Linette and the baby are staying at her folks place tonight, not wanting to be subjected to the near-lethal levels of lead floating around in the air as the remediation is underway. (Yes, the lead is finally being scraped up.) I, however, having been volunteered to stay here with the animals, am in the midst of it, trying to make the best use possible of what could be my last hours on earth For those of you who are curious, Ive decided to spend my time listening to my bands new, unfortunately named, song being played on John Peels BBC Radio 1 show, and sending out letters to my representatives in Congress asking that they please not support the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (or, if you want to be extra creepy, “the MATRIX”). (I’m also eating handfuls of peanut butter-filled pretzel logs, but I didn’t think that needed to be mentioned.)
Id recommend that you listen to Peels program anyway, as its great almost every night, but if youd like to hear the show that we were on, it aired on July 14. Were about an hour and a half into it. And, as usual, Peel has some nice words to say about us. I think he says our concept (of only working one day a year) is “stupid,” but he says it in a nice way If you do choose to listen to the show, theres also a really good blues song by Washington Phillips called Denomination Blues. It really blows our song, Butt Science, away. (And, yes, the name is unfortunate Perhaps if we worked on our music more than one day a year we could come up not only better songs, but better titles as well.)
The Washington Phillips track is from a wide-ranging compilation of music that influenced the band Spacemen 3 called, Spacelines (Sonic Sounds for Subterraneans) (If youre so inclined, I think that this would make a wonderful gift for little Clementine. I know I said before that I didnt want any of you sending gifts, but I think this is a record that she really should have, so Im willing to make an exception.)
As for Peel, this time he played the Monkey Power Trio at the request of a British person living in Michigan. The obviously homesick young man requested that Peel play some house music, and Peel instead played him a track from the very un-house Monkey Power Trio, saying that our records were shipped from Michigan… No doubt the house music loving boy has since taken his own life
As for the MATRIX, its essentially a extra-huge database that would, if constructed and rolled out in every state, contain all the electronic information available on every American citizen; credit information, travel itineraries, bank account balances, gun permits, addresses, employment information, and essentially everything else thats now being tracked on commercial and governmental databases If you have the time, you may want to check out this little animated piece on the Matrix that was made by the ACLU. Its not hilariously funny, but it succeeds, at least partially, in illustrating the privacy pitfalls that could come along with such interwoven streams of information.
OK, I need to go and hide under a blanket now. (You can attribute that to either my fear of lead or of surveillance I suppose.) Goodnight, my invisible friends.
