Yesterday, Billboard released its top list of "summer songs" and by the beard of zeus, somehow LFO (or Lyte Funkie Ones) found their way into the mix.

To recap:

"Summer Girls" was a summer hit, entering the Hot 100 the week of July 17, 1999. LFO, a trio from Orlando, Florida, originally known as Lyte Funky Ones, relied on lyrics that bordered on nonsense: "Hip-hop marmalade, spic and span, met you one summer and it all began." Along the way, the band name-checks everyone from Kevin Bacon to Paul Revere, along with Abercrombie & Fitch, Michael J. Fox, New Kids on the Block, Larry Bird and William Shakespeare.

So let's take the things that worked for LFO: the nonsense-peddling, smooth talking, transparent-coolness, the constant smirking, and the unrelenting confidence in themselves and apply it to politics. Could it work? Yes. LFO - thy name is GWB.

We are in the midst of the LFO presidency.

Think about it. In 1999 we have LFO pretending to be these cool dudes blabbing bizarre crap and people are buying it. Let's compare which is the more insane rambling:

"What I am against is quotas. I am against hard quotas, quotas they basically delineate based upon whatever. However they delineate, quotas, I think vulcanize society. So I don't know how that fits into what everybody else is saying, their relative positions, but that's my position."

or

"Cheery Pez, cold crush, rock star boogie, used to hate school so I had to play hookie, Always been hip to the B-boy Style, Known to act wild and make girls smile, Love New Edition and the Candy Girl, Remind me of you because you rock my world... ...Think about that summer and I bug, cause I miss it, Like the color purple, macaroni and cheese, Ruby red slippers and a bunch of trees..."

One of those was told (or sung) directly to Molly Ivins and the other was not. Unless you tell me, I still can't figure out which is LFO and which is GWB. But I think the point is clear: they both suck goats.

Now the question is how has GWB's hit single lasted for two elections? Last week, I wouldn't have known - but now that I see that (gasp) the record industry has been buying popularity and that right there explains both LFO and GWB. Imagine if a record company like Arista Records (owned by BMG no less) existed ONLY to further the career of LFO. LFO would probably still be on the airwaves singing of Abercrombie & Fitch. However, GWB has his own dedicated record-company flush with cash looking to promote his most vapid qualities while acting like a rogue publicist hell bent on making America love him despite society's better inclinations: The Republican National Committee.

BUT WAIT - is there a connection? Yes. Andrew Lack, CEO of BMG is also a fairly big Republican donor (search fec.gov b/w 1996 and present).

This leads me to believe that the tactics of buying popularity in music are applicable to politics and that in some cases, the exact same people are doing the buying.

So what can we learn from this? Besides the fact that neither LFO or GWB are Lyte, nor Funky (reference GWB's dance on the steps with Ricky Martin. That was easily the most un-funky thing in the history of man)?

Well I think its obvious we need Wilco to run for president.

Kerouac's Belief and Technique for Modern Prose

List of Essentials

-Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
-Submissive to everything, open, listening
-Try never get drunk outside yr own house
-Be in love with yr life
-Something that you feel will find its own form
-Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
-Blow as deep as you want to blow
-Write what you want bottomless from bottom of mind
-The unspeakable visions of the individual
-No time for poetry but exactly what is
-Visionary tics shivering in the chest
-In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
-Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
-Like Proust be an old teahead of time
-Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
-The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
-Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
-Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
-Accept loss forever
-Believe in the holy contour of life
-Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
-Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
-Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
-No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
-Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
-Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
-In Praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
-Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
-You're a Genius all the time
-Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
As ever,
Jack

Saw this here and thought it deserved a repeat. I agree with all of them, and they agree with me.

UPDATE: I think I missed an opportunity to write about this instead of just posting. What truly astounds me about this list is that it was a letter to a buddy of his. Now, I bet all of his letters weren't as un/intentionally amazing as this one, but going back into my gmail, I look at letters I've written to friends. Does anything compare? Does anything really add to the fabric of society and culture?

• Tomorrow: Sunshine. Hot. Heat index near 110F. High 98F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
• In my opinion golf lessons can NEVER hurt.
• Your bureau dimensions: length = 33.8"height = 46.5"width = 18.7"what fun!
• Guy, we don't need no roof rack. just a sheet and some rope. we'll tie it down through the windows

What we've learned here is that I am not a writer, I have no real advice on how to do anything important, and I either moved a mattress or a body. I must concentrate on writing everything so that it will seem more profound and important upon my untimely demise.

In preparing for this summer's main event, I have been looking for pictures. I realized that I probably had some stuck in between the pages of the journal I used to keep. What I didn't realize is that I would come across words that I wrote almost every day during my junior year of college. These words are mine, but the emotion behind them is foreign to me. It is like reading someone else's thoughts. I feel the same kind of guilt you might from reading someone else's diary. But there are some choice lines in there:

april 4, 1998: just given a look colder than pennsylvania steel.
april 29, 1998: elementary school was crazy; always in lines.
may 12, 1998: please do not extinguish your cigarettes in the toilet. they get soggy and are hard to relight.
june 10, 1998: life is flammable.
june 29, 1998: washington state is emerald, hawks & eagles, a million people where a million people shouldn't be, humble as hell.
october 7, 1998: i swear it's like i'm ripping out my own bloodfeathers.
april 13, 1999: i am not a superhero, but i can save your time.
may 13, 1999: my rabies shot got fucked up and i have no idea
what i'm going to do.
may 22, 1999: i rocked all of my finals.

june 16, 1999: in love with k.

It reminds of a time where I thought I wanted to be a writer. When I thought New England was all there was and all there really should be. I know somewhere there is more, but I don't know where those later journals are or what words are in them. What I do know is that some parts of it I'd love for my kids to see, and some parts I wouldn't - only because I don't want them to be embarassed for me. By things like pathetic poems written with abundant drama, yet completely voiceless, or how excited their dad was when he got a green car.

As you may or may not have noticed, we have added advertisements to this site. We have done this for one reason only: to make mad moolah off the poor souls who have read, or inexplicably continue to read this site. And having done the math, jones and i are gonna be making some serious paper.


By my calculations, jones and i are going to be able to afford luxury cars. However, it will come down to this: Do we split the profits or do we let one of us buy a car, followed by the other?. Methinks a recipe for disaster is brewing - 2 parts friendship, 1 part cash-money, and 1 part IRS. Delicious.


The good news is that we have plenty of time to work this out, as currently it will take roughly 3,864.73 years for us to make enough money to buy said vehicles, making the year 5689 our target date for our drag race. That's assuming we can avoid paying taxes that long. And that inflation is kept in check. And that the US dollar still exsits. And that old people are still aloud to drive at dangerous ages.

When I was much younger (I'm thinking 2nd or 3rd grade), I tried out for a school play. I had never sung a note in my life. My teacher then, Mrs. Samuelson, let me try out to be nice and it turned out I apparently had quite the voice. It was your stock young kid voice with way too much vibrato and no understanding of how to blend in with a chorus, but nonetheless, she gave me a big part and I sang and I sang and I sang and I sang for years after that. Lots of plays followed, with some very real parts in high school performing at the Boston Conservatory of Music and a professional show where I almost got equity standing. The cool thing about the BCM shows was that I was in high school, surrounded by an almost completely female cast of college women who were desperate for a guy who was straight. In short, a good time to be me.


Later I had callback audition in NYC for The Secret Garden, and heard words I had never been told before: "Nice job Lucas, but you're just too tall for this part. Exsqueeze me? I guess I should mention that I used to be really short. In a way that made people look twice. So I had a lot of parts to try out for and choose from because I was old enough to know how to work, and looked like I was 13ish until I turned 18. But after I heard those words, I pretty much gave up the stuff. I have no idea why it was that moment. I don't recall being especially crushed, but for whatever reason that seems to be the time where I stopped performing. Aside from a year and a half in Theatresports at college, I haven't done much since.


But that is to change. I think I miss it enough to go back. I want to start doing this stuff again. My resume is a blank slate (other than open mics at Dremo's), so I have nowhere to go but up. So here's my plan. I stop doing a half-ass job on my demo, and actually put some effort into it (this will require getting my hands back on the computer that doesn't openly weep when turning it on) and finish the thing. Then look at auditions for silly Arlington community theater or something like that. I see no reason not to do this.

I have always loved my birthday. And by that I mean, I really like the day, July 1. I've generally kept mum about the aging process, etc, but for whatever reason, I just think July 1 is such a cool date. I have little else to go on but my gut feeling, so I did some investigating and came up with very little (that was interesting to me):


-July 1 was the day that the Declaration of Independence was first voted upon.
-In 1892, Lincoln appointed Isaac Newton the Secretary of Agriculture.
(all sorts of facts like this are available from the History Channel)


OK. so maybe I should look at this day from the recycling perspective. Over the years on this day, we have lost Harriet Beecher Stowe, Wolfman Jack, and Marlon Brando. So who was born on July 1 to take their place? Myself, Dan Aykroyd, and Pamela Anderson. Yikes. Not a great return on the investment, huh. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but Blues Brothers 2000 really screwed my little group.


So in summary, there is no reason that July 1 is the best day of the year, other than that's what my mom tells me.