John Lee Hooker, "Mama, You Got A Daughter" [songaday]

SHIRT OFF. Warm whiskey, Rite-Aid's finest. Used to be Thrifty. Let a little dribble on ya, just so everyone you talk to knows where you're at. Sometimes it gets infectious, and you may just end up with a street corner's worth of daytime-drunk-on-empty-stomach mafaggas laughing at cars. Cop a squat somewhere the sun's in your eyes; keeps the grin strong. If you're wearing panties, come sit next to me on this wall right here. That cinderblock's gonna leave an outline on your dress and your thighs too. I wake up on the grass, and the sun is shining on my face, like it's supposed to. You're sitting up next to me, talking to your friend, and I can see your backbone. I smile, lay my head back down on the grass and listen to you natter on while kids squeal and ants crawl through my hair. The days I live for.

Ashford & Simpson, "Solid" [songaday]

WHEN YOU HEAR THE TAXI THEME, YOU KNOW YOU'RE LIVING DANGEROUS. You watch that scruffy yellow cab trundle over the Brooklyn Bridge behind the garish title font. You look at your scuffed digital wristwatch which leaves the underlying patch of wrist perpetually clammy because you never take it off. 12:32am. For a five-year-old, this is the unknown. Doesn't TV like, end in an hour? By the time that hunchback Danny DeVito starts kvetching over the garage from that chickencoop he never leaves, you feel like you should be watching with a date, and you wish it was that redhead. But women don't like little boys with milk breath. Work the levels, kid. One day you'll be Bruce Willis. Just try to stay awake for now. I heard that after TV ends for the night the screen goes all multicolored and stays that way until five fucking thirty.

BEETHOVEN IN TIMBERLANDS. Canibus, "Vitruvian Canman" [songaday]

In this episode, LL Cool J is somewhere in the posh end of Queens, polishing his Grammy with one square of slightly dampened toilet paper and acting like anyone remembers his reply song to "2nd Round Knockout". In a studio across town, Canibus is beginning to pace his cell a touch slower than in years recent, as Wyclef doubles his dose of tranquilizers under the weighty glare of one hundred and eight diabetic record executives. Suddenly the meters start jumping. Canibus flexes his temples and the cobweb of nodes attached to his head fall off like dead skin. Arms outstretched, he floats almost a full two feet off the ground as he combines with the beat: "let me wipe the mucus out the side of your mind's eye..." It is two minutes and eleven seconds before the orderlies can break the door down and dogpile him into submission. Later on, a hairline fracture is noticed in the three-inch-thick glass.

The mix is terrible. The song is too short. The album didn't go straw. Just imagine what the side of your head would look like if this song had actually been done right. Hip-hop was too much for the world. I'm surprised the mainstream withstood so much intensity for so long.

POLL: What's Worse Than Gym Music?

WHAT'S WORSE THAN GYM MUSIC?
	not a thing
	nuclear war
	breadwiches
	screw you, Maroon 11 rocks
pollcode.com free polls

I know, this is my fault.

It's common knowledge that Apple pays Bally (again, no apostrophe-s) Total Fitness hefty clammage to blast the kind of music the US military tortured Saddam Hussein with in his final days, routinely moving throngs of patrons to run clear off their treadmills, out the front doors, and screaming into the Best Buy next door to buy the first iPod they can get their trembling hands on. This post wouldn't exist if I had remembered my mp3 player today, and the words to Aaliyah's "One In A Million" would probably still be pinging about in my head like they have been all week since my boy Belief posted his excellent remix which you should listen to while having slow, wet sex in an opium den as soon as you can. In its place, I now have a murky goulash of anonymous ballads from wispy blondes with names like Taylor Degrume and Morgan Legume, and KROQ radio-rock nuggets from the likes of Macaroon 11 and many other bands who seem to think performing on a rooftop is still a cool video concept.


My feelings on gym music should be clear by this point. But I'm interested in your opinions on this too for some reason, so vote early and vote often in the poll below, and tell a friend. And then come see me deejay Friday nights at Saints & Sinners. Sum has jumped ship to the land of Friday night backrubs and salmon croquettes, so the plan is to puff my hair up so huge that I will actually look like two people, so when people offer to buy shots, I can still order two. Do not bring your iPod.


No wonder personal instructors are douches.

A Toast to The New Beginning

Sumhead the Undead (artwork by Sir Ian Dangerous)

There was that time at happy hour when the homeless guy walked in, sat down and then left a mysterious pair of dirty underwear behind without taking his pants off. There was the Fat Tire Phantom, who'd walk in and kill a beer quicker than you could say "D.U.I.". There were Fidel's dollar tacos on the patio, the wild Bart-fight in his first week of work and the time Chip sprayed seltzer all over Jorge's bare chest while he rubbed it in. There was the time Chip and I almost got into a fight because one of my cheap ass friends was getting the hook-up but not tipping. There were the terrible drunken freestyles with Greg Leonard, my failed fireballs and the Halloween where I thought Physics Mike was in Blackface but he was really just a living iPod commercial. There was the fundraiser raffle sponsored by a mysterious green liquor named "Carnivo" that looked and tasted like the piss of many tadpoles and made Malkovich pass out on the sidewalk in front of the bar. There was Jeffrey Dammit coming in to work with a half-burnt beard from reckless fireball blowing. There were the afterhours dances with Truck and Cooper, and Turski handing out lessons on how to dance with a lady the right way. There was Claire flashing her new knockers at the DJ booth, The Wild Men of Borneo screaming "I Hope" for two years straight, and that guy who immediately threw up a Hellfire onto the bar while he was smiling. There was DJ Lee stuffing the air vent full of flyers, the thirsty cougar pits, Old Man Max screaming "Sum and Malk, IN THE HOUSE!" after a few tequila shots, the Venezuelan love affair with Saints and Ian turning into an overgrown three-year-old whenever we played "Da Rockwilder". There was Southy's world-famous Lemon Drop martini that quenched the thirst of many a summertime Thursday....



And there was the occasional flavor of melancholy borne on the winds of change. The disintegration of the Sum-Malk-Southy dream team on Thursdays. There were the times we had to say goodbye to staff and bartenders we'd gotten used to seeing every week. There was the time we came together to raise funds to save one of our regulars lives but couldn't do enough to help her. There was the massive beheading of all weekday DJs from the roster, the opening of a rival bar down the street and the mass exodus of once die-hard regulars. There was the mysterious disappearance of Fidel's, the reluctant retiring of Palms Thursdays and the shady robberies, muggings and attacks we'd hear about.... but all of these things were the nature of Westside Nightlife and the hallmark of evolution.



So it's in the name of evolution that I've decided to take an indefinite sabbatical from the toils of The Palms Weekend and focus all creative chi toward my band, The Milky Way. Gotta make sure the shit blows up like it's supposed to. While I'm off doing that, Malky will continue to drunkenly bear the mighty Palms Weekend flag and charge into the uncertain wilderness of our home bar's future. From what he tells me, he's adding some new tricks to his repetoire, so he can really go monster with the extra breathing room in the booth. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play bad cop anymore and tell Amber who just heard The Police and is asking for The Police, or Joquita who wants to hear more strip-hop, or coked-up Jeff who's asking "what happened to real DJs with vinyl?", to go fuck themselves, which was getting funner by the month. Oh well. I'll be on the other side of things, drinking and talking shit with the rest of you, tossing Malky shots and making good fun of the characters in the bar.


Looking foward, The Palms Weekend will stay alive and move to the next stage of it's evolution. The blog will feature posts from our kinfolks in music, Chris Clarke, Ali Abnormal, and P.U.D.G.E., in anticipation of the Palms Weekend album, which is officially taking shape. The same characters who contribute to the album will be contributing to the blog. Grab a raft and a lifejacket, those floodgates are about to open.

Tonight, with one last tap of the beer-coated spacebar on my laptop, I celebrate my 33rd birthday and the good times I had DJing for my neighbors. After the band is a little more of a household name, maybe I'll come back.....if the flavor of the season is right and if you guys will have me. Either way, I'm a Saints regular for life, so you're not all the way rid of me.

That's if I live past tonight.

-Sumkid
P.S. I sure am gonna miss that staff discount.

Decade's End Party: New Year's Eve at Saints & Sinners. FUCK THE CALENDAR, WE'RE OUT

2009 WAS WEIRD. A vaguely black guy became president. I turned 30. Michael Jackson croaked. I got a steady girlfriend. The world economy collapsed. I became an extremely minor Youtube celebrity. My friend Pudge got stabbed while deejaying. Saints & Sinners management opened a bar a block away from... Saints & Sinners. Sum and a bunch of my friends dubbed themselves The Milky Way and started running around town in wigs and facepaint. And my parents are flirting with each other after 15 years of divorce. Mama said there'd be days like this. I just didn't expect her to be sitting on my father's lap when they came.

I don't want to get too deep into my feelings on the decade. It's gonna be a few more years before we get enough distance from it to really understand what a satchel of turd it was. But for now, consider:

• N'Sync broke an album sales record that many say will probably never be topped.
• And the buck-toothed guy from Mad Magazine stole the presidency for eight years.

For now, that's all I got. And really, that's all I need.

Gregorian calendar rules dictate that decades begin on the 1, not the 0. Fuck a Gregory. That's a gay ass name and this was a ridiculous ten years. The new decade begins Thursday night at Saints & Sinners. Entry is free. Midnight champagne is free. I'm on the tables all night. Everyone who shows up to Saints that night will spend 2010 basking in the radiance of a new beginning. Everyone who doesn't will have condemned themselves to another 365 days under the shitcloud listening to Kelly Clarkson and trying to figure out in what part of town you're least likely to get the shit smacked out of you for wearing a kufi (hint: stay north of Hyperion). See you next decade, bitches. Well, 126 of you anyway. Don't need the fire department coming up in the bar. Especially with the fireballs and all.

SMOKEY ROBINSON, "THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY" [songaday]

"Agony" can be found on many of those oldies compilation CDs covered with drawings of lowriders, crying clowns, Latinas in Jessica Rabbit dresses and various other images you may find across the average Mexican Mafia member's chest. Mildly acclaimed LA rapper Defari's nod on '98's "Keep It On The Rise" ("I like the oldies / like 'Agony & Ecstasy' by Smokey") is 90% of the reason I half care about him. I forget the circumstances under which this song got lodged in me, but I recall a crisp winter and whisky in the morning. It's about accepting a fucked-up situation, it's an affirmation of an immutable law of love, and it always seems to come on just when you're dancing with someone you have no business dancing with and that's how you know you're getting older.

Wikipedia: Smokey Robinson

IF YOU DRIVE A MUSTANG, I PROBABLY HATE YOU.

Now don't you feel stupid.

IT WAS THE EARLY- TO MID-NINETIES WHEN INSECURE PRICKS OF AMERICA WERE AT LONG LAST INTRODUCED TO THEIR CHARIOT. American-built, with none of the rice-in-the-tank feminism of the Japanese fin rides, and all of the little-dick stench. In the greater Los Angeles area that William "oops where'd my cigar go" Clinton presided over, the sleek curves and insistent growl of a then-new Ford Mustang were the last two details to wash over one's senses before some extra-short son of a successful attorney would jump out of the driver's side and start yelling at someone while vaunting himself chest out around the perimeter, MC Eiht foreshadowing the bloody beatdown from stock Kenwoods, and a phalanx of his bandana'ed up "friends" itching to trampoline on some poor kid's corpse in the name of their current sponsor.

But that's not why I hate Mustang owners. I was never that kid, and besides, who doesn't enjoy witnessing a horribly mismatched ass-whipping every now and again. I hate them because they drive like suicide bombers on their way to a Holocaust museum. We've all been there. You're driving down the freeway, playing the game. You have a bowl of chili waiting for you at home and you just want to live. Cars in your rear view mirrors look steady. Then out of nowhere, Bruce fucking Wayne roars an asshair past you as he weaves through the minute gaps between an eighteen-wheeler, a Prelude and your car to cross four lanes at once. They do all this, of course, under the assumption that nobody else on the road hates their life half as much as they do, and therefore won't make any sudden moves that, when paired with their sudden moves, would mean at least two people less who won't have to wonder about whether the new healthcare plan will actually have a public option or not. But all someone has to do at the moment Lil' Napoleon slaloms past is reach for their coffee, or look at their phone, or pick their nose, or - God forbid - forget for even a second that the roads are full of idiot Mustang drivers, and it's gonna be three hours before they haul off that miserable yellow wreck and traffic can get going again. So yeah, fuck at least 90% of Mustang drivers. I'm trying to live over here.

I'm deejaying Saints & Sinners Christmas night! Come through bitches.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT AT SAINTS: COME PARTY WITH (JES)US.

JESUS AND MY GIRLFRIEND ARE BOTH CAPRICORNS. Figures. They both have dreadlocks. They're both "practical and hardworking". They both have a talent for making me feel like Satan. And they have both found spots in the grubby petri dish of my heart. Yes, I have found Jesus. But not in the way that most people find him, i.e. finding a reason to live, or finding a reason to not smoke crack or beat your mother up because she keeps asking you why your wife never comes around anymore. For me, it was more like the way one finds an interesting book - which that day was Love Without Conditions, a slim paperback stuffed between the self-discovery manuals and huge jars of colonic powder crowding the bookshelves of a 'spiritual advisor' whose rat-infested Kauai home we rented when we visited Rojeanne and Brick last month. Now, ask me and I'll tell you all religions are Stone Age fairytales invented to keep the butcher from boning the preacher's wife. But I'll be damned (ha) if Jesus - or his ghostwriters (ha ha) - wasn't/weren't/aren't onto some revolutionary shit. I'd have a beer with the guy anyday.

And what better day than Christmas Day? I love buying people birthday drinks. You get to enjoy the gift with them. All anyone really wants is a damn drink anyway. When your best friend of thirty years mentions that it's their birthday at the bar, it's an easy way to make it seem like you remembered. It's bound to be cheaper than whatever other crap you probably would have bought them (if anything). And what better location to have a drink with the son of George Carlin than Saints & Sinners? They'll be cheaper than Bimbo bread and boxed wine for me (employee discount). I'll be playing James Brown and Black Sabbath's Christmas albums. And the joint is named after the both of us. Case closed.

So if any of you should find yourself on your knees in front of your or someone else's bed tonight or tomorrow night, do me a favor and let Young Beardly know that there's a few drinks with His name on them Friday night at 10899 Venice Blvd. in West LA. It's free to get in, and I'll be sure to have Ian blow his fireballs toward the back of the bar. I bet those locks of his would go up like a polyester sweater.

Oh, and the rest of you are invited too.

exclusive: Archeologists uncover CULVER WOMAN.

Archaeologists have found what may be the footprint of the first humanoid to ever exercise. It was found at the Culver City branch Of Bally Total Fitness, on the penultimate step of the stairway between the changing rooms and lobby. The slender, well-rounded shape of the footprint suggests that the humanoid was female, hence her nickname 'Culver Woman' in the press. The footprint was pointed in the direction of that one treadmill in the corner that only goes up to 6.2. The fact that the foot left a permanent impression in a stucco stair suggests that Culver Woman may have had an abnormally high bone density, or may have been a superhero of some sort.

That, or she was a woman with the kind of foot funk that could burn through plastic. Or maybe she stepped in a nice puddle of that Bally staph infection I keep hearing about. I think the CDC put it in the books last year. Or maybe she was running from one of the perverted personal trainers so hard that she ran a hole in a fucking stair. (Staph infection and staff infection? Twofer!) Forget project stairwells, the Bally stairwell will get you killed.

P.S: There is not, and has never been, an apostrophe-s on the end of Bally.