Oh crap, it’s a snow day. Rather than go with a “Genius” (is it me or does Apple throw that around a bit too loosely?) generated playlist for today, I’m going for shuffle again. Instead of limiting the selection to my paltry 60 GB iPod, however, I am going to run the shuffle from the 232.09 GB library I have on my main workstation at home. There are tracks on here that absolutely no one listens to; not even the artist who made them. Well, I might as well get my painful death over with.

1. Brick – Dazz
According to my tracklisting information this is the number 41 single from 1977. While I was alive in 1977, I really don’t remember hearing this song. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard this song. Apparently, “Dazz” is a shortening of “Disco Jazz.” My life is complete now.

2. The Nightmare Before Christmas – Making Christmas
Damn I love me some “Nightmare.” It saddens me that Jack Skellington and crew have been co opted by the Hot Topic crowd. That’s just my bitter old “cool” guy coming out. After seeing this movie for about twelve times, Oingo Boingo became really really funny to me. Trust me, you won’t be able to unhear that one.

3. Jon Snodgrass & Corry Branan – Designated Drinker
This is a live track from 3 Kings (not sure where) from November 9, 2007. I’m pretty sure someone sent this to me when they figured out I was a Drag The River fan. It’s humorous and drunken, but I see why I haven’t listened to this one before as well. It does have a genius line in it, though: “The only time anything got in my pants on tour was when fire ants invaded my bunk.” That’s just plain ‘ol good writing.

4. Sigur Rós – Staralfur
Like all Sigur Rós, this is yet another epic song. I find it very relaxing to put on Sigur Rós when I’m working through the middle of the night as it magically aligns my thinking for some odd reason. I’ve always believed that Iceland really is the place where gnomes and frost giants lived out in the open; Sigur Rós just reinforces this belief.

5. Misfits – Abominable Dr. Phibes
I have way more Misfits tracks in my library than I probably should, but, every time I go for a shuffle (yeah, I’m trying to coin that one), it always comes up with a track from American Psycho. I think my computer isn’t a Misfits fan and this is how it’s punishing me. That shit is just mean.

6. Bauhaus – Telegram Sam
I think it’s downright hilarious to hear Peter Murphy belt out this Bowie standard. In my mind, Pete’s skin is cracking off of his face as he jumps around the studio in the damn burgundy velvet suit he’s been wearing for the past twenty-five years. This is actually a pretty good cover, but I have a horribly overactive imagination and Peter Murphy is really just a mannequin.

7. The Clash – Janie Jones
Of all the older “punk” bands I listen to, I probably identify with The Clash the most. To me, they are my Beatles (other than the Beatles themselves). I hear their sound in hundreds of other bands, but don’t find their work to be cheap and fake because it derives from the alpha source. The Clash is a building block. Yeah, that’s deep.

8. Foo Fighters – Hell
I’m actually sort of surprised this was in my library. I like Dave Grohl and Co., but I didn’t think I had anything. Here’s a quandary for you. Technically Foo Fighters has always been a “supergroup,” but never really referred to as such. Just because it’s members didn’t achieve financial stardom in their previous efforts, does a band made up of people who came from rather influential bands not get to be a “supergroup?”

9. ABBA – If It Wasn’t For The Nights
Yup, the library finally went to the weird place. I grew up on ABBA, so I find nothing ironic about them other than the obvious hilarity of disco in Sweden. If anything, that damn movie/musical Mama Mia ruined ABBA. This shit is gold.

10. Lagwagon – Give it Back
Lagwagon are horribly under-appreciated. The few times squeezle and I have seen either Lagwagon or Joey Cape by himself have been some of the most fun live shows we’ve ever attended. Sadly, it appears that Lagwagon has now drifted apart and won’t be putting out new material anytime in the foreseeable future, but Joey’s solo shows are a good mix of his solo stuff and the best of Lagwagon. Ironically, the last time I saw Joey Cape, he was playing with Jon Snodgrass.

11. Face To Face – Fight or Flight
For years and years I wanted to see Face To Face live, but never got the opportunity. Then they went and broke up and dashed my hopes against the rocks of bitter regret. Luckily for me, they’ve reformed and I was able to see them at Fun Fun Fun Fest this past November in Austin. Holy freakin’ crap can these guys tear shit up. Now, they are working on new material, so that, to me, means tour. Maybe next time I can see them play without being soaked to the bone.

12. Black Flag – Damaged I
Ahh, ancient Black Flag. This is about as scaled down as Black Flag ever was. Henry Rollins doesn’t even sound like himself on this track even though it is indeed him and not Keith Morris, Dez Cadena or Ron Reyes. This song has the distinction of being the first writing credit Hank got with Black Flag. I’m not sure why I remember that, but it’s yet another useless tidbit that’s been stuck in my head for years.

13. The The – Kingdom of Rain
The The is one of those bands that cause people to go “Oh, that song?” I can seriously not think of another band who vary so much record to record. It probably has something to do with the fact that frontman Matt Johnson is batshit crazy. This particular track is from their record Mind Bomb. At this point in time, The The consisted of ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, Nick Lowe’s bassist James Eller and the drummer from ABC: David Palmer. However, Matt Johnson is almost always considered the only “official” member of The The.

14. The Cherry Cokes – Ill Weeds Grow Apace
I’ve professed my love for the Cherry Cokes before. This track, in particular, cracks me up because it really sounds like a lost Mighty Mighty Bosstones track to me. If you imagine that the vocals are a really drunken Dicky Barrett rather than a Japanese guy singing Irish punk, it’s pretty damn convincing. The Cherry Cokes prove that you can find a little bit of everything in Japan.

15. Bob Marley – Trenchtown Rock
I really thought I’d deleted all of my Marley tracks. I’ve got nothing against the guy, but his music has really turned into frat rock over the years. I realize that this is entirely in my head, but it just brings up memories of terrible college parties and terrible weed. Bob deserves better.

As has been previously documented, I’m not too fond of the holidays. I love my family, but it has been a hard year and some non-Christmasy downtime was required for sanity purposes.

That being said, squeezle and I spent our fabulous December 25th in sunny San Diego, California. I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to expound upon in later postings, but I was reminded by something at the San Diego Wild Animal Park on Sunday: I have an odd fascination with being bitten by waterfowl while on vacation.

No, despite my lack of most morals, this isn’t a sexual thing. When I’m on the road I like to taunt all matter of aquatic avians to take a crack at chomping on me with wild abandon.

It really started on one of our last trips to Disneyworld (yeah, we’re thatkind of weirdo). In a prosecco and beer fueled frenzy (it was Food & Wine Festival season, after all), I managed to get “beaked” by both a male and female mallard as well as some sort of ibis.

Rather than collapse in pain (potentially garnering oodles of cash from the Disney machine), I laughed my ass off and got yet another of my stupid ideas.

So, there I was, a couple of beers into a pretty damn good day around a bunch of animals I could relate to (and the squeezle) and I was faced with a trio of geese who were obviously trying to sleep and ignore the pair of us. I, of course, launch into my approach. It’s horribly easy if you’d like to follow along at home:

1. Address your waterfowl of choice to make your presence known.
2. Take one step closer to said waterfowl.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 as needed until beaked.

My intention is never to stress the bird out. The goose who chomped on me in San Diego had been sleeping and was standing on one foot. At the point of impact, he (she, it, etc.) never bothered to put down that second foot and actually tuckered into its wing after masticating me. If that’s not the sign of a non-threatened bird, I’m not sure what is.

I love animals; especially birds. I don’t ever want this to be misconstrued as something done with malicious intent, but, rather, merely for my own amusement. I like to think that my target bird gets a sense of fulfilment from taking a swipe at me without me retaliating in some manner. After thousands of sticky, nasty children potentially provide such horribly undo stress, it’s my public duty to be nature’s punching (or biting) bag.

That emu, however, had better stay the hell away from me.