What cuts through the fatiguing depression and separates me from bed each morning? Plenty!

1. Upcoming Replacements reissues on Rhino….all of the Twin Tone material DONE CORRECTLY WITH LOADS OF BONUS TRACKS. Look for Bob Mehr’s ‘Mats feature in the May issue of Spin.

2. Can’t resist some self-promo. I wrote an “Essentials” column for the same issue of Spin. “Comedy Albums” is the genre - seven small entries. C.U.R.S.O.R.Y.

3. Meanderthal, the new Torche album, smokes.

4. My reading habits (needs) have necessitated a lean towards research rather than pleasure, though I’ve recently enjoyed (true crime) LAbyrinth and Lone Wolf, (fiction) L.A. Rex and Best American Mystery Stories 2005, plus (non-fiction) reading or revisiting Rock and the Pop Narcotic, My Magpie Eyes are Hungry for the Prize, Going Underground: American Punk 1979 - 1992, and I get lost in Garry Sharpe-Young and Martin Popoff…good escape routes.

5. Gangland (History Channel), American Gangster (BET), I Survived (Natty G?), Masterminds (CourtTV, TruTV), and Reggeaton Rush Hour (BET JAZZ). It’s been a week or so since I watched intentionally funny TV, but remember laughing out loud at a Whitest Kids U Know sketch.  

6. Gone Baby Gone (good, not great), revisited Catch-22 the other night, remembering my mom telling me that the theatrical release marked my parent’s second or third date, and they were seriously bummed out, DVD of The Assassination of Jesse James (my #1 of 2007)….

That’s all I have time for.

Earles and Jensen get a shout-out on HERE!

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