Dr Frank Weakly Reader for 03.15.2019
wish you were beer edition
Welcome to yet another Dr Frank Weakly Reader, in which the antics of the week are laid bare, if “laid bare” means what I think it does. It’s an index. It’s a recap. It’s a digest. It’s a round up. It’s a stab at organizing the scattered Dr Frank-o-sphere by collecting all the things in a single place. Just trying to bring order to chaos in my dumb little corner of the universe, is all.
If someone were to create an application to automate this process, or at least to lay out the materials to make constructing and editing it less time-consuming and anxiety-provoking, I’d be an eager adopter. But, like most things that concern me, this just isn’t something most people seem to care about. And, to be honest, I have started to derive a bit of comfort from the exercise. It draws a line under the week. And maybe such drawing of lines is most meaningful when you do it yourself. Plus, who’s to say such an app wouldn’t wind up censoring and algorithmically disordering and manipulating the index itself? That would defeat the purpose of course, but I’m fairly confident that that’s exactly what would happen, if such an app were to come to be, which I’m confident will not happen. And it wouldn’t be the first internet entity to contradict its own stated reason for existing in the first place, e.g. twitter, i.e., the free speech wing of the free speech party. Oops.
But I digress… on to the forbidden archive… after the news…
FRONT BURNER
— Sounds Rad has a swell new shirt and pin. Get ’em while they’re hot, put your man in the can honey and can the can…
— Dr Frank Live at the Court Tavern flexi and assorted items are shipping now. I believe there are still a few flexes left in stock. If you want you can order: (a) flexi; (b) assorted items.
— Mtx forever: we’re no longer actively soliciting votes for the Mtx forever project, not specifically, but the form is still up if you feel like having your stats included. (And we’re still reading the comments.) Still mulling over the possibilities, but next up is… sequencing. More on that soon, but I’m hoping to ask for help with that as well, once I figure out a good way to go about it.
— Dr Frank Kepi Dan Janisch Kevin Seconds live at the Octopus Literary Salon, Oakland. March 29. Details here. This is coming right up!
THAT’S NOT US: IT’S THE MTX IN YOUR HEAD
— Tape Hunt Notes Part 2: the struggle continues.
— In which I find the MTX Yesterday Rules hard drive.
— The Mr T Experience — “Not Guilty”, live in Southampton, UK, 1992. Video on YouTube. And here are the “minor secrets” thereof.
— Sounds Rad notes that there are a few copies of MTX Shards (both volumes) in stock at Interpunk, and there’s currently a 10% discount being offered over there, so if you still need either or both of those, that’d be a way.
—The Trocadero in Philadelphia: it’s closing. Many memorable shows there, with the Queers and Smugglers and others, though it was long long ago.
— Fortunately, Mike has a back-up Alcatraz.
— and, your Friday morning “Dumb Little Band,” from our Italian friends Dumb Little Beards. Ciao!
THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF DR FRANK
— Me and my Coronet. A photo. Yes, Bill, it’s a sweet axe indeed.
— A high school time capsule.
— A 1999 Dr Frank “chair flier.” Kind of hard to explain: you have to see it.
— As I am compelled to point out whenever the subject comes up, I’m a “notable user.”
— In which I rail against Daylight Saving Time in response to this irritating Slate article. Plus this.
— Dept. of bon mots:
“The smokers of the world, they’re always standing around outside waiting to entrap you into talking to them when you go out to get the laundry rather than staying in their apartment leaving you alone like they’re supposed to do. Don’t smoke. It’s a social pathology.”
“Education is obviously a mess. Scrap the whole thing and re-establish thusly: grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy. Entrance exams to consist solely of extemporaneous composition of poetry in Latin dactylic hexameters. Only thence to the professions.”
“Facebook is down ‘for maintenance’ and I’m just sort of praying it never comes back up (and that twitter is next.)”
OTHER PEOPLE’S MUSIC
— Appreciating the Getz/Gilberto album on the minds Vinyl Collector group.
— Good morning world: Mel — “An Old Irish Song” from Dragon Knights Fortress.
— There is one reason for buying records…
— Nostradamus predicted the fall of MRR twenty years ago… Gabe posted this pic of the last Maximum Rocknroll print edition, which is a Weekly World News style parody. Not, perhaps, as funny as it thinks it is, but it looks good.
PICTURE BOOK
— Look: Thank you, clams; Through Beatnik Eyeballs; Gorilla, Football Player, Dog…; MBLNGK FNXST!; terreur; blonde.
OTHER
— Weird 1975 Love’s Baby Soft commercial.
— "No one is obliged to participate in the crisis of his time. He can do something else.” — Eric Voegelin. Seen on twitter.
— Some corporate virtue signaling from Budweiser. Good for you, guys. Good for you.
IN THE NEWS
— Man angry his photo was used to prove all hipsters look alike — then learns it wasn’t him.
— SXSW then and now.
— “Unfortunately we cannot do anything about [Facebook] because, you know, they’re based in America and we’re the Police.”
— Gender of byline quickly checked to see whether Journalist allowed to say that…
— Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider… Jerry Coyne reports on that much-ridiculed “fabric softener” protest at Sarah Lawrence College. I found the adapted schoolyard chants at the embedded video more adorable than chilling.
— RIP Hal Blaine.
