FilteringCraig

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been really busy. I wrote a new song and am still looking to buy a house, etc.

Anyway, just wanted to let any of you local Cleveland people know that the band was added to a show last minute at The Spot at Case Western University. We are playing at 10 PM opening up for an exceptional band from Canada called A Northern Chorus. (Click the link to check their music out.)

If you can’t make it to that show, then add these other dates to your calendars. (Check it out. Our first show at The Grog Shop!)

Check out the new logo I threw together. I totally need a graphic artist to take care of this for me.

Dear potential home “seller,” I call you a potential “seller” because you can’t really be considered that until you get out of your delusional state and SELL your home to somebody. You, sir, have sold nothing. And really, it has been about a year since you have been trying to sell. Your house has been on the market over 175 days this go-round, and it was on the market for a long time before you pulled it off to make some last-ditch efforts at improvement last time. I hope those mortgage payments and tax bills are treating you well because with your actions, it would seem that not only are we at an impasse, but you are not going to see the end of those bills for a long time coming.

I know you bought the house three years ago for $250,000 and common sense would seem to indicate that maybe it would be worth more now, but you can’t just count on it. First of all, this is the Cleveland area. Maybe real estate prices boomed in tons of markets around the country in the last five years, but not here in the suburbs of Cleveland. This is a buyer’s market. Maybe your realtor should have told you that in the nearly 365 days that your house has been sitting vacant on the market, unloved and unsold.

Speaking of unloved, this is another reason why your house has gained nothing in value since 2003. YOU DIDN’T UPGRADE ANYTHING EXCEPT THE KITCHEN. Your work in the kitchen was nice, and I am sure it was an improvement over what was there before, but you did a half-assed job. You replaced the floors, oven, refrigerator, counters and kitchen sink. Congrats on that, but while you had the counters out of there, you might have wanted to replace the older, chipping cabinets sitting underneath. Some might say that you gold-plated a pile of dung.

And you had some good buyers in us. You had buyers who had the vision to get that house where it needed to be. We were able to look past the scratched, bubbling, crappy tile in the laundry room. We were able to look past the pink painted walls and burgundy/pink wall to wall carpeting in the dining and living rooms. (Yes, I said Burgundy/Pink) We were able to look past the mold-stained tile ceiling in the bathroom. We were able to look past all the windows with broken seals; the siding that had mold and moss growing on it; the driveway which will eventually be nothing more than a pile of black, flaking asphalt dust.

So, I am sorry that we will be unable to strike a deal, but maybe you should think harder about what you have and what you want for it next time. We weren’t trying to insult you, but you were definitely trying to insult us. We made our offer of $250,000 knowing that the house needs about $40,000 - $50,000 worth of work. At maximum, when the house is done properly, I think it could be worth between $300,000 and $325,000. So, when you listed it for $299,000 I thought you were a bit delusional, but I respected your tactic. At least maybe we could have met somewhere in the middle until you slapped us in the face with your counter-offer of $298,000. Dropping $1000 off of your asking price sends a message that you could have sent more tactfully and politely with two letters in a simple word.

N and O. That’s all you had to do. Just say no.

If I didn’t feel badly for wasting my realtor’s time, I would ask her to submit an offer for $240,000 just to flip you the real-estate bird. But I won’t waste my time.

In the meantime, I hope the house continues to sit and you eventually have to take even less than our offer for your house. Oh, and those mortgage and tax bills should just keep coming, and coming, and coming and coming�

Call me (groveling) if you need a bail out.

Sincerely,
FilteringCraig

According to ESPN.com Lebron James’ mother Gloria was arrested for DWI and was unruly during her arrest.

The officers said James smelled of alcohol and she appeared to be disoriented, Edwards said. She struggled with police as they attempted to put handcuffs on her. They put her in the back seat of the housing authority car and she kicked out a window, Edwards said.

I know that DWI happens to a lot of people, but that isn’t really the story here. The story to me is that she allegedly kicked out the window of the vehicle after being placed under arrest. This is not the kind of behavior that just isn’t normal.

Hopefully this will not act as a distraction to Lebron while he tries to get the Cavaliers back into the playoffs for the first time since 1998. It will be one of the first tests of Lebron’s focus as one of the premier players in the NBA. Judging by his first comment there might not be too much to worry about with Lebron as he handled his statement with as much honesty and professionalism as he has with every other opportunity to speak to the media since he has been drafted.

“I don’t have all the info of what’s going on,” he said. “Once I find that out and once I sit down with my family, you know, I’ll be able to comment on it a little bit better.”

If his performance Saturday night is representative of Lebron’s focus, then Cavs fans don’t have much to worry about. James scored 51 points on 19 - 35 shooting including 4 - 8 from three-point land as the Cavaliers beat the Utah Jazz 108 - 90.

I think Jen is starting to get jealous of my infatuation with Scarlett Johannson. She might have cause for concern, except that I really have no chance what-so-ever. AND. I. KNOW. IT.

Anyway, I don’t mean to be rude or push buttons, but seriously she is a very beautiful girl. And who knows, maybe she would just annoy the hell out of me with her personality. Either way, it is just a little movie star infatuation. Not at all based in reality.

Here is Phil’s comment on something I wrote on June 2, 2004.

“I read your whatever the hell it is you wanna call it on the Godsmack/Story of the Year fight, and because of your opinion on Godsmack, I think you suck some major dick. Godsmack is one of the greatest bands of this day and age and sure as hell havent gotten the airplay they deserve. Sully is a multitalented rock God. You are one of the most stupid, cocksucking sons a bitch I’ve ever met, and I think you should just go crawl into a corner and die, you must like to gargle bag, and because of your homosexuality, you will go to hell…we all know the whole wife thing is a coverup, you are so very goddamn lucky I don’t know you, or I would probably be hitting you in the head with a golfclub right as soon as you get to this part, you suck some major ass, and I hope you die a painful death
Fuck you, asshole
-Phil”

Hey, Phil or whoever you are, you do realize that you can’t go threatening people just because you are a big fan of a really crappy band with an even crappier vocalist like Godsmack, right?

And you might want to review your own abilities before you make fun of me. First of all you have never met me, so I can’t be one of the “most stupid.” Second of all, you are a bigot. I don’t happen to be gay, but your tirade is laced with an inordinate level of hatred. I need to know why you are so angry. Is it because you got a twinge in your pants when the male gym teacher put his hand on your shoulder? Are you afraid of being gay because you see it in your dreams and it scares you? I am sorry that you are so afraid, but maybe if you would just accept it then you would feel a lot better and you wouldn’t have to stop into my site and threaten me over a really crappy band that is derivative and boring while spewing hate-speech.

Really, I am not attempting to call you gay, but if you feel that much hatred toward that group of people, I get this feeling you may not be willing to admit you are one of them. Maybe because you think gay people are all going to hell is the reason you can’t accept yourself for who you are. Reflect on yourself a little bit.

Oh, and back to you threatening me..

I have already called my lawyer about your comment to my website. We are in the process of finding out all we can about you so that we can have you arrested for intimidation and threatening me. I don’t know where you think you live, but in this country you can’t go trolling around threatening people every time you don’t agree with something that you read.

Who is going to be “gargling bag” when you are in jail and I am just hanging with my girlfriend?

Good luck, Phil. And thanks for stopping into my website.

Regards,
Craig

P.S. Can I borrow that golf club? You won’t be needing it in jail and I have a tee time in May.

P.P.S. Here is some of Phil’s information.

IP Address
206.9.80.3

Email that he left on the site
philknoxville@hotmail.com

Hey everyone, I have been crazy busy lately, sorry for the lack of updates. Did you know that Jen and I have been looking to buy a house? That requires a bit of legwork, ya know?

Anyway, just thought I would update you on a couple things that I have been watching.

The Chumscrubber

This movie wasn’t really very good. It wasn’t totally awful, but it was weird and somewhat self-important. It was recommended to me by Netflix because I liked Donnie Darko. I can see why it was recommended, but stay away even if you did enjoy Double D. I still don’t totally get it, but the fact that I don’t really care means that the movie probably wasn’t very good.

Sky High

This is a PG kids movie about some superhero parents (Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston) and their son, Will, who is coming into his own and starting at a superhero high school. Yeah. It is a kids movie. It is one part X-men, one part The Incredibles, and one part Camp Kukamonga (made for TV movie with a stellar before they were stars cast). It definitely isn’t as good as The Incredibles or anything like that, but it was fun and just what I needed on Sunday night.

Finally, I probably won’t watch it tonight, but I will be Tivo’ing the only episode of American Idol that I watch every year. That’s right. The American Idol Rejects Edition Shows. You might remember that I wrote an article a while ago about a past year’s reject edition.

Oh, and I also am looking forward to watching Love Monkey. I liked the other show that that dude was on, Ed. Although it got old. Just not enough story lines to carry it on forever. Anyway, it should be interesting to see what happens with this show. It got me to thinking about a theory that I haven’t really thought through all the way yet, but I will give it to you anyway.

Of all the successful TV shows that you can remember, how many of them had creative names? How many were boring titles and successful.

Cheers
Seinfeld
Lost
ER
The Simpsons
The Brady Bunch
LA Law
Dallas

How many shows that caught on were given a shortened name, and/or nickname?

90210
Melrose
Malcolm
Raymond

Anyway, I am not sure what this says for Love Monkey, but I hate the name even though I want to see the show.

Apparently there is another “celebrity” sex tape on the horizon. Our good friend Ashlee Simpson is apparently on tape doing some really graphic stuff. If it does for her, what it did for Paris Hilton, then we should see her doing porno commercials for a fast food burger chain sometime soon. There are rumors that it is an Ashley lookalike and not really the secondary Simpson sister.

Either way, it is probably more fun to talk about than actually watch.

I am just hoping that Sonic the Hedgehog’s cousin, Ryan Cabrera is nowhere to be found on this tape.

In other Celeb sex tape news, Colin Farrell also allegedly has a tape being released by someone. It was released very quickly yesterday and then yoinked from the net soon thereafter. Even if someone can’t make some money from them, they get leaked one way or another apparently.

Memo to the agents and publicists to the stars. Please take away their tripods and make sure their cell phones don’t have video capabilities.

Chuck Klosterman doesn’t get a whole lot of respect out there in literary circles. I guess it comes with the territory when you are primarily a rock writer for Spin magazine and occasionally put out full-length books. Like many things that display a lack of ability in getting the support of critics, Klosterman’s work makes up for in popularity, what it lacks in acclaim. He has an approachable writing style, but he doesn’t play dumb. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and pop culture and he twinges almost every single one of his stories with references and filters provided by bands like KISS, or TV shows like Beverly Hills 90210. It places an importance on the very things that are very important to all of us in a superficial sense and then relates these things to the things that are important to us in an actual sense.

And maybe that isn’t worthy of praise from critical circles, but it makes for a very relatable and interesting book.

Killing Yourself to Live has a couple of different backdrops. Chuck Klosterman heads out for a driving trip of the country with the assignment to explore the deaths of rock royalty and explore these occurrences with the relationship between their fame and their deaths.

After reading the blurb on the jacket and finding out that this is what the book was going to be about, I was quite excited. I find the re-writing of history for dead people to be fascinating. I find their instant credibility and increased likelihood of success an interesting anomaly that works for some (Jimi Hendrix) and not so well for others (Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon.)

But that isn’t really what this book was about.

Yes, this was the assignment that Klosterman was working on for Spin magazine when he took the cross-country road trip to all these locations, but it isn’t the ultimate focus of his book. He discusses these points as asides and as filters for his autobiographical passages about the loves of his life.

What unfolds is one man’s version of a story that so many of us have in our lives. The cynical will call it a short resum� of romantic conquests, but to Chuck Klosterman, it is the three or four definitions which make up his own personal dictionary definition of what love is and what love should be.

And writing about love in and of itself, is not worthy of praise from critics. (If it was, then Air Supply would be plastered all over the Rock Hall.) At the same time, there is always room to take something clich�d and make it your own. With this book, Klosterman does that. What we are left with is a fascinating, original, readable, extended discussion of love with all its idealism, glamour, gains and losses.

If that isn’t praise-worthy, I don’t know what is.

Is anyone else in this world baffled by the capitalization of the word internet? Wired News has chosen to change their style and they no longer capitalize the word in their publication or on their website, but there are still newspapers and websites and word processing programs that insist on capitalizing the word at every opportunity. Oh, and since I just typed the word “websites,” I should inform you that the standard for that word is “Web site.”

Not that you will see any of those formats coming from me unless someone edits me. I prefer to think of these as general words that name an infrastructure. I don’t capitalize the words road, phone line, sidewalk, electric pole, cable TV, or many other words that are a part of general infrastructure, so I won’t be capitalizing or formally formulating any of the other words from the internet.

I will not capitalize the word net or put an apostrophe before it to indicate it is a smaller version of the word internet. It is unnecessary and you all know exactly what I am talking about when I say something about “the net.” If I am going to use it in reference to butterflies and/or fish, I will be sure to give you enough contextual clues so you know which one I am referencing.

I will not capitalize world wide web, or the individual word, web, when it is sitting all by itself. Unless it is following the word “Charlotte’s” I don’t find it necessary or very useful to capitalize the word.

And someone please tell me why internet should be a proper name. The internet was originally defined as a specific network, but I would argue that this specific network has become more and more generic in its growth. Now we have a lot of proper names that sit on the internet, but the internet should really no longer be considered a proper name.

Nobody owns it. It is a pretty open network that is getting more and more open every single day.

So let’s have it. What are the arguments for keeping the word capitalized? I could change my mind on this one, but I would need someone to give me the compelling reason.

We played on an awesome show last night at the Beachland. (Thanks to all those who came out to see the show.) We played with our good friend Brent Kirby and his band the Flashing 12’s and also got to share the stage with Ryan Wilkins and his band for the first time. We made a lot of new friends and handed out a bunch of free demo CD’s.

The comment of the night which Jennifer (from starloft.com) heard while watching our set was that one of our songs sounded like the emo version of Stairway to Heaven. I am not sure which song they were talking about, but I think that is one hell of a compliment assuming they were referring to Stairway as one of the best and most popular songs of all time as opposed to referring to it as the longest, and most overplayed and tired out song in the history of music.

I am sure it was the former, though. By the way, I also don’t really consider the band emo, as we refer to it as rock, but whatever.

Anyway, thanks again to all those who came out and thanks to the other two bands who completely rocked it out.