Perfect Reading For The Porcelain Library

Book Review: Strange But True America by John Hafnor With Illustrations by Dale Crawford

When I initially signed on to review this book, I had both hoped and expected to find one of those odd little collections of weird and paranormal trivia — you know ghosts, haunted houses, and the like — that I will readily admit to being a guilty pleasure of mine.

So in that sense, the title Strange But True America is a bit misleading. You might say the "strange" moniker leans a little more towards the "odd and whimsical" definition of the word, than it does the truly weird. That said, I found myself almost immediately engrossed in this book from the moment I opened the cover one sunny morning in the porcelain library.

You might call Strange But True America a history book for people who don't necessarily read history books. It can also function as a great conversation starter. Once you've finished your private reading in the library, I highly recommend leaving this one out on the coffee table for visiting relatives and friends.

In the book, author John Hafnor compiles a collection of odd little historical tidbits from all fifty states. The stories are just off the wall enough to have been left out of the history books you might remember studying as a kid in grammar school.

For example, did you know George Washington actually died as a result of being bled to death by his own doctors? It seems, the rather arcane medical practice of "bloodletting" was actually a fairly common one in Washington's day. Stranger still, is that Washington's doctors wanted to preserve his body by freezing it — so that he might be resurrected. The early attempt at cryogenics was vetoed by George's wife, Martha.

Speaking of Washington, I couldn't resist finding out what Hafnor managed to dig up about my own home state. Unfortunately I didn't find anything about how our state was the place where Kenneth Arnold's 1947 sighting of a UFO over Mt. Rainier gave birth to the term "flying saucer" entering the zeitgeist. It does however make note of Dry Falls, Washington — home to what may be the world's biggest dry waterfall.

Another interesting part of Strange But True America details just how close New Mexico came to nuclear apocalypse when neighboring Texas actually dropped a nuclear bomb on Alberquerque. In a section called "When Doomsday Came Calling On Your State," it turns out that we have in fact come within a asshair of nuclear disaster more times than you might think.

At a fast paced and easy to read 150 or so pages, Strange But True America makes for a great little coffee table book that doesn't really look like one. The publishers have also come up with a great marketing gimmick, in the form of individual Strange But True America postcards for each of the fifty states.

Each of these stories, all of them nicely illustrated with drawings by Dale Crawford, will also make for a great ice-breaker when you invite the in-laws over. I've placed my copy proudly atop the throne in the porcelain library.

Remembering The Kennedys And The Soundtrack To Camelot

Like many of you reading this, my first reaction to the news of Ted Kennedy's passing Tuesday night was one of sadness. But also that it had been expected, ever since it was first learned that the Massachusetts Senator had brain cancer last year.

On a deeper level though, it really feels like the final chapter of an era has finally been written. Camelot is over once and for all.

For those of you too young to remember, the word Camelot came to symbolize the hopes that many people who grew up in the sixties had, first for the presidency of Ted's older brother, President John F. Kennedy, and later for the candidacy of his younger brother Robert.

I was just a kid then.

But the memories of that time are forever etched into my consciousness — with the years 1963 - 1968 having a particular resonance. Five years may not seem like that long to some. But to a kid, it's a lifetime. The music which formed the soundtrack of this historic period in particular has continued to resonate with me throughout my entire life.

I remember the day that JFK was shot almost like it was yesterday. I was seven years old. They let school out. As I was making the one block walk home, I noticed an ambulance at the house at the end of my street. The old guy who was always out gardening in his yard was lying on the ground, surrounded by several of the ambulance guys. I later learned that he had a heart attack. I never did hear if he survived it or not.

There hadn't really been a soundtrack to my childhood up to this point. But a few months later that all changed with the arrival of the Beatles. When the mop-tops from Liverpool conquered America on the Ed Sullivan show, I was one of the millions of Americans who watched. Actually, I had to really pester the hell out of my parents to let me come out of my room past bedtime to see what all the fuss was about.

The Beatles — with all of their "yeah, yeah, yeah" innocence — were about the coolest thing I had ever seen up to that point. For many young people like me, they also represented the perfect antidote for the shock we were still feeling from the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination just a few months before.

For the next four years, the Beatles musical progression — they went from "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to Sgt. Pepper and the White Album in that time — was remarkable, and would form the soundtrack of our lives during that tumultuous period. The Beatles may have been British imports, but they would see young America through Vietnam, civil unrest, and the assassination of Martin Luther King among other things, like no other cultural force on earth.

Ironically, the death of Ted Kennedy this past Tuesday comes at a time when the Beatles entire remastered catalog is being digitally upgraded for release next month. I guess what goes around really does come back around again.

By the time JFK's younger brother Robert was gunned down just after the California primary in 1968, I was in the sixth grade and starting to form a lot of the ideas and values that would carry me throughout my life.

In the four years since JFK's murder, the music had changed nearly as much as the times themselves. In addition to the Beatles remarkable artistic transformation, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys had gone from "I Get Around" and "Little Deuce Coupe" to "Good Vibrations" and Pet Sounds. There had also been The Byrds, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, psychedelia, and of course Dylan.

The songs forming the soundtrack to the RFK chapter of Camelot didn't come right away. With the nation reeling again from yet another Kennedy assassination, many of us found ourselves wondering if there even really was a Camelot at all. At eleven years old, I just remember praying that Bobby Kennedy would make it — not really comprehending the fact that he was already dead.

The songs mostly came later. The Rolling Stones shouted out "who killed the Kennedys?, when after all it was you and me" in "Sympathy For The Devil." Dion made a comeback with "Abraham, Martin, and John." David Crosby eulogized Bobby in his two songs with Crosby Stills & Nash, "Long Time Gone" and "Almost Cut My Hair."

Woodstock hadn't even happened yet, and it seemed like the sixties might be over. Certainly, Camelot seemed to be.

Underneath a pseudo-veneer of peace and love, the music of the late sixties also began to take on an angrier, more defiant, and increasingly violent tone over the next few years.

Jefferson Airplane urged its "Volunteers Of Amerika" to "tear down the walls motherfuckers." The Beatles sang "you say you want a revolution" and the Stones had their own "Street Fighting Man." Even top forty radio seemed to get into the act, by running John Fogerty songs with Creedence Clearwater Revival like "Who'll Stop The Rain" and "Fortunate Son" up the charts.

By the time 1969 rolled around, Jim Morrison would be busted for exposing himself at a concert in Miami. The dreams of Woodstock would give way to the horrors of the Stones at Altamont. A year later, the Beatles would break up, and Morrison would be dead, as would Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The innocence was pretty much gone.

And now with the passing of Ted Kennedy this past Tuesday, so too is Camelot. Although I'm not at all sure there ever really was a Camelot.

Certainly there was the idea of such a thing, and although the music of the period certainly helped to change things over time, the political dreams of JFK and RFK were never to be fully realized. For all of his own accomplishments as one of the greatest legislators of the past century, Ted Kennedy's own dreams of Camelot were pretty much jettisoned after a fateful night in 1969 off a bridge at Chappaquiddick.

And what of the soundtrack to Ted Kennedy's chapter in this story? Is it disco? Punk Rock? Eighties new wave? What music will we think of when we remember his death? The Black Eyed Peas? Kings Of Leon? Coldplay's Viva La Vida? Springsteen's Working On A Dream?

Because music today doesn't quite carry the same resonance — at least not in the same way that it did in the sixties — we may not remember any songs at all. On the other hand, there are artists which haven't yet been discovered, and songs which haven't been written.

If Camelot in fact does live on, it will do so through them. And through the legacy of Ted Kennedy.

Why Liberal Seattle May Be Dumping Its Liberal Mayor

Here in Seattle, we like to think of ourselves as liberal. Actually, make that "progressive" — since the word liberal has been all but turned into a dirty word dating back to about the time of the so-called Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.

The point here is, that most, if not all of the rest of America rightfully views Seattle as one of the most liberal cities in the country. We are pro-choice, pro-environment, gay friendly, and we almost always vote democratic when it comes election time.

In fact, here in Seattle we are liberal to the point of infuriating many of our more rural and conservative neighbors east of the mountains — especially when the so-called "liberal King County vote" often helps pass statewide initiatives favoring progressive causes, and helps elect democrats and progressive candidates to statewide offices. Drive 100 miles or so outside of Seattle to the east, and you don't see too many Obama signs. Occasionally, there is even talk of secession from the state from our neighbors out there in crops and cows country.

So why does Seattle appear to be on the verge of dumping Mayor Greg Nickels, an environmentally correct, tree hugging liberal Democrat if there ever was one?

As of the latest vote count from this past Tuesday's first ever mail-ballot only primary election, Nickels trails his two nearest challengers, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn for what increasingly looks to be a third place finish.

Mallahan, a T-Mobile executive and McGinn, who largely ran on the single issue of opposition to a transit tunnel on Seattle's waterfront, are both relative newcomers to Seattle's political scene. Only the top two finshers will go on to the general election in the fall.

So the question remains, why is liberal Seattle rejecting its liberal mayor in favor of the newbies? Actually, the answer to that question is a lot simpler than it may seem. It is also not without precedent.

What the rest of the country doesn't quite realize about Seattle is also probably our best kept secret. Sure, we're largely a liberal lot out here. But we are also fiercely independent, and if you know what is good for your political future, you'd best not piss us off.

Like say, former Seattle mayor Paul Schell once did not ten years ago. Schell, like Nickels, was a pro-development mayor who favored big, expensive downtown construction projects. He was also unceremoniously shown the door by Seattle voters following his mishandling of the infamous WTO riots of 2000. Much like the way it appears the political winds are now blowing for Nickels, Schell didn't make it past the primary.

While Schell's death sentence probably came with the WTO riots — and to a lesser extent his cancellation of a New Years fireworks tradition at the Space Needle following a pre-9/11 terrorist threat — Nickels' problems are more numerous, and cut a little closer to the bone for most Seattleites.

As a nationally recognized leader on environmentally correct issues, Nickels has nonetheless earned the ire of many a Seattle voter by taking his pro-Green stance to extremes at times. At a time when things are economically tough all over — but particularly so in Seattle — Nickels for example favors a twenty cent "green tax" on plastic grocery bags. When that issue was put to a vote (on the same ballot where Nickels appears to be going down in flames), Green, liberal Seattle overwhelmingly rejected it. The results weren't even close.

Last December, when a freakish snowstorm crippled the Seattle area for two weeks, the city, citing environmental concerns, responded in part by rejecting the use of salt on snowplows to help clear the streets out from under the icey, slushy mess. Seattle and much of the outlying areas were for all intents and purposes shut completely down as a result. When Nickels himself graded the city's handling of the mess with a "B," it left more than a few Seattle residents with a bad taste in their mouths.

Seattle also lost its NBA franchise, the Seattle Supersonics — the only professional sports team to ever bring a world championship to the city — to a group from Oklahoma City on Nickels' watch. Many felt the city didn't do enough to keep the team here, with memories of similar efforts to save the NFL's Seahawks and MLB's Mariners still fresh in their minds.

For me though, it all comes down to what I see happening in my own neighborhood.

Nickels philosophy of "build, baby, build" in Seattle neighborhoods like mine in West Seattle — in addition to having a ring a little too similar to the republicans "drill, baby, drill" — is supposed to be a solution for so-called urban sprawl. But from where I sit, all I see is the way urban development is turning the West Seattle Junction shopping area I love into one big, ugly, traffic tangled mess.

If nothing else, all of these damn high-rise buildings going up everywhere are robbing the neighborhood of its character. Not to mention making just getting around it a real bitch. Because of no less than three high-rise commercial/residential development projects, the three block drive from my house to the grocery store has turned from a few routine turns into something more like negotiating an obstacle course.

Of the three projects, the one which is complete has (from what I can tell) attracted one new resident in its several stories of apartment units. That business is slow for the highly priced dwellings is no doubt due at least in part to West Seattle's long history as a working class neighborhood — despite all of City Hall's efforts to turn us into something more like the eastside area all those Microsoft execs call home.

In addition to the not-quite-condos high above, the ground floor houses a restaurant where entrees start at about $35. More and more of these high-end establishments have sprouted up in the Junction shopping district over the past few years, replacing what used to be a row of chinese restaurants and dive bars. The venerable Poogie Tavern remains the last man standing of the charming, if slightly run-down drunkholes where a cold beer still costs less than four bucks.

While this has resulted in the Junction bringing in new shoppers from all over the city, it has also brought such not-so-welcome developments as traffic congestion and paid parking lots.

At this year's annual West Seattle summer street fair — which used to attract families and where the most notable musical attraction might be a local jazz trio or barbershop quartet — the street was a clogged mess of wall to wall humanity as local grunge heroes Mudhoney headlined the musical proceedings.

Hey, I love Mudhoney as much as anybody, but not in my neighborhood. If I want that sort of clusterfuck, there's always Bumbershoot on Labor Day. I hear they've got Katy Perry and the Black Eyed Peas lined up this year.

Meanwhile, closer to my house at the end of the block, another big commercial development (that was to house a Whole Foods among other tenants) has apparently been abandoned altogether. In it's wake is a deep, football field sized trench which I've come to affectionately call "the Grand Canyon."

Urban development? Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Nickels. Not in my neighborhood. I hope you enjoy retirement. And don't let the door hit ya' in the — well, you know — on the way out.

District 9 Is Seriously That Good

Movie Review: District 9

So a lot of you are probably wondering if District 9 is as good as all of the early hype indicates, and the answer is an absolutely resounding yes.

What is most remarkable about District 9 is the way that producer Peter Jackson (Lord Of the Rings) and director Neill Blomkamp (directing his first feature here) achieved the feat of creating the big blockbuster feel of this movie — the special effects here are absolutely amazing — with a shoestring budget of about $30 million (if reports are to be believed) and a cast of largely unknown actors.

In watching movies about how we as a civilization might react to first contact with an extraterrestrial race — from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind to Contact to Independence Day — I have rarely, if ever, seen a flick that nails it right on the head the way that District 9 does.

The added bonus is the fact that while telling a great story which serves as a rather obvious metaphor for human injustices ranging from the Holocaust to Apartheid, District 9 takes you on the thrill ride of a lifetime — particularly during the latter half of the movie.

First off, let's get a few things out of the way.

District 9 is not a metaphor for Area 51, or any of the other conspiracy theories about official government contact with aliens that have found their way into modern pop culture. If anything, the internment camp for aliens at the center of this film more closely resembles the sort of ghetto slum you might find in any major U.S. city, than it does some sort of super-secret government installation.

The fact that District 9 lies in Johannesburg, South Africa — with its obvious connections to the era of apartheid — is not entirely lost either. But rather than dwell upon that connection, District 9 is a film that instead, once those comparisons are established, soon commences to kicking some serious ass.

The basic story here is that, for reasons which are never established, an alien race parked a gigantic UFO over South Africa two decades ago, and that some one million of its inhabitants (who the locals refer to somewhat disparagingly as "prawns"), have since been quarantined in an area known as District 9.

When the predictable results of the slum condition — inter-species prostitution, alien gang-bangers getting high on cat food, and the like — arise, a public outcry soon demands that someone take control of the problem.

The person put in charge of this task, a guy named Wikus van der Merwe, is largely painted early on in the film as a complete idiot, and for good reason. As the representative of a corporate entity known as MNU, Wikus, a likable enough guy who has earned this job only by virtue of his marriage to the boss's daughter, is charged with the quasi-legal duty of moving the alien "prawns" into what is more or less a concentration camp.

But when Wikus, in the course of doing his job, is infected with a virus that slowly turns him into one of the "prawns" he has been charged to protect society at large from, all hell breaks loose.

I wont spoil the details here, except to say that from there the plot involves everything from South African gang lords lusting for the power of twisting Wikus' arm right off his body, to the corporate interests of the MNU group charged with harvesting the technology of the alien weaponry.

From there, lots of shit gets blown up (and it gets blown up real good), and any human standing in the way basically gets blown to bits. The special effects here are some absolutely dazzling eye candy, especially once the alien weaponry is finally put into play. It's the sort of thing that will glue you to your seat in the theater, no matter how badly the stale popcorn demands a trip to the bathroom.

So do the good guys win? Does the alien get off the planet with his son?

I'll never tell.

Just go see it. Seriously, District 9 is that good.

New Radiohead Coming As Soon As This Monday?

Hot on the heels of last week's digital release of a new single (the eerie sounding "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)"), comes word that an official new Radiohead release could come as early as next week.

When yet another new Radiohead track, "These Are My Twisted Words," surfaced first on message boards at the band's At Ease fansite, and later on You Tube, the Radiohead rumor mill more or less went into overdrive.

Is an official release of new music from the same band notorious for the digital-only model of 2007's In Rainbows album imminent?



All signs point to yes.

However, this apparently will not be a new album, but rather a four song E.P. called Wall Of Ice. The source file of the track "These Are My Twisted Words" — which unlike the previously leaked "Harry Patch" has the unmistakable sound of the full band — contained a cryptic message referring to something called Wall Of Ice and the date 8/17/09.

Upon further investigation, The World Wide Glen has learned that a website, (with the rather obvious URL heading of wallofice.com) has been set up, and that it links directly to Radiohead's online store.

Smart money is again however, that this will not be a new full length Radiohead album, but rather an E.P., most likely containing four songs.

In a recent interview with The Australian, Radiohead's primary instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood is quoted as saying, “Traditionally we’d be looking for 10 or 11 songs and putting them together, but that doesn’t feel as natural as it used to, so I don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe we’ll find four songs that work together and we’ll call that a release. I don’t know. No one knows how to release music any more, including us. How to put it together, in what format, how long. We’re in the dark as much as anyone I think.”

From a fan's standpoint, we like what we hear so far. "These Are My Twisted Words" brings to mind something like a cross between the haunting soundscapes of In Rainbows, and the more ethereal feel of tracks like "Knives Out" from Amnesiac.

If you are a Radiohead fan like us, we highly recommend pointing your browser towards the Wall Of Ice website this Monday.

How Rick Rubin In The Studio Becomes "The Fifth Beatle"

Book Review: Rick Rubin: In The Studio by Jake Brown

You really have to admire a guy like Rick Rubin. As Jake Brown's new semi-biographical book Rick Rubin: In The Studio makes abundantly clear, the key to his success isn't so much anything about his ability to twiddle the knobs in a recording studio, as it is his ability to render an opinion that his rap and rock star clients have ultimately come to trust, admire, and respect.

As one such client puts it in the book, "He becomes the fifth Beatle." Which essentially means that Rubin is the guy who tells the artist exactly what is working and what isn't.

Rick Rubin's producing style may have as much to do with making sure there are enough pillows to ensure his comfort as it does with any technical expertise. But whatever the case, it works. His platinum successes with a wildly diverse group of artists ranging from the Beastie Boys and Metallica to the Dixie Chicks and Neil Diamond pays solid testimony to that.

In Rick Rubin: In The Studio, Jake Brown traces Rubin's history as a college student and hardcore music fan who started Def Jam Recordings out of his dorm room in the '80s, right up to his present status as the head of Columbia Records. In doing so, several things about the keys to his success become clear.

First and foremost is the fact that Rick Rubin has never lost sight of his inner music fan, and that when it comes to what he likes or doesn't like, he steadfastly sticks to his guns. This sort of fan's eye view toward the artists he produces plays a key factor in how he gains their trust — call it that "fifth Beatle" factor, I guess.

As the book reveals account after account of Rubin's studio experiences with the artists he has produced, it is always augmented by testimonies from the artists themselves. The commonality lies in the way that Rubin essentially becomes as much that fifth member, or friend to the artist, as he does their de facto boss. The other common thread is that Rubin, while always offering his ideas, always listens to the artists themselves first.

He also invariably allows them all the time they need to make "the record of their lives." With Rick Rubin in the studio, there are no such typically pesky corporate annoyances as schedules or timetables.

In the case of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, this might mean spending as much as a year on writing and pre-production, as it does on the actual recording process. In the case of the final years of the great Johnny Cash, it might mean doing everything necessary to restore the shattered confidence of the artist (which in the case of Cash, helped result in a particularly strong bond between artist and producer).

Fans looking for the sort of juicy tidbits or salacious details one normally finds in a rock bio might likewise be disappointed to find that Rick Rubin: In The Studio is somewhat lacking in that department. As a strict devotee of new age spirituality and transcendental meditation, Rubin's story is long on details of the recording process and quite short on any sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Well okay, there actually is plenty of rock and roll. But for Rick Rubin, the music itself provides the high.

The jury is still largely out on Rubin's present stint as label head of Columbia. But however this pans out, Rubin's story is the stuff of legend, and his place in the music history books is all but assured. Brown's writing style here is likewise breezy and easy to follow, particularly given all the studio details. For students of the recording process, I can't imagine coming across a better read than this one.

The Rockologist: My Days At Def American

I can remember it like it was yesterday.

There was me and my two pals sitting on the front porch of my house in Seattle in 1992. Bruce Springsteen had just released two new records — Human Touch and Lucky Town — and we were listening to them on the porch that hot spring afternoon over a few beers. The three of us agreed that neither of them were very good, even though we were hardcore fans.

Then the phone call came.

The CD player was shut off, and I told my two friends Greg and Brett to get lost for a minute while I took the call that was about to change my life. Because the guy on the other end of the line was Rick Rubin, and he was about to offer me a job with his label, Def American Recordings. I'll never forget that phone call for as long as I live.

Six months earlier, I had been unceremoniously fired from my position as National Retail Promotions Director for Nastymix Records, a Seattle based independent record label where I had, with considerable pride, helped build the career of Seattle rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot from the ground up, particularly with the independent retail record stores that paved the way for Mix's eventual mainstream success.

Things had been really great there for about three years — it was a dizzying ride with platinum album sales and the like — but they had since gone terribly wrong. But that's another story, left for another article that one day I hope to grow the balls to write.

Anyway, back to Rick's phone call. Rick Rubin was about to offer me a job.

Two weeks earlier, I had been flown to Los Angeles to meet with the man who was in many ways an idol of mine. We had met briefly once before, in 1986, when he was the Beastie Boys' "DJ Double R," and they were the opening act for Madonna.

At that time, I was assigned to interview the Beastie Boys for Seattle's Rocket Magazine, and they had just been booed off the stage at Seattle's Paramount Theatre — it must have been something about that whole "Kings of the Paramount" thing that rubbed the Seattle crowd the wrong way. I should add that this was roughly six months before the Beasties changed everything about music with the Rick Rubin produced album Licensed To Ill.

So anyway, the Beastie Boys were complete assholes during the interview, slamming their fists down next to my cassette recorder so hard I was never able to transcribe any of it, and the article was, for obvious reasons, never written. I didn't know who Rick Rubin was at the time. But I do remember a guy named DJ Double R who was profusely apologetic at the time.

Six years later, he was arguably the greatest record producer on the planet, and I found myself sitting in the living room of his Hollywood home, being interviewed for a job with his record label. To say, I was in awe would be an understatement. To say I was like a kid off the turnip truck would be far more like it.

So there I sat in Rick Rubin's living room.

The two things I most remember about Rick's house are the big stuffed polar bear and the wrestling boots — which I recognized had the initials "RF" on them. I asked Rick if these stood for Ric Flair, and from there we were pretty much off and running.

Like me, it seemed Rick Rubin was a big fan of pro-wrestling. I would later learn he actually had a financial interest in the independent Smokey Mountain Wrestling promotion. One year after I actually worked for Rick at Def American, wrestling babe Missy Hyatt delivered her calendar to me as a birthday present in person.

How sweet is that?

Anyway, from there Rick and I discussed our mutual fondness for bands like Blue Cheer — and he played a track by the then unknown and unsigned band Monster Magnet, a band obviously inspired by Blue Cheer — the sixties psychedelic band who more or less invented heavy metal.

Rick and I had bonded on Ric Flair, Blue Cheer, and my background with hip-hop. Basically I was in, and I knew it. The phone call I got that hot spring afternoon on the porch of my Seattle house a few weeks later was simply the confirmation I had been waiting for.

What transpired over the next two years that I uprooted to L.A. and went to work for Rick at Def American — and later the renamed American Recordings — is in many ways a blur. The celebrities came and went from our office. In a two year period, I met everyone from George Harrison to Johnny Cash (I'll never forget the way that he extended his hand and said "hello, I'm Johnny Cash").

To say it was just a bit dizzying for a rock fan who more or less fell off the truck from Seattle would be an understatement.

There are experiences from those two years that could fill a book (which one day I hope to get around to writing), and which will certainly last me a lifetime. I went to parties at the home of Hollywood madam Heidi Fliess and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Mick Jagger. I accompanied Sir Mix-A-Lot to the American Music Awards in 1993 (where he won for "Baby Got Back"), and dealt with fans like Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg following us around all night.

And that only scratches the surface.

I DJ'ed at the party where Rick had a funeral for Def American (where the Reverend Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy). I lived shit I had only dreamed of as a kid reading about the glamor of the rock and roll lifestyle in the pages of magazines like Circus and Creem.

But now mostly there is regret.

The fact that I was given the opportunity of a lifetime and ended up essentially blowing it haunts me to this day. The dreams, which often are more like nightmares never stop, and that is when I can actually sleep.

To this day, I'm not really sure what happened, but what I do know is this.

There were a lot of things that were out of my control — I had enemies at the office going in (I replaced someone who was very popular with the girls at the office). Things didn't get any better when Rick hired a certain high-powered record executive to run the retail operation (who will remain nameless) shortly after I arrived. But there also a lot more things I could have controlled if I only had the self-confidence to do so. Rick Rubin himself, after all, had hired me.

But I was also in completely over my head, and knew it almost from the start.

I can remember a staff meeting where one of my bosses remarked that "ever since Boyd got here from Seattle, all of our records stopped selling, and Seattle exploded." I knew it was a joke, of course. But at the same time, it only reinforced what I already knew. I was in over my head.

From that moment forward, I basically just tried to keep my head low, and sat near the back of the room at staff meetings. Like a kid off a turnip truck. My failure to rise to the occasion is again, something which haunts me to this day.

So what is prompting this rare bit of candor from your friendly neighborhood Rockologist?

I just got a new book in the mail about Rick Rubin, which I will be writing a review about in the next day or two. And I figured I better get all of this shit out of the way first, before getting into the book itself.

In the two years after Rick hired me, I probably spoke to him less than ten times. That is probably as much my fault as it is his — and as I've said, there are a lot of things I'd do differently now given what I've learned since.

But my respect for Rick Rubin remains unchanged. He is undeniably someone who changed the very direction of popular music. Beyond that, he is one of the very few people who have ever lived who is so gifted as to be able to make a very comfortable living by simply relying on, and sticking to his instincts.

That's why he is Rick Rubin, and why I am...well, here.

Radiohead Patch Together A New Single, Available For Download Now

Veteran British alternative rock group Radiohead have just made a brand new studio track available for download.

The new song, "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" is the first new music from Radiohead since the group's critically acclaimed 2007 album In Rainbows. The song debuted on the BBC radio's Today program earlier today.

A 320 Kbps download of the track can be purchased from the band's Waste website at a cost of about $1.70 USD. You can also sample it before purchase by streaming it at a number of locations including here. All profits from the single will go toward the Royal British Legion — a charity for British veterans.

Although billed as a Radiohead single, the song appears to be mainly a collaboration between Thom Yorke and the band's primary instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood. The song is awash in lush strings, as Thom Yorke's famously haunting voice intones lyrics like "give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves."

According to Thom Yorke, the song is inspired by British World War 1 survivor Harry Patch, who recently died at the ripe old age of 111. The lyrics consist of quotes from Patch, many of which are from a BBC radio interview the war veteran gave just weeks before his death last month.

Radiohead are said to be working in the studio on their first album since they made history with In Rainbows. With that 2007 release, Radiohead turned the music industry on it's ear by initially marketing the album in a download only format, and by giving fans the option to pay whatever they wanted for it. A number of other bands, such as Nine Inch Nails, quickly followed suit by offering fans a similar option for their albums. In Rainbows was eventually released as a critically acclaimed CD which brought Radiohead a Grammy win for best alternative album last year.