Two comments I’ve gotten on the CD Mix of the Month October mix in the last 24 hours:
Calexico and Spoon in one CD? I think I love you.
I was a crabwalk.com virgin until last night…and unlike the time I really lost my virginity, this was FREAKING AWESOME…I wanted to stand up on my couch and raise my hands in victory.
I should have started the club a loooong time ago. Women haven’t liked me this much since I was a wee lad. (I was cute until about 18 months.)
In music news: the new Pavement reissue is absolutely aces, the new Richard Buckner sounds very good so far, the new Hot Hot Heat sounds entertaining if an inch deep, and I no longer have to feel so bad about not owning a single Belle and Sebastian album.
One final observation from tonight’s CD purchasing run: I love homegrown indie record stores as much as the next wannabe, but Jesus Christ, could someone tell the staff to bathe? It being Halloween, tonight’s Sweaty Counter Hipster was dressed in a big, run-down bear costume. I couldn’t tell if the odor was coming from his corpus or the Eisenhower-era “fur” draping his estimable flanks. It almost made me want to trade in my worn indie cred for some Rod Stewart, a little Bartles & Jaymes, and ventilation.
31 October 2002 |
2 comments
This is so unspeakably sad. I’m sure there’s a run at all America’s Halloween costume stores for Adidas track suits and Kangols.
31 October 2002 |
1 comment
Before I forget, here’s my story from today’s paper.
29 October 2002 |
1 comment
Over the weekend, I tried to mail a bunch of CDMOM discs. I went to the post office and stood in line for about 25 minutes. When I got to the front of the line, with three Target bags filled with about 80 mailers, the postman said to me:
“Sorry, but we won’t be able to take those.”
Excuse me? All he had to do is put the metered postage stickers on them.
“Sorry, but that would take too long.”
Take too long? I couldn’t stop thinking: Is this not the post office? The place one goes to mail things? I’ve got some experience in mailing lots of little packages — it might have taken seven or eight minutes.
Instead, he sold me about 350 stamps, which I had to go back home to apply one by one.
This is both an ill-considered plea for sympathy and an alert that all of this month’s mixes are finally out the door. Which means I can finally unveil the October mix’s contents.
29 October 2002 |
4 comments
Over the weekend, a toothpaste purchase pushed my bathroom cabinet into chaos. A cleansing was in order, and I pulled everything out to separate the wheat from the proverbial chaff.
It was alarming how much of the chaff dated back to high school or earlier. There were lots of little shampoos I swear came from debate tournament hotel rooms. Old empty prescription bottles from 1992. I never knew I had so much floss.
And waaaay in the back were three bottles of high school memories: Brut, Old Spice, and Aqua Velva. (Surprisingly, I didn’t get much action in high school.)
Right before I was going to throw the three bottles out, I had this vision of their alcohol-laden contents exploding in some trash bin, so I decided to empty them out before tossing them. I poured all three into my sink Sunday morning.
And now my sink smells like an overanxious freshman. Try as I might, the smell won’t go away.
(If this was a This American Life piece, this is the part where I’d draw a larger meaning about how our youth defines us in ways we only discover later. But this isn’t a This American Life piece, so I’ll just end the post.)
28 October 2002 |
6 comments
Why isn’t the world going wild over the new Tahiti 80 album? Geezumpete, it’s an instant classic. Great track after great track. Throw it in the player and it’s a summer day, driving with the top down. We’re talking Official Crabwalk.com Seal of Approval material here.
24 October 2002 |
5 comments
In today’s episode of People Who Should Be Muzzled: Any adult who pronounces the word library “lie-berry.”
In particular, this applies to people who work in a library, and thus repeat the word dozens of times per day.
Honorable mention goes to people who pronounce our nation’s capital as “Warshington.”
23 October 2002 |
14 comments
This morning, like a good citizen, I voted. I was in the Richardson city hall on business and saw the early voting booth there. It was one of those newfangled electronic ballots, and I got through most of the 16 screens of candidates before coming to our local congressional race.
Context: A year ago, my boss was off on a rant about how young reporters aren’t as invested in their communities as old-timers are. As proof, he asked me who my congressional representative was. I didn’t know. And I felt like an ass. So I quickly went to find out: it’s District 30’s Eddie Bernice Johnson, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. I made sure to remember her, if only because of the shame brought by my boss’ comments.
Anyway, so this morning I’m voting and get to where I should be voting for Eddie or her opponent Ron Bush. But instead I see incumbent Sam Johnson and challenger Manny Molera.
Who are these people? Having heard of neither, I think: Are you sure you live in Eddie Bernice Johnson’s district? Eddie Johnson, Sam Johnson — you cracking up, JB?
I voted anyway and left the polling place. Got back to the office and checked: I am indeed in Eddie Johnson’s district, not Sam Johnson’s. The Richardson voting booth I was at, however, is in Sam Johnson’s. So I voted illegally in an election after being given a faulty ballot.
I called the county elections office, and their response was, roughly: tough noogies.
Maybe I should move to Florida.
23 October 2002 |
4 comments
Teachers are, by and large, good people. It’s a shame that some of them, after years of dealing with second graders, move through life assuming everyone they deal with is eight years old. I swear, this administrator I interviewed today damned near broke into baby talk.
23 October 2002 |
1 comment
If I were a columnist, this would be my “random musings” Larry King-style column.
The swarm of CDs continues to envelope me — another day, another hernia for my friendly neighborhood postal carrier. Thankfully, Thomas has volunteered to burn me a batch of discs, in exchange for my left kidney. Thanks!
Wisconsin was wonderful — out near Lake Michigan in this beautiful wooded area, in this gorgeous Frank Lloyd Wright house.
I am in sports nirvana. I root for three teams: the New Orleans Saints in football, the San Francisco Giants in baseball, and the North Carolina Tar Heels in college basketball. The Saints are 6-1 and on top of the league. The Giants are in the World Series. And the Tar Heels, well, the Tar Heels haven’t started their season yet. But two out of three, hey, not bad!
Got up early this morning to go see my Little Brother at school, only to realize I was there on the wrong day. (His school uses an A/B block schedule, and they had a day off I didn’t know about last week — that screwed up everything.)
22 October 2002 |
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Never mind re: Shift — here it is, by one Sylvia Nalli-Petta, which for some reason strikes me as a particularly Torontonian name.
“Dallas newspaper reporter Josh Benton runs crabwalk.com, a weblog and ‘CD mix of the month club.’ Users exchange burned CDs: Send off one custom compilation and Josh reciprocates with one of his own. Snail mail two CDs and he adds another crabwalk-er’s mix to the envelope. Effort is made to match musical tastes, so Blur fans don’t wind up with an earful of Cibo Matto.”
Generally dead on, but are Blur fans really that far away from Cibo Matto fans? I mean, I put both acts on my June mix. I suppose Blur fans are, on the whole, more likely to brawl with a Gallagher brother, while Cibo Matto’s are more likely to sing lullabies about food. But they’re not exactly different universes.
And to be honest, the effort to match up musical tastes is pretty minimal — Blurheads and Cibophiles invariably get stuck in the same pool. I divide the CDs I get in the mail into four stacks:
- Stupendous, momentous, mixes that shake my very soul to the core, then rebuild it from the bricks of great music.
- Solid, enjoyable mixes that have great tracks and an attention to detail.
- Eh, I’ll look past the Bryan Adams track. The Whitney Houston’s pushing it, though.
- Seriously, have you ever heard anything other than Hits 102? Did you look at my track listings and still think that Kid Rock and O-Town would be a good idea for trade bait? Actually, do you still think Kid Rock and O-Town are good ideas, period?
Those who send me CDs that end up in Pile No. 1 get No. 1 discs in return. Twos get twos, etc. (And no, I won’t tell you what stack your CD got put into — that’s a crabwalk.com corporate secret.)
In case you’re wondering, more than 375 people have signed up for the October trade since the mix club was mentioned on Daily Candy a few weeks ago. (I got more than 17,000 hits in 24 hours.) All my waking hours the last few weeks have been filled burning CDs, folding liner notes, stuffing envelopes, updating a big unwieldy database, answering email questions, and paying lots of postage. Delicious irony: With my car CD player stolen not long ago, I never have time to listen to CDs any more.
17 October 2002 |
5 comments
Sadness is discovering that that 9:30 a.m. flight you thought you had tomorrow is actually a 7 a.m. flight.
Really, I’m alive, I swear, despite my non-posting habits of late. Rumors of regime change at crabwalk.com are not based in fact, even if such a move remains the standing policy of the Bush administration. My cloistered super-duper-ultra-secret work assignment is complete. If I wasn’t jetting off to lovely Racine, Wisconsin, tomorrow, I’d be back on the blogging crack. As it is, you’ll have to wait until Monday for a full return to mid-season form.
After skipping last month’s, I went to the DFWblogs happy hour last night. It’s amazing what you can miss in such a short time — lots of hot tubbing, mostly, but presumably other things as well. The grand tradition of interblogger incest has continued to thrive. Good to see y’all again.
Finally, I hear a rumor that this site is mentioned in this month’s Shift magazine. Anyone have a copy to verify or contradict that? (It’s in the Shift 75.) If so, this joins my CBC appearance this summer in my continuing quest to dominate all Canadian media. Watch your back, Saskatoon.
17 October 2002 |
2 comments
This week, I’m being locked in a small computerless room. Supposedly, it’s for my own good and the good of the company. Personally, I think they’re trying to drive me insane. Perhaps both those statements are true. In any event, don’t count on any mid-day updates this week.
Spent the weekend in Louisiana, checking out hurricane damage. More to come if I get around to it. Leaving Friday morning for Wisconsin, in case anyone needs any cheese delivered.
Here’s my story on today’s front page.
14 October 2002 |
2 comments
Everyone, send good vibes this weekend to Kim, who for some reason is running 26 miles Sunday.
And send good vibes to these guys, who somehow did enough to merit the headline, “3 men with shovels unclog Rio Grande.”
10 October 2002 |
2 comments
Andy Rooney doesn’t like women as sideline reporters at NFL games. (What, you expected different from Andy?) He made his comments on The Boomer Esiason Show last week.
As if often the case, Andy’s takes the nugget of an idea way too far. He’s right that, for better or worse, the trend to female sideline reporters the last few years is largely driven by producers who want to give young male viewers eye candy. (Melissa Stark…vroom vroom.) Notice it’s the sideline reporters — who actually get seen during the game — who are now often women, not the disembodied voices in the telecast booth. It’s just like the men and women who get to anchor local TV news because they’re cuties, not because they’re evoking the ghost of Edward R. Murrow.
But that said, some of women are actually quite good. Andrea Kremer rocks, for instance. Bonnie Bernstein knows what’s up. Leslie Visser’s lost a step, but she’s still legit. And Suzy Kolber pulls off the smokin’-hot-smart-jock thing very well.
Unfortunately, dear sweet Melissa, while welcome to visit crabwalk.com HQ anytime she likes, knows about as much football as my grandmother. Linda Cohn’s a ditz, Jill Arrington’s completely without clue, and Jillian Barberie’s an idiot.
Just about the only reasonable thing Andy Rooney said last week was in response to the criticism over his sexist comments. “What are they going to do, fire me from The Boomer Esiason Show?” Good point, Andy.
10 October 2002 |
2 comments
Five years ago today, I teared up a little while walking down a Columbus, Ohio, street. I’d just read that my hero, the Greatest Man in the History of Organized Sport, was retiring. Dean Smith was (is!) a giant among men.
His athletic accomplishments were many — winning more games than any other college basketball coach in history for starters, along with two national championships. He produced great players at the University of North Carolina, led of course by Michael Jordan but others like Phil Ford, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Vince Carter, and many more. If my memory serves me correctly, the last 12 NBA championship teams have all had at least one of Dean’s former players on them.
But his greatness goes far beyond the court. When he was an assistant coach in the 1950s and his black friends weren’t allowed in certain restaurants, he’d bring them out to dinner and integrate the place himself. (What Chapel Hill restaurant would turn away Dean Smith?) He broke the color barrier for all of Southern sports by being the first to recruit black players. His players were the model of class, graceful and grateful because Dean required them to be. And unlike at so many basketball factories, his players graduated — more than 96 percent of them over his almost 40 years. He created the tradition — now used at schools nationwide — of Senior Day, where seniors start their last home game, even if they’re the worst of the benchwarmers, as a thank you for all they’ve done. Even little things: whenever you see a player score a basket then point at the passer who got him the ball in thanks, that’s because Dean invented it. Same with teammates huddling at the free-throw line during a break in play.
He’s a brilliant basketball mind — his technical basketball book is the best selling of all time — and was a constant innovator on the court. But on top of that, he’s just a brilliant, well-read man. (A former math major, at that.)
Dean, since I’m sure you’re a crabwalk.com reader: you the man.
09 October 2002 |
No comments
Anyone else notice that when Yahoo! Maps redesigned not long ago, they started getting drive times close to correct?
Example: I’m driving to Rayne tomorrow night, a trip that Yahoo used to claim took eight hours. Now it claims six hours and 15 minutes — not far off, particularly if you count the traditional Wendy’s break outside Terrell, Texas. (For the record, competitor Mapquest calls it a 6:58 drive.)
Austin — previously listed as 5-plus hours from Dallas — now clocks in at under four at Yahoo. (It’s really closer to 3:15, and weirdly Mapquest is dead on.) It’s good that Yahoo no longer assumes we’re stuck behind a left-lane Pinto at 35 miles per, I suppose, even if I’ll no longer get to feel cool for shaving a cool two hours off the expected time. It’s the little things in life, people.
09 October 2002 |
2 comments
I think there should be more room in public discourse for the phrase “shit the bed.”
09 October 2002 |
2 comments
I normally don’t express my opinions on matters involving my employer, but geez, that Dick Armey can be a little silly at times, can’t he?
For those not following this matter with eagle-eyed precision, Armey is the retiring House majority leader. He wanted his 32-year-old son Scott to succeed him, but my newspaper wrote a few stories exposing things he had done in his previous job of Denton County judge. (In Texas, the county judge is the chief executive of the county, not a judicial figure.) These included giving government contracts to his buddies, steering public cash to a charity a friend ran, and pushing to allow alcohol sales in a neighborhood that didn’t want them after working in a questionable position for a beer company.
In any event, Scott Armey got an old fashioned Texas whoopin’ at the polls, losing by 10 points to a political unknown. This despite an enormous fundraising advantage, support from folks like Phil Gramm, and, well, the fact that his last name is Armey.
This made Dick Armey mad. He accused Belo of having “an outragous vendetta against me that was focused on my son.” This was interesting, considering (a) Belo is not known for its radical leftist, playa-hatin’, GOP-bashing tendencies — if anything, it’s much more commonly accused of being a lapdog to conservatives in power, and (b) the Morning News has endorsed Armey every time he’s been up for election for a long, long time.
(The 2000 editorial endorsing his last run for office: “Mr. Armey is a smart, consistent fiscal conservative who too often has blunted his voice with intemperate remarks and partisan disputes. Still, as House majority leader, Mr. Armey is a valuable asset for North Texas. He is an influential advocate of free trade and free markets, both of which are important to the region. He is a savvy economist and could do much to elevate the discussion on Social Security reform and tax reform.”)
Anyway, Dick Armey’s solution to his son’s whoopin’? Slip a clause into a military spending bill that would do only one thing: force Belo to sell one of its three Dallas-area businesses. Those would be The Dallas Morning News, WFAA Channel 8, and The Denton Record-Chronicle. They’re a “dangerous monopoly,” he claims, that needs to be broken up.
What bull. Monopoly? Let’s see:
- WFAA is one of five TV news operations in town. It doesn’t even have the highest ratings of the five.
- The Dallas Morning News is indeed the only newspaper in Dallas (although, of course, anyone is free to start up another one). But Dick Armey’s hometown of Flower Mound is closer to Fort Worth than it is to Dallas. Fort Worth, of course, has its own (middling) newspaper. I’d bet it has more subscribers in Flower Mound than the Morning News does; if not, it’s awful close.
Yep, sounds like a monopoly to me. At least others are seeing through his facade.
I end this entry with a link to a great, funny anti-Armey piece from the Post, including some of his past greatest hits (like calling Barney Frank “Barney Fag” and Hillary Clinton a Marxist).
09 October 2002 |
3 comments
Those worried about the death of Arts & Letters Daily shouldn’t fret too much — it appears that Philosophy & Literature is a carbon copy, produced by the same people. It’s good to see A&L’s tradition of long, annoying-to-type URLs continues on.
09 October 2002 |
No comments
We’re very sorry: “The story ‘Filipino-American history recognized’ stated that the ‘Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza,’ the galleon on which the first Filipinos landed at Morro Bay, Calif., loosely translates to ‘The Big Ass Spanish Boat.’ It actually translates to ‘Our Lady of Good Peace.’” (Here’s the original story they’re correcting.)
This doozy of a newspaper correction goes on to say the ill-advised translation was “plagiarized from an inaccurate Web site.” That would be this one, I presume. That site proposes other ways of celebrating Filipino American History Month: “Making Jack O’ Lanterns out of corned beef and/or Spam,” “Decorate the house with asparagus,” and “Find a Spaniard and boss him or her around for 333 minutes: That’s one minute for every year of Spanish rule.”
Apparently, October is Filipino American History Month because that’s when the first Filipinos arrived in the U.S., on board the aforementioned ship. Wrong! Filipino history fact of the day: The first Asian settlement in what’s now the United States came in 1765, when the first Filipinos settled in beautiful south Louisiana. (More info here and here; map here.)
South Louisiana history is fascinating stuff, particularly in that part of the state, just south of New Orleans in the delta. That’s also the area where you have the Islenos from the Canary Islands. I was looking at a map of that area earlier today and saw Judge Perez Drive — named for Leander Perez, one of the most fascinating and repugnant figures in Southern political history.
Perez was the political boss of Plaquemines Parish for five decades. Corrupt as all hell, he made millions by stealing oil-rich land from the state and quashing all opposition that might arise. He ran that parish like a personal fiefdom — statues to his glory everywhere, streets like Judge Perez Drive to leave his cancerous mark on the landscape. He took the money he stole and used it to fund the pro-segregation battles of the 1950s and 1960s; he was a big George Wallace supporter, among others. This film has some of the details. The fascinating Perez tale’s best found in Glen Jeansonne’s book.
Enough Louisiana history for one day, I promise.
07 October 2002 |
4 comments
Football update: Saints win a thriller, 32-29, to stand at 4-1, best record in the conference. It was very considerate of the Saints to give storm-torn Louisiana a victory this week.
In contrast, the Ragin’ Cajuns of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette didn’t fare as well against the ogres from Baton Rouge. 48-zip. Ouch. Some highlights from the AP story:
- “Louisiana-Lafayette (1-4) has been outscored 542-0 in the last 10 meetings with LSU. The last time they played was 1938.”
- “The only time Louisiana-Lafayette reached LSU’s side of the field in the first half was when they recovered a fumble on the Tigers’ 44 late in the first quarter. The Cajuns fumbled it back to LSU on the next play.”
07 October 2002 |
No comments
NOOOO! Where will I steal my links from now? A truly sad day.
07 October 2002 |
1 comment
The September mix is up for all to see, FYI. And the Rocktober mix is all ready to burn — both literally and figuratively.
05 October 2002 |
1 comment
Well, Mazie’s survived. “I have never been through something so scary my whole life,” she said — and this is from someone who went through the trauma of raising me! Rayne took a real beating: lots of debris everywhere, roofs torn off, a few building collapses, and (says Mazie) “the water plant got torn in half.” Today’ll probably go down as the worst day in the city’s history.
But, for my more parochial concerns, Mazie’s house and the two next door suffered only minor damage. The house I grew up in had its back door blown off, an old tree is mostly uprooted, part of a tin roof was ripped off, and part of a carport is teetering on the edge of collapse. But all the walls are still standing, in roughly the same locations they used to. Disaster seemingly averted.
A PR flack today told me I sounded “grumpy as hell,” so I apologize to anyone who’s talked to me in the last two days or (in advance) to anyone who’ll talk to me in the next couple.
I know I just had one, but damn, I need a vacation.
03 October 2002 |
6 comments
All hell’s breaking loose in Rayne. They’re still a few minutes from the eye passing over, which means they’re getting the really nasty winds in the inner wall right now. The big tree across the street from my house was just uprooted and smashed into a car. The tin roof on the house next door is close to coming off. Local TV’s reporting four tornadoes within five miles of the house. Mazie’s scared, which isn’t easy to do. My mom’s car’s evidently had some stray tin sheets slam into it. Damn, I wish we had home insurance.
As of 12 p.m., Rayne’s directly at the center of the storm.
03 October 2002 |
3 comments
10 a.m. update: The electricity cut out about an hour ago at my grandmother’s house. This is most troubling because that means her oxygen machine can’t run, and she’s only got about a day’s worth of gas in her portable unit. Hopefully this’ll all be over by then.
Lili’s headed straight for Rayne. The eye’s expected to go over my childhood home in about another hour. Thankfully, the storm’s been downgraded to a Category 2, which isn’t quite so bad-ass. And Rayne’s far enough inland that flooding shouldn’t be too bad. Still, she reports there are already tree limbs breaking off all around her, and she’s heard about five electrical transformers explode so far this morning. Damn you, Lili, damn you!
03 October 2002 |
1 comment
Please send good vibes to my hometown of Rayne, Louisiana and to my grandmother there. Both are about to get a serious ass-whoopin’ courtesy of Hurricane Lili.
If you’re wondering, this is where Rayne is relative to the aforementioned ass-whoopin’, all 140 mph of it.
02 October 2002 |
2 comments
Very short story of mine in today’s paper. This is my first step to becoming the paper’s full-time oozeball reporter.
02 October 2002 |
1 comment
I just realized I completely overlooked the one-year anniversary of crabwalk.com.
01 October 2002 |
8 comments
