My friend and bandmate Andy and his wifelady have purchased a home. It is a nice home in a nice neighborhood where everyone has a dog. We’re talking the kind of dogs that don’t fit inside purses. They are beefy dogs that could take down a squirrel if they weren’t so busy getting their bellies scratched by me (Who’s a good buddy? You are! You are!) In my neighborhood, the dogs are all wee and you see people with these rats strapped to their chests in a Baby Bjorn. Or you see people pushing their dogs in a stroller. That whole thing disgusts me. Fills me with rage. I know I’ve harped on this before, but until this problem goes away, I’m going to keep talking about it. I’d apologize but I wouldn’t mean it.

Anyway, Casa BuMu has a basement. The real kind of basement that has no windows. This is what Andy calls the “man cave.” This is where Andy and I will do manly things like shred on guitars and keys and bass and then do some karate kicks in the air and maybe throw some ninja stars to really meet our full badass potentials. This is where I will turn the amps to FULL ROCK and wail and do guitar solo backbends until I throw my back out because, let’s face it, I’m getting old. Sometimes my ass gets sore from sitting. From sitting, dude. It’s exactly what your ass is built for, and it can’t even do that anymore.

So in order for us to shred, I needed a new amp. We go on Craigslist and find a MONSTER amp for a reasonable price. It is 150 watts of melt-your-face power. This amp is in Bay Ridge, which is deep, deep in Brooklyn. When I think Bay Ridge, I think of thick accents and aluminum siding and, for some reason, awnings. Turns out, all these things are true. The man who sells it to us has to be the greatest man alive. NO, I mean that. No one is greater. This is because he is wearing a Van Halen cap. The year is 2011 and he is still wearing a Van Halen cap. He is keeping it alive and he is keeping it real. Also, his apartment smelled like weed and air freshener, but I suppose that is obvious. I asked to try out the amp and he hooks it up his behemoth keyboard and starts playing some savage rock riffs. Think of the band Yes. And not like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” Yes. Think, like, “Roundabout” Yes. NOTE: In order to watch this, you will need

1. a cape
2. a sexy o-face
3. a high tolerance for ‘jamming’
4. another cape because you may or may not rock the first one off

OH MY GOD YOU’RE WELCOME.

My friend’s friend made him a mix of 100 songs. I’m not even kidding. 100. I know sometimes I say 100, but don’t really mean it. For example, my upstairs neighbor Sasha isn’t ACTUALLY 100 years old. But I am being serious about these 100 songs. There’s apparently another 100 too, but I don’t have access to that. Probably because it’d make my iTunes explode.

So the tunes are a SAVAGE grab bag of music. SAVAGE. I mean it has all the indie stuff and the rap stuff and the pop stuff. There’s some folk and “Americana.” But then it has some SAVAGENESS. Luckily they are all tagged by genre. Here are a few of the SEVERE ones:

BLACK METAL
NEO-PROG
STONER ROCK
AVANT ROCK
PROG METAL (which is different from NEO- PROG)
RAVE RAP

and
HARDCORE

also
GRIME

and inexplicably
SOLO

First of all: GRIME. It does not sound like what you think it is. But when you hear it you’re like oh this is GRIME? Interesting.

Second of all: HARDCORE. Which is very different from the other genres which are clearly not HARDCORE.

And SOLO: I have nothing much to say about that, other than it’s apparently a genre now.

There’s also the prerequisite Finnish death metal. But, as an added twist there’s Norwegian metal too. I know that when you think of Norway, you ALWAYS think of metal. You don’t necessarily think of A-Ha. No, you think of a band that sounds eerily similar to Soundgarden, but angrier and more…metallic. Which begs the question, Why are these Norwegians so angry? Their countrymen and women are extremely good looking. There are fjörds. You just can’t get angry when you are near hot people and a fjörd. Like, OH GOD I’M SO ANGRYYY DAMN YOU HOT PEOPLE WITH FLAWLESS SKIN AND PIERCING BLUE EYES. DAMN YOU FJORDDDDDD! Now let’s go enjoy socialized health care and a $15 pint of beer. I suppose I’d be angry if beer cost $15.

I can’t decide if this is the best mix ever or the best mix ever.

It’s my mom’s birthday today. Part me was like, hey, what if I “forgot” her birthday and didn’t call? What would that be like? But I called her anyway and bid her birthday wishes because what if I didn’t call her? I kind of don’t want to know. I understand that knowing is half the battle, but the other half of the battle might be really fucked up. Scary even. Like, for example, I used to go to this bar a lot in my neighborhood. The same bartender has been there FOREVER. This older gentleman with a big beer gut. Totally acceptable bartender. He’s no Mr. Friendly but he’s no Colonel Asshole either. Anyway so I’ve been going to this place for years and years and then one night I’m there with friends, and JoMo goes to the bathroom and comes out with this horrified expression.

First of all, let me explain that this particular bathroom in this particular place is not what I’d call sanitary. Is it the worst bathroom ever? No. I have been in worse bathrooms, of course. One lady had said it was the grossest bathroom she had ever seen, but she was from California so I cut her some slack. In California bathrooms literally clean themselves. As for this bar’s bathroom: I’d say that it is clean enough by NY standards, but those standards are dangerously low.

So anyway JoMo explained that the bartender was in the bathroom too, had taken a whiz, and didn’t wash his hands, and then went straight back to work and fixed someone’s drink. So he rubs his pee hands all over a glass and rubs his pee hands all over the beer tap and then hands the pee beer with his pee hands to a person who then drank from the pee glass and said, thanks buddy, and left a tip. Then this guy was, you know, high-fiving people all night.

So that killed the place for me. See? In that particular case, I was better off NOT knowing half the battle. Obviously I had been going there for years and years and this man had essentially been pissing in my mouth for years and years. I mean sure he didn’t piss directly into my face hole, but there was residual pee on his hands so if you add it all up over the past 8 years I’ve been going there, this bartender has taken a really satisfying and luxurious pee in my mouth.

So now when I see this bartender, I just see two urinals for his hands. I was happier before, when I had no idea he was whizzing in my mouth. So what I mean to say is that I wished my mother a very happy birthday because I did not want her to pee in my mouth.

For Christmas this year, I got a soprano ukulele. This brings my total ukulele count up to TWO. Which is probably TWO MORE than what the average person has. My ukes are SHRED TASTIC. Sometimes I play it with my FACE because it adds this extra layer of shredly metal.

Anyway, reader Karl just sent me this! I’ve watched it, like, four times already. Not even joking. It is combination of sweet, sweet puppets, ukes, a melodica (which I also have, actually), and a random beach setting in Japan. All things lead to SWEET SWEET SHREDDING OF THE EARHOLES:

Dudes. My inbox is so totally awesome. Seriously, you WISH you had my inbox because it is so righteous. It is full of all kinds of crap. I mean real…garbage. Sometimes I can smell my inbox fom miles away because of all the hot trash in it.

Today I bring you audio clips!

That is from a friend or a stranger or maybe from someone who is pissed off. Maybe this person thought my dog shit on his lawn or something, except, of course, I don’t have a dog. Ha ha ha! A hilarious misunderstanding! Actually, funny story, I was living in this house with three other people, and this neighbor used to come and let her dog shit on our driveway and not clean it up. What a total bitch (both the neighbor and the dog).

OK, I guess that wasn’t funny.

But, you know what is funny? A neighbor (different one) used to come knocking on our door looking for syringes because he was dealing heroin in the neighborhood. The sad part is that my housemate actually had syringes.

OK, that wasn’t funny either.

Alright, this one’s funny: One of my housemates made a chore-wheel for us. A chore-wheel. We were, like, in our mid-twenties and thirties. It was humiliating. And, incidentally, we refused to do our chores. Humiliation is not a good motivator. That pissed him off. I guess that wasn’t funny either, more boo-hoo sad than ha-ha funny.

Incidentally, no joke, he was a captain. Like, of a boat. A ferry of some kind. But seriously, a captain. I thought that was sweet. I wanted to call him captain but he was like no, that’s OK. Please. No really. I mean it. Don’t call me captain. And then I was like well, what if I call you “Cap’n” like in Cap’n Crunch, and he did not find it funny. You know, maybe I am hard to live with.

Anyway, my office phone at work has this amazing feature that will email you a wav of a voicemail. It is like…a phone FROM THE FUTURE. It’s like the greatest thing that’s ever been invented. No. It is. Shut up. Anyway sometimes people leave me messages. Sometimes they end up on the blog.

This one’s from Butler.

That might be the most annoying thing ever. I was trying to loop it to make it extra annoying for you guys, but you are lucky I am not smart enough to figure it out.

Here’s another:

Translation: Uh…uhh…uhhhhh. Goddamn, I love my goddamn phone.

A friend called me in the middle of the day today. He called because he had some very important news to deliver.

He told me that his high-class call-girl-cousin-turned-model’s dad died. I felt bad and then realized, wait, you have a high-class call-girl-cousin-turned-model? Then I said, oh I’m so sorry, dude, you have my sympathies and then he told me to shut the fuck up because the real important news is that

IT IS THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF “U CAN’T TOUCH THIS.”

Yes. U can’t touch this. U really can’t. Sorry. I mean I know u want to touch it, but u just can’t. It’s just not possible. Mostly because I am so hot, therefore, u can’t touch this. I mean u can touch it, but then u’d get burned, so maybe it’s just best if u don’t touch it. Don’t take it the wrong way. Most people can’t touch this. Nor should they. So, just to review, u can’t touch this. Now, stop.

Hammertime.

Then he clarified that it’s the single’s twentieth anniversary, not the album. And then I was all, no derrr you asshat, the record is called “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em” not “You Can’t Touch This.” What am I? An idiot? Bish, pleaze.

So in honor of the great MC Hammer who is busy melting his gold medallion of him wearing a gold medallion and his gold sledgehammer, baby I shall post something you cannot touch.

Dude that man is so…aerobic. He practically invented the Running Man. I mean have you ever seen anyone run in place like that? Now imagine if he were actually running! He’d be the Usain Bolt of hip-hop. Unstoppable. Also those pants are so effing street. Inside his pants there are actually other pants. Also there is the biggest set of balls you have ever seen. I mean it takes a real man to wear those pants, you feel me?

Remember when he tried to challenge Michael Jackson to a dance-off? I was like whoa, this guy is 2 legit 2 quit.

And that pretty much killed his career. Also, I heard he had a house in the San Fernando Valley, which is also kind of a dealbreaker. Though, Dr. Dre does live in the Valley too, but still. He’s Dr. Dre. He lived in COMPTON. To him the Valley is a nice part of town. But Hammer. He is so not street. I mean if you wore those pants in the CPT you’d get shot. You’d get shot with normal pants on too, but hammer pants? Might as well just paint a big target on your ass. Dr. Dre couldn’t even wear Hammer pants in the CPT and make it out alive. Seriously. U can’t touch this? Yes you can with a bullet. Just saying.

This might be the best song ever written ever in the history of music and songs and life in general. You are thinking, but wait, what about the Beatles or Led Zep or Hendrix or Pavement or Velvet Underground or like every important band ever like Sonic Youth or Counting Crows ha ha ha just kidding about Counting Crows barf in my mouth, and I’m here to tell you that this song is better than anything the Beatles ever wrote and after hearing this song your life will completely change and you will throw out all your Beatles jams and just have this one song on repeat forever for the rest of your life and people will ask you, hey do you want to hear this deep cut Morrissey track and you will say, no, because you already have all the music you need to hear for the rest of your life.

EAR EXPLOSION!

My co-worker just got a communist pig. A gift from China.

I love it.

It must be mine.

Oh god it must be mine.

OK everyone, I am alive. I apologize for being away. I didn’t mean to hurt you, to leave you like that. I didn’t mean to make you feel so sad and empty and alone. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I definitely didn’t want you to write all that poetry. I really didn’t want you to do that. Listen, I was sick. I wanted to die. I was in Austin. My time there was ruined in many ways. I lost a lot of weight. Through my nose. My stomach is still debating with me. It says, you want cheese and crackers? You sure that is a good idea? Because I’m going to be honest with you, I do not like cheese and crackers. I will make it painfully obvious to you about ten to fifteen minutes after eating it, but hey, you eat what you want. I’m not the boss of you. So go ahead. I dare you. And then I say, no YOU’RE the dick, stomach, and then I eat my cheese and I eat my crackers and then feel sad for ever living.

So what is my current mood?

DISCO.

That is my current mood. I am very much into this Hercules and Love Affair business. I thank Erin for this. I thank Erin for many things, but above all, I thank her for disco. All the other shit she’s done for me? Like help me or whatever? All that is totally stupid compared to the power of disco. So what I’m saying here is that if it’s not disco, I am not interested. I am now downloading all kinds of disco. Oh yes. Disco. I am not ashamed. I also want to be in a disco band. It will be named “Poetry about Friendship.” We will wear shiny pants. It will just be me and Aidan. He plays everything and looks good in shiny pants. Or maybe we will call ti “Shiny Pants.” But that seems totally excessive and obvious.