All I need to know about you.

I took this test seriously, as, like, a measure of my continued qualification to write about rock music. So far as I know it is the only thing I can point to so I'm glad to have it. All music writers should get retested every year to renew some kind of online qualification. Unless this is some kind of gag. But, seriously, I think I'm kind of old so I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I heard that high pitched ringing. Emily, is this a gag?

Created by Train Horns

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I won't pretend that I'm not just randomly reviewing what ever I come across because that's exactly what I'm doing. On the other hand that means whatever it is, it caught my eye. This one here, Kiss My Grits #32, was special. I took one look at it in Youngblood Gallery and something just told me it was free.

It got even better once I brought it home and discovered this zine was a detailed and dedicated celebration of power ballads. I love power ballads but I define the term more broadly than this pamphlet. I include such songs as Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth." Kiss My Grits #32 specifies:
"Power ballads are love songs, passionate love songs, typically involving a theme of loss or separation or both, which must also include an electric guitar solo." There's also great clip art, song lyrics, poetry and a "power ballad" in prose dedicated to Atlanta.

I can't remember if all of my favorites are disqualified by their lack of a guitar solo or by not quite being a love song. Does "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey count?

A lot of my other favorites come from the Streets of Fire soundtrack. "Tonight is What It Means to Be Young," would be on my Myspace profile permanently if this were possible but I don't think it is. Someday, I'll at least get the DVD but, really, the soundtrack is better than the movie. On the other hand, the movie kind of is a power ballad. It has Willem Dafoe in it.

This might be the zine's address:

P.O. Box 8776
Atlanta, GA 31106

Here's an idea of Streets of Fire. This song actually gives me chills in some parts and I've got the heat on:

My favorite magazine

I have a promo code so I can give five friends or family members $5 subscriptions to Venus Zine. I'm posting about it here because I feel like there should be some kind of benefit to putting up with Bad Idea Potluck (and because Venus said I could.) Message me and I'll figure out how it works.
The article I have in the actual magazine hits the stands March 1, so this is just to share my love for the best music magazine in America.

Very Bad Poetry

The site www.verybadpoetry.com is my new favorite time sucker. But now that I'm blogging about it I'll probably manage to lose interest.

It's a clearing house/protective custody for all the world's really awful poetry. You can even submit some of your own. If this doesn't sound interesting, maybe it's because you're thinking bad as in Hallmark bad or Wordsworth bad, but this is bad as in maybe the poet is a danger to society or at least shouldn't be allowed to become a substitute teacher. Bet you can't read just one.

(The one below was just on the front page this morning. I found it very moving.) (Sorry the fonts are out of control.)

a squid valentine

by Alexis McNeil

A squid in love is a rare sight.
They are a type that finds their very identity a stumbling block in love,
their doughy physique and palor makes them unappealing even to themselves.
A squid is made for sex, a lubricated mass or throbbing appendages, what else could they be good for. Squid do not like to make eye contact because it makes them feel naked. A female squid stands on the ends of her tentacles behind a rock to obscure her body and then pretends to look up, as though she is considering leaving the ocean all together. The male squid uses an opposite tactic by laying as close to the ground as possible and partially covering himself with sand as though trying to disappear completely. Ninety percent of squid love bonds occur when the female squid accidently injures the male squid by standing on his face. When two squid intend to be together forever they braid their tentacles together. Other squid are intensely jealous of these kinds of public displays so often the 2 romanticly inclined squid are only left with eachother.

Camping (BIPL loves cartoons)

This is the first in the Camping comic series by Vim Crony. It appears in Shotgun Seamstress #3 with more to come. The pictures are hard to read but if you click on them you can see a bigger version. We're posting it here so you can check it out if you want to and also because this is kind of a positive-type comic and maybe we have a secret positive side. We have been lucky enough to see some of the other sketches for Camping and we are excited to see the next strip. That, and Mr. Crony has contributed to Bad Idea Potluck in the past and we wouldn't mind if he did it again one day.

Bad idea of the week

I'd been wanting bangs for awhile but everyone has them. It's getting to the point that I can't tell any of the girls in town apart anymore. It' sort of like how all dudes have beards now. It's requisite. So having bangs would be a kind of capitulation, plus they supposedly don't look good on me. I've been meaning to cut my hair for awhile too but I haven't had the patience.

Anyway, the night before an '80s-themed birthday party three friends announced that they were going as The Ramones and suggested I complete the line up. This is an obviously brilliant idea and I am lucky to know these girls.

I don't really need a lot of encouragement to attend a party dressed as a male rock star. I was supposed to do The White Stripes one year for Halloween but my Meg bailed on me to tend her ailing boyfriend. Just being Jack on my own was still pretty fun. I made myself look like he does on the cover of Get Behind Me Satan. The album had just come out so it was a very recognizable costume.

The other intended Ramones all had bangs but I didn't, so I went home and rectified the situation. I might have taken less than ten minutes with it, which is about my attention span for that sort of thing these days. I gave myself the Johnny and Sean says the back is kind of messed up, but then, as he also pointed out, Johnny didn't give a fuck.

Shortly before the party, I found out I was supposed to be Joey. Shoot. Our costumes were a success, of course. Who doesn't love The Ramones after all? But now I have the Johnny. This is also a kind of success because I have actually always wanted this haircut. But in Las Vegas a friend cut my hair and she always protected me from myself. Those days are gone.

Curry Macaroni and Cheese

Listen, I'm not saying I regret cooking this or eating it, but I might not do it again.

May We Also Suggest

Sure, there's the comic. But watching the animated pilot might take even less time. And watching the trailer on this blog might be even shorter.

Home Ick

So I read on the Internet that if you put your used green tea leaves in the cat litter it will have a natural deodorant effect. I tried it and I think it totally works. Sorry, no picture.

Great Gift Ideas!

If you can't decide between chocolate and flowers, get 'em a chocolate covered flower. I recommend using the kind of chocolate sauce that hardens and forms a shell when you pour it on ice cream. Pour it over a flower that has been in the freezer all night. Then put the flower back in the freezer. They'll love it.

Bad Idea Icons: Feb. Edition

Sort of a pied piper for mistakes,Bad Idea Dinosaur is a character in Cat and Girl,one of my favorite web comics. His blank, devil-may-care expression is at once enchanting and frightening. And it somehow makes you want to follow him where ever he is going and get a snazzy crowbar like his.

You can buy the T-shirt shown above for loved ones and struggling bloggers here.

And

because the last two posts lack images, we got your moment of zen right here.

Outclassed

By a blog that may not be active. I've written a note to the creator, maybe he'll write back.

http://www.badideablog.com/

At any rate if me and Bad Idea Potluck's contributors and icons aren't enough for you, this guy has some real inspiration to offer. But, the bubble gum with porn printed on it is actually too good to be bad.

Holy Mother of Cow

The president talks like a normal person. This has not happened before in my lifetime:

Mr. Obama said the legislation was not perfect, but rejected criticism that it was full of pet projects. Responding to the Republican criticism that it was a big spending bill, the president said: “What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point.”

That was in the New York Times yesterday.

Libation Theology

I seriously dreamed I talked to god last night. He was kind of like a lion on fire, a giant skull, and an old white dude in a suit all at the same time. At least, that's the way I remember it. Heaven was pretty much an old white dudes in suits convention. Not surprisingly, god said I couldn't come in and I had to go to hell. Not back to earth, not to any kind of purgatory. But he said that it was best to go to hell, for I would be purified there and then I could go to heaven. (This eerily mirrors my dilemmas about trying to go to graduate school.)

Then I had to fight an ogre outside the gates to heaven. He was a tall old white dude in a suit with a space age looking white cudgel and black fingernails. I beat him. Maybe he let me. I don't know.

Before that I was on earth and got into a really stupid and emotional argument with Joanna Newsom. It was probably my fault.

I think these dreams were brought to you by Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale.

Road Culture

So I went to the coffee shop where about half of my friends seem to work now for a visit and introduced myself to the one girl behind the counter I didn't yet know. She introduced herself in return and, gazing through the window behind me, asked, "is that your bike?"

Nothing was wrong with the way I'd chained it up, she just liked the looks of it. I don't have much bike pride, and, though mine is fashionably fixed-of-gear, I swear that was an accident of fate. But I don't mind telling people (as if it wasn't obvious) that it was made with spare parts, and I don't mind pointing out where local cycling enthusiast and bike fixer Randy Garcia used Mod Podge to create the unique paisley design on the fork.

So, before I even realized what was happening, we all trooped out of the shop to stand around my bike and discuss it. You know ... like a bunch of hot rodders. But, like, ecologically conscious. If Norman Rockwell was alive today, he would have shown up to paint us.

I think there's something in the American soul that needs to stand around vehicles of any kind and admire them. We can't seem to help ourselves. It's inborn. Or maybe it isn't.

Do Canadians act like this?

The bad idea that got away.

Some of the best bad ideas will never see the light of day. We'll never know how this one would have worked out, but it had boldness and fire. Its tremendous potential will go untapped.

Two friends of mine, Iris and Suzy, (names changed to protect the guilty) were discussing the handsome residents of Suzy's apartment complex over beers at the bar next door. The building's friendly security guard soon joined the conversation and talk turned to one comely young man in particular. Little is known of this specimen, except that he has been seen wearing Sperrys.

The three quickly hatched a plan to write the boy an oblique secret admirer note to be delivered by the security guard. He's always up for adventure. The note was perfect. "Hey ... you live here, and my friend lives here too," it began.

But this seemed too forward and the unicorn drawing above soon replaced it. Even this had problems, as Iris was the boy's admirer but the unicorn was the work of Suzy's hand. It would have diluted the meaning of the gesture. The gambit was abandoned.

I'm mournful about this. The plan was very nearly my platonic ideal of a bad idea. Both because it could have made a random stranger's day and because the possibility was there for embarrassing repercussions on the level of Shakespearean comedy, maybe even tragedy.

To console myself, I confiscated the evidence.

To Plaid Beer!

We here at Bad Idea Potluck would like to start recognizing a special beer each month.
In February, we raise a glass to Old Chub (never mind that the glass itself contains PBR).

The "Scottish Style Ale" produced by Colorado's Oskar Blues Grill and Brewery is an ideal camper's beer because it is incredibly inexpensive in comparison to its 8% alcohol content. Another plus, which helps explain the price: it comes in a plaid aluminum can.

Oskar Blues puts another beer, Dale's Pale Ale, in a can, but Old Chub gets the valentine for being the tastiest beer with a pop top ever.

After some road testing at a house show with a keg, (that may have skewed the results) Old Chub gets the coveted Bad Idea gold star as well. The dashing ale has a way of turning the volume knob on my personality all the way to the right.