It is so hard not to worry.

"This is not the time for government to shell out another 150 million dollars," blah blah blah.

Give me another stimulus check. I could use it to purchase some neem oil, or something to soothe my cuticles. My nerves have been racked lately. I am graduating, willing I pass my Spanish class, in less than two months and to be honest, I am feeling the anxiety of the economy. I am a student of middle class parents who had no form of finances to pay for my "higher level of education." Which means I have a nice size of student loan debt left in my book bag after my last round of final exams. I will be entering into the best years of my life with debt and worry. So yes, Almighty "All-knowing" Government, give me that second round of stimulus checks and please, don't forget about the millions of Americans who trusted the government in accepting Stafford student loan money. The debates, on both state and national levels, are chocked full of plans on how to make college education more affordable-- but this is talk for the future, something our leaders are so good at, talk talk talking about the future. But what about the now? So many young adults have trusted the advice that earning a college degree will better prepare them for the the future. But I worry that this is a falsity. I fear that the millions of young Americans who will be paying off their student loans during this period of economic transition will feel the strongest blow of economic uncertainty. Federal Stafford loans are funded by private lenders, such as Citibank, which means the loans granted through Federal program will be handed over to the private sector. The private sector is obviously in a crisis and the possibility of the private sector jacking interest rates even higher than the current 6.8% is a real possibility. Student loan debt is unable to be compensated through bankruptcy, and I am sure the private sector knows this. The loan debt will ALWAYS be there. So the potential for the private sector to take advantage of this is a huge risk to a whole generation. The class of December 2008, and even May 2009, should be scared, pissed, and ready to write congress. If the American Government forgets these people, if they forgo the opportunity to protect the generation that trusted the recommendation of going into debt to earn a higher level of education, then the American Government will be setting America up for failure. There will be a whole generation of young adults that will never be able to live and enjoy life without an economic cloud looming over head. The economic future of the graduating middle class is as real a problem as the current economic turmoil.

Represent

“Three months prior to graduation”
K. Reid

it is only salt water
running down my cheeks
nothing more
not a sign of fear
of doubt
or anxiety

my nerves are fine
my nails are always bitten
to the nub
my cuticles are always sore
from tending the weeded
hang nails

I chose to graduate with
a writing degree
I chose not to file myself
in the standard 9 to 5
I chose the alternative

and now, the route
this life of art
freedom
a piercing pursuit
has evoked salt water
running down my cheeks

fuck
I am scared

I work too much perhaps, but dreams take work.


Future Islands, "Little Dreamer" 11.10.07

Is that a Keytar?



Yes, yes it is. So watch the vid. Dance. And let the lyrics get stuck in the brain....

And all this love, save it for nothing, I've never felt so blue. And all this love, rainbow stylin.


Life is a Mashup. Here is some Girl Talk with a little bit o digital anthropology comments. Learn ya something now.



Yes Lawrence Lessing, making people pirates is good. Make me a pirate and I will beam musical wattage from inside the city. Give me a standard to live against. Democracy is hungover from the bottle of capitalism and the people are tired of the snooze button.

Michael Wesch is genius.

They sure don't make 'em like they used to. Ricky Nelson, I wish you were still around to teach boys a lesson or two. Chivalry is dead, and common decency is in the intensive care unit. Technology has taken courting and dating to texting and Facebook. It makes me sick. What happened to just asking (in person, face to face) a lady to the movies?

~signed with love, Kelly Lou Reid

Music take a dance with me. Whisper in my ear and tell me the future. Tell me what will happen to radio. Does the injection of digitalization become lethal?

I don't usually do this, but after having an exceptional radio show yesterday I wanted to reflect on the play list. Radio is my love. It takes me away from everything. For two hours I lay down all the cds and vinyl. Make a mess. And mix songs. Yesterday I woke up and said to myself, I want to play some Beach Boys and that awesome Lucinda Williams song, that nine minute long song. So I did. I wish I could podcast the set, but I am not that advanced yet, and the truth is that live radio is better than any podcast could be. Enjoyz.


END
Joy Division Shes Lost Control
Jim Noir Ships and Clouds
Little Beirut Acid Wash Soul
Neva Dinova Its Hard to Love You
Andre Williams And The New Orleans Hellh Rosalie
Young Fresh Fellows I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight
The Shys Savior
The dBs Nothing Is Wrong
Beach Boys Don't Worry Baby
Wilco Shot in the Arm
Lonnie Walker Wider Than White
Animal Collective For Reverend Green
The Black Angels You In Color
The Kinks I Gotta Move
The Dry Heathens Just as Well
Jah Wobble Ollie Marland Polly Eltes Voodoo
Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies Make My Day
Filthybird Fightsong
Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell Second Option
Dr. Dog Uncovering the Old
Man... Or Astroman? Jokers Wild
Okkervil River You Cant Hold The Han Of A Rocknroll Man
Echo And The Bunnymen All That Jazz
Mr. Gnome Pirates
Beck Soul Of A Man
King Khan And The Shrines Burnin Inside
Kings Of Leon Milk
Lucinda Williams Wrap My Head Around That
START

Damn right I am whiner, because I have things to whine about. For one, I have no health insurance and not enough money to take care of my medical needs. If the economy stays upright long enough for my father's insurance to kick in when September 15 rolls around then maybe I will hush, but it's not likely. The problem is real. The economy faltering and thus resulting in my father being laid off is not mental. The lack of a health-care safety net for full time, working students like myself is not mental (Yes there is COBRA, but you have to be able to afford it). My two cavities, wisdom teeth extraction, and recently worsening vertigo issue is not mental. I need to see a doctor, I can't afford it, and I think that is something worth whining about.

While we're on the topic of a "mental recession," last time I checked the millions of factory workers being laid of in America didn't ask for their jobs to be outsourced overseas. All you politicians don't get it. The number of Americans living paycheck to paycheck is rising. Americans need to stop right now and ask themselves this-- if you lost your job, how long would it be till the bank foreclosed on your house or you were evicted because you could not pay rent? How long would it be till your car was repossessed or you were forced to sell it? Till your savings were drained, well if you have one? And don't rely on food stamps or unemployment because it is not that much help and if everyone needs it at once then the system would collapse (I don't know how it hasn't already collapsed but that is another topic). So how long would it be till the mental became reality? Ten months, six months, three months? You know, maybe you are right Phil Gramm, maybe it is mental. Americans have been mentally poisoned to believe that gas prices will always be cheap, there will always be jobs, and products will always be affordable. And now that the tables have turned, now that we have been over promised, over outsourced, and over marketed, we are whining.

What we need is a good, hard slap upside the head. You don't NEED a SUV. You don't NEED a huge house. You don't NEED new clothes every season. We need to conserve, live with in the means to function and live-- our actual means, not the means of interest rates-- and we need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, "Who is controlling who?"

Now, because music makes everything better, Mates of State with, "Whiners Bio."

"Fate has a funny way of coming around,"

The telling piece of advice is tucked away in the the second to last song on Dr. Dog's new album, Fate. And as life will have its funny way, the title of the song is The Beach. So I forget that I am not at the beach. And I remember. I am here in my city of oaks, crashing pools. Sometimes beaches have concrete ledges and chlorine. Sometimes the beach is my bed. Sand pillows and sound waves.

Forecast: the latest album from Dr. Dog is the sound summer makes when you catch the first lightining bug, cupped inside of your hands the music glows when you take a look at the first token of freedom.

There is this dream I've been conjuring up. It involves booking bands, live music, a pirate radio station, some form of a hotel or hostel, and a combination of good drinks and eats--- all in the same location. Add a swimming hole into the mix.

Mr. Tender of the Bar, add a little Strychnine to that drink, will ya?

The Summer of Mash n. Splash

It is one hundred and two degrees. 3 digits of heat in June. I asked for it. During the gray of winter I held on to Loudon Wainwright's The Swimming Song and now-- now I have my summer of mashing pedals, sweating from every inch of skin, feeling the glisten of the wind, riding through the night and then
splash.


If you've been pedaling around downtown Raleigh there is a chance that you may have seen the neon colored signs posted for this week's edition of Local Beer Local Band Night.

The CD Release show for The Proclivities will be this Thursday, June 12-- as in two days after the Mudhoney and Birds of Avalon show at the Cat's cradle. For some it is two days after the frikinREMfrikNationalfrinkinModestwho?frikfrik show.

Frik is my new word.

I needed to define proclivity so I looked it up and found that in context someone may have a proclivity to meticulousness and that a proclivity is similar to a propensity in such the sense that someone may have a propensity to drink too much. Frik is so much eaiser to understand.

Opening this Thursday will be The Young Sons out of Charlotte. So if the propensity for new music and adventure overcomes the proclivity of routine, give in. Give in to the summer of Mash n. Splash. (frik)

Enjoy this footage of The Proclivities. Not much going on for video work here but I think it captures the ambiance generated by Matt Douglas. To hear the new album, Handguns and Dancing Shoes, which was produced, mixed, and recorded by the guitarist for The Proclivities,Chris Boerner, just tune into WKNC 88.1 in the Triangle or worldwide at wknc.org.

Frik.

Oh-- NPR
tell me you are not a level of capitalism underneath the dark blanket of corporatization that covers America,
tell me there is still a opportunity for what is
real.
Tell me my last resort is not pirate radio. Someone tell me the movement of music will not be consumed by the technology of mongers.

The guitar is the new defibrillator.


I find myself watching these videos compulsively in order to get myself through the week. Drooling over the sound of the guitar. The raw, in your face, realism of local music. I let the sound shock me into gear because the harder I work, the harder I can play. And seriously, where else in the Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill can you check out TWO awesome local bands for FREE?


Only a few days away, THIS THURSDAY June 5th at Tir Na Nog for WKNC's Local Beer Local Band night..... so excited about

Lonnie Walker




and opening the night will be Grass Widow




Friday is now shadowed by the almighty power Thursday night's of WKNC's Local Beer Local Band night.

And it rained rock and rock n' roll.

Tomorrow [revision] TODAY is the day--- the day to vote for your presidential candidate in the primaries. So, North Carolina please VOTE!


and enjoy this music video from Fourth of July, "In Debt"



because I'm in debt like my country

and time has a way to make you forget how good or bad things went-- but your vote never forgets. America should know that after eight years.

Bonnaroo-schmannaroo-poo

Why would I go stand in the middle of huge crowd of sweaty formulites on a dusty hill to barely see a band I don't even like when I can drink cold beer, see better music, not pay near as much money and rock the hell out?

So I am passing on Manchestter TN and going for Chattanooga.

Chattanooga Punk Fest
Click here for the line up with active links to the bands' myspace sites.

Do Ya Hear We - 2008

Thurs. June 19 - 8pm @ Anarchtica
• Nestor Makhno (Huntsville, AL)
• Spaceweed (Asheville, NC)
• Suspicous Packages
• Whoremonger
• Shellshag (Brooklyn, NY)
• Endless Bummer (Asheville, NC)
• GTO CrackWagon (Dalton, GA)
• Choose Your Poison (Appleton, WI)

Fri. June 20 - 8pm @ JJ's Bohemia - 21 & up
• Al Scorch (Chicago, IL)
• Wrister (Atl, GA)
• Gravebound
• Night of the Wolf
• The Wrong Feeling
• Future Virgins
• Otter Spice

Sat. June 21 - 2pm @ Riverview Park
• Rock Paper Stuid
• Disasterly Do Nothings (Huntsville, AL)
• Giant Tiger
• False Sense of Hope
• Tulsa (San Francisco, CA)
• Queerwulf

Sat. June 21 - 8pm @ Clean Cut Entertainment
• Heccbus
• What If
• Nasty Ponies (Asheville, NC)
• American Cheeseburger (Athens, GA)
• Landlord (Bloomington, IN)
• Jack Palance Band
• All Night Drug Prowling Wolves (Atl, GA)

Sun. June 22 - 2pm @ 11th St. Warehouse
• Hoth
• Flea Market Royalty
• P.S. Eliot (B'ham, AL)
• ADD/C
• Princess Thunderstorm (Asheville, NC)
• Hidden Spots

Sun. June 22 - 8pm @ Sonny's Place - 21 & up
• Methlabs Gone Wrong
• Que Mart (Atl, GA)
• Sasquatch
• Electric Damn (Asheville, NC)
• Beach Patrol (Milwaukee, WI)
• Stupid Party (Brooklyn, NY)
• Scum of the Fucking Earth (Gainesville, FL)
• Burnin Doobage

Need to take a minute and write. Currently in the last arm of the storm. Lying in the ditch, holding onto the milk cow, boy I hope they fed her good n' plenty--those winds are fierce. EXAM WEEK.

I've been thinking about the Peace Corps a lot lately. It is something I want to do but have inhibitions about. There are stories of females being raped while serving. I would think that each case is situational but it still makes me question the perception of Americans in other countries.

There are some things I am going to do this summer.

-read Ulysses and some McCarthy
-learn how to do a hand stand
-make a music video/short film



I enjoy this one. Obvious college student but the music is good and I enjoy the attempt at mystique.


A lil something to go with that milk cow.


And I am trying so damn hard to throw a house party for these guys (actual band not shown in video). A FAULTY CHROMOSOME ----------->

Somewhere in between writing a paper, Spanish homework, and waiting tables I had a birthday. I never felt that special birthday ting, but I do feel another year older.

24

What to do with the year of twenty-four? Define, deliver, demand.

John Hillcoat, please use Avey Tare and Panda Bear of Animal Collective in the soundtrack for the upcoming film adaptation of McCarthy's THE ROAD. Please. I can only imagine what eerie sounds they could produce for the film. It would work well.


One of up my friends who tends to disagree with me on musical things also disagreed with me on this choice. He had good points- they don't make soundtrack music and they have never made a record that would fit the sound of the book; generally their music has an underlying tone of happiness. His points were valid, but too formulaic. For me it was the timing.

I told him that it kind of happened like this: I read the book, then two weeks later post-McCarthy upset and doomed feeling, I listen to some Panda Bear, and could hear them drawing out the suspense of a "lost human" noise through out the book and then at the end,
with the glimpse of green color
and the survival of the boy
the music breaks,
with a sliver of hope,
the passing of the fire;
the knowledge that inside humans are men, people, a fire
and somehow humanity survives.

This music and creative writing mixture of study just might work for me.

Sometimes I find myself tired. Well, too often I am tired. Revision: exhausted. Beyond physical and into the mental. A brain that is worn down to a nub. A stump of emotion. Lacking a refuge. Even music is beyond a repairing tool. But then, I find a reason to dance, to twirl, to let my hair down and catch a glimpse of my smile in the mirror.




Find an idea and hold tight onto it. The sun. The exuberant heat. And the pool. Sweating next to the pool. Drinking. Reading. Swimming. The refuge of summer, and its perfect nights.

Hey Beverly Purdue, I will trade you your many sets of pearls for my wisdom teeth hurting; they still need to be extracted and I still don't have health insurance. Or, how about that boat that your sons crashed while gallivanting on the Trent River with ladies, after drinking. Yeah, that boat was probably equivalent to the costs of my college education at North Carolina State University. Of course they didn't get into trouble with mommy on their side:

The Associated Press State & Local Wire October 25, 2007 Thursday 6:15 PM GMT

Perdue brothers cleared of responsibility in boating accident
NEW BERN N.C.

A federal judge says the sons of Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue were not responsible
for a boating accident on the Trent River in 2003.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge W. Earl Britt blamed the crash on the other
boater, Phillip Amerson, who had no lights illuminating his boat when he was
struck by the boat of Emmett and Garrett Perdue.

The judge says Amerson saw the other boat but did nothing to avoid the
collision. Amerson will now have to pay the medical bills for three women
injured in the collision.

Beverly Perdue is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.

LOAD-DATE: October 26, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newswire Copyright 2007 Associated Press All Rights Reserved


Perdue stop trying. You are not a coal miner's daughter. You are a coal mine OWNER'S daughter.

I am the daughter of a truck driver, a man who has returned to driving trucks after Bruce Wunner and other people at Refuel America (part of NewGen Technologies) failed to pay him for months of work, failed to make payment on health insurance, failed to notify my father of possible problems with paying him, and STILL owe him money. I imagine that these people at ReFuel and NewGen are driving their lovely expensive cars, going on vacations, seeing their dentists and doctors, and not worrying a bit about how their inadequate business planning has effected my family. Try being that daughter Perdue.

So Perdue, you should just stop, because you are not getting my vote.