"Go find someone who wants you, someone to pray to." - The Wrens.

Aloha Earthlings. The holiday odyssey is complete, and Lopez and I are settled back in here in the Port. We had a grand if subdued time in PA with The Murph [pictures to come] mostly hanging with family, though we did visit with the Monkey and other Central PA luminaries, as well as with former Small Hours skin beater Dino and his consort. We kicked in the New Year in Williamstown with Logie, WHM, H-Dawg from Accounts Receivable and everyone's counterparts, and other kool kats. Billiards were played, rock was rocked, and homemade beer was consumed by the lucky. Word.

Not a lot else to report. I am currently rocking to the collected demos of Kill The Carrier, the recorded output of WHM -- seemingly equal parts Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins and Bad Religion, very listenable stuff. I also received a motherlode of other media items from Sinter Klaas, including The Cure b-sides box set Join The Dots..., the Nirvana box set With The Lights Out, the Wrens' Meadowlands, The Jayhawks' Rainy Day Music, Tom Waits' Real Gone, the expanded reissue of The Ramones' eponymous debut, a burn of the forthcoming Low record, the soundtrack to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Galaxie 500 DVD and the DVD release of the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic. Truly an embarrassment of riches for which I am hardly worthy, but it will be a glorious month or so to digest it all. It should make for a particularly fertile two hours this coming Tuesday evening when I return to my regularly scheduled Radio Teapothill webcast (Tuesdays from 9PM to 11PM at http://radio.teapothill.org).

Clearly the tsunami is something we should all be thinking about. I caught the first headline when the losses were at an already incomprehensible 13,000 lives lost. I suppose it isn't too much of a surprise that our commander-in-chief botched the response, what with his track record at handling calamity, but even so, I feel it may be his lowest low point. It is one thing to act like an insensitive dick when it corresponds with your own obviously nefarious agenda (Iraq, etc.), but it is another thing to rest on your laurels for a few days while inconceivable suffering and agony is enveloping millions until you are shamed into action. I am broadcasting Channel 11 to the White House in high definition, Laronga-style.

Happy New Year.

That is all.