Tsunami Disaster

117,000 lives… gone. 117,000 people; people who smiled, laughed, loved, dreamed, and hoped… gone. There is nothing you can say, no words to sum up a tragedy this vast. This is more people than died in the bombing of Hiroshima, double the number of American soldiers that died in the Vietnam war, fifty times the number that died on nine-eleven.

People, washed away. Bloated bodies rotting, unidentified, dumped into mass graves. Widows are screaming, empty and hopeless. Where are the children? Where are the fathers? Where are the mothers? A tropical paradise turned into living hell.

Don’t worry, the world is on the way to help! The U.S. has pledged 35 million dollars to the relief efforts. $35 million… We devote billions to developing new ways to kill people every year. That’s about fifteen cents per person.

This makes me want to cry. Never in my life time have I heard of a disaster so enormous. On Monday the News Journal ran an article on this, they put it on the third or fourth page. Don’t you see? Humans have the same value if they are American or Indonesian. Why aren’t people upset? If this doesn’t move you than you are either seriously ethnocentric or a victim of a cold heart.

I can’t fathom the loss, I can’t dream of the pain. Please, please pray for these people. Please think about them.

Watching the Kids

Darby is recording all this week like 60 hours so I have the kids. It's going pretty well. I really like them, and they are excellent people with which to spend one's time.

Of course, it hasn't been without it's problems, and occassional Emergency Room visits.

Yes, that's right.

I take them to Boomer's, which is a "family entertainment center" in Avondale, PA. Things have gone very well, we crawl through tunnels and slide down slides. Everyone is in high spirits. On our way out, the kids want to sit on a large 18 wheel truck video game that looks like the cockpit of. . .an 18 wheel truck. They are spinning the steering well, everything is still going swimingly.

Then Lyric makes her way to the next video game, this one a skateboard that she stands on and swerves from side to side. Ollie wants to take a shot at it.

And misses his step off of the truck game, and comes crashing down, knocking his head on the metal platform.

Kids fall all of the time, so I just scramble to pick him up and comfort him, not knowing how bad the fall was really. He's crying of course. Then I notice that his face is wet. To my shock, I see that his face is covered in blood. Like scenes of war or something. Lyric is predictably freaked out, "Daddy, what's wrong with Ollie?"

Yes, I am frantically wondering the same thing. I carry Ollie to the front desk, making my way past one horrified expression after another. I ask the lady to please get me some paper towels and ice. I'm trying to simaltaneously calm down Lyric (who was actually being very mature, but was also very worried - as was I), and help Ollie calm down. The napkins are produced, and I try to start wiping away the blood and find the wound. There is a gash above his right eyes and I'm distressed to see that as soon as I clean it up the blood spurts out again. Like a hose!

Still working to remain calm, I ask the Boomer's employee to please call the ambulance. Thoughts about blood lose and head wounds threaten to overtake me, but I push them aside, trying to stop the bleeding by applying the napkin. Ollie is hysterical, pushing against my efforts and basically making it very difficult to apply anything. I just want to keep letting him know that I am there to help him, to help him know he is going to be ok.

A very kind lady keeps asking if there is anything she can do. I can't really think of anything. Other than the obvious, like stop the bleeding. But that is kind of outside her abilities. Ollie uses a pacifier to calm down, so I ask if she'll go to our car and get it. She does, and it helps.

By the time the ambulance has come, Oliver has calmed down, and the blood flow has let up. So I opt to drive him to the ER together. Father and son, covered in blood, looking like we had been in a car accident. And Lyric praying for Ollie and telling him that Jesus will heal all this soon. (I told you she was being very mature).

I'll spare you the rest of the details. Darby and my family showed up at the ER thank goodness. Poor Ollie had to endure 5 stitches. (Want to feel like a helpless parent, stand by while your kid is poked by needles and sewn up and can't understand why you are letting all this happen to him.) He now looks like a Rocky Balboa who had taken on one too many Russians. But all is well, and I think I passed this particular test.

Looking for a slightly more low-key day today.

God Bless Reggie White

Reggie White was an Eagle when I became aware of sports, and him chasing QBs around the field is one of my first memories of football watching. I always like the minister of defense, both for his on and off the field actions. I had the opportunity to see him speak about 5 years ago, and he was a good man with a kind heart. God bless you, Reggie, and congrats on reaching the finish line a winner.

Happy Birthday

You know there is a good likelihood that today is actually Jesus' birthday.

What an event. God becomes flesh. Proving once and for all that Love is worth all the pain and death. So worth it that he will become subject to it himself. Changing everything that night in Bethlehem, changing it all, forever, just for us. Leaving that perch of power and omnipotence to become a human who could be hurt and killed. A small tiny precious baby. Appreciated only by a few humans and a multitude of angels.

Savor it!

It really is a marvelous time of the year.

Merry Christmas

The blog was looking a little slow so I decided I'd make a rare post and say Merry Christmas to everyone. Guess what I got for Christmas? More drum stuff, oh yeah!

Christmas was insane this year. Anyone try and go out shopping in the past week? Everywhere and everyone was crazy. It's getting more and more expensive with my family growing too, but everything turned out great.

Have some good holidays everyone. I won't be posting anything for another 6 months :O), try Isaiah.

Favorites of the Year

As 2004 draws to a close, I'll list mine, you comment and add yours.

Favorite Albums (no particular order)
U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
At some point I'm going to write a proper review of this album, but for now I'll just say that 3 weeks into listening, I'm still listening and hearing more and more, and loving each song more. There is such a maturity here, such inspiration. It makes me want to be a better man.

Morrissey, You are the Quarry
I'm an unapologetic Smiths and Morrissey fan, and it was very gratifying to see Morrissey return to writing sardonic relevant brooding music as only he can. Some of his lyrics are just priceless. My favorite is probably "And I will die with both of my hands untied." or "So close your eyes and think of someone you physically admire and let me kiss you." (That last line because it's just so quintessentially self-hating Morrissey.

Jimmy Eat World, Futures
I'm amazed at the mixed reviews this album has received. I hear it and I just hear a bunch of well-written, well-crafted, catchy songs that stick with you. I might even like it more than Bleed America at this point.

Boy Sets Fire, Untitled Next Album
Weighing in at 26 songs and not technically a release in 2004, it is something I've listened to a whole lot over this last year, and it's excellent. Mixing enough rage-filled heaviness to keep their hard-cores happy with a generous portion of gorgeous melodic stuff to keep people like me interesting, they've written a collection of songs that deserves commercial and critical acclaim. Will they get it? I guess that depends on whether their label does it's job. Compared to their previous work, this feels like a step forward to me, with songs that rival My Life in the Knife Trade and After the Eulogy in their strength.

Mindy Smith, One Moment More
Kind of country (in a good bluegrass way) but with the edge of acoustic rock, Mindy Smith's songs have such a startingly vulnerability to them that by the end of the first listen, one feels like you know her very well. And they are just so beautiful. The lyrics, the melodies, her voice, the guitar. It'll ache your heart in a good way.

MUSE, Absolution
It's incredible. If you haven't bought it yet, do it!

Favorite Movies of the Year
Spiderman 2
He has always been my favorite superhero, and I love that his movies are in very good hands with the acting and the directing. I actually liked this one more than the first, and it taught me something on a moral level. It was one of those things that you hear and it seems so obvious and clear, but you never really had realized it before. Well what was it, you ask? It was the theme that just because something is your dream and what you've always wanted, that doesn't mean it's the right thing and it might not be particularly good if that dream comes true. Good film.

Eternal Subshine of the Spotless Mind
I want to make films like this!!!! I love the final message of this film . .in other words, yeah things might be painful and hard and difficult, by in the end Love is worth all of the pain and you should always choose Love even if some pain comes along with it. It's worth it.

The Incredibles
Pixar has yet to make a film that I didn't love, and this was one of my favorites so far (I put it below Toy Story 2 and above the rest). I love how they make such smart, clever films that manage to entertain kids AND adults without bodily emission jokes. They create characters that you care about, which is actually ashame because they are pretty much against making sequels (Disney forced them to make TS2).

__________________________________
Maybe I'll do books and tv shows at some point too.

Indoor Rock-Climbing

I went to an indoor rock-climbing gym today in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia. It was the best indoor gym I've seen, inside an old brick warehouse, and with a great amount of climbing space.

Now I'm no rock-climbing expert. I've done it once before, and unfortunately I never was able to reach the top.

But today that changed.

While exhausted, and seconds from quitting when I had gotten half-way up the climb, I pushed myself through that wall of exhaustion and reached the top. It was pretty exciting. It's funny, the whole pushing oneself to do something. Because I really just about quit and I would think that climbing that high was just beyond my abilities right now.

Boy are my forearms tired.

My house has no heat right now. Turns out I needed to get a propane tank refilled. Who knew? I hope it's not too cold tomorrow. . . Because I fear no one will do anything until Monday. I'm trying to keep wood in that old fireplace round the clock.

I am terrible at Halo 2. All I basically do is walk around all by myself, never seeing anyone else. And then occassionally I get killed by someone. But still, it is fun. I just wish I was better.

Comment or Post of the Month

Here is proposal that Childish sent to me and asked me to post. It's a good idea, please partiicipate.

With the elections over, we, as a United Blogger Nation, should also exercise our right to vote. We will not be voting for president however or for a blogger member to get kicked off the island (though that is tempting). We will vote for our favorite contribution to the blog.

Before Tuesday night, everyone vote for your favorite post or comment from within the last month. Tuesday night, I will tally the votes up and declare a winner. The winner will receive the grand prize of a king size snickers bar and a mystery prize, given to them by me. You can only vote once and you can, if so desired, vote for yourself. When voting, please tell who and which of their posts or comments you are voting for. Anonymous voting will not be accepted. If the vote results in a tie, the band members will break it with an emergency, sudden death vote.

I will vote first, I'm voting for Jason's "when speaking, my spelling is flawless" post.

Vote or die, rock the vote, and all that stuff.

~Childish

So lets hear the votes! Like he said, you can vote for yourself, but you have to realize that the winner will be accepting the mystery prize. Do so at your own risk.

A Funny Practical Joke

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a genius, sometimes there is no doubt in my mind. Here's a little trick I figured out. You should probably try it next time you are bored.

My brother, Shane and I use the same computer. He's always typing papers for school and stuff. Well, I am a horrible speller (as this post will most likely reveal). I was typing along and spelled their as thier. Good old auto correct did its job and the error was fixed. Suddenly I had an idea. A wonderful, splendid, aweful idea!

I went into the preeferences for auto correct and there were thousands of misspelled words, all of which would be changed to the ccorrect spelling iff you made an error while typing. I added "Shane Palkovitz" to the list of misspelled words and told it to correct with "Monkey Face Orangutan Butt Palkovitz." The next time he typed his name, it auto corrected and switched to his new nick name.

It was a smashing success! I was downstairs and could hear the shouts from above me. He came running down the stairs yelling and proceded to give me a wedgie and stick his nasty feet in my face. I would have fought back but I was on the phone and I was laughing so hard I couldn't defend myself. So give it a try.

Side note: I ate Reduced Sugar Cinamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. Isn't that kind of ironic and pointless? I think it's like a reduced meat steak, or maybe reduced smoke cigarettes, or maybe alcohol free jack daniels. Whatever it's like it's nasty.

Jealousy Curve

I wanted to give some recognition to a Philly based band called Jealousy Curve. Many of you probably remember that we played with them at our Everett Theater show in Middletown. Apart from being incredible musicians and excellent songwriters (which they are), they also are very helpful, kind people. They are the ones that basically got us the "in" to play at Grape Street, and recently Steve (their lead guitarist) has been giving us tips on increasing our draw the next time we play there. Anyway, I was trying to return the favor in a small way, so visit their site, listen to their music, and sign up for their mailing list.

"Fallow"

Here is a nice thing that my good pal Josh Darnit (A.K.A. JD) wrote. It's pretty great I think.



.. so i stop turning over
the exhausted, faded earth of my mind
because answers are failing to bloom
i let my thoughts and emotions go
quietly decompose into fallow stillness

and after this rest, after this waiting
i trust my life to grow
as never before
brought to season and reward
by His strong, scarred hand...

for now it is time to waitlet peace fall down,
a white blanket of snow
yet all the while letting an earthy,
profound, divine love grow
deep and rich in my frail heart

The Polar Express

Yesterday my wife was hosting a shower at our house. That meant that I had the responsibility of getting the kids out of the house. And I also took my nephew and niece. We had a really good time. First we went to Friendly's, and then we saw the Polar Express.

I had heard bad things about the Polar Express, but I was pleasantly surprised. The animation was not quite perfect (for realism), but it was extraordinary non-the-less, and the action was actually fairly non-stop. Mostly I was just happy because it was interesting enough to charm a 2 year old and a couple of 5 year olds (well, the 2 year old lost interest with about 10 minutes to go, but still pretty impressive.) It didn't pack the same kind of cleverness or character development as a Pixar movie, but still, worth seeing. And I predict it will become a Christmas Classic that will pop up on TV every year.

But if you haven't seen The Incredibles yet. . . well, then you are definitely missing out.

Thoughts about Research

Don’t get me wrong! I am all for good solid research. I am all for backing up your own opinions with established facts and others opinions that are more credible than your own. However, there is a lot more to intelligence than doing research. Think about it, when you cite a source what you are doing is citing someone else’s original thought. Why not skip that step and come up with your own original thoughts?

I am a very original thinker. I would rather write a 15 page paper straight out of my head than write a 5 page research paper. I’d rather write a dozen songs than learn to play one already written. I like to come up with ideas, I like to think of new things, I like to invent, and I like to mentally “explore.” Personally, I value being able to process information and come to my own conclusions more than I value looking something up to see if anybody else thought of the same thing. I like to ask questions, I like to find answers, I like to speculate on answers, I like to wonder about things that can have no rational answer.

Here is another thing. I am certainly not the authority on this, but there is more to good solid research than slapping a citation on the end of a paragraph or quoting somebody. There are billions of people in the world and most of them are entirely insane. Anybody can publish anything, but that doesn’t make it right. You can find books, websites, and quotes to support any position you can dream up. That’s not to say that research is not valid, I’m just saying that it can be distorted and crappy sources can be taken advantage of.

To be sure, there is a place for research, but it's not in my busy life right now. I thoroughly enjoy reading well thought out, well reasoned, and well supported writings! I even enjoy writing these from time to time, but that's what I do in school.

So, in short, if people want to read finely cited works full or experts opinions, go for it! But you probably won’t be finding too many of them written by Ian – Band Member. That’s what the academic world is all about. I spend too much time in that world as it is. If you want to hear original and speculative thoughts or perhaps “Random musings from the rock group the Look Machine” than you are in the right place.

A little More on the Look Machine at the Grape Street

The show started at 8:30, but we were supposed to be there at 7:30 to unload all of our equipment and talk to the guys in charge. We were arriving just on time, driving down the crowded narrow streets of a town known as Manayunk, or maybe Maneok, or maybe It’s just a suburb of Philly. Wherever it was and however you spell it, people there tend to stand in the middle of the street and not move out of the way of oncoming traffic. Collin tends to be a very intelligent person, however he didn’t notice that this guy was in the road. So to keep a short story short, we ran over him and kept driving. Jason was like, “Hey collin, look out for that guy.” Collin smiled and kept driving, and then the van was like “Thunk” and our mirror was pushed in. The guy looked fine though so we kept driving.

When we got there we were all getting our hands stamped as band members so that we could get in. Childish was with us and the guy asked, “Is he part of the band?” We said, “Well, he’s our roadie.” The guy said “Is he part of the band?” and we said “he’s with us.” And again he asked “Is he part of the band?” and we said, “Well, he’s our guitar tech.” and he said, “I’m going to need some ID. Well, childish will be a child until December 20th, and so his ID wasn’t going to get him in. So we thought he could get in on somebody else’s ID. So he hands the bouncer an ID that looks like nothing like him. The guy looks at the name, and realizes that it is not Childish. “Why did he call you Childish?” he asked. “Because it’s not my ID.” They didn’t like that answer. So we gave a long and thorough (and true) explanation, “We’re not trying to sneak him in! You said you needed an ID, you didn’t say it had to be his. I gave him mine to say that I was vouching for him and would make sure he didn’t drink, he’ll be with me the whole time.” They didn’t like that either, so Childish sat in the car while we played a rock show.

Several other fans (that’s what we call our friends) came but too they didn’t bring their ID. Even with our pre-established honesty we couldn’t convince the bouncers to let them in. Thanks guys for coming anyway.

We went in their and played our show. Only 8 of our fans managed to get inside to hear us, but they were into it, and so where the rest of the people. Overall we felt pretty good about it.

Afterwards I talked to the guy in charge of booking. It looks like we felt better about it than he did. He said, “You have a very innovative and original sound, and I like it a lot. Your performance could use a little boost and your draw could use a big boost. Email me in 6 months, and you don’t get paid for tonight, only 6 people came.”

PS. I ate a whole octopus today. It looked really weird sitting there in front of me with it’s big head and 8 suction cup covered legs. I would have rather seen him on the discovery channel than on my plate, but two huge bites and he was history. He didn’t taste good, but it was worth it.

Grape Street -- Success

We had a good show tonight, with a good reception. Grape Street is a nice venue because the people want to hear original music. I had a large number of people come up to me and compliment our sound, our songs, and our energy.

Nice. Thanks to all of you who joined us. Sorry to those who were turned away because they were too young or forgot their ID's. Jason and Susan you can still have the "You ROck" award and the free stickers even though we missed you.

The sound system was excellent, so that contributed to the overall show. Great room with exposed stone and brick, nice acoustics. Just one little problem when Collin broke a string (and Ian's delay pedal didn't work quite right either), but we played tightly and sounded good I think.

Hopefully they will invite us back.

Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11

I'd been meaning to see it, and yesterday I finally did. It was painful to watch.

Forget about all the Bush hypotheses. I don't care for Moore's conspiracy theories. And I don't care about the reading of the Goat book to the school children in Florida. Big deal.

In fact, if you watch this film, just tune Moore's commentary out all together. It's strangely uneven and has no cohesion anyone. At one moment he is upset that the coast of Oregon is not covered with gun toting troops vigilantly guarding against a terrorist invasion. But then he is mocking an airport security agent who was hypervigilant, checking everything lest anything dangerous slip through. One shot he is making the point that our soldiers are mindless, depraved boars who are immorally shooting up Iraqis as if they are so many pixels in their XBox game. But then not much later he portrays our troops as noble innocents being sacrificed on the alter of W. He is dogging Bush for not getting after the Taliban quickly enough, and with enough force, while when our military action there started, he is on the record as being against it. Whatever, Michael, let us know when you have a thesis and we'll consider it.

But you should see the film. It's very painful, but we should all know and realize the cost of war. Not just the cost of our soldier's lives, which is sad and very real. But the civilian cost. Our military has disclosed that there have been civilian (read: innocents, not insurgents) casualties likely exceeding 100,000 people. Dwell on that number for a moment. 100,000. Children with their legs blown off, stuff like that. Really difficult to watch.

Everything has a cost. This is one of the costs of our action in Iraq. And we should all be aware of it. I'm not saying that a military action is never worth it because of civilian casualties, or even that necassarily our actions to take out Saddam were the wrong thing to do. I think history will be the judge of our actions, and at this point we only have hints.

What Would You Bring to Your Lonely Desert Island?

I was recently asked an interesting question. Someone told me that I was packing to go on a trip that I knew would end in a plane crash and I would be stranded all alone for the rest of my life on a lonely desert island. However, I would be allowed to bring 10 CD’s and listen to them. So, this person asked me, what ten CD’s would I bring, and why. Please note, they do not have to be real released CD’s, I can make up my own.

My answer…

Well, I'm packing up for my disastrous trip. While I know that this trip will be tragic, ending in a horrible crash with only one survivor (me of course) I decide to go along for two reasons. First, it's better to have a crash with one survivor than for everyone to die. Second, I like desert islands and if being stranded there for the rest of my life would mean no more final exams, research papers, or lectures than it would be preferable to my life as it is now.

I decide to bring a book of matches, an axe, a knife, a Calvin and Hobbes book, a clean pair of underwear, a can of sardines, and ten of my favorite CDs.

Here are my selections:

The Counting Crows, Live Across a Wire. This is a two CD set, my favorite album of all time. The Counting Crows are incredible live! A song never quite comes out the same way twice. Each of these songs is chocked full of solos, spontaneous verses, sung conversations, and most of the memories from the last 3 or 4 years of my life. This music would really bring me home, making me remember summers in New York, road trips, falling in love, and growing into the man I am becoming.

Michael Hedges, Aerial Boundaries. This CD is all instrumental so I don’t get tired of it very quickly. It’s brilliant acoustic guitar work, very creative, very inspirational.

The Look Machine, Unreleased, Unrecorded Greatest Hits. So maybe it doesn’t exist... yet. This is another one that would be full of memories. Writing the music, playing shows, hanging out with band, rocketing up the charts to number one (or not). It would make me smile.

James Taylor Greatest Hits. Sometimes you just need a little bit of fire and rain in your life, what else can you say?

Rich Mullins, A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band. I was on this music. My mom cranked me out in the delivery room, the doctor slapped my butt and dried me off, and my dad put some headphones on me and turned up the tunes. Rich Mullins is probably simultaneously the most honest and most optimistic artist I know of. He sings about life as it really is, but always manages to turn the focus back to hope, back to God.

U2, Greatest Hits as Defined by Ian Palkovitz. When you get right down to it, there’s just nobody quite like them. I’ve always listened to them, and they have always rocked! 25 steady years of hit music, always fresh, always daring. It just can’t be beat!

The Appleseed Cast, Two Conversations. This CD has incredible instrumentation and lyrics. It’s rather atmospheric, soothing, detached put poignant. It has the same feeling of when you are half awake on a Saturday morning (or early afternoon), dreamy and a little listless.

Boy Sets Fire, Greatest and Most Melodic Songs as Defined by Ian Palkovitz. These guys are one of my favorite bands. Passionate, driving, heartfelt, but sometimes a little more hardcore than I want to listen for the rest of my life all alone on my desert island. This CD would be 80 minutes of their best music of the more chilled out variety.

Various Artists, African Odyssey. There is something about lyrics in another language. I just love it, its mindless but exciting. Always makes me think of something foreign and intriguing. You know, perhaps after a while on my Island, it will make me think about civilization, which will soon become foreign and intriguing.

So I’m on the doomed plane, looking around and feeling bad for all the people who will soon die. I’m checking my bags to make sure I have everything I need. Looks like I’m in good shape... Wait... It can’t be!... I for got my CD Player!
Now for your answer…

The Walking Robots are Finally Here

This is a very special day for me.

Because finally we have motorized robot suits. Made by Toyota, these are meant to allow disabled people to walk and climb up stairs. MUCH cooler than a wheel chair. And there are ones that roll around (presumably faster).

I want to buy 5 of them and then we can play our shows when "robotized."




Now if only they could start working on the flying cars that we were all promised.

Thanks to Gizmodo.com for letting us know about the existence of these beauties.

Cecil County Automotive Safety Inspection

While some people have spent time in hick heaven lately, I had the extreme misfortune to spend a near eternity in HICK HELL.

I'm talking the waiting room for Morgan's Automotive Repair in Elkton Maryland.

Waiting room is far too high a compliment for what this actually was. It was a cinder block building. More like a storage shed. And it stored old lawnmowers, a beat up a truck cap, tires. And it had one table. With outdated magazines geared towards owners of repair shops. And I read every article, 3 times.

Because I was there for 2 hours plus!

I've already far too long to get our car registered in Maryland. Part of it is sheer laziness, part business, and part confusion. They don't have a centralized place you go like Delaware, you have to find a repair shop to do the inspection. And NONE that I had called in the whole county did it anymore (a man that I waited with in the shed told me there were now only 2 in the county that did inspections because the state had cracked down and fined a lot of them for passing anything with 4 wheels.)

Finally I found Morgan's. And saw they were on Rt 40. They told me it would take less than an hour. I think "Rt. 40" and I think "you can probably walk to a place where you can get a bite to eat and read a paper."

It took much more than an hour, and it was in walking distance of nowhere. And I hadn't eaten breakfast. I was starving, bored, tired. I was actually playing those games that come with the cheap model cell phones.

Tip: If you are getting your car inspected at Morgan's . . . get dropped off.

Getting found by search engines.

So as you know, I work with computers for a living (no... The Look Machine does not quite pay the bills). One thing that I have been learning about recently is how search engines work. Basically they crawl throughout the internet like worms and find content on a site that is searchable content (this is getting nerdy really quickly). We have been experimenting with different ways to have web our web site show up in the search engines. Partially through this effort (and partially due to traffic) we are doing pretty well in the search engines.

I like to check this out from time to time. Try this fun little experiment if you like. Go to Google (my favorite search engine) and type in "The Look Machine." It doesn't matter if you use quotes or not, we are the first hit. Cool Huh? Well try these other ones (they need to be in quotes and you may have to look past the first hit)..."real UFO Sighting" "listen to new U2 songs" "Ghost caught on video" "Swinging bed" Disposable socks" and my personal favorite... (thanks to MyNym) "Mental Retards."

Grape Street -- SHOW UP

We’re playing a pretty important show at the Grape Street in Philadelphia on December 8th, at 8:30. Why is it such an important show, you ask? Well, it’s basically the premier spot in the area for original music. So it would be really great if we had some fans there to cheer us on and make it look like we have a great rapport with our crowd.

If you want information about directions and all that, you can check their website: http://www.grapestreet.com/

And if you’ve never been to the Grape Street before, you should definitely visit. It’s a very nice venue. All old pre-war stone and brick. Manayunk is a great town. Collin and I drove up there last week to put some of our posters up. It’s like SoHo in NYC, very nice. So we start at 8:30. Come up right after work and make a nice evening of it, you won’t regret it.

Sad thing — you have to be 21 and older to attend. Sadder thing — most of our fans are under 21. So if you are over 21, you need to attend! And it’s $5. But If that’s a problem, let me know, maybe we can help you out with that cover charge if it means you’ll actually show up and cheer.

Maybe if you show up we’ll sell you our first album for half price when it’s released. (More about that later).