THIS IS NOT A TEST

Let me tell you about First Aid Kit, and what it was like when I saw them perform the other night. Let me also tell you about the Inland Empire, cult-speak, living in a Walmart parking lot, plowing the same fields over and over, sibling vocal harmony as competition, authenticity, suffering for your god, the rudeness of Los Angeles audiences, angels and kitties, Black Sabbath, using your god damn phone to take pictures and video during a concert, feeling human, hitchhikers, movie theaters, Led Zeppelin, being among the 25% of podcasters who are too stupid or masochistic to give up, screaming from the top of Mt. Wilson and 11,520 birds chirping.

What happens when I’m part of the audience at a live Big Brother TV show. Not to mention, blown tires, wobbly CV joints, drifting, soggy in New York, Ed Sullivan, The Beatles, punk cred, the L.A. river, Julie’s boudoir, the angriest white man in America, amping up the excitement level, lemonade, grade school pictures, how babies dance before they have full control of their bodies, the age of consent in Canada, trained seals, identical twins, good natured ribbing, making an ass of yourself, elevator conversations, smoke alarms, ceiling joists, rugs and curtains, unrealistic expectations and screaming.

Misadventures in trying to give things away on the Internet. Also: dicking around, vacations, text messaging, ridiculously humid days, lying about your name, setting fires in your front yard, people at the post office, bubble wrap, the customer is usually wrong, the Recycler, that TV show about guys up in Maine buying and selling and bartering out of a weekly classifieds paper, selling guitars, blacksmithery, things like soap, riding the wave of change, the middle class, being frozen or suspended or whatever they do to preserve our flimsy bodies after we die and trust.

Let’s talk about clothes. We all wear them, we all love them. You do love them, don’t you? Along the way let’s also mention humidity, the people who really run shit, guacamole, Chinese boots, caves and castles, going topless, Victorian era women, flappers, frozen steaks, Comic-Con, Captain America, mouth-breathers, subcultures, fishermen, black jeans and Babylon.

It’s time to get to the bottom of Charles Bukowski’s “10 year drunk” and many other Bukowski myths. Also, taking it easy in Greece, Pearl Harbor, meditation, BMWs, expensive wine and a veritable slew of new Bukowski books due out later this year.

It’s the 4th of July, what better day to talk about independence. We’ll wave the flag and maybe talk about some other things, like the President, Marc Maron, Rolling Stone and the Rolling Stones, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joan Jett and the Runaways, the Sex Pistols and Green Day, blowing shit up, refusing to kiss the king’s ring, weasels, politicians, tough bastards, the Maldives, the homeland, military regimes, censorship, learning a new language, flags, explorers, colonists, Stonehenge, Vikings, fracking, a McDonald’s in Denver, rainforests and deserts, the plains, a pile of beanbag chairs, working until the day you drop dead, food that cooks itself, North Korea, corn on the cob and plastic. Among other things.

TED, changing the world one robot at a time. Also, Big Brother, camping, Comic-Con, the Rolling Stones, the south pole, smallpox, selfies, throwing shade and ice cream on my nose.

I love autobiographies and I love rock and roll in all its many hairy permutations, so what could be better than reviewing a stack of autobiographies written by musicians? That’s a rhetorical question, I’m going to do it anyway. By chance I may also speak of Rachel Dolezal (again), Compton’s Most Wanted, White Indians, survivalist cults, Saturday Night Live, jumping off a cliff after work and prophesies foretold.

Thrill to the new sound of me talking about Rachel Dolezal, dreadlocks, our old friend the Internet, Bob Marley and the Wailers, the Vocoder, the tinny clang of the 80s, electric guitars, triggers, metal kids, mistakes, Gramophones, fuzzy noisemakers, the Mellotron, Guitar Center, Louis Armstrong, transcendence, cocked wahs, bagpipes and momentum.

Well, I have a little chest congestion, so forgive the slight wheezing as I talk about President Obama, the Los Angeles Clippers, fast forwarding, neighbors, construction, This Old House as porn, people who are good at what they do, working on Sunday, the history of sticking windows into walls, the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, chatty Cathy, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, corrugated fiberglass, Styrofoam heads, evidence of a grow house, Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Gandhi, bus stop ads, Adam Sandler's idiotic baby talk characters, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Marc Maron, racism, Bob Dylan and Joe Dirt.