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I've got a new post on one of my favoritest songs evar over at Moka's. CHECK IT OUT!

-Naut On My Watch!

So, there's this weird, short, little history of some songs that end with the word -naut. I definitely think the songs are related, and see it sort of like a Grandfather, Father, Son kind of deal....Black Sabbath, Sleep, and Black Mountain respectively. There's not a lot to say except there is a legacy of riffage traveling through these songs that is mystical, fiercely important and needs to be documented. If I had to pick a favorite...well, I don't think I could. Although, Black Mountain's probably has the best name and backing vocals.

Black Sabbath - Supernaut
Sleep - Dragonaut
Black Mountain - Druganaut

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As a bonus, I've assembled three other -naut songs for you.

At the Drive In - Cosmonaut
First, because, Cosmonauts were first in space, completely smoking the United States and John Glenn by almost a full month in 1961. Listening to At the Drive In these days just reminds me of how Mars Volta will probably never approach the same level of intensity and power that their previous band had as long as they are hiding behind tons of noise, completely ridonkulous lyrics, and 18 minute Santana-esque freak outs. Sure, I like Rush and Omar is an incredible guitarist, but on the whole Mars Volta wins my "trim the fat" lifetime achievement award. I'm not giving up hope on them yet, but I can still go back and listen to ATDI and hope for brighter days.

Smog - Astronaut
Second, in space...We'll just pretend that Bill Callahan was writing a sweet little prayer for John Glenn.

The Fucking Champs - Policenauts
Who and what are Policenauts? I would assume that this is Tim Green and Co.'s attempt to write a theme song for a failed cartoon pilot about police in space. I'm thinking voices of Danny Glover, Cloris Leachman, Jordan Catalano, Kim Fields, and let's throw in Mischa Barton and Elijah Wood for the hell of it. I'm thinking a light hearted drama soap somewhere between NYPD Blue and 90210. Tagline: "In space the sun never sets on crime. Or love."

Sunday #1

In a poor attempt to outdo Adam Wills' infamous Saturdays, I will be writing about my last Sundays before I move away from God's own personal wonderland, Miami. In the past, our Sundays consisted mainly of waking up and eating pancakes together, taking the dog for a walk, catching up on email, watching football, maybe pizza for dinner...nothing fancy. As we've only got a little time left in our sentence down here, we decided we should try to make something of the time we've got. As a bonus, frequent Sunday "open houses" pretty much determine that we have to be out and about. So here comes Installment #1...
Weekend before last, Sara and I decided to drive across the peninsula to visit her mom in Naples, Florida. She had just the week before moved down there and started a new job. We had been informed a couple days earlier to take Tamiami Trail / 8th Street all the way across the Everglades. Tamiami is a good bit further south, is a smaller road, and in general is more remote and animal-filled. There's about 60 or more miles with no gas stations. This is where you go if you want to go on an airboat ride through the 'glades. You pass the Miccosukee Reservation/Resort and head through Coopertown straight into the middle of fucking nowhere. Here's some Miccosukee highlights:

(Population 0008!)






About 45 minutes in, out of the blue, I saw a big ass alligator near the sporadic waterways that run parallel along the north side of the road. Then 10 seconds later, "Another one! Another! Another!" Those fucking things are EVERYWHERE. I probably saw no less than 200. The entire way there are old ones, young ones, little ones, big ones...fucking retardo huge ones...all of that shit. We pulled over and saw regurgitated/recycled/excreted animal fur flesh...Good luck figuring out what this is:


Then we saw about 15 feet away from us in the water a big one, just hanging out...keep in mind, these dudes can run 30 mph on land...(I have heard that if you run in a zig-zag pattern, you are safe):


Up the road a piece we finally got to a rest area that had a "gator viewing pit." There were twenty or so lazy-looking gators of varying sizes mugging it up for the amazing white people who stared in awe. Overheard: "That's at least a 15-footer." Sara made the comment that there is always that guy who feels the need to quantify things for everyone in his party. (Example: "Man, look at that pizza! There's gotta be 200 pepperonis on there!") Perhaps it's just a math fixation that was never properly attended to in school.....


Moving on...here's a sign we liked:


Then: BAM we're in Naples....We met Sara's mom at her new crib/workplace, and she's got a really great thing going on there. Super nice neighborhood. Killer living space. We're hoping everything works out for her. We then went and had some delicious seafood platters at a Crab Shack followed by a drive around Naples, a walk on the beach and then started to head home.


This is where the magic happens...halfway home on Tamiami Trail, the same area that was completely lined with alligators earlier (and did I mention the PANTHER CROSSING signs all over the place..yeah....seriously), all traffic stops. There is NO light out here, we haven't been in "civilization" for a good 45 minutes at least. There really wasn't much traffic prior to this so for it to be backed up a few miles means that it's been stopped for a while...There are ZERO cars coming from the other direction for 20-30 minutes. Everyone gets out of the car in the dark and starts walking around. Where I'm from, this is how people die (serial killers, gators, panthers, aliens, etc. etc.). So we stay put in the car awaiting the ensuing bloodbath. After much discussion we decide we're going to turn around and try out this little bitty tiny road that's on the map that we think is behind us. (There are no road signs, so we are just guessing). About 3 miles behind us, we find the road, take a pee and point our car down it. There's no cell phone signal out here, but we try to call our friend Seb anyway, because we think he's been down it before. No luck. It's a dirt fucking road. Trees wrap over the top of it. It's Sleepy Hollow, Florida. So we have two choices, go back into the line of cars and wait to die, or drive to down the sketchy road and try to outrun the Aliens/Panthers/Gators/various swamp monsters/serial killers/etc. About this time a truck comes flying up behind us and we just barely get out of the way in time...he slams on his brakes, we pull up next to him and he says in some glorious broken English, "You going to Miami? The road is bumpy and long but you can make it." Then he peels out, barreling down the road. We tear out after him. Fuck it, right? Watch the video:


Right. It took about an hour. It was dark, dusty as fuck, and we were bouncing all over the road. It was a scene straight out of Adaptation. Who knows how many evil creatures surrounded us on all sides. It may have been the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life BUT it was fun as shit, and we still got back to Miami in good time. We have no idea what happened back on Tamiami Trail, but I would imagine all of those people are dead now. Too bad, they should've taken ol' Loop Road.

Here's some of the music we listened to on that fateful day:
Them Two - Am I A Good Man --- BUY
Dengue Fever - One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula --- BUY
Matinee Orchestra - Run for Cover (It's Going to Rain) --- BUY
Rhythm and Sound with Love Joy - Best Friend --- BUY

Coming soon: last weekend's Saturday/Sunday adventure in a big fancy, schmancy hotel.

so for real

Came across this Seth Dickerman fellow's photography last night...it's quite nice. Check it out...In lieu of finally posting what went on weekend before last, I'll drop two bits of adrenaline for your morning time:

Imitation Electric Piano - King's Evil
One of the better uses of harpsichord in the past million years...this was on a drag city sampler a few years back and it sat on repeat in my car for some time. The sneaky faux Asian (anyone remember Macha?) melody intro doesn't really let you in on how pummeled you are about to get by modern British motorik of the highest caliber. Go get it here.

The Pretty Things - Balloon Burning
I want to cover this song so bad...it will happen. It definitely has that chanting, long melody vocal line thing that makes me fall in love with This Heat and The Camberwell Now over and over again. And the repetition...ah, the repetition. When the chorus finally breaks you can't help but get completely crushed by the vocal harmonies. If anyone is aware of anyone making music this good in 2006 let me know. Cuz I'll sign em up. If I made a buddy action drama tv show with a high profile actor (Chris Elliot) and a lesser known up-and-comer (Bobby Brown) this would inevitably be the theme song. Buy the shit out of this incredible album here.

Weekend before last post coming up hopefully by end of day...an excerpt:
The alligator overpopulation is so thick in the Everglades that it would only take each alligator eating 16 humans to completely wipe out the entire population of Florida (not necessarily a bad idea in my opinion).