This Is Not A Test - Books, Music, Movies, Art, Culture And Truth

Was Prince a genius? Hmm, good question. Let's talk about having 50 albums worth of unreleased music in "the vault," and some of the crazy, before-its-time shit he did when he was alive. Giants walk among us. Or at least they used to. You might also hear me say words about things like the Ostrich Pillow®, having electricity in your house, classical composers, how signing a 100 million dollar recording contract can turn out to be the worst thing that ever happened to you, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna, suing your own fans, getting into the soup, love,  jackrabbits, rattlesnakes and Aqualung. And remember: if you don't own your masters, your masters own you.

Let me tell you about bumping in to Prince on a Minneapolis street corner, but first we'll probably talk about, oh, I don't know, hair removal, P.J. Harvey, record reviews, taking a writer's word for something, Rock Steady, big mailboxes, Siskel and Ebert and where their thumbs have been, the Christgau Consumer Guide, artistic merit, Kansas vs. MC5, Brian Eno, a bunch of made-up metal band names and a little personal remembrance of Prince. Sometimes it snows in April, yo.

Maybe "hate" is too strong a word, but we'll also go to Space Mountain, talk about wasting time, the smart way to do things, Richie Havens, literary magazines, how long "forever" is on the Internet, the answer to some people's dreams, your AOL connection, The Knucklehead Chronicle, baby frogs, an uncaring universe, taking the small press world mainstream, playing "Stairway to Heaven" in 2016, the wisdom of the ages, cutting off your own head, ducks, rhyming children's poems, academic poets, forks, Paris, Prague, Istanbul, Kansas and Vienna, Bukowski, Bukowski, Bukowski, the yout' dem, butterflies, your mother, hunchbacks (not saying your mother is a hunchback, but...), bullshit detectors and puppets.

When you listen to THIS IS NOT A TEST you are not "consuming content," 40 year old pictures, satin bell bottoms, Bob Ezrin, record stores, the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd, Pet Sounds, insufferable twats, music floating on the breeze, ticket scalpers, being easily entertained, cardboard boxes full of cassette tapes, Wham!, technology, a girl named Pearl, being an idiot, plastic spoons, what to bring when you visit my house, political discourse, fragging, the occupy movement, chalking one up to millennial genius, pre-moistened anti-irritant towelettes, flesh hooks, the cat in the shark costume riding the robot vacuum, Fort Knox, puppets and lemonade.

Are we sure we want a cashless society? Are we sure we want to hear about Victorian-era language, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, delivering mail, buildings made from a single tree, Fiji Mermaids, Odditoriums, teenage vampire novels, working dogs from the UK, casinos, Taco Bell, the genius of credit card companies, above ground pools, iris scans, noisy metal boxes, poodle skirts, poop, Tony Soprano, corsets, coconuts, Wall Street douchebags, jasmine blossoms, conspiracy theories, one percenters and "bros?" Are we sure about anything?

In this episode I call your parenting into question, try to be dignified, compare myself to famous explorers, scratch my head over kids who wear costumes for no reason, call you into question for letting the kids wear costumes for no reason, change diapers, witness a spoiled prick playing Minecraft, call home schooling into question, wonder out loud whether leaving home and striking out on your own is even normal, insult Americans and Canadians and Europeans, call India and China "scrappy," blame your children's lameness on you, talk about being a good pilgrim, racism, Hindu gods, laugh at those of you spending your lives trying to "protect" children, I "feel the Bern" and try to explain why that whole thing is a pointless joke, and I may also mention Thunderdome, reality TV, Patti and Fred "Sonic" Smith, quote Joe Strummer, insinuate that the Oscar ceremony is repetitive and idiotic, and give you a long overdue chirpwatch update. You might wonder how I can fit all of that into a 30 minute show. The answer is

Good is great, perfect is not, also, having the Zika virus, taking a vacation, having a stroke at work, Mat Gleason’s “Modern Art Blitz” and Internet TV shows in general, Jay Leno, join the professionals, McDonald’s mozzarella sticks, striving, astral planes, Internet millionaires and other numbskulls, rules, prog rock creeps, hurdy gurdys, confetti, swing, NASCAR, injection molding, sound engineers, ricocheting around the beat, smelling the sweat, zines, mimes, hiding in plain sight and test patterns.

Bukowski, Bukowski, Bukowski! And let us not forget civil servant weirdos, resisting the draft, spending all day in a bar, paying child support, living on a park bench, having a different kind of brain, fear of public speaking, skin magazines, TMZ, art generated by companies, critical mass, shaking your bush, the foolhardy and ultimately fruitless attempt to make Bukowski palatable to a wider audience, holiday shopping, Bob Marley, bombing churches, a Peter Tosh museum in Jamaica, Prince's purple jacket, mausoleums, Jell-O, rust and Batman.

Wondering about David Bowie, hair, catastrophes, cheese blintzes, Powerball, being struck by lightning, little house on the prairie dresses, sand in your shorts, Bob Dylan in a cowboy hat, Iggy Stooge, using to mirrors to see yourself from behind, pale meat, fermentation, wigs, psychologists, nostrils, living in basements, reinventing yourself, how to look a man in the eyes, pleasingly shaped heads, having an awesome boat, irritation as entertainment, the new race and baking bread. Okay, we don't talk about baking bread, but doesn't fresh bread sound good right now?

Blabbing about CBGB, Lemmy from Motorhead, making up new words, 20/20 hindsight, attitude and inspiration, being in the right place at the right time, chess, flophouses, saloons, sewage, little black boxes full of people, bass guitar strings and their durability in the face of continued abuse, the Longhorn in Minneapolis, moping (not mopping), lying around all day fanning yourself, boxer briefs, punk rock as a "brand," the Johnny Thunders replica guitar, cement mixers, scrapes and scars, contrived legitimacy, leather jackets, building stoves, gangs of hooligans, the jazz age, Whitney Houston, paying too much for movies and pretending to be the mayor's son.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, right? So let's talk about Christmas, the fine family of Unilever companies, year end lists, crying kids and sweaty dads, nostalgia, shoveling brains, the disco 70s, the characters on Mad Men, the old man sitting in the corner, prisons, carnies, dead Blue Whales, paying an extra dime to go behind the curtain, Trilby hats and Presidential bids.

Let's talk about when it's time to give up. And while we're at it we may as well talk about professional hand models, deep tissue massage, the counterculture, Oprah, the rising tide that raises all boats, how lazy poets are, sure fire money-making schemes, a better way to store sweaters, Sumi-e painting, Japanese hammers, bible class, how GOD HATES FAGS, monkeys disassembling atomic bombs, lord Vishnu, doing nothing, the circle of life, shedding hair, tattoo parlors and even a Chirpwatch update for old time's sake. Now how much would you pay?

Including thrilling tales of riding bikes up the side of mountains, financing the Napoleonic Wars, "monetizing" every human, sending the nanny to CVS in a chauffeur driven Bentley, Mork from Ork, the last can of beans in Pasadena, mental illness, speaking to the unborn, sashaying in the halls of Congress, marking the passage of time, Pizza Hut, Steely Dan and United States Savings Bonds.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Okay, but what do I need to eat to keep the insurance company away? Also, maps, taking a shower, Richie Havens, rabbit holes, incompetent doctors, the condition known as "Heisenblatt shoulder," living on the high side of normal, treadmills, torturing people and measuring how their bodies react, colonoscopies, forgetting how to walk, insurance, insurance and more insurance, magic mathematics, good insurance vs. bad insurance, half a car, the safe in my closet, La-Z-Boy recliners, puritans, Vulcans, Mr. Rogers and Carol Burnett.

Art vs. commerce - as Bukowski wrote in Barfly, "Ah, the eternal question! The eternal answer? I don't know." But not knowing the answer to a question has never prevented me from doing this before. I'll talk about a lot of other things I don't have any answers for too, like terrorism in Paris, forcing creativity, making things difficult on yourself, compromise, naivete, smog, humans, reading fees, business being business, art galleries, balloon animals, trying not to look foolish, hammer and nails, auction houses, a hundred hipsters sweating, self-preservation, racism, peace, love and more Bukowski.

We've all done it, bought a song - or an entire album - that we already have. Do you blame technology or marketing? While we ponder that we'll also ponder getting your arm chopped off in big piece of farm equipment, chance, luck, chaos, the Pope, opinions, monkey meat, The Beatles, The Monkees, Victrolas, 8-tracks, leaving your cassettes in a hot car, cynical attempts to separate you from your money, remastering, plastic apples, Blink 182, 180 gram vinyl, Thanksgiving dinner at your parents house, skinny jeans and the shithole that is Stitcher.

Self-publishing - what is it? Why should you care? Well I don't know, why should you care about anything? But if it doesn't interest you, we also have renovations, elevators and what people write in them, pissing, the possibility of executing certain types of people (not you), housewives and uneducated dandies, being deemed worthy, Thomas Edison, the mimeograph, X-acto knives, The Nincompoop Quarterly, exposure for artists, Kinkos, anarchy, Achilles, amateurs, cream, burritos, lipstick, Amazon (not the river), pundits, gain, loss, Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn, Saturday Night Live and humanity as a whole.

Rock and roll, who's game is it? I can tell you. And what about Halloween? What's up with that? Plus a love letter to Sonny Vincent, hate mail to prog rock, the joys of mindlessness, paternity suits, being the captain of your own pirate ship, walking a cat on a leash, interesting hats, true believers, flannel shirts, tar kettles, hallucinations, and Twitter. And yes, that is indeed a picture of Sonny wearing his Beatle boots with pajamas. As if to illustrate a point or something.

The title is a quote from Homer Simpson, but don't we find our truth in our comedy? While we talk about work we'll also gossip about commuting, the skyway system in St. Paul, Bob Marley, counting songs, Greek philosophers, Martin Luther, farming, disease and death, Indians, craftsmen, the rise of the machines, factories, labor unions, computers, small printing shops, accountants, Walmart, pig farms, being a millionaire, meteors, getting a text during dinner, alien invasions, 16 weeks of vacation and stock options, gold watches and bite plates.

On tap today: collecting things, completism, Catcher in the Rye, TV Guide magazine, bottle caps, cat-eye sunglasses, Circus, CREEM and Rock Scene magazines, box rattlers, sealing things in hard plastic, View-Master, King Tut, silver dollars, binding sniffers, Mantle rookie cards, Electro Harmonix pedals, The Wormwood Review, The Wailers, Elvis tie racks, being no-nonsense and domesticating wolves.