Why can't W. read?... I have not much time with which to post tonite, but I shall suffice with the slothful blogger's standby, below.

YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESLW9drlNRk

Sentiment of the dancing... Of late, it has been the rarity that I buy from the new release rack at the local independent record store. But, that is not for reason of preferring ipod downloads, or previewing albums on a p2p site, then deciding they're not worth buying. Rather, my entertainment choice seems to favor film, followed by (non-pornographic) magazines.

That said, I bought the new Scissor Sisters album this Sunday, and I must say, it is everything that the first track promised, when I heard it over the p.a. at work, and more. To call it a retro-disco album, then, seems foolish. It remains me as much of the mid-nineties jazz of Squirrel Nut Zippers, or Beck in his turn-of-willenium loverboy phase. It has a baroque feel that a mere synth and dat cannot convey. & I like it.

This is a revelation. Now, let's dance. & make revolution?

Maybe....

Bio-graph... Well, not so much. I do not intend this post to divulge that much which is personal, but that to which I have been personally exposed. Also, to show how a look back, every coupla years, changes one's perspective.

To wit: bar-none, this man is by far the most famous person I have known; also, prolly the most amenable and even-tempered. That said, I did not know him well. Merely, he served as my entree into the circle I kept, unbroken and unbowed, from the mid-90s to the turn of the Willenium. But, knowing that, I always respected him -- he had the temerity to welcome a relative newcomer to an insular group -- that I had known of, in part, from involvement with high-school debate -- but that I would not have had the guts to attempt to join. He was (and remains) a better man than any of the ones to whom I was a closer friend.

He is also the greatest achiever. Klaxon Exhaust (note: not his real name) might have gone on, after I parted ways, to slay the capitalist-militarist hegemon (insomuch as Milwaukee is now a socialist utopia in a "red-states sea") with the New Bomb Nationals (whose lead singer/guitarist now reviews albums, rather obviously, for the ONION), but his former high-school chum is a nationally-recognizable face. And a winner.

Likewise, I bought the second album from Milwaukee avant-core band Since by Man last summer, and made a point to scan the liner-jacket thank-you's list for names I would know: Chris Roberts, Joe Rizzo, et. al. Oddly, no such luck. Though, I did recognize one name: Sam Keck. Younger brother to a former employer of mine -- I painted houses on Matt Keck's crew after freshman year of college -- and punk-rock singer, Sam was, I thought, a legend in 'Stallis but nowhere else. No, he was not of the same scene as the crew from the Labyrinth, not down with the punker lifers. In fact, some might have even called him a poseur, by comparison. Yet, on the latest from Milwaukee hardcore stalwarts Since by Man, Keck the Younger was the only one of my acquaintance with the various local scenes at the turn of the Willenium to get a thank you. Not even Chris Roberts, now married to a total babe and drumming in the free-jazz collective the Silence, but who went to PXI with the SBM boys, merited a mention. But "poseur" Sam Keck...

Odd how time proves out.

Keep on rockin' me baby... This day's first post, eighteen hours into the day as it is, is light. I got to thinking yesterday, at my part-time job, about band names. In particular, the multi-part phrasal and sentence names such as Panic! (At the Disco) and Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza. I have always considered the ludicrous band name to be a contemporary phenomenon, with roots in 80s punk and proto-indie (Steel Pole Bathtub, Teenage Fan Club), but it hit me: Strawberry Alarm Clock. That band came up in the late sixties, and boasts the incandescent hit "Incense & Peppermints". So, maybe it has been like this for the length of the rock era. I still do not have to like it, though.

But, I still like "Incense & Peppermints".

Film romaneste... This has nothing to do with the better-known bloggeratti, & everything to do with where the better films are being made. Last year, it was Germany, and Hungary; both Schulze Gets the Blues and Kontroll made my year-end list, the former at number one (better than Crash). This year, I owe a tip of the hat to Moartea domnului Lazarescu. I saw it at the campus cinema in the Univ. of Wisc.-Milw. student union, & I was floored. The apparently digitally-shot feature about a pensioner's death as everyone watched -- his neighbours, who only thought to remind him to stop drinking; the doctors at three hospitals, as the paramedic and nurse brought him to them so he might receive the life-saving treatment required -- reminded me why I took to film (while a PCV in Romania, yes) so much. It spared no opportunity to expose the decrepit state of Romanian health-care, but it was not overbearing in so doing. Merely, the events captured in a most rudimentary, mundane style, bore that out. No shot was lingered on, nor any voice raised. But, everything was laid out.

Now, seeing this, and even remembering that Moartea... is a fiction, a movie narrative, I have to think how surprising that Romania got the nod from the EU in just the last week. I mean, Peace Corps remains there, as best I know. Peace Corps!

Romania is a country still on the upward side of the post-Communist mount that she must ascend to reach equality with the West, as the presence of PC bears out. No one would be clamouring to admit Mongolia to a trading bloc in East Asia, nor to allow Tanzania full entree to a similar bloc in Southern Africa. But, but... Romania! In the EU!

I have been there, though three years ago, and can say from that experience that any thought that the country, outside of Bucuresti, might share a place, for now, with Belgium, Finland, Spain, and Sweden, is mistaken.

But, we shall see. The new government in Romania, led by Basescu, could surprise with the speed of reform...

Provenance... First, I see that the time-stamp on my initial post has not changed with my change of time-zone. (I had been defaulted to Los Angeles, unwittingly, when really, I am (in the same zona temporal) as the Mexico City (where the year is always '97, when Molotov was the epitome).) I am relieved to learn that. I did not want to post twice within minutes.

As it goes, why "why, kiki!"? The short answer is not for this -- Waikiki. While I do possess an affinity for such females, and their photographic evidence, my interest in the name Kiki pre-dates either the former, or the original Kiki. Rather, I always enjoyed the repetition of the "key" phoneme, dating to my youth, particularly when Kiki Diaz was a Milwaukee Brewers farmhand. I heard the name a lot, and it stuck to my memory like a pasty to a tit.

Eventually, then, I took the name Kiki as my own. But, yes, it was a lark. Yes, it was my part in a fictive 80s metal revival band, Rattt! Yes, I was but the drummer in said band. Still, finally, I could call it my own. In June 2003, in Bucuresti, Romania, I became Kiki.

Now, finally, I am writing under that name. I have a work-in-progress, what should be, at final count, a collection of some thirty essays, under that name, but nothing published. There is something, now, to prove that I own at least a little bit of Kiki. Even if I have never negotiated a contract with Carmelo Anthony.

(Kiki Vandeweghe -- perhaps the greatest name in NCAA basketball history -- was the Denver Nuggets GM at the time of Melo's selection in the draft.)

But, today -- I. Am. Kiki.

I'm on the inside... I am twenty-six now, and have been playing rotisserie baseball since just after turning fourteen. This means, I have been a "fantasy-sports" geek for nigh half my life. Add to that, for that length, I have been a roto-loser (save for a winning Yahoo! NFL Pick 'em experience, two years ago). Now, though; now -- I finished... second.

Second.

Yes, still a loss. Yes, Reese Bobby would not smile on this outcome. But, for purposes of my recently bar mitzvah'd rotisserie league, good enough. There is a cash prize to each of the first, second, and third place finishers. In my case, second.

Second.

This also proves my highest finish ever, with a third in '96 -- though, sadly, two years before the prize-pool was expanded from two-deep to three -- and there remains the potential of boasting the (unofficial) provisional favorite for '07. (For historic and sentimental reasons, league founder Bernie C-----, is always accorded provisional favorite status, on an official basis.)

So, to my team, my warriors, the Wily Mo Mentum, that brought me so close to the champagne shower, and still pulled out an hardware-winning finish.

C, Ivan Rodriguez (Tigers), 1.80
C, Gregg Zaun (Blue Jays), 0.30
1b, Jason Giambi (Yankees), 2.70
2b, Marcus Giles (Braves), 1.60
Ss, Jose Reyes (Mets), 1.00
3b*, Wes Helms (Marlins), 0.90
Co, Carlos Delgado (Mets), 3.00
Mi, Chase Utley (Phillies), 0.80
Of, Alfredo Amezaga (Marlins), 0.10
Of, Rocco Baldelli (Devil Rays), 2.00
Of, Reed Johnson (Blue Jays), 0.80
Of, Wily Mo Pena (Red Sox), 0.60
Of, Alfonso Soriano (Nationals), 3.40
Dh, Dustin Pedroia (Red Sox), 0.70
* 3rd base prolly proved the most tumultuous position; after beginning the year with Sean Burroughs, I was able to "reserve" him and acquire Russell Branyan, whose 11 home-runs should not go unremarked upon, lastly having Wes Helms there, after Branyan's trade in MLB to San Diego.

P, Jeremy Bonderman (Tigers), 1.60
P, Joe Borowski (Marlins), 2.10
P, A.J. Burnett (Blue Jays), 2.10
P, Todd Jones (Tigers), 0.70
P, Ryan Madson (Phillies), 0.60
P, Mike Maroth (Tigers), 0.50
P, Kenny Rogers (Tigers), 0.80
P, Anibal Sanchez (Marlins), 0.70
P, Billy Wagner** (Mets), 2.80
** This acquisition, by trade, at mid-season, allowed me to smoke the competition in saves and lower my era and ratio to averages that put the Wily Mo Mentum in the league's top third. As well, Baldelli came along, and his .303-12-38-42-8 did not hurt me in the least. All that, for Logan Kensing (whom, yes, I may end up dreading having given up) and Endy Chavez.

So, there you have it. In the money, finally, and I am glad to see it happen with Burnett still on the team. He's been a stalwart of the originally Fighting Manicotti, in his tenure having been a Bowler, Dave Berg 5, and Wily Mo Mentum. In fact, he's the longest tenured on the squad, continuously or not, though in his case, continuously. From his impossible no-hitter in San Diego in '01, thru battles with Mc Keon in Florida, to another year of injury in Toronto (redeemed by a strong second-half; have to love 11-strikeout games), he's seen it all. Now, he can toast success.

If only Ryan Klesko, the one I feel I cheated worst, in all my years in the wilderness, were still a Brave, and still a part of my rotisserie side. He had his career best season in '96, when I came up short, then continued on as a Brave -- and Michael Falk, and Undead Kennedy -- thru '98, each season his MLB playing-time decreasing, his rotisserie fortunes descending into a morass that bottomed out with consecutive eighths (one of which was a last place finish, in '98; by '99, the league had expanded to nine-strong). I could have done better by the "big tub of goo".

Selah.

But, in a few weeks, to begin preparing for next year. I expect good tidings. Reyes, Utley, Pena, Pedroia, Bonderman, Madson, and ANIBAL! offer a solid, pennant-tested core around which to build the '07 champion. Yes!

Now, watch out Grimey, I'm coming for you.