that the Patriots traded up to the third spot to draft a gentleman by the name of Cam Four out of Auburn. Position? Right wing. During this "ceremony," which took place outside Boston's South Station, all of the athletes were playing pick-up games around Dewey Square, and when a guy was drafted he would jog off to a round of applause from the remaining players. It was really something else. The actual event could not possibly have been as interesting, unless Brady was traded for twenty years of Bears first-rounders… but I wouldn't know because I managed to make it through today without hearing any results. So what? So let's dance!

8:00
It's ESPN again. The world's smallest violin… I decided against recording any pre-draft nonsense. Steve Burton's crazy eyes—no doubt inflated to Looney Tunes-size by the very idea that someone would pay to eat dinner at a place called the CBS Scene—during the weekend's draft-centric episode of Patriots All Access was plenty.

8:00
Fitty? Fast-forward.

8:03
Van Hagar's "Right Now" is playing at Radio City Music Hall. Won't you gentlemen have a Pepsi?

8:04
This is the one day of the year I love Jets fans.

8:05
I still have problems with "USA! USA!" Particularly when pasty Chiefs fans realize they're on camera during the Boston Marathon tribute and scramble to the first three letters that come to mind.

8:06
Joe Namath: the cure for the common live televised event. I love Phil Simms's "Is that it?" No wonder he can't keep up with game action. At least give me a "Christ, Rog, what did you expect?" Stop ruining my Sundays, Phil.

8:07
Berman: "It's Broadway Joe, right here on Broadway!!1!1"

8:08
Gruden just admitted "I don't know." Perfect synopsis of three months of national draft speculation.

8:12
How have the Chefs not made their pick yet? Let's go, losers.

8:14
Mortensen is talking about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Already?

8:16
I love how they're continuously running the scroll of teams across the bottom of the screen even though none of them have picked yet. Yup, thirty-two football teams. Count 'em!

8:17
"What??" Stone Cold is back! I love this crowd. I might shut down after the Jets' turn.

8:18
Kiper: "OK, not great." That's what you're looking for with the first pick.

8:27
The Raiders are on the clock. Berman to Gruden: "You remember them, don't you?" This guy! Gruden's reaction will top that of any player tonight. Amazing television.

8:35
The dolphin in Miami's new logo isn't wearing a helmet. Fuck player safety! Anyway, they've traded up to grab an athletic edge rusher who looks sharp in a bow tie. Hey, the goal's gotta be to get after Brady, right? Hard to dislike the pick if this guy can play.

8:46
Oh good, Berman is making Lego metaphors.

8:50
There's no way in hell Ezekiel Ansah went to BYU. Those glasses? Utah? I'm calling bullshit.

8:55
Fans shaking their heads in disgust after their team makes a pick… I love television as a medium. USA! USA!

8:58
I guess I should talk about the hometown team. Usually, trading down and making "value picks" drives me a little crazy. This year, though, even as I admit to knowing nothing about college football, it seems the draft class is light on elite talent but deep overall. The local consensus is that a there's no way the Pats pick at twenty-nine and will either load up on mid-rounders or take on an extra first next year. Whatever happens, here's a non-specific wish list for the weekend: cornerback, wide receiver, defensive end, defensive tackle, inside/middle linebacker. Top it off with some O-line depth and I'm all set.

9:09
It's funny, I could stick a pin within 100 miles of St. Louis on a US map. But for some reason, whenever I think of the Rams, I put "St. Louis" a lot farther west and a little to the south. And Cleveland? I've been there! But mentally I always put the Browns in a "Cleveland" closer to Des Moines. Is this a known condition? Am I drinking too much boxed wine?

9:13
Jets coming up. Kiper calls them "a glorified expansion team." I still can't believe they traded Revis. It seems to me like there was a rumor—a genuine, media-created rumor—immediately after the Super Bowl that Revis was on the trade block. I think the owner, out of understandable (though self-inflicted) frustration, said something harmless along the lines of "My teams sucks and no one is irreplaceable." Some hack ran with it, translated "Revis is replaceable!" and it was all over. Many people wonder why Belichick, Kraft, Brady and everyone else around here are so tight-lipped, but I don't.

9:19
Suzy Kolber just wrapped up an orange-faced interview with new Jet Dee Milliner about six seconds before the ESPN crew was ready to cut over to Mortensen. I'd like to see more of Milliner's bewildered expression over the coarse of several division games in the next few years, at least until the Jets go 4–12 and Milliner irreplaces himself out of town.

9:24
Berman has a couple dozen sheets of colored paper just strewn about the desk in front of him. I might not have noticed, except that every time the producer is clearly shouting into his ear "You're the host, for crying out loud, pretend you know something about football!" he's looking this way and that, trying to find the one bullet point that will make viewers believe in him. It's a mystery why my roommates and I so enjoyed watching him and Tom "They Hate Their Coach" Jackson in college while experimenting with mushrooms, pink lemonade and Just One of the Guys.

9:25
When Gruden gets going he takes on the look of a madman who farts in elevators. Loudly.

9:31
Berman, on Philip Rivers: "He needs blocking! [Looks at sheet of paper.] He needs… help!!1 [Silence.] [Gibberish.] What do you think? He needs help."

9:32
Kiper, whom I've grown to like, just called new Charger D.J. Fluker "a strong kid, functionally." Unlike all those strong people who waste their abilities wrestling trees and pummeling oceans.

9:38
The Raiders just drafted a guy who suffered an injury that Kolber, looking about fifteen years older than she did during last year's draft, described as "a severed vein to the back of his heart." Seriously though, does Kolber have the HIV or something?

9:44
I'm seeing Mudhoney in two weeks. Here's a little sampler with the Jets on the clock again. Whammy!

1. Good Enough
2. 1995
3. Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More
4. Dead Love
5. Baby, Can You Dig the Light
6. The Open Mind
7. No End in Sight
8. Beneath the Valley of the Underdog
9. Hard-on for War
10. Mudride

Track eleven, coming soon to a three-hour playlist near you!

9:47
The Jets just drafted a defensive tackle I've never heard of and the camera cut to some ten-year-old kid who shrugged his shoulders and said "Who?" Money well spent, weekend dad.

10:04
"With the sixteenth pick in the 2013 draft, the Buffalo Bills select… fourth place! Behind even the Jets somehow!" Rex Ryan is pissed and probably throws in the towel after losing his only superstar. Meanwhile, we're barely halfway through this thing?

10:13
The Steelers just drafted a guy with some kind of stenosis. I had pyloric stenosis when I was a few weeks old and couldn't keep anything down. Before the surgery, someone advised my parents to have me baptized in case… you know… so I wouldn't go into limbo. Limbo! Anyway, the scar on my stomach has grown along with me and is now three inches long. Imagine if football players were only three inches long? Not so tough now!

10:26
Look again at Anne Baxter as Nefretiri. Stunning. I hope I actually follow through and live-blog that movie someday. "A golden calf!" Not before Beefheart, though. Annual playlist is in the works, then I've got nothing but Beefheart on the brain until beer and football starts up again (possibly with an early training camp installment this season, if G. is willing to accompany me—I got her a cute Patriots jumper that I'm super-excited about so I guess it won't really be up to her) but Beefheart is the Summer project, the what-did-you-do-during-hobo-chang-ba essay.

10:32
You know your name is Geno Smith when ESPN is showing clips of Aaron Rodgers and Brady Quinn not getting drafted. Christ, remind me not to attend this thing when I'm eligible.

10:45
I just fast-forwarded through the military appreciation stuff. I'm sure many soldiers and marines are good people but come on, they volunteered for this. What they're doing and what they represent might be great, I don't know, but I question the motivations of joining the military and what it does to extend the life of an out-of-control war machine. Don't get me started on cops.

10:51
The Colts just drafted Jann Wenner. He hasn't been relevant since giving Cream a complex back in '68, the motherfucker! Explosive off the edge though.

11:02
Poor bastard Datone Jones has already earned an eye-rolling Berman nickname: "Dial-Tone Jones." Somewhere, Tom Jackson is having a good laugh. Somewhere, Tom Jackson's wife is having an extra-marital affair.

11:04
The Buffalo Wild Wings at the Liberty Tree Mall looks intriguing. Lots of TVs, funky atmosphere, etc. But that last fucking commercial ensures I will never, ever step inside the place.

11:09
Oh yeah, the Patriots are picking! The whole reason I'm watching! You get so desensitized with your team among the final batch every year, it's almost an afterthought. Even though I presented a positional wish list a couple of hours ago I don't know enough about any particular players. I just never had the time to skim the local informed (as in Mike Reiss and Patriots Football Weekly) prospect talk and I'm way behind on PFW in Progress podcasts. Totally in the dark here and probably won't have an up or down reaction no matter who they take.

11:10
Hold the phone! Schefter just said something about the Vikings wanting to trade up, possibly with the Pats. Rarely wrong…

11:12
Enough with the Fitty.

11:17
Good guys on the clock!

11:18
They're still running the alert banner during commercials and, even skipping through, I can't help but notice "PATRIOTS trade pick to VIKINGS" in giant text. GIANT TEXT. I hope they got more than the Subway Low-Fat Smokehouse BBQ Chicken sub that's currently occupying the remaining two-thirds of my television screen. That shit looks nasty.

11:19
"You're in the market for a new set of tires but not sure where to go. Do what most people do: grow giant breasts, wear a tight white shirt and go to Town Fair Tire. You'll get the best price on the largest selection of tires in New England. Boing!"

11:20
Yup, the deal's done. It was inevitable. We got their second-, third-, fourth- and seventh-round picks. I've recently come to the conclusion that anything after the third round is basically worthless. No more dreaming of some diamond in the rough or flipping out over trading up (within the fifth round) for a special teams ace. I like the two and the three, but since we probably won't get lucky twice (after Brady) the others are merely camp bodies.

11:23
Berman just expressed some heartfelt thanks to all the first responders and law enforcement during last week's bombings. So heartfelt, in fact, he didn't even have to dig for the sheet of paper to read from. It was right there on top.

11:24
A montage of American flags is capped off by a photo of former Patriot Joe Andruzzi carrying an injured woman to the medical tent, which fades back to live television in time for someone, sounding a lot like Jon Gruden, to mutter "I don't know that woman." And here's Joe on stage now. Maybe it was his voice? "That woman." Weird, right?

11:25
Nice words from Joe. Generic but well spoken. He should have said "You can fuck with us all you want but we're still going to watch the NFL Draft every year, we're still going to go to work, drink too much from time to time, buy our daughters balloons just because. We'll continue to go out of our way to avoid service fees for concert tickets and we'll keep complaining about the battery life on our expensive, disposable phones. We'll lose our shit when Blue Cheer gets played on Sirius, drink beer that commemorates the opening battle of the American Revolution and turn the heat up from the couch. We're going to let our wives sleep with their heads on our shoulders while we ogle Anne Baxter. Again. You will never win."

11:36
Geno Smith just left in a huff. Three teams left to pick: St. Louis, Dallas and Baltimore. One of those teams is not in desperate need for a quarterback (Baltimore), another seems to be alright in that department but is still lousy (St. Louis) and another absolutely, positively will have no success with superfraud Tony Romo in the driver's seat. I don't know, Geno, maybe stick around a few minutes.

11:38
This must be new Ram Alec Ogletree's living room. I'm guessing the lone white guy is his agent. "Where'd you get this jacket??"

11:42
Think the Cowboys and Niners would have traded picks twenty years ago? Oh wait.

11:44
Goodell didn't announce the Ravens as "the Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens." What's that about? No one seems to care, there are like a dozen seat-fillers left.

11:46
Berman is hawking a copy of Mel Kiper's 2013 Draft Report. With a two-color cover it has to be good! Trey Wingo is next, and that's my cue to ex—

11:47
Wingo just kicked it straight back to Berman, who bellowed "No! We just did it!" and then made a "Hotel California" joke. That, friends, is my cue to exit. Goodnight.