Thomas Mahoney

This will be my last post from Los Angeles, CA for the next several weeks.

I bought a suitcase today. In 30 years of extensive travels, I’ve never had my own suitcase. I clearly remember going on one 3-week tour (c. 2001) where I had a plastic grocery store bag with a change of clothes in it. This was a tour in which I slept for a few hours one night using my van’s steering wheel as a pillow (Kansas blizzards force such improvisations). Either I’m evolving in a mature fashion, or I’m becoming soft in middle age.

This will be the first time since NYE 2004 I’ll be watching the ball drop in Eastern Standard Time. This is also the first time I may potentially see Times Square celebrate the New Year in person, as I plan on being kicked out of John Curry’s Manhattan-area party hours before (I’m imagining a fight with John and Ryan about the Yankees new $200 million pitching staff or the Jets illegitimate thoughts of winning a meaningful game).

I talked to my mother today and she said it was going to be warm tomorrow. I asked her to define “warm.” She said 35 degrees. At the time, I was on my porch, looking out towards the reservoir, nearly shivering in the cold, afternoon sun. I looked up at our themometer. It read 58 degrees.

No, I’m not evolving. I’m just getting soft.

Once in a great while, I have a story that is too short for a post but too long for a tweet. What follows is an instance of this type of occurrence.

After several HOURS of trying to make me the beat I needed in Ableton for our new band Punkmaster, Psycho Matt got fired/quit. So Cam starts playing Le Orme and Dr. Z and Matt goes, “this sounds like Phish.” Not only does it not sound like Phish, but how would PM know what Phish sounds like to begin with? Hmm. Inquiring minds want to know. What a werepyre!

Anyway, it’s Sunday. I must cut this missive short. Time for church. “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name….”

Red: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Andy Dufresne: [in letter to Red] Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

- from The Shawshank Redemption

After 8 years of misery, corruption, greed, war, and insanity, America has hope again. Congrats to Barack Obama for his victory. The electricity is palpable in the air. Tonight, I’m once again proud to call myself an American. I’ve got friends looking over my shoulders as I write this, calling me names, but fuck it. I’m ecstatic. And you should be, too. I don’t care how I sound.  Democracy has returned.  Tonight, the spirits of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. are somewhere going the fuck off.

I’d also like to say whattup to my dad. Despite whatever problems I’ve had with him throughout my life, he taught me about democracy, freedom, helping out the poor, always to question authority, never to believe in the dogma of any man-made religion, and to never bow down to anyone.

Are you ready to party? I am.

While Halloween weekend 2008 may be quickly fading, its playlist never will.

Ink and Dagger -  ”The Road To Hell”
Deerhunter - “Oh, It’s Such A Shame”
Primal Scream - “I Love To Hurt (You Love To Be Hurt)”
Unwound - “For Your Entertainment”
Lil Wayne - “A Milli”
The National - “Lit Up”
Spiritualized - “No God Only Religion”
Kasabian - “Reason is Treason”
Rodan - “The Everyday World of Bodies”
TV on the Radio - “Halfway Home”
The Black Angels - “You on the Run”
Isis - “Celestial (The Tower)”

John and Rama showed me this video over the weekend. Is it the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in recent memory? Without a doubt. This weekend I learned that bestiality sells, NSFW tags do not prevent people from viewing the content at work, and some dude with a fucking wheel for a face is making some crunk-ass hyphy jams out of the Bay Area. This is not your parents’ world anymore, but I’m starting to doubt if it’s ours either.

Taco Bell is giving away a free taco for a stolen base. Dr. Pepper is giving a way a can of soda because Axl Rose is finally releasing a new album.

Can someone please have Morningstar Farms or Adwalla or someone else who produces a relatively healthy product figure out a way to get some into my hands free of cost?

Thank you.

- The Management

You should enjoy it more often.