The Playboy. September 1971. I wasn’t alive yet, but Olsen was. Somehow when I was 23 this issue fell into my hands. The centerfold is Crystal Smith, who is stunning in both her beauty and her taste in American Flag bell bottom pants. Among her favorite films at the time are M*A*S*H and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. So, there’s that. Whenever my old band Bag Of Panties would play I would always put this centerfold up. There’s no bush, so it seems sort of innocent. And cool. If a gig was going bad or if I just needed some inspiration to play better than I was, I’d just look at Crystal. I know I’m way too young for her, but…Then there’s an interview with Jules Feiffer, a weird “surrealistic nudes” pictorial, movie reviews of Two Lane Blacktop and Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (which I’ve sampled many times), a negative review of McCartney’s “Ram” (lame, but fun to read) and the ads. My god, the ads. Apparently in the early 70s the kind of man that read Playboy was into leisure suits, Hush Puppies, and newfangled stereo equipment. TONS of ads offering new turntables, reel-to-reels, portable 8-track players, etc. There’s also a Datsun ad in there that I once used to design a ticket for a Wide Wail CD release party. Anyway, the centerfold is getting custom mounted and framed tomorrow.

The Rolling Stone issue which just happened to be there also changed my life. It’s the Best Albums Of The Last Twenty Years issue, August, 1987. When I was 14, the upstairs college student neighbor (C.K. Walls) gave me this issue. All I listened to at the time was metal and The Beatles. It’s an informative issue that explains very well why each album is great and why you should have it. It also has impressive reproductions of the album covers which is what drew me in initially. Through this issue I found The Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground, Television, Otis Redding, New York Dolls, R.E.M., Todd Rundgren, The fucking STOOGES…they turned my feeble little mind on to great shit. I spent years finding these albums. Looking through it today I realized I don’t own 6 of them. Someday I will.

Good times.

Good date for numerology, or at least for people who, like me, enjoy patterns (and, foolishly perhaps, attach significance to them). 3113 … three eleven three. That was actually going to be the name of my CD3 … it was doing it for me … a palindrome of primes, ja? Yeah, liking it. I was planning on doing a joke cover based on Rush’s “2112” … you know, with the backside of the naked man who’s got his hands raised as if to push back the pentagram star that is approaching him (which, now that I think about it, isn’t that album’s cover … I think it appears above them on a scrim on the cover of their live album “All the World’s a Stage” … also in a painting in the hands of movers on “Moving Pictures” … anyway, the idea : something with my ass barely lighted, arms out in front of me, afraid of that which is approaching … I don’t know, maybe a car, or a refrigerator with the door ajar in a dark kitchen, who knows. Anyway, no need to worry. I disposed of said idea, as you can probably tell, since the CD3 is called “lacuna” and my soft ass is nowhere near it.

So, this picture: taken on November 23, 2002 by our pal Austin, outside Lupo’s in Providence, RI immediately after experiencing Lightning Bolt close the show for Sonic Youth. Perhaps my all-time favorite musical experience. For other pictures of the evening (where you can see Cooley against the kickdrum, me a foot and a half behind him), check out http://laserbeast.com/photos/lupos.html.

I’m going to a potluck dinner tonight.  I’m trying to decide whether I should try and make some sort of impressive Jello mold, or if I should just bring bread…it’s in five hours so I’m leaning towards the bread.