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"Totally not accepting orders for at least the next few weeks, on account of things"
From here:
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And... I think that's it
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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"Joe Mathlete being my boyfriend"
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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"A polar bear beating Bill's ass while Payne eats a popsicle"
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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"Patrick Swayze Riding a Unicorn with Sam Elliot (Moustached Sam Elliot)"
by Joe Mathlete
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"a Oaxacan cockfight"
by Joe Mathlete
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"George the bad cat being very bad"
by Joe Mathlete
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Good news, art patrons!
by Joe Mathlete
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"Chuckmo the Octopus Releases his First Record"
by Joe Mathlete
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"ROAD TRIP: Erin and Colleen eat a lot of shampoo"
by Joe Mathlete
in 500 words or less
From here:
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by noreply@blogger.com (Joe Mathlete)
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(No title)
by Joe Mathlete
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(No title)
by Joe Mathlete
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(No title)
by Joe Mathlete
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Used and abused
by Tyler Ohlew
at
Pressing Buttons
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Gearbox better not be in trouble, or YOU'RE in trouble
by Tyler Ohlew
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Pressing Buttons
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My baby will have PC gamer blood in it
by Tyler Ohlew
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Pressing Buttons
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The crybaby's take on Mirror's Edge
by Tyler Ohlew
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Pressing Buttons
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Not Practising Dignity, or a terrible way to start off a post about NPD Chart discussion
by Tyler Ohlew
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Pressing Buttons
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Phoenix Down is provided, Tyler lives again
by Tyler Ohlew
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Pressing Buttons
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aaahhhhh!
by noreply@blogger.com (JD)
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The Loud Music of the Sky
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Celebrating One Year of Tamboril
by brian@clintonhillfoodie.com (Brian)
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Clinton Hill Foodie
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(Untitled)
by Brian R. Belida
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appropriately[untitled]
From Of Pencils and Pens:
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Web Comics: Filipino Comics’ New Hope
by William Endo
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If and when we pull this off today (and by that I mean elect Barack Obama to the presidency), I am going to be the most annoyingly patriotic motherfucker you have ever seen. When they call the election at like 7:15 EST, I am going to be standing in the middle of the street waving the biggest motherfucking American flag you have ever seen, singing the national motherfucking anthem until my lungs bleed. I am going to wear nothing but motherfucking red, white and blue; any article of clothing in my wardrobe that does not fit this color scheme will be burned in a huge motherfucking bonfire (very tastefully and patriotically, possibly involving fireworks). I am going to wear so many motherfucking flag pins I will barely be able to stand. I will have plenty of extra pins to give out too, unless of course any of my fellow Houstonians are all of a sudden unwilling to proudly display their love and support for this wonderful motherfucking nation we call home.
Because it has been a rough eight years in which to both love the inherent good of the United States of America and be a progressive/liberal/Democrat/lefty/bleeding heart. But shit goddamn if I am not one motherfucking happy American right now.
Unless McCain somehow wins. In which case I will be rioting.
(seriously, though: unless something completely insane happens, today is a good day)
USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! 
I really really love animals. I love them so much that I don’t have any pets. My attitude towards pets is pretty much the same as my attitude towards small children: they are wonderful gifts from God and a joy to be around, so long as I can leave the room whenever I feel like. I’ll happily pet, cuddle and play with any adorable animal you put in front of me, feed it a piece of whatever I happen to be eating, maybe even throw something it might like to fetch. But putting me in charge of an animal’s survival and well-being would be even more unfair to the animal than it would be to me, and that is why I have chosen to remain petless thus far into my adult life. It’s the difference between being irresponsible and choosing not to be responsible.
Having said this, if you own a dog and are looking for advice on how to care for it, and are completely unconcerned about where this advice comes from, here are some tips for you:
IF YOUR DOG CRAPS ON YOUR BED, CRAP ON HIS
For generations, conventional wisdom has told morons that the best way to keep a dog from relieving itself somewhere is to rub its face in its mess after it does the deed. This is not only insanely cruel (seriously: if you see someone do this to their dog, smack the shit out of them), it’s highly ineffective. If there’s one thing a dog understands it’s an eye for an eye. If Sparky takes a dook on your Sealy Posturepedic, you march right over to his little bedbasket or wherever and pay him back with interest. Note: this may not work well if your dog sleeps on your bed.
ATTACH FINS TO YOUR DOG TO MAKE IT MORE AERODYNAMIC
Allow your dog to reach its true potential by attaching a series of fins to it, just like a fish (if fish were land-based creatures) or a ’57 Chevy (if ’57 Chevys were dogs). It will be able to romp faster and fetch more effectively, and all the junk that dogs love. To make sure the fins stay attached, I recommend a staple gun.
SHAVE CUSS WORDS INTO YOUR DOG’S FUR
The benefits should be pretty self-explanatory.
EVERY TIME YOUR DOG BITES SOMEONE GIVE IT A TREAT
Most dog trainers tell you not to reward your dog unfairly or it will turn out spoiled, unreasonable and yappy. This line of thought is shortsighted and does not address a larger problem: having to go out and buy dog treats for the rest of your life (well, for nine to sixteen years). Logic dictates the simplest thing to do is to break your dog of its dependency on treats. Continue doling out the Beggin’ Strips every time Mrs. Barksalot makes a potty in the right place or does her cute little backflip trick, but watch what happens when you reward her for biting Uncle Nestor’s ankle. After Uncle Nestor clocks her with a rolled-up newspaper and you reward her, her preexisting concepts of right and wrong will be shattered into a million pieces and you are one step closer to owning a dog whose moral compass is not governed by pieces of ground cow hooves mixed with lard and sawdust.
NAME YOUR DOG “FIRE”
If he ever gets lost and you find yourself yelling after him, you will have no trouble getting other people’s attention to help you out. Maybe even police! If your name is Fire or you already have a dog named Fire, you could go with “Cocaine For Sale” or “Rape.”
You know Orangina, the crummy watered-down orange drink? Ever wondered who their target market is? If you said furries, for some bizarre reason you're correct.
The world of human sexual fetish is vast and unknowable, and to each their own etc. etc. etc, but man: this is pretty weird.
I promise to use Comic Sans exclusively for the interior font.
I was diddling with the innards of my Blogger profile and saw the little "Random Question" box, which always sort of bothered me. I appreciate the prompts as a fun and inventive little addition to an otherwise faceless internet profile form, but my threshold for forced wackiness isn't very high. I forget what my old question was, but my answer was something along the lines of "go fuck yourself."
Several months ago my friend Jeff (drummer for the Mathletes) formed a band called T.R.U.C.K.S. (pronounced "trucks"). There are already enough T.R.U.C.K.S. songs for several full-lengths; the first EP, "Where the Boys Aren't," came out this summer in an extremely limited release (song titles: "Air Fuck One," "Teenage Face Targets," "Sauce Policy," "Theme from T.R.U.C.K.S."). One of my favorite T.R.U.C.K.S. songs is called "Wolf Cum."
Which seems like both a more creative and potentially applicable answer to most "Random Question" questions than "go fuck yourself." Without any further ado, here are ten completely random Random Questions, in the order in which they were presented to me by the Random Questions Robot who works for Blogger.com, and my responses:
Q: All of the phone numbers have fallen out of your address book. Whose number do you look for first and why?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: Come up with some possible band names for your group that features a washboard and a styrofoam tuba.
A: Wolf Cum
Q: Why does the taste of pennies remind you of losing a tooth?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: What was the stage name of your favorite actress before she was born?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: Which do you prefer and why: whittling with soap or whistling with wood?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: Lionesses have no manes. How do they know when they've grown up?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: That can't really be a fish you're standing on, can it?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: What did you dream when you ate a spider while sleeping?
A: Wolf Cum
Q: If mud is dirt plus water, what is clay?
A: Wolf Cum
I post this not because I have something all that strongly against the Random Question Robot, or to generate some hype for T.R.U.C.K.S. (whose recordings are all-but-impossible to come by, and in truth may or may not actually exist), or even because it's honestly all that funny. No, I post this for one main reason: I don't think the people I'm going to be working for starting next month are going to let me get away with writing something like "Wolf Cum" a dozen times in a single post. I better get this out of my system before then.
It is pretty much sort of official: sometime next month I will begin writing regularly for a Houston-based website whose name I will announce here as soon as we "go live" (that is an industry term meaning "start doing stuff"). It would be gauche to discuss the all of the specifics, but suffice to say I will be doing things like drawing cartoons, writing reviews of things that don't really need to be reviewed, filming bands performing songs in my living room, and generally offering my own take on the day-to-day goings on of this sprawling Texan megopolis I call home. In exchange for all this, my bosses have allowed me to use their scanner, snack machine and restroom during regular business hours. Suckers.
What does this mean for this here blog? Hell if I know. Check back over the next few weeks as I reveal more information.
Also, because why not: I decided to join the 21st century. The Mathletes' newest (and something like 26th overall) album, #@$% YOU AND YOUR COOL, is available on iTunes and eMusic and aMazon and rHapsody and nApster and all those places where people pay money to download music. I sent out three review copies and had a 100% return rate for my efforts. Who wants some music criticism?
Space City Rock: Fucking brilliant. No lie-- one of the best damn pop albums I've heard in the last few years.
The Skyline: Joe Mathlete and company strut their outsider stuff in song after song that appeals to the Comicon pop-life in all of us... Recommended.
The Houston Press: ...a freaking bologna sandwich.
Beats,
Joe Mathlete
Marmaduke is dead.
1. Sorry I ain't been around much lately.
2. This is neither here nor there, but: awesome, Rachel Maddow is getting her own show on MSNBC! Also I saw Tropic Thunder and it was really really mediocre.
3. Something neat that I am pretty sure I should still not say anything about yet is about to happen soon, I think.
"Be right back!"
WARNING: CUSSES. PROBABLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK IF THEY DON'T LIKE YOUR COMPUTER SPEAKERS SAYING F-BOMBS.
Jeff Goodyear: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Drums
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Ryan Goodland: Guitar
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboard
Cley Miller: Guitar
Jenny Westbury: Tambourine
Charles Larrabee: Lead Tambourine
Iram Guerrero: Rhythm Tambourine
Tom Adams: Other Tambourine
Mlee Marie Suprean: Saxophone
Charlie Naked: Rhythm Saxophone
Mike Switzer: Trombone
Joe Mathlete: Guitar, Vocals
GGMG: Whiskey
I can't actually remember who else was onstage at that point
So long story short: I took a job that required me to move to Austin for three months at the beginning of the year (you may or may not remember a long period of me not really posting anything on any of the blogs I keep... I mean, longer than usual). We set up one last pre-"hiatus" Mathletes show at the Proletariat, a venue that had been good to us over the last couple of years and that was to be shut down a few weeks later to make way for Houston's new light rail system. Like a good game of telephone, word got out that I was moving away for good and that the Mathletes were breaking up forever purple monkey dishwasher. It's hard to break up a band that (at that point) had no permanent members, but I wasn't 100% sure when I was coming back to Houston, and sensing opportunity I didn't contradict any of the rumors.
I decided to invite a large percentage of people who had played with us over the last year (as well as a few local musicians whose songs I really loved) to be a part of the Mathletes Symphony Dorkestra Fakeup Show. This naturally resulted in a tremendous logistical nightmare of poorly-rehearsed stumbling through songs half the band could barely remember, with lots of instrument swaps and guest vocalists and at any given point at least one or two people just playing tambourine. Also the singer of this particularly number got spectacularly drunk before the first band went on (perhaps you can tell).
So... Yeah. That's probably all the Animals the internet needs (and then some). Thanks for indulging me. Coming soon: something besides YouTube clips of my band playing the same song over and over again!
Marmaduke's owner-man offers up a fatalistic zen-like aphorism on the futility of 21st century life that doubles as an explanation of his huge stupid dog's behavior.
I hate it because I've been trying to upload the last video of the Mathletes playing "Animals" that's worth showing for like forever now, only every time I try I fail (a lot of this probably has more to do with me stealing a none-too-steady wireless signal from one of my neighbors (which is definitely less expensive than getting Comcast but possibly even less reliable) than it does with YouTube itself, but still). So... "coming soon."
I love it because of pretty much everything else about it. Having a bad day? Here's this!
Thanks, YouTube!
So, yeah. Animals part the next, coming soon.
To the best of my knowledge, I'm pretty sure I've caught up with all pending index card orders. The mountain of disorganization that is my inbox, combined with the fact that I've moved seven (seven!) times since 2006, could prove otherwise, but as far as I can tell I am square.
As of last week I'd stuck all the unshipped cards in the mailbox and sent them on their merry way. If you have been (so very patiently) waiting for an index card for awhile and it hasn't arrived by Monday, email me (themathletes AAATTT yahoo DDDOOOTTT com) and let's figure out what happened.
Future plans: Hmm...
Marmaduke is bi-curious. And not the least bit shy about it.
Marmaduke is an asshole.
So I just moved a few weeks ago. I'm still unpacking and settling in, and this evening I asked my roommate what I should work on. She said "why don't you do Marmaduke again?" and I realized I hadn't updated this blog since just after we moved. I look at today's strip, hoping I'd be inspired to unleash some deliciously clever wit on Brad Anderson's latest brainfart. Instead I find the above cartoon, and am forced to once again revert to the closest thing to a catchphrase I have authored in my silly little life.
My roommate, to her credit, discouraged me from taking the easy way out, but when asked what the hell else I could possibly say about this comic strip (without just mentioning my last entry and writing about vomit), she was at a similar loss and could only offer up "I don't know... Something about TV trays?"
So yeah. Marmaduke is an asshole.
Jeff Goodyear: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Li'l Drums
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Charles Larrabee: Guitar
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboard
Jenny Westbury: Drawings, Animal Sounds
Cley Miller: Fancy Dances, Animal Sounds
Joe Mathlete: Singing, Guitar
This is the last show we've played to date. We were asked to open for Voxtrot at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts (now with rock bands!); unnerved by the prospect of playing on a proper soundsystem in front of more than fifty people, I tried to assemble a lineup that would be as tight and well-rehearsed as ever. We still only had one rehearsal where we all showed up, but it went off rather well all the same.
Cley was playing keyboards for most of this set and didn't have time to learn this song. He said he would figure something out. I did not think this was what what he was going to figure out.
Gie Gie McGee: Vocals, Pianica
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboards
Ryan Goodland: Guitar
Iram Guerrero: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Other Drums
Cley Miller: Other Other Drums
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Joe Mathlete: Vocals, Guitar
Here's us playing a show at some weird gigantic student center thing at a college campus. Pretty much the same lineup as Part Three, plus Gie Gie on vocals. Everyone here had played the song multiple times-- all together, even. And we're still not very tight. But it has been said before: what we lack in professionalism we make up for in unprofessionalism.
Apologies for the sound mix/quality, but on the bright side this clip totally has more than one camera angle (It has two. Two of them). Also I apologize for how much I look like a hobo, or possibly some guy whose job is selling weed to record store clerks.
If I could, I'd like to take this opportunity to plug Young Mammals (the hydra-headed rhythm section of this clip) to the half-dozen people I have not alienated yet with my narcissistic band-rambling on this blog of late. Here is a video they did when they were still called the Dimes, before an achingly mediocre go-nowhere band from Portland with the same name threatened legal action while pretending to be their "record label" (this is akin to calling someone in middle school using a deep voice and saying you are your dad and you're going to kick their ass. If you were an ugly orphan). If you care to feel depressed about how slowly you're achieving your life's goals: they wrote and recorded this song in high school, before some of them could even drive legally.
Bubba Hightower: Bass
Charles Larrabee: Guitar
Gie Gie McGee: Vocals, Pianica
Joe Mathlete: Guitar, Vocals
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboards
Mike Switzer: Trombone
This was kind of a bummer.
We were offered a show at a bar called Rudyard's, one of the best places in Houston to see live music, as part of a bill with a number of other local musicians I really admired. We had never played at Rudyard's before, and I was really excited.
None of the three drummers who were playing with us at the time ended up able to make the show; Gie Gie and Charles had this bizarre antiquey drum machine from the early 1970s we ended up using for most of the set. We didn't have much time to rehearse (though I guess we probably wouldn't have rehearsed much more if we could've), and between a long series of instrument swaps, mangled songs about animals and robots, and general chaos, we ended up driving most of the crowd downstairs after just a few songs. To top it all off, I forgot to move my car after we loaded in our instruments and it got towed in the middle of our set. All in all, not one of our better shows, but looking back on it now with some distance (and the knowledge that I didn't give up music forever after that night), I kind of like this clip.
For bonus laffs, here's a review of the show by a blogger named Justin Crane entitled "Sloppy". Most of the humor for me stems from the fact that he played guitar with us on one song.
The most important lesson learned: don't play your most "Children's Band"-esque show ever in a bar.
Briana Fitzpatrick: Keyboards
Ryan Goodland: Guitar
Iram Guerrero: Drums
Carlos Sanchez: Other Drums
Cley Miller: Drumsticks, Lights
Jose Sanchez: Bass
Joe Mathlete: Vocals, Guitar
Eight months later and this is what "Animals" sounds like. I was lucky enough to draft the members of my favorite Houston band into being Mathletes starting in early 2007 (they had to change their name to Young Mammals earlier this year, due to a threatened lawsuit by a woefully shitty band from Portland who shared their original name, a name I will refrain from mentioning). You can't so much tell from this video, seeing as 3/4 of the band are playing drums (Jose stuck to his bass), but they're really good at doing rock and roll songs.
If you squint very carefully, you will notice that I'm the only person in both this clip and the last one.
Gie Gie McGee: Vocals / Pianica
Joe Mathlete: Guitar / Vocals
Bill Savoie: Drums
Giorgio Angelini: Guitar
Bubba Hightower: Bass
In the winter of 2006, the Mathletes were asked to open for a touring band called 1986, fronted by a high school friend of mine by the name of Giorgio Angelini (oddly enough, the guy who set up the show didn't seem to know Giorgio and I had ever met. Small world, I guess). We hadn't really been a band for some time at this point; the last thing approximating a steady lineup disintegrated about a year prior and I'd mostly just been recording on my own, as I am wont to do. But I figured, y'know, the songs we play live aren't too tricky to pick up, and I know a lot of musicians. I'll just make some phone calls and see what happens.
We rehearsed twice, sort of. I was never actually able to get everyone together at the same time, so it was basically a couple long afternoons of me trying to teach whoever showed up how the songs went, and promising them it would sound neat when the rest of the band was there. I think there were about seven or eight of us that night, with people swapping in and out as we got to songs they did or didn't know. About two-thirds of the band met each other for the first time ever the night of the show. It ended up going over well enough, and though I did what I could do solidify around a real lineup, over the next year the "oh, we've got a gig, let's see who shows up this time" method became pretty much gospel.
"Animals" was basically written so Gie Gie could sing it live. She's a real-live elementary school teacher, I kid you not. Her schedule has always been very wonky, and even back when we had a pretty stable lineup there would be times where she couldn't make shows and we'd have to soldier on without her. It is weird for me when we play this song and I'm singing it.
Wow, I sure did write a lot. Ah, well... Just enjoy ("enjoy") the clip, and stay tuned for more. Or go read something that isn't about my band, I guess.