Books Ahoy!

Attention, haters!

Those of you who know me in real life are likely to also know Amanda Cole (whom I don't wish to pigeonhole by forcing a traditional label onto, or, "oppress," by defining by her by her relationship to me), who's a hardworking artist and designer. She's far too modest to boast about this, but some of her typography work has been featured in a book called Type Rules!: The Designer's Guide to Professional Typography which is published by Wiley. I don't have an image of her actual work, but here's a link to a PDF of the book's index, which shows her name.

How could I not mention this?

She's going to kill me tonight.

Aunt and Uncle and

copacetic zine has a new podcast, and I order you to go "Download" it and "Listen" to it (I don't even know what those high tech terms mean, but, oddly enough, I'm creepily familiar with the word "Podcast").

There's really good stuff on there that you'll like for sure. Yes, there's a The Gold State song on there, but you can fast-forward past it.

Sixteen Candles and a Bottle of Rum

The show at the Good Hurt last night was really amazing. I mean, we played pretty well, I think, but who cares about that. I was really pleasantly surprised to see so many friends there on a school night. If you couldn't be there, Gerit drew a picture that, I think, captures the true essence of the evening . There are so many really good, sitcom-worthy stories that unfolded there too, but not all of them are mine to tell.

Amanda took these nifty pictures.


I'm torn between the desire to make us sound more successful and jaded than we really are and the urge to relay the weird discomfort of last night, but I can't resist the latter.

We were completely, 100% out of place on the bill. The first band, specifically, was way more, "Wheedle-ee, wheedle-ee," and "Metal" or whatever than we were. I'll say, unreservedly, that they were the absolute polar opposite of us. There's no way anyone could come up with a better example of different-than-The-Gold-State if they tried.


The guys all had really long hair and they all kept whipping the hair back and forth in unison, and they all had amps that were taller than them. The singer kept yelling "Masculine" things like, "Our songs are about smokin' weed and eatin' pu$$y! Whoo!" Their rather sizeable crowd seemed kind of like--and I say this merely out of an effort to be descriptive--a bunch of, um, "Rednecks." We figured we were going to get beaten up as soon as Brian took his jacket off and revealed his Morrissey t-shirt.


Of course we're watching this, and realizing that these people aren't going to like us, and just as I'm becoming comfortable with this idea and relishing it, the singer announces their final song, and prefaces it with some half-baked tirade about how, "Pop music," is , like, the worst thing in the universe or something, and then...THEN...they launch into the song which is actually entitled something to that effect, and I just turned to our little group in total incredulity. That's what you would've done.


As we were setting up, I crossed paths with the bassist from the first band, and I said, "That kicked ass," to which he responded, "Thanks. Good times."

So, we just got up there and played it as straight as we could.

That's what you would have done.

Ferry 'Cross the Mersey

Attention, behind-back-talkers, smear-campaigners, outright liars, friends, neighbors and beloved acquaintances: In case you don't know, we're playing at Club Good Hurt on Sunday. I know a few of you who are coming, so please be sure to print out the above flyer because you'll get a discount.

If you don't have a good time, I'll give you a million dollars.

Irrational Explanation

My friend asked me about Lonesome Jim, which I'd seen a couple of weeks ago, and I told him that, although it was good, I didn't like it as much as I had hoped.

"Who stars in that movie anyway?"

"Oh, uh...Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler were the main characters."

"Oh. Heh, heh. Liv Tyler. (Pause) Was there any confetti in this movie?"

There was a long pause. Of course, I'm thinking that there's some movie or reality show or tabloid gossip that I'm not aware of where Liv Tyler is associated with confetti.

"Um, what? Confetti?"

"Yeah. -Wait. Isn't Liv Tyler that wacky comedian guy with the handlebar mustache who throws buckets of confetti all over the place?"

Listen To The Computer Radio

Today (Wednesday the 19th) at 4:00, The Gold State's bass guitarist, David, will be playing live on UCLAradio with his other band, The Black Heartthrobs.

David's really good, and his songs are really good, so if you don't listen, you'll probably be reasonably sorry. I'm not trying to be funny or anything.

Do You Believe in Magic and Why Not?

You know how you're usually sitting around on a Sunday evening thinking about how you have to work the next day, and wishing that you could go out to have a drink and see a show in Culver City at 9:30?

You are SO in luck, because The Gold State is playing just such a show this Sunday, April 23 at Club Good Hurt.

The Gold State
Sunday, April 23 - 9:30
Club Good Hurt
www.goodhurt.net
12249 Venice Boulevard, (West) Los Angeles

It only costs five dollars if you print this flyer and give it to the door-person. What do you know about that? (That was a rhetorical question, so please don't feel compelled to compose a reply.)

How do you like us now? (Also rhetorical, for the record.)

Breaker One Nine

Four things I thought about today:

1. You
2. You
3. You
4. And You
   

Happy Dead Christ Day!

Happy Dead Christ Day, everyone! On this day, over two thousand-ish years ago, Jesus lay completely dead for the entire day.

Each year, to honor this occasion, the Vatican wheels out a golden coach that contains the skull of Christ on a really fancy embroidered pillow, and they have a giant parade through the streets of Rome with banners and trumpets and everything.

It's fucking amazing.

Straps Ahoy(?)

At the risk of ruining the in-joke, I thought I'd ruin the in-joke by revealing that the below drawings of The Gold State is our homage to Western Truck Exchange, whose mudflaps we Southern Californians have been admiring for over a quarter century. Losanjealous, not entirely incidentally, ran an informative thing about them recently.

I reveal the source of the in-joke as a non-exclusive, populist gesture for the benefit of our out-of-town visitors, as well as in response to the folks who asked what the hell.

Miniseries'

Baby Binaca

At the risk of sounding too Andy Rooney-esque, I'd like to call attention to the people who lick their fingers and apply saliva to them in order to turn pages or shuffle paper.

At the risk of sounding too Seinfeld-esque, who are these people?

How did this practice ever become socially acceptable? It's kind of disgusting, don't you think? I can't even imagine doing it. I tried to do it just now, but I only got as far as licking my fingertips and reaching for the page. I couldn't actually bring myself to wipe my saliva on it. Why? Because it's fucking gross. How does this ever become second nature for people? How many times must you do it before it becomes automatic? Why must you subject the rest of us to your frothy whims?

I assume people who do it claim to do so because it prevents pages from sticking together. Maybe that's true, and maybe it isn't, but I'm sure there are other bodily fluids that would work even better than spit to help separate pages, and eventually, one would reach the point of diminishing returns.

Like, "Yes, I'm turning pages really fast, but now there's the problem with all the flies."

Scapegoat City

Hi. What's a burrito?

It's ingredients rolled up into a tortilla, right? Yes. That's why "The World's Biggest Burrito" is always such bullshit, because it's invariably made with multiple tortillas. I think in order to really qualify, a "Giant Burrito" should have to be made with one single giant fucking tortilla.

Oh, but, "Mew, mew, mew, where are we gonna get a tortilla that big, or an oven that big, or maybe not necessarily an oven, but whatever people cook tortillas on?" Did you ever hear Gustav Eiffel whining about, "Where are we gonna get a whatever?" No, you fucking did not, so quit moaning, and if you have to, make the oven yourself, or maybe not an oven but whatever it is people cook tortillas on, even if you have to melt down the iron and forge one yourself and just make the biggest goddamn burrito in the world.

What part of this do you not understand?

World's Largest Burrito

At the M&Ms website, you can design your own custom M&Ms. Did you know this? You can type in whatever you want and see a little preview.They won't allow you to see, "Potentially offensive or inappropriate messages," however, so you might have to get creative.
Yeah, I know.