travelling coast to coast

new mixtape!

I got a bad desire

lord knows I love a cover: AA Bondy does Bruce

Actual Air

Imagining Defeat

She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.

I sat up and looked out the window
at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees.

A bus ticket in her hand.

Then she brought something black up to her mouth,
a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler.

I reached under the bed for my menthols
and she asked if I ever thought of cancer.

Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn't matter

And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn't matter.

except as a memory of rest or water.

Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise

that she woke me up at all.

- David Berman

'cause punk rock was too hard to sing

Like a million other people I've been kind of off-and-on with my relationship with Ryan Adams over the years. He was real cute when I was in high school and I got heavy into Heartbreaker, all the Whiskeytown stuff that came before. He knew his way around a broken heart and a harmonica. The Love Is Hell EPs. The Winona period. (c'mon now, who hasn't had a Winona phase?). Lots of concert bootlegs. He was prolific but there was always a diamond somewhere. The last record was rare 'cause it didn't have a single song that got me, but oh Ashes & Fire, we are back ON.

Beastie Boys x everyone I've ever loved

so this came out ages ago (April?) and I have no idea why I only just watched it now. The one after it with Santigold and zombie Ken dolls is a total winner as well. Beastie Boys, making music videos worthwhile since the mid '80s.

half-hour version here, aka the best 30 minutes you'll spend all day

Are you a Jackie or a Marilyn?

More words for russh, excuses to look at pictures of beautiful women. Mad Men costume exhibition comes to Australia (in years to come, Christina Hendricks' measurements will be as hotly contested as those of Ms Monroe)