–That I now have my very own domain name, courtesy of Yahoo!? Yahoo! Domains is currently offering a tasty promotion that allows you to register a domain name and get your first year for a mere $1.99. After the first year it goes up to a whopping $9.95, which is still a pretty good deal. I predict this move will give Yahoo a leading edge in the domains business, because (a) registering domains can be confusing, and (b) Yahoo is a known quantity and is offering users a chance to obtain their own domains simply and cheaply.
The coolest thing is that simply by providing this url I was able to set up my account to automatically divert all traffic from my new domain name to my weblog here. It’s like having the best of both worlds, because my old domain name still works as well. All for $2 and an absolutely minimal effort from someone who is all thumbs when it comes to that sort of thing.
It’s good business, just like Netflix lowering their prices. I have been with them almost from the beginning, demand very little in that I hardly have time to watch my rentals, and am for the most part delighted with their service. To get a price break at this point is delightfully unexpected and just makes me all the happier with them.
–That I am finally going to see Flaming Lips in concert, at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago on September 7, 2007? I’m sure at some point I must have said I would never attend another show at the Aragon, and for good reason. I have seen many great performances there, from the Kinks to Elvis Costello to the melee that was Public Enemy and Sonic Youth. Having said that, the place is a general admission pit of hell with bad sound and spilled beer, not to mention an absurdly high stage responsible for many a sore neck. I am almost 48 years old, and I can’t think of a better way to kick off my birthday weekend than to abuse my aging tootsies by standing in line for several hours and then standing for the duration of a concert whilst being jostled about by overexcited concertgoers–NOT!
Fortunately I am blessed to know at least one elderly person as demented as myself, and she has wisely suggested we bring cheap, disposable lawn chairs to make the line ordeal a bit more palatable for us and the small army of teenagers with whom we will be attending. Having passed on seeing the Flips at Lollapalooza last year specifically because I was no longer up for that type of ordeal, doing the Aragon with lawn chairs seems like an acceptable compromise for this rickety Flipster. The show is already sold out with tickets going for $85 and up, so bless the pre-sale and pass the confetti.
Funny thing, I never cared for Flaming Lips before the raw self-disclosures of The Soft Bulletin drew me in. To this day, I watch the old video clip of “She Don’t Use Jelly” and I don’t feel like I was missing anything. Wayne Coyne took years to come into his own, but “Race For the Prize” served as the fanfare for his emergence as one of the leading lights of a music scene badly in need of spiritual guidance and suits, bunny and otherwise. Having been waiting and anticipating for years and taking nothing for granted, I am indeed stoked to be finally experiencing the sensory overwhelm that is a Flaming Lips show. Their past efforts have incorporated tons of confetti, fake blood, Justin Timberlake in a dolphin suit (on Top of the Pops, but the animal suits have been a fixture in their shows as well), and a giant bubble in which Wayne rolled out over the heads of the audience:
The show I am seeing is the first of a brand-new tour, so I expect the unexpected and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Squalor be damned, how many chances do we get to be a part of something extraordinary?
If you want to experience the “controlled chaos” that is a Flaming Lips show without exposing yourself to god knows what, they are releasing a DVD of their legendary 2006 show at the Oklahoma Zoo. It’s called UFOs at the Zoo, and here is the trailer:
Because I can, here are a couple of my favorite Flaming Lips videos. The first was filmed on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, one of my favorite places on earth, and features pretty lights, people in rabbit suits, and girls in flowy dresses. This video is where I want to go when I die:
Courtesy of my friend Deetroit, here is Wayne Coyne singing karaoke songs with a puppet:
And here are a few articles on the band. Enjoy!
“Okies From Outer Space (Rolling Stone, June 2006)
Guardian Unlimited, January 2006
April 2006 NPR Interview with Wayne Coyne
–That this is the last day to bid on this rare and stunning Stephen Sprouse jacket:
This is a piece of fashion history and I am sorry to let it go, but alas I have no prayer of ever fitting into a medium. Sprouse’s simpler black and solid-color neon items show up fairly often, as do his designs for Target, but all-out color explosions like this classically shaped denim jacket are rare indeed.
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