More Songs About Bus Shelters and Chinese Food

Scene Of The Crime - The Stooges

After a two day road trip at 55mps down I-80 with a uhaul trailer full of crap, and a week of moving in and job hunting/whoring around downtown Madison, I have finally returned to my midwestern roots after 5 years in Boulder, CO. Now armed with two college degrees, a signed lease for a place downtown, and a full time job at a chinese restaurant, I’m stumbling ass-backward into semi-permament postgraduate life. Selling chow mein.

Now with all the hassles out of the way, I am free to enjoy adult(?)hood by spending the cash I make under the table for selling General Tso’s chicken to drunk college kids and derelict people waiting at the bus stop in front of the restaurant, on essentials like pot(s and pans) and cds. I am sad to announce though that Transmissions From Wintermute is no longer a trifecta of geographical awesomeness, covering, in absolute entirety, all the political, pop-cultural and artistic ground between Madison, Stockholm, and Boulder. Rather, it is now an extremely lopsided diode. But on the plus side (for me), I am very happy to be back in Madison which I think is one of the coolest little cities in the nation. All those Austin-Seattle-Portland hypesters can go slam a cock (to steal a phrase from Rob Corddry).

Despite my complete lack of ambition, and total contentment in hanging out listening to records and going out to shows, I think it’s very interesting that I live with 6 people my age who all have college degrees and all work in restaurants or bars making under $10 hour. There’s something pretty interesting about an economy in which over 2 billion is spend monthly in the bloody sands of Iraq (and soon Iran), and employers are free to sit around and wait for the most overqualified person to work at their shitty store (“well, you have a bachelor of arts degree, but I’m really looking for someone with an engineering background to work in my pizza place...”). I thought war was suppose to be good for the economy? Maybe someone who understands math can explain it to me.

To completely change the subject to hope for the future of independent media, I arrived back here just in time to help out on W.O.R.T. 89.9’s (Madison’s extremely eclectic and progressive community radio station) yearly pledge drive. Me and Laz spent last summer as regular volunteer’s for this bitchin’ station (she as a full fledged intern, and me as a lowly receptionist), so I thought I should mention their drive in this completely insubstatial corner of cyberspace (after all, these words did somehow wind up on the intra-net, so they must matter, right?). Anyway, if you're reading this, go HERE to W.O.R.T.’s WEBSITE where you can stream their entire 24 hours of programing and make a donation to help keep media free.

Early next week I'm gonna upload the first installment of the Official Transmissions From Wintermute Roadtrip Mixtape but in honor of ezarchive which seems to be working fine again, HERE is a rare Stooges track, from the previously unreleased original sessions for Raw Power. All the songs except one were rejected by the label, and the remaining outtakes weren’t released until years later in 1981 when BOMP Records randomly acquired the master tape and released it independently as I'm Sick Of You. Here’s one of my favorites from the EP. Iggy nailed it when he said you “Can’t go back a second time.” Belted out by a man who truly didn’t think he would outlive the decade. Luckily for us, somehow he did.