WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Question Mark Question Mark Question Mark

  

It's been requested that my blog posts for WFMU, from this moment on, pertain specifically to music. It was a lot of fun sharing weird off-beat stories with you, but I guess now is the time to get serious and write about things other than softball, beer, and American concentration camps. Here goes nothin' ...

The Spoils Of War: WFMU Record Fair Edition

Hey readers, Swan Fungus here. I'm back in Los Angeles this week after an exciting 10-day homecoming trip to the east coast. Part of my trip (the first weekend, to be exact) was spent working as a dealer at the WFMU Record Fair for the LA-based store which currently employs me. I try my best to make trips to the New York/New Jersey area coincide with the record fair, because it affords me both the opportunity to attend the fair, and also to earn a few extra bucks for "working" even though I'm technically on vacation. This year was just my second as a dealer, but I hope to make this a regular venture. It was really nice to see so many familiar WFMU faces, and to meet station manager Ken, Liz Berg and others.

The fair appeared to be a success, even if appeared at times that the number of tables stuffed into the Metropolitan Pavilion had decreased from previous years. There was enough great vinyl present to satisfy both low-end and high-end crate diggers. Some of the coolest records I noticed included: The unbelievably rare outsider/"real people" Heitkotter LP ($5,000), an original copy of The Bachs' Out Of The Bachs ($7,500), CA Quintet's Trip Thru Hell ($1,750), Morgen's Of Dreams ($800), and an original mono UK copy of the Beatles' Please Please Me signed by all four band members in early 1963 ($28,500). Sure, it's kind of disheartening to see an album for sale that costs more than I earn in a year, but it's also one of those things that keeps me coming back to the record fair. The chance to see something I've never seen before is probably the biggest appeal of the WFMU Record Fair. 

So what did I buy, you ask? Well, here's a list of my ten best purchases.

Hey Los Angeles, This Is Called "Autumn"

Hi, Beware Of The Blog readers. I flew East for a week to visit family and work for my store (Rockaway Records) at the WFMU Record Fair this weekend. Stop by and say hi if you'd like. Tell me I'm not a shitty blogger.

Being in New York and New Jersey affords me many opportunities Southern California does not. For example, it's autumn right now. We don't have autumn in Los Angeles. We have couple days of sometimes warm, sometimes cool weather. It might rain or become foggy one night. Other than that, it's in the low 70s and sunny. It gets cold at night I guess, but definitely not cold enough to wear a scarf like most Eastside hipter douches do. Two years ago I bought a winter coat, and it's been hanging in my closet ever since. That's LA autumn/winter for you.

We don't get foliage! We have palm trees. So, after spending some time with my father in his small New Jersey town today, I drove to the South Mountain Reservation and hiked around for a few minutes. It was creepy and nice, and pretty warm outside. There was a yellow labrador retriever splashing in a creek, and then it ran over to me and jumped on me. Afterwards I drove to the Riker Hill Art Park, which was something of a second home for my friends and I before I moved west. I was going to watch the sunset there, but I decided to buy some wine and grab a quick dinner with some friends instead. Oh well. Here are some of the photos I took today judged to be the most interesting by my friends. Bonus points if you can spot either a Sasquatch or the Jersey Devil...

My Trip To Birmingham, Alabama

In my quest to visit all 50 of these United States, I flew from Los Angeles to Birmingham last week. Actually, crossing one of the few remaining states off my list of visited places was a happy coincidence. The real reason I took the trip was to see my beautiful girlfriend Nicci open her production of RENT in Birmingham. She's right now in her second week of performances. She has been cast in the role of Mimi. I'm very proud. I'll write more about the show further along this blog entry. Having never been to Alabama, I thought it would be fun to explore the city. I've always reveled in being a stranger in a strange land. Birmingham definitely fits into that category. Rich in both culture and history, the city offers sundry learning opportunities. Although my trip stretched from Tuesday until Friday, I really only had one day to drive around and see the sights. Obviously that's not enough time to delve into any metropolitan city, but I'm happy with what I saw. Now if only they could change all the traffic lights from timers to sensors, I could have earned a few extra minutes with which to explore!

Your Favorite Food vs. Hair In Your Favorite Food

Hi. Before we begin this installment of Swan Fungus on WFMU, I'd like to send a special birthday wish to my girlfriend Nicci. She's in Alabama right now acting in a play, and I'm very sad here in LA without her. My guess is she's very busy right now and will never read this. Still, I think it's important to share as many birthday wishes as possible with the girl I love. Maybe, somehow, my binary computer coded message will travel through the magical highways and byways of telecommunication wires and wireless signals to reach her little ears. Implausible? Yes. Moronic? Also yes.

I wanted to share with you all the Stephen David Heitkotter album Heitkotter today, because it is one of the most fascinating and highly sought-after private press albums in existence. Then I did a quick search of the Beware Of The Blog archives and saw that a commenter with the name Stephen David Heitkotter has visited this page before, and the last thing I want is for another post of mine to be removed due to it involving the intellectual property of a friend of WFMU. So, sorry, but no Heitkotter for you this week! Also, no Jerry Solomon. But if anyone owns a copy of Past The 20th Century you should get in touch with me ASAP.

W. Park Richardson, M.D. - A Psychiatrist's Advice To The Worried And Depressed

Every once in a while, I happen upon something at the store that consumes me. At the beginning of this year, I came across a copy of Jerry Garcia's "classic" 1972 album Garcia while processing a record collection. Inside the cover I found some tri-folded pieces of old fax paper that contained a letter from a raver chick to her friend. It was a Found (URL) goldmine. You can read the contents of the letter here. To that point, working at a record store and processing collections was only a cool job in theory. It has always been exciting to stumble over a rare and valuable record, or even a title I've never seen in person before. Finding  treasures that people have hidden inside album sleeves are like receiving kisses from God. One of my co-workers one unearthed a multiple-page typed letter from a graduate student to a professor about people on campus who worked for the government and were trying to control his mind. My boss has found everything from hundreds of dollars in cash to cocaine while checking the condition of records he purchased from customers. This past week I was processing a new vinyl collection my store had acquired, and I came across a record I definitely had never seen before. It was something completely unique, with absolutely no history to it whatsoever. This shit can't be researched on Google. I think it's one-of-a-kind.

Softball

I am completely unable today to focus my attention on penning yet another high-quality blog post for WFMU's erudite and attractive readers. A dozen entries into my illustrious career as a Beware Of The Blog contributor, surely by now you have come to expect greatness every time my name graces a byline. Not this week, though. My fans, avert your eyes, unless you would like to witness a descent into madness that few will comprehend and even fewer will empathize with. See that picture floating to the left of these words? This post has absolutely nothing to do with the album art associated with a particular psychedelic album recorded in the late '70s on Long Island. I just put that there because my head feels like the Bermuda Triangle today, as every idea I have is intentionally ignored or quickly forgotten. My concentration is next to nothing. If I didn't have a penchant for staying awake for next three days and not eating, I might seek pharmaceutical assistance to focus better on writing an interesting article for you. Alas, today is simply not my day to play the role of blogger for this massive audience -- which is something in which I often relish, seeing as how my own website has, like, zero readers by comparison. I just have more pressing matters to deal with right now.

Let's Talk About Beers

Hi everyone, Swan Fungus (née Evan LeVine) here! I didn't take any new adventures this week into the scary remote wilderness of California. I did visit a brewery and a brewpub in San Diego last week and had a hell of a good time (read about it here), but I've been filling in for a co-worker at the record store where I work while he gallivants across Europe. So, my free time has been limited. This minor setback has momentarily curtailed my wanderlust, but it hasn't drained all the fun from my life. Without travel, I still have my precious record collection and my insatiable appetite for beer! The way I see it, if I can't spend a Thursday afternoon regaling you with stories from the road I might as well provide you with some beer recommendations. To make this exercise even more fun, I've gone and paired the beers with food and albums, so that you can enjoy them to their fullest potential. Of course, I should preface this blog post by saying I know next-to-nothing about "pairing" food and beer, and even less about food in general! I've always been a bagels and eggs kind of guy, which is to say those two food items accounted for at least 75% of my diet before I met my girlfriend. If there's one aspect of this little game of mine you should ignore, ignore the food pairings. Or, laugh at my immaturity and pathetic attempts to sound erudite. Whatever makes you laugh. I have no problems degrading myself for a few bonus chuckles.

The 31st Annual Gilroy Garlic Festival

I'm not a food person. I never have been. As a child my mother had a cache of maybe five recipes she could cook that I would eat. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's not nearly enough dishes to justify use of the word "cache." As a teenager, I managed to somehow become even more picky about food. Peanut butter and jelly was cut from my diet. I became a hamburger, eggs, pizza, bagels guy. As in, that's literally all I ate. I stayed that way until maybe eighteen months ago, when I started dating a girl who considers herself a foodie. She is a food person. She also has never questioned her love for me, even after discovering I had survived for 25 years without ever trying such trivial food items as an avocado, cream cheese, or a pear. The list of foods I've tried since New Year's 2008 would shock most of you. Maybe that will be fodder for a future blog entry, but today I'm still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I took some vacation days last week to attend a food festival in Northern California. It's so unlike me, I think I need to work through my thought process in a public setting, and writing to a handful of people over the Internet is about as public as I get.

Mystery Drive

I never knew what to call it. For me, getting in my car and driving aimlessly has always been an instinctual, obvious relaxation technique. If I receive bad news, if I am stressed out by my job or a problem in my personal life, or if I've just become bored with the mundane minutiae of everyday life, I often am compelled to go...somewhere. This has one of two effects: it can clear my thoughts, or it can provide me with time and silence enough to work through whatever issue is in need of attention. I guess sometimes it can do both, but in my experience that is rare. My car has been my therapist's couch for over eight years now. Together we've spent as little as ten seconds together (I once decided to drive next door to my neighbor's pool in the middle of summer), and as much as six weeks together (an epic cross-country excursion following graduation from college). Yet, it wasn't until last year when my friend Pat, commiserating about something or other, blew my mind with his simple definition of the event.

The unfairly elementary, logical term for driving nowhere in particular on a given day for the purpose of self-improvement and exploration is "Mystery Drive". You might end up someplace familiar, or you could end up hundreds of miles from home in the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where. The Mystery Drive can be a spiritually rewarding trip, or an epic failure. In high school, I would often end up at my grandmother's old apartment complex on the border of Livingston and Short Hills, or at the IKEA parking lot near the airport. I was young and naive then, and had not yet truly embraced the power of a true Mystery Drive. Things improved in college, with late night drives across state lines helping to clear my thoughts about a failing relationship, or just because I was tired of eating at Wegmans every night only to come home, smoke some pot, play MVP Baseball for Nintendo GameCube, and watch Adult Swim until I passed out.

Living in a new state, in a rich environment like Southern California, has afforded me some classic Mystery Drives. Sometimes I wonder if my innate enjoyment of spending time in my car is in some way responsible for my move to Los Angeles. Even after two years, I don't know the highway system all that well. Nor do I know the placement of weird off-the-beaten-path areas ripe for discovery. I've been under a lot of stress for the past two weeks, dealing with frustrating and depressing issues on both the East and West coasts. Shortly after I woke up yesterday, I felt my day off was the perfect opportunity for an epic Mystery Drive.

Exploring America's Indigenous Internment/Concentration Camps

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I've spent countless posts on my blog laughing at "believers" and pointing out flaws in the arguments of those who are deeply involved in the notion of shadow governments, cover-ups, and general issues of seemingly unexplainable events. But I do love to get in my car and drive to weird places, so when I heard about the plethora of potential internment/concentration camps within Los Angeles county, I decided I would go scope them out to see if any of the claims made by theorists were valid.

A little background information: According to a website called Freedom Files (URL), "There are over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States." Apparently these camps are part of a plan called Rex 84 (short for Readiness Exercise 1984), under which the government's ability to detain large numbers of American citizens can be tested. According to Wikipedia, "The exercise anticipated civil disturbances, major demonstrations and strikes that would affect continuity of government and/or resource mobilization. To fight subversive activities, there was authorization for the military to implement government ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels, the arrest of certain unidentified segments of the population, and the imposition of martial law." In other words, if a disaster were to strike, or massive rioting, or an huge and sudden influx of illegal aliens, FEMA has the capacity and the ability to detain up to hundreds of thousands of individuals at a time and hold them indefinitely without trial.

So, I figured...why not see if these places even exist! Most conspiracy theory websites, I imagine, operate under the premise that people reading conspiracy theory/shadow government websites are lazy pieces of shit who won't actually get up off their asses and check the validity of what they're reading. Sure, that's a gross stereotype I'm making about the types of people I think buy into such theories, but as a born skeptic I felt it was my duty to get out of the apartment and see firsthand just what these "internment camps" looked like.

Things To Do In Southern California On Your Day Off

If you're anything like me -- and, dear God, you'd better be -- your work schedule is far from the Monday-through-Friday nine-to-five norm we've mocked and derided since...well, forever. My "work week" goes from Friday until Tuesday, and my hours vary from day-to-day. This leaves me with a "weekend" in the middle of the week. It sucks in that all my friends have conventional jobs and I can't get drunk at sporting events or barbecue on the weekends. This schedule does have its benefits. I can do weekend things in the middle of the week, and be virtually undisturbed by crowds and/or traffic. Yup, it's usually just me and the old, retired folks when I gain the courage and energy to leave the comfort of my non-air-conditioned apartment during these hot summer months.

I want to share with you some cool places and ideas for how to spend a day off in Southern California. I'm sorry if this alienates a whole lot of you, but maybe those of you who do not live in the area can use this as a mini travel guide the next time you visit this lovely state. Whether your destination is San Diego, Los Angeles, or anywhere south of the Tehachapi Mountains...here's a handy top ten list -- with pictures, even! -- to help you fill your free time.

In keeping with the widely agreed upon "list" format, this one is ranked from least interesting option to most interesting option. I choose to work in the "list" format because in November of 2007 an author for the Sacramento Bee called lists one of the worst journalistic achievements of all time. And since I'm an arbiter of bad taste and lazy journalism, I figure it is my duty to be as lazy and unlike The New Yorker as possible.

An Interview With William Fowler Collins

If you don't already know William Fowler Collins, you soon will. After self-releasing a glorious, beautiful, solo guitar masterwork entitled Western Violence & Brief Sensuality in 2007, Mr. Collins is gearing up for his follow-up album Perdition Hill Radio to be released by the venerable UK experimental label Type Records on July 7th.

I met William electronically (that's fancy-talk for "online, not in real life") many moons ago, when I ranked Western Violence... one of my favorite releases of 2007. Since then, he has been a frequent visitor (and comment-leaver) on my silly little website/blog. We've often chatted with one another about life, music and...uh, what else is there anyway? He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of the prettiest places in America and a favorite spot for me to visit on cross-country drives. He's a fan of field recordings, as am I. I have interviewed him once before (which you can read by clicking here), and last week I had the pleasure of witnessing his live show for the first time (a review and more photographs can be found here).

If you think I'm sounding a bit like an ass-kisser, that is simply not true. Everyone likes William Fowler Collins! John Twells of Type Records (a very nice gentlemen himself -- he handed me a bottle of Duvel at a festival here in Los Angeles mere minutes before melting my face with a performance as moniker Xela) says, "[William's] debut was fantastic and something that kept finding its way back to the CD player, so I asked him to stay in touch. When he sent the early demos of Perdition Hill Radio I knew it was something I had to release...it had everything, you know? Darkness, subtlety, restraint, and a lingering power that was impossible to put your finger on." That's some mighty fine praise!

In preparation for the upcoming release, I again asked William if I could interview him about his life and Perdition Hill Radio. Please enjoy the following friendly chat, and make it your business to seek out the music this gentleman has recorded. MP3 samples can be found at his personal website, WilliamFowlerCollins.com.

Cross-Continental Travel And The Art Of Field Recording

Two weeks ago when I made my last blog post I was visiting friends and family in New Jersey. Since then, I have flown back to Los Angeles and become reacquainted with life on the west coast. Airplanes -- and maybe some of you will agree with me -- are not my preferred method of travel. I like to drive. Maybe that's why I don't mind living in LA. I'm comfortable in a car. It helps that I am consumed by wanderlust. I enjoy long drives to nowhere in particular. In fact, on two (and a half!) separate occasions I've been fortunate enough to drive cross-country. I always feel like Amelia Earhart or Charles Lindbergh when I take a lengthy solo drive, and no, it's not because I get so lost people claim I've disappeared, or because my baby was stolen out of his crib back in East Amwell, NJ. I don't even have a baby! My feelings of kinship to those travelers are based on the strong senses of excitement and discovery that overwhelm me when I'm trapped in my horseless carriage for hours on end with nobody to talk to but my little cassette tape recorder.

One of my favorite activities while driving is to stray from the beaten path and find weird nooks to explore. I often bring along my camera and MiniDisc recorder to document sights and sounds. I am particularly fond of field recordings, and while I am by no means a Nonesuch Explorer-quality anthropologist or sound archivist, I like to think that every once in a while I accidentally record something that is pretty cool. On the last cross-country drive I made (late 2007), my schedule was loose, so I brought my recording gear and decided to find some weird locations in which to record the natural sounds of the world around me.

Welcome Back Squatter!

As some of you may know, I left New Jersey for Los Angeles two years ago. My reasons for leaving are shrouded in mystery. That is to say, they remain unclear even to myself. I remember...something...about a "job", that never panned out. Twenty-four months later, I've yet to come to my senses and leave that 500-square-mile den of iniquity. Still, I like to come back east every six months or so because my family and friends are still here, and because it turns out Los Angeles kind of sucks! Unfortunately for me, I picked a horrible week to return. It's rained each day for the last seven days, which has severely impacted my ability to enjoy every moment to its fullest potential. On top of that, a number of personal issues arose which left me feeling both depressed and fatigued. It's only natural that I've been sick for the past few days. So much for a vacation...

All things considered (wouldn't that make a clever radio program title! Oh, wait...) I wound up having quite a productive week in the New York/New Jersey area. I even ventured as far north as Vermont in my attempt to turn a piss-poor week into a more entertaining one. Now, for your viewing pleasure, one choice photograph from the past seven days of my life. Witty captions included for gay measure!

The Stone Brewery In Pictures And Words

If you're anything like me (and dear God I hope you are not!), you enjoy quality beer. Music connoisseurs are aesthetes at heart, and most of us enjoy the finer things in life: a beautiful sunset, a kempt lady, and delicious craft beers. I suppose there could be a fourth item included in that list. I just can't remember what it is.

I might as well just come out and say it: I'm a beer nerd. I hesitate to use the word "snob," because it's so pejorative (perhaps because it is). I've been to beer festivals, I enjoy a good brewery tour. When I lived in New Jersey I used to drive all the way from Livingston to South Plainfield to buy beer, even though there were two well-stocked liquor stores within a mile of my house. Here in Los Angeles, I like to buy booze at that creepy, otherworldly 7-11 in Eagle Rock with the standalone fridge stocked with rare beers from all over the world, and a cashier who looks like Nico's twin sister. The point is, I don't mind going out of my way to find new, exciting beers.

If I had to forumlate a list of my favorite craft breweries (Wikipedia) in the United States, it would include: Rogue Ales, Dogfish Head Brewery, Stone Brewing Company, Avery Brewing Company, AleSmith Brewing Company, and Port Brewing/Lost Abbey/Pizza Port. It is my goal to tour each of those breweries, plus all others. Like I said, I enjoy beer.

Yesterday I packed up my girlfriend and headed for the Stone Brewery in Escondido, CA. I had the day off from work, so I figured, "What better way to spend an early Wednesday afternoon than touring an amazing brewery and getting drunk?" Previous brewery tours (Magic Hat in Burlington, VT and Sam Adams in Boston, MA for example) have taught me that if you appear really interested in the facility and the process, you can get really loaded on free samples. Stone Brewing Comapny has actually one-upped their competition with a beautiful bistro attached to their brewery. Good food and good beer? Hell yes.

My Church Of Scientology Free Personality & Stress Test Story, Plus Scientology Jazz!

Last week I decided that I wanted to take the free personality test and stress test offered by one of the Scientology centers here in Los Angeles. I had my girlfriend Nicci come along so that she could take the tests too, but also to make sure I wasn't abducted and sodomized and left for dead. They do that, you know, it is just not widely reported. So, she and I drove into Hollywood to see what Scientology could teach us about ourselves, and experience firsthand just how hard the advisers at the center try to sell people on their cult religion.

The center we visited was laid out as follows. The storefront featured two bookshelves on opposite walls, and a large desk set back a bit from the entrance. All manner of Scientology books lined the shelves. Behind the front desk there were a number of free-standing displays with pictures of L. Ron Hubbard and various graphics and news stories depicting all the wonderful things Scientology does for the world. Beyond that there were some school desks and a small "theater" that included three rows of wooden chairs and a television set. The back of the room had large, office-style desks, an enclosed area where tests results were generated, and a door to a back room. There were one-way mirrors on the rear wall that I imagined were used for surveillance purposes.

Upon entering the center, an older gentleman with grey hair asked the purpose of our visit, and I mentioned the free tests. He asked us if we had thirty minutes to spare, and we said yes. Then he showed us to our desks and gave us a copy of the Oxford Capacity Analysis (Wikipedia) and an answer sheet.

How To Overcome Discouragement

A few months ago, station manager Ken aired his annual "State Of The Station" address (Real Audio), during which he called listener-bloggers to arms in the hopes that some would help contribute to Beware Of The Blog. Compelled by a force beyond my control, I e-mailed him asking if I could help in any way. I anticipated a non-response (just like that time I applied for that Podsafe Music Library Director job at WFMU!), or a "Sorry, we've received more responses than we expected" form letter, at which point I would simply stand up and walk away from my laptop feeling somehow like I'd done my part to help. I never thought Ken would say, "I'd love to get you blogging..." That's when the fear began to manifest itself.

"Fear?" you ask. "What fear?". Well, you see, I run a music/culture blog called Swan Fungus, which is really very immature, vulgar, and tact-deficient. Furthermore -- like the most-awfulsome episodes of Seven Second Delay -- every post inevitably turns into a trainwreck. I already have enough stress in my life trying to write new and unique daily blog posts for my pathetically-small audience of "indoor kids" and collector scum. Blogging for WFMU would require me to be informative and intelligent enough to impress the brilliant and erudite audience of the nation's longest-running free-form radio station. How discouraging.

The fear had overtaken me, and I considered not responding to Ken's invitation. But then I had something of a revelation. I was visited in a dream by the ghost (even though he's not dead) of J. Martin Kohe, who told me, "Evan, you can overcome discouragement!"