I uploaded the *ahem* best tracks from the Nebraska Celebrities Sing For Sight cd. Download away. Laugh yr face off.

Eric Crouch- Under the Tenth Street Bridge

Senator Ben Nelson- Western Town In Nebraska

Bright Eyes- First Day Of My Life

Mike Kelly- His Name Was Freedom

Earl Bates & Corey Sanchez- Soldier Song

David Landis- Life Was Simple Then

Record Reviews

NEBRASKA CELEBRITIES SING FOR SIGHT

JMR Productions 2006

I believe this may be the first cd in the history of the world that features the vocal talents of Eric Crouch and Conor Oberst.

I am totally not making this shit up.

Featuring Mr. Oberst and Mr. Crouch, as well as Mike Kelly (of the World Herald), Ben Nelson (of the Senate), The Maynard Tripelets (no idea who to credit), Dick Boyd (of Ebeneezer Scrooge at the Playhouse fame) one might expect this entire compact disc to be a load of horseshit.

And they’re not wrong. This entire compact disc is a load of horseshit.

Tom Osbourne didn’t put up with this shit. Where’s Tommy Frazier’s record deal? How about Lawrence Phillips- his shit would be straight outta NWA only in Lincoln and a lot more midwestern.

The good news though is that while this compact disc is a load of horseshit, it is a benefit cd for visually impaired children. So at least it’s sale is going to something besides reaping back the money they spent on making the cd in the first place.

Anyway, it also has tracks by Eric Crouch (of Nebraska Football fame) and Conor Oberst. I was given one at work the other day because I helped set trash cans up for the event the people who put out the cd were hosting. Something for blindness in children I guess.

10. Please stop making lists of the 100 Greatest Albums of all time. Rolling Stone has enough advertising in it already.

09. Please come up with other questions to ask about Keith Richards aside from ‘how the hell is he still even alive?’

08. Please stop saying ‘Bob Nastanovich’s unique role in Pavement’. It sounds text book after awhile. Thank you.

07. Please quit inventing genres. When I heard the name psychedelicate I knew you’d gone too far. Seriously- psychedelicate? What the crap?

06. Please stop talking about ‘Steve Albini’s recording techniques’ without explaining them at all.

05. Please stop interviewing Thurston Moore. I don’t care how good of an album ‘Daydream Nation’ was- and I agree it’s a great album- but I can’t stand the guy’s interviews. He comes off sounding like that Matt Pinfield guy and whatever happened to him anyway? Also please do not interview Mr. Moore for every single indie rock or punk rock documentary that comes out. Thank you.

04. Please stop interviewing Jello Biafra. He has a lot to gas about, but Pete Seeger has lived a life a thousand times more subversive since the 1930’s and without being so obnoxious.

03. Please stop calling Conor Oberst ‘the new Bob Dylan’. Please? Please?

02. Please stop interviewing Lars Ulrich about the evils of downloading music. That guy makes more money taking a shit than the rest of us do working regular jobs.

01. Please stop referring to Kurt Cobain as ‘the voice of his generation’. I may not know a lot of things, but I don’t think Kurt Cobain’s entire generation got addicted to heroin and shot itself in the head. Of course, if the lesson you’re trying to teach about that generation is that sometimes you can get exactly what you want and still not be very happy, then I guess, go ahead.

I just shooed a moth out of a screen door in someone’s kitchen.

This may not come off as a particularly brave or valiant act- I doubt I’ll win any medals or receive any awards- but it was carried out with a plan of action that was precise and detailed.

It went like this:

My friend saw the moth in the kitchen and looked at me and said, “Get it!”

I saw the screen door and opened it, taking careful attention to slide the door stop in place so I could grab an envelope- perhaps it was a phone bill or a credit card statement, I did not take notice- to fan the moth out the door so as not to destroy it.

To live and let live, as they say.

I spared it’s life, you see?

It made me think of other insects I have spared where others would have simply crushed them.

A girl I work with saw a Brown Recluse Spider scurry across the floor and jumped away from it. I moved forward towards the Brown Recluse and she said, “Don’t kill it!”

I had not been planning on killing it. I slid a piece of paper underneath the Brown Recluse and carried it outside to the grass.

The girl I work with seemed to like that.

I just smiled. I cannot condone senseless waste.

On another day, I was smoking a cigarette and felt a sharp, stinging pain inside my shirt and just above the right side of my stomach. I thought the cherry had blown out of my cigarette and I jumped away looking for it and to see if I had burned a hole in my shirt. Suddenly I felt the exact same stinging pain again!

I stopped for a second dazed and not finding a burning cigarette cherry anywhere. Then again, the same sharp pain pinched me in my right shoulder! I stopped again still a little bit dazed.

It was then a wasp flew away from me and I realized what had been happening.

Oh.

That wasp was spared but at a personal expense I would care not to repeat. At least I learned that I am not allergic to wasp stings.

I have spared centipedes.

I have spared millipedes.

I have spared crickets chirping into the night and keeping me from getting sleep.

I have faced one moral dilemma with a household pest and I am still not certain what the right way to handle it was.

It went like this:

In the basement bedroom of a house I lived in, was a cold air vent. When I moved into that room, with a houseful of friends, I discovered two dead mice in the bottom of that cold air vent. They had become trapped and there was no way out. One of the mice had eaten the other.

Since I had an instant mouse starvation trap in my bedroom, my room mates convinced me to put a mousetrap in the bottom of that vent. I did exactly that with no thought whatsoever.

One night a mouse found it’s way into the starvation pit in my wall. Soon after it found it’s way into the mousetrap.

Here is something that no one has told you about mousetraps:

They don’t always work like the picture on the box suggests they should.

I heard a scratching at the cold air vent.

I heard the mousetrap snap.

I heard the mouse squeal for five minutes as it scratched at the cold air vent waiting to die.

It was not dying very quickly. Not instantly like the picture on the box suggested.

I lay in bed and listened for a few minutes. It kept squealing and scratching and as far as I could tell was in a whole lot of pain. I got out of bed and held a can of Lysol spray to the vent and kept it there until the cannister was completed.

And then I felt quite bleak and couldn’t get back to sleep.

My room smelled like fresh linens and the mouse was dead.

That mouse was dead when it crashed into the starvation pit, deader when it walked into the trap, but not dead until I ended it’s remaining seconds of agony in a bizarre act of euthanasia I would never like to repeat. I’d rather have a cat and introduce a natural predator to the fray.

I can’t kill a mouse and feel good about myself.

I read the papers and see stories about wars and I can’t imagine being trained to kill people like household pests.

I don’t want to harm a fly.

I woke up at 5 wide-eyed and hungry, so I got up, showered and went to the Leavenworth Cafe for breakfast. Eggs Benedict was had. It was delicious. I read this week’s Reader about the top 35 Omaha bands and now understand what-the-fuck the Stay Awake were talking about last night.

Anywhoo-While riding my bike back home, one of the other tenants was pulling out of our parking garage drive onto St Marys and making it impossible to ride up it and inside the building to park my bike- he was waiting for traffic to pass.

Traffic passed. I waved to show him he could go.

His window was rolled down. ‘I guess you’re afraid of cars,’ he sneered when I didn’t ride across the sidewalk in front of him like he was expecting me to do as though he controlled my movements like some sort of traffic god or benevolent force of nature.

Well, yes- but that’s not the point in this case.

‘No, I live here,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said. And then he drove off.

Asshole.

Well, as the story goes I finally figured out what I want to do with my life- for a few years.

There’s a wonderful American tradition that people seem to forget about and that tradition is travel. Go west, young man! Hell, go north, south, east, what-have-you too. My lease is up come January and stop #1 on my travels is Austin, TX.

I’m going to be doing my traveling very cheaply, which means I will be moving around out of a couple of suitcases, more or less. There’s no room for records, or stereo systems, etc. This is where you guys come in.

I have a lot of vinyl. Good stuff. Old stuff, new stuff- a little bit of everything. And I think you’ll find my pricing agreeable. I’m not out to gouge anybody, I just want to make something back on all of this stuff and I want people to be able to enjoy what I have.

Take a look and check it out. There’s contact information for me if you want to buy something. I’m not negotiating prices because I’m well aware that a lot of this stuff is being sold for quite a bit less than anybody in town is selling it for.

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution-

rock and roll won’t save your life, but it just might save the night.

I walk up on high and I step to the edge &

I close my eyes

(only for a moment and the moment’s gone).

When all are one and one is all- to be a rock and not to roll-

You say you want a revolution?

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Where have all the flowers gone?

Whatever happened to Saturday night?

Oh where or where can my baby be?

Whatever happened to all this season’s losers of the year?

Wise men say ‘only fools rush in’ and I could see Paradise by the dashboard light.

Sing us a song- you’re the piano man.

You’re a joker, a toker, and a midnight smoker-

lay lady, lay across my big brass bed.

Crimson and clover over and over- blinded by the light-

We’ll fill in the missing colors in each other’s paint by number dreams.

(That’s what you get for loving me.)

What’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget.

Same dances in the same old shoes-

Some habits that you just can’t lose-

Oh yeah- life goes on long after the thrill of living is gone.

Life’s been good to me so far

& I have squandered my existence for a pocketful of mumbles

(such are promises.)

Location: the television program 60/40

Characters: ANNOUNCER, DONALD DIPTHONG, DIRECTOR, MARTIN ANVIL

[a montage of crack addicts is displayed as the announcer reads this monologue]

ANNOUNCER

They roam the streets in packs and sleep in all kinds of different places- old houses, homeless shelters, flop hotels, abandoned buildings, and sleeping rooms. Their existence is largely based on the pursuit of crack cocaine and everything else- sexual needs, nourishment, sleep, and a sense of order comes secondarily.

These are nature’s crack addicts. Welcome to another edition of 40/60. On tonight’s program Donald Dipthong interviews National Geodesic film maker Martin Anvil about his recent studies on crack cocaine addicts living in the wilderness of our rundown parts of towns in cities across the nation.

[60/40 logo splashes across the screen with theme music]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Good evening viewers. Tonight, Martin Anvil is going to take us into the seedy underbelly of our cities. This program may be disturbing for younger viewers and we would advise that they view it with caution- I’m really not trying to talk down to you guys, it’s just that your parents will sue our sacks off

DIRECTOR

Donald, we’re rolling.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Hey, I took some X before the show too. Don’t worry.

DIRECTOR

Oh goddamnit.

[Technical difficulties screen displays for several seconds.]

[Cut back to footage of Donald]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Ahem. Ok. Good evening viewers. Tonight we will be studying natures crack cocaine addicts in their natural habitats with our special guest Martin Anvil.

[Martin Anvil walks onto the set]

[the audience cheers for him]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Thanks for coming on our show tonight, Martin.

MARTIN ANVIL

Hey, it’s a pleasure to be here Donald.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I understand you have a short informative piece that you wanted to show us before we start asking you questions.

MARTIN ANVIL

Yes, I do. It’s part of a larger documentary I’m working on about crack cocaine addicts.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Fascinating. Let’s roll that clip.

[cut to clip]

[title displays ‘LIFE ON THE ROCKS: A Field Study”]

[camera pans across a bleak urban landscape filled with garbage, prostitutes, and the urban poor]

MARTIN ANVIL NARRATING

There are many different kinds of human animals. Some roam with different kinds of packs. There are working packs, teaching packs, youth packs, violent packs, and religious packs. Human beings are pack animals, whether they realize it or not.

One such pack can be found in almost any city in America, right down on the skid rows. These pack animals are the crack cocaine addicts.

[camera zooms in on a guy in a kitchen making crack]

Crack cocaine is a highly addictive and cheap drug. It’s a mixture of cocaine and baking soda and a little bit of time. It creates a very short high though and crack cocaine users constantly find themselves smoking the drug to maintain their high.

[camera zooms to crack heads on street hustling for change]

Crack cocaine users spend much of their waking time with the pursuit of more crack cocaine. As you can see here, this includes begging for change as well as mugging and/or prostitution.

[camera shows a couple hookers getting into a big white van]

Crack cocaine users are not likely to spend much of their waking time in a state of rest. They also do not spend a lot of time seeking out nourishment due to side effects of the drug. They also do not spend a lot of time sleeping due to side effects from the drug. Their purpose is simply to smoke crack, get more crack, and then smoke that crack as well. The mating rituals of crack cocaine users many times involve money changing hands or crack cocaine changing hands in exchange for mating rights.

[camera shows a pimp]

Many of these users are so bad at tracking their finances that they allow an outside arbitrator to take over for them. He will arrange different mating sessions for them and offer them protection if they join his pack.

[camera shows guy smoking crack out of a pringles can]

Here is a North American crack cocaine user smoking crack cocaine. Notice how yellowed and jaundiced his eyes appear. He has not slept in approximately 72 to 87 hours.

[camera shows a girl smoking crack off of tin foil]

Here is another North American crack cocaine user. She is pretending that she is smoking freebase cocaine (a different, but altogether similar substance). That is because she is deluding herself. She has just finished a crack cocaine user mating ritual and is now celebrating by getting ‘dusted’ (street slang for ‘getting high on crack cocaine”) in the stall of a gas station’s bathroom.

[camera shows a shot of the streets again]

They wander among us freely and we see them in all sorts of places. Their natural habitats tend to be in very run down areas where odd and insane behavior is not considered odd or insane. Their lives are pursuits of one thing and one thing only with incidental details like rape, torture, and murder not bothering to interfere with this singular goal. These are natures crack cocaine addicts.

[clip ends]

[Shot returns to Donald and Martin sitting in the studio]

[audience cheers]

DONALD DIPTHONG

That’s fascinating, Martin. What a strange world. Where all did you go on this safari?

MARTIN ANVIL

I visited the cities of Compton, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas. I wanted to make sure that there were no drastic differences in enviroments and climates. The cities, of course, looked different and the wild crack cocaine users had different features and voices, but the behavior was all very similar.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I heard you had a little excitement in Compton, would you like to tell us about that?

MARTIN ANVIL

Well, haha, crack cocaine users don’t really like to be filmed, so you have to find a way to observe them that doesn’t get in their way and allows them to trust you.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I see. How did you go about that?

MARTIN ANVIL

Well, it was a hard choice and there were a lot of moral questions raised by my crew, but we all decided that it was for the best.

DONALD DIPTHONG

What do you mean?

MARTIN ANVIL

Well- haha- we ended up buying a big sack of crack and smoking all of it and filming the entire documentary in about 5 days. Unfortunately, we lost quite a bit of our equipment because we ran out of crack in Chicago and had to pawn most of it off.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I suppose there are sacrifices that one makes when one is a documentarian.

MARTIN ANVIL

Tell me about it. Jeez. But that’s over now. I’ve been clean for three days and I feel a lot better about life again.

DONALD DIPTHONG

That’s great. And inspirational.

Question from the audience:

‘Do you know where I can find some crack cocaine?’

You don’t have to answer that… if you don’t want to.

MARTIN ANVIL

Oh no, that’s fine. Talk to that black man in the wheel chair on the corner outside after the filming. He can get you anything you need. Cash only.

[audience laughs]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Hahahaha. That’s great Martin. We’re out of time now, folks. Make sure you check out Martin Anvil’s documentary ‘ON THE ROCKS’ on the next National Geodesic Special.

[music starts]

[credits rolls]

Location: the television program 60/40

Characters: ANNOUNCER, DONALD DIPTHONG, A MAN WHO DIGS HOLES, A MAN THAT LIFTS BOXES

[Music begins playing as the 60/40 logo splashes onto the screen.]

ANNOUNCER

On tonight’s program, Donald Dipthong interviews a man who digs holes and a man that lifts boxes. Only here on 60/40!

[Music continues as the shot fades to Donald Dipthong standing outside of a loading dock]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Good evening viewers and welcome to another edition of 60/40. Tonight I’ll be interviewing two men who work in our nation’s laborforce. Neither has an education higher than the twelth grade, but they both have managed to carve out their own niches in the working world.

[Shot cuts inside of the studio. Donald is behind a desk and there are two men sitting on the couch next to him. One is the man who digs holes and the other is a man who lifts boxes.]

DONALD DIPTHONG

Thanks for coming on the show tonight, guys. It’s a pleasure to have you.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

Thanks for having us, Donald.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

Yes, thank you.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Like I said- it’s our pleasure. Now, the two of you are laborers and that’s a line of work that most of our viewers are not terribly familiar with. In fact, a recent survey showed that most of our viewers are housewives, single elderly women, and insomniacs. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourselves.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

Well, I lift boxes for a living. There’s always boxes that need moved and that’s what I do. I pick up a box and carry it a few feet and then set it down. Sometimes I stack the boxes. Sometimes the boxes are a lot heavier than they look.

DONALD DIPTHONG

That’s interesting. Can you tell me what’s in the boxes.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

I don’t know actually. I don’t ask. Besides, it doesn’t matter what’s in them, I have to move them anyway. I won’t get my paycheck if I don’t move boxes.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

I dig holes. My foreman shows me a spot that I need to dig at and I dig there. Sometimes the holes are deep and sometimes they are shallow. I’m a fast digger though. I’ve got callouses to prove it.

DONALD DIPTHONG

And do you know what the holes are for?

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

Usually they’re going to be filled with something. Or they’re going to put something in the bottom and will need filled back up with dirt.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Ah… so do you also fill holes?

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

No, we have another guy that does that.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I see. So both of you do labor but neither of you know exactly what the labor you’re doing is for?

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

I’d disagree with that. The labor I do is so I can live somewhere and eat things.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

Yeah. I’m in the same boat. I don’t really care what the holes are for as long as I get a paycheck.

DONALD DIPTHONG

The American work ethic realized.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

I don’t know.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

I guess.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Have either of you ever thought about branching out and trying something different?

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

Well, I have thought about getting into hiding things for a living. I’m so good at stacking boxes and sometimes hiding little ones among the big ones to suprise our stocking crews.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

Oh wow! I was just thinking the other day that I should get into the business of finding things. I find a lot of things when I’m digging holes. Usually electrical wires or buried pipes though. One time I found a time capsule from 1981. It had a newspaper clipping about Ronald Reagan’s shooting.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

Maybe we could work together.

DONALD DIPTHONG

I think it’s good for our viewers to see that you both have hopes and dreams.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

We do have hopes.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

And we do have dreams.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Question from the audience for the man who lifts boxes:

‘What is your favorite kind of box to move.’

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

[thinking quietly for a moment]

I really like cardboard boxes. They’re probably my favorites.

DONALD DIPTHONG

There you have it folks- cardboard: the working man’s favorite.

Question from the audience for the man who digs holes:

‘What is your favorite kind of shovel?’

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

I’m partial to spades.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Not to get off subject, but we don’t appreciate that kind of language here.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

Sorry. But it’s the truth. I really like spades. I like a good solid wooden handle and a nice square shaped head. I like the ones that I can stand on if necessary.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Oh, I see. Haha… you’ll have to forgive me. I was having flashbacks to last night’s episode of the Junior KKK rally.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

I don’t understand.

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

I fail to see the connection.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Nevermind. We’re just about out of time, folks. So before we go is there anything you have coming up that you’d like to talk about?

MAN WHO LIFTS BOXES

Well, tomorrow we’re getting a shipment in. So I’ll be lifting boxes all day long. It’ll be pretty hairy, but I wouldn’t expect to be at work longer than my regular shift.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Good man.

MAN WHO DIGS HOLES

I’m actually on disability right now because I threw my back out last week. I don’t have health insurance so I’ve been eating extra strength excedrin since Tuesday. I hope to be back out in the field by Thursday next week.

DONALD DIPTHONG

Viewers, please keep the man who digs holes in your thoughts and prayers.

That’s all we have time for tonight, folks! From all of us here at 60/40- have a purpose driven life!

[end scene]