February 24th is a Holiday?

Um, someone must be playing a joke on me? Because if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Christmas is in December. Yet for some reason when I awoke today, it was like Christmas morning for a kid in February. I was in a gleeful frenzy as I jumped out of bed in my footed pajamas. Today is the day of the new Black Lips release!

What's all this about Christmas though? After all, everyone knows one Black Lips album does not make an entire Christmas. Well, let me finish. When I opened my e-mail up, lo and behold! First, an e-mail about a new Grateful Dead show to be released in April?! Pre-order that! Second, a notice that my comic-book picture Bible shipped in the mail? (Yeh, I had one as a kid and ordered another, those things are cool). Can't wait! It was quite overwhelming, really, to think all these things awaited me on the same morning. But the kicker: it wasn't over! I next read the e-mail from Garz about the charz2k fantasy baseball league! That's like when you think you opened your last gift on Christmas and then realize that you still have the stuff in your stocking left, where your mom wrapped up a package of Mach3 razorblades, Bic ballpoint pens, and Reese's peanut butter trees. The icing on the cake, so to speak!

Well, turning to the Black Lips, I am big on "Album Release Day," meaning I like to wait to actually get the CD the day it comes out. I don't like to download things early or hear all the new tunes on the internet first. It is a rare day that I get to look forward to a new release and am actually able to get it the day it comes out- my feeble memory recalls maybe going to a midnight release of a Dandy Warhols album with Garz, and before that I remember getting STP's third album right when it hit the shelves in 6th grade. So this was a red-letter day even before it turned into Christmas.

Rewind to 2006; the Black Lips were playing Conan (a fortuitous allusion to the post below) and I had taped it so I could watch them, after all, they were a band I hadn't heard yet but one of those that Garz "said was good" which means they might be good. (Keep in mind, I knew Garz to listen to Hilary and Haylie Duff in college). But anyways, I watched the tape and was instantly online ordering all their albums before they even got to the second chorus.

This only increased my excitement for today, so during my two hour break I pop into the record store asking for the CD, only to find they had some delay in shipment and it won't be in until tomorrow. Bear! Well, Ok, I'll sell out and go to Norman's Best Buy. Double Bear! They had a delay, too! What is going on here? Who's trying to rain on my parade on Album Release Day? But as the dude is checking in his computer, I see that the Best Buy in Oklahoma City got a shipment in. Well, I have less than an hour and a half before class now, and OKC is a bit of a ways at least up the highway. What to do? What a prisoner's dilemma! Now I have been called stupid, idiotic, baseless, irrational, and dimwitted many times, and I saw this as my chance to prove myself. Of course I sped up the highway to OKC to get a copy!

I'll conclude that I really like this album. I don't know why a bunch of people seem to be giving it the "good but not great" review, like this album doesn't "break any new ground," but I don't even care much. I feel too old now to be the idealist who keeps looking for the earth-shattering, rock 'n roll saving album, or the new standard in creativity that everyone raves about, because it either isn't going to happen or, when people think they've found it, it'll end up sounding like the Fleet Foxes, in which case spare me. I listened to this thing in-between classes on a CD Walkman, true story.

Look! It's Indiana Jones!!!!!!!!!