"Hell Yeah I Wanna Go to Europa and Spit Jupiter Seeds at the Moon!"

In Rainbows, by Radiohead 

I'm on my brother's couch, hallucinogens zipping through my blood, sonic spans and bursts of colors arching across the inside of my skull for hours as I fall asleep.

They've been my favorite band since I heard Creep on college radio in 1993, and my brother came home with Pablo Honey later that week. When the crunchy guitars on You started buzzing down my spine, I knew Creep wasn't a fluke, and Lurgee became my own personal teen-angst anthem. With each subsequent album, shift in sound, and change in direction, Radiohead has never failed to capture or keep my attention. They're my favorite cause no matter what my mood, I always want to listen to them. 

I'm particularly pleased with In Rainbows. 

Sonically speaking, its the happiest damn record they've ever put out. Sample that bright up-beat in House of Cards. Hear the entire spectrum of colors in Weird Fishes, and all the fireworks and sparkles in Reckoner.   

The studio recording of Nude/Big Ideas (Don't Get Any) sounds like Virgin Blue satin, and although I still love the haunting, falling-off-the-carousel sound of that on live cut with the Hammond organ, this incarnation of that song works for this perfect record.

Although right now, I'm gonna find that live cut, and mix it on a tape, or cd or whatever, with Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale and the Arcade Fire's My Body is a Cage, cause that right there is a profound religious experience in just 3 songs.
You don't need to be taking psychedelics to hear the colors in that either, a span of cutting reds, smoke-saturated blues and some surprising bursts of pink and orange from the top left corner, and if you've got good enough speakers to get the thrum in your feet and head and chest, you may not need to have sex tonight.

Dav and I frequently argue about music today, and is it worth a damn. I say yes and sight Radiohead, Regina Specktor, Sufjan Stevens, The Arcade Fire, Aesop Rock, The Decemberists, and Modest Mouse as my reasons, in particular: In Rainbows, The Crane Wife, and Illinois, which stand up through the entire album.
Dav says, "Meh," to everything with the exception of In Rainbows, but he's a grumpy bastard who hates just about everything.
Except for the Slowskys. I heard him say yesterday, pre-psychotropics, that Bill Slowsky is a compelling character with a lot going on under the surface. He follows the martial tension between Bill and Carolyn the way other people follow Brad and Angelina.

Its these quirks of character that make me want to spend time with him.

Invasion of the Space Dogs

Me and the roommate were having a girly-night.
If you think that means that we were lounging around the apartment in our underpants, eating chocolate and having sexybouncy pillow fights, normally you would be correct. But not this time. Which is a good thing, cause I would not want to confront Mind Control Space Dogs in my underpants.
So, it was Friday night, and Stephen J. was working and Blondie was at a wedding and Lauren was a sleepy girl and Robbie and Jim! (you have to spell his name like that because that is how you say it) took the train to Atlantic City to see Flogging Molly. Andrea was supposed to go, but they couldn't get her a ticket. And I didn't want to go on account of it only takes the boys a little bit of whiskey before the phrase "Flogging Molly" gives them ideas in my direction. Its not abuse! It is love expressed with violent ferocity.
There we were, confronted with an entire Friday evening to do whatever we wanted, and we decided to be very Lady and go out on the down. We got all stylished up and I said, "Let's go visit Chris Butler!" cause he's my fiance, even tho I stood him up on the day of our Vegas wedding to go have birthday sex with my ex-boyfriend.
Ours is the kind of love that can weather hedonism and forgetfulness.
Ever so stylishly we entered the Shanachie, my Girl and I.
I was in one of those shirts I wear with the collar and the cleavage and she had her hooker boots on and a sweatercoat. It was hot. And we drank drinks and ate frenchfries with Irish musicians and when Chris Butler got off work we skipped over to Agave and did you know that they have pool in the basement? Cause I didn't even know that they had a basement. But now that I know, I think I'll be there more frequently, and so should you be.
Drinks were had and pool and fuzball were won and compliments were slung like hash in a depression-era diner.
And then we were soooooooo tired.
And Robbie and Jim! did not have a ride home from the train station. But we are supergirls, and so we went to fetch them home again. Only it took some doing because we were tired and she is from Boston and I don't drive or pay enough attention, and our map was crappy, and I couldn't remember that 30th street station was also on Market Street, because my voice in my head kept saying, "No, that's Market East."
It was a long and convoluted journey. But we made it and packed the boys in the car and were heading home, playfully bitching at our drunken men. They had taken a beating, let me tell you. Jim! has a boot print on his arms and Robbie got the pants torn right off him! By the time he left the show his cords had become really baggy ass-less chaps. Ass-less chaps that were also crotchless. They were in a bad way.
And then Robbie did an unexpected thing, which was to jump out of the car. While we were moving. At the time I thought it was drunken belligerence, but that was before I knew about the Space Dogs.
Because of traffic laws, we have to drive 2 blocks before we can turn around and get back to the station, and by then, Robbie is gone. So we leave Jim! in the car (don't worry, I cracked a window) and we set out in search of a big tall kid in ass-less, crotchless pants. I ran into many strange and scary people, but nary a Robbie to be found, and then! I heard it. The battle cry that confirmed suspicions I had been suspecting for quite some time. A very tall man with a big mighty voice was stalking down the street with his arms high over his head in challenge. "Hanson!" he screamed. "Hanson! I'm comin' for you! Hanson! You mind control mutha-fuckin' Space Dog from hell! Hanson! It's on! Oh, It's on. I am a God of Mass Destruction. I will mass destruct yo ass! Hanson!"
Now, Space Dogs is one thing, and Space Dogs from Hell is quite another, but MIND CONTROL SPACE DOGS FROM HELL? It's just too much. And I knew right then that I needed to get out of there ASAP. But where was Rob? Clearly the Space Dogs had already got to him, and caused him to irrationally leap from a moving vehicle outside 30th Street Station at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Using all of my superhero powers, I managed to break through the haze of their spaced-out mind control and send Robbie the thought, "Answer your damn phone!" It worked and I established his location and busted a mission to recover him. But before I could get there, the Dogs had gone after Jim! prompting him to leave the car and wander aimlessly down the sidewalk, starring at the sky. It took quite a bit of man-handling to persuade Jim! to abandon his rambling and get back in the car. I had to poke him in the boot print.
Then I recovered Rob, who was also dazzled and confused. He had no idea about Hanson and thought the whole harrowing affair had been his fault. I deposited him in the car as well, and foraged out again, this time to recover Roommate, who seemed to have vanished. "If that Space Dog has snatched her," I said to myself, "It is so on." And I walked all around the building again and through it and was about to despair when she called and said, "I'm at the car, lets get out of here!" So I high-tailed it back and its a good thing too, cause the mind control was starting to affect everybody. I mean, I saw this man having sex with 30th Street Station. Like, the actual building. I know the Corinthian columns are sexy but, Jesus! I mean right there in front of everyone. And when I say everyone, I mostly mean "right there in front of me!"
Ew, it was yucky. Roommate is a speedy getaway driver though, and we managed to escape the city without further incident, though the strain on our brains was astronomical. My fellow adventurers passed out for the better part of Saturday, and while I couldn't sleep for fear of lowering my defenses, I was rendered completely useless for the entire rest of the weekend.

And that is the end of the story for now, though if you are further interested in Space Dogs, you might tune in to This Comic, though it is mostly about a rock band and a cyclops jack-o-lantern.

A word of warning for people currently residing within Philadelphia city limits, particularly those that must travel by train: Hanson, the Mind Control Space Dog from Hell is still at large.
So if you have to take the train, I recommend perhaps a tinfoil hat.