"... - and then one night, around midnight, on the corner
of Lexington and Fifty-second, when you have come really
to the point of losing faith in the existence of such a crea-
ture as you have been imagining for yourself even unto
your thirty-second year, there she is, wearing a tan pants
suit, and trying to hail a cab - lanky, with dark and abun-
dant hair, and smallish features that give her face a kind
of  petulant expression, and an absolutely fantastic ass."

                                          - Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint

 

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                                Some Time This Century

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Home
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Email:  thejotel@gmail.com
Become a friend: profile.myspace.com/thejotel  

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THE JO-TEL IS:

Shark 

Hip E.

PETE

The Quail

Johnny D  

We get naked in bars way more than
you and you know what that means ...
We read Proust.

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FEATURES*:

Jo-Tunes
The Review Review
Slang Dictionary
InDQs
Gay Hour
Touch The Monolith!
Hey Crackhead

* features are shit-hot

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CURRENTLY READING:

Hip E.
 - Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of
Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67)
 - Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint (1969)

Shark
 - Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
 - Kevin Star, A History of California:
1840 - 1875. 
 - Paul Celan, Breathturn

PETE
 - Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

Johnny D.
 - Jean Luc d'Emo, Reel

The Quail
- Dave Eggers, What Is the What
- James Joyce, Ulysses
- Don Gifford, Ulysses Annotated 

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

Hip E.
 - Neko Case, Blacklisted (2002)
 - Hip E., Pando Mix Rev. 0  (2007)
 - Rock Plaza Central, Are We Not Horses? (2006)

Shark
 - Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Blank
Generation  (1977)
 - The Kinks, The Village Green Preservation
Society (1968)
 - Silver Apples, Contact (1969)

PETE
 - Smashmouth, Greatest Hits vol. II (2004)

Johnny D
 - Television Personalities, And Don't the Kids
Just Love it (1980)
- The Blow, Paper Television (2006)
- The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs Vol. 1,
2, & 3 (1999)

The Quail
- Carla Bruni
- Philip Glass, Glassworks (1982)

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ARCHIVES:

September 04-1
September 04-2
October 04
November 04
December 04-1
December 04-2
January 05
February 05
March 05-1
March 05-2
April 05-1
April 05-2
May 05-1
May 05-2
June 05
July 05-1
July 05-2
August 05
September 05
October 05
November 05
December 05
January 06
February 06
March 06
April 06
May 06
June 06
July 06 
August 06
September 06
October 06
November 06
December 06-1
December 06-2
January 07

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MEET THE JOUSE GUESTS*:

John
Patsy
Linda
Jay
The Puma
Liz
Gabe
Merz
Tello
Jaskot
Tara
Cutler
Bock (kind of)
Pliska
Mini-Shark
The Goose (Carrie)
Bain
Fritz
Yahoo Serious
Laura-Lee
Fabulous L-Breeze
Saki
Kristin
Booby
Joe
Jonelle
Becca
Rebecca P.
Snake (slithering this way and that)
Matranga
Raphael (Little Mex)
Neva
Annie
Kathleen
Molly (honorary)
P.J.
Paul S.
Emily
Brew-Dogg
Reid
Reid's Girl
Downs
Some Chick who passed out
 on Shark's couch
Ross
Cameron
Mary (slut)
Miklos
Romie
Simon
Kubow
Becky B.
Walloch
John the Hippie
Stickler
Anna
Andrea
Ben
Lucy (dog)
Wilson
Lauren
JohnPatsyLady A.
Lauren's B/f
Jenny B.
Paul James (infant)
Beck E.
Lisa Says
Ben
Nick Martin
Caitlin
Melissa
Sosia
Riley
Nicole
Reid's friend (chiefed heavily)
Virginia

* A Jouse-guest is someone who has
   spent the night at the Jo-tel. 

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PAST PARTIES:

InDQ
Anti-Halloween
Anti-Anti Halloween
X-Mas in Mid-Nov
Beware the St. Ides of March

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 SF WEATHER PIXIE*:

* Weather Pixie does not work

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SHIT-HOT LINKS*:

Blogs

The PUMA
Rehab Star
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NoBrowMedia
Johnny D.
Becky B
Kyle
Cupcake Club
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Defamer
ThatsJustNotRight
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Hey Crackhead

Hey Crackhead

Pics

* Links updated never

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I'm on the trail of a chocolate soda for
my wife.
                           - Charlton Heston (1924 - )

 

Currently Reading:

                Ulysses - James Joyce                   In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust

What Is the What - Dave Eggers

Recently Read:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close         The Love of the Last Tycoon        How Proust Can Change Your Life
       - Jonathan Safran Foer                                       - F. Scott Fitzgerald                               - Alain de Botton

Not Necessarily The Best of The Quail

(An Opus A Work In Progress) 

Review Review - Please Grammar Don't Hurt 'Em

Shark, Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
[The Jo-Tel; 2007]
Rating: 8.2

For a man who not only accomplished the mind-blowing feat of graduating from college but also made it through law school - er, I mean the "College of the Law " - Shark sure manages to make a hell of a lot of grammatical gaffes in his review of Deerhoof's latest album. 

I don't mean to make some sort of post hoc ergo propter hoc argument, but it seems to me that if you can make it through four years at Berkeley and three more at Hastings, you should probably be able to spell "quirk", "undergird", and "Reveille".  I won't even get into mastery of the possessive!  But what do I know - I never graduated from college. 

Also, Shark utilizes the most over-used (and almost as often misused) word in the World of Music Reviewery: "opus".  Despite vehemently condemning the absurd and meaningless phrase "prog-rock opus" a week earlier on this very blog (and rightly so), he needlessly throws in "opus" to describe Deerhoof's previous release (The Runner Four). 

Why, Shark?!  Why, damn you, WHY?!  

What happened to the beautiful, less-used synonyms of sweet, sweet "opus"?  The lonely "oeuvre", the neglected "composition", even the lowly "piece" and "work"... all of them so descriptive, none of them so trite.  Perhaps you meant to use "magnum opus"... that would've been a fair statement, and you would've saved sweet "opus" from the vicious triteness of Lexical Limbo.  Whatever your reasoning may have been, it remains a (midnight bicycle) mystery to me. 

All grammar aberrations aside, it's an honest review, and it's accurate in its conclusions that Deerhoof kicks ass, that punk kicks ass, and that sending a Deerhoof pin or shirt to The Jo-Tel for Shark to rock is a kick-ass idea.

Posted by The Quail  2007-01-26  12:50:04

A Conversation

JOHNNY D (entering The Quail's room in costume):  Whatta you think? 
THE QUAIL:  Nice.
JOHNNY D:  I just put a bunch of gel in my hair. I'm an American Apparel photographer.
THE QUAIL:  Right on.  You and Hip E. and Patsy and Jay, right?
JOHNNY D:  Yeah. (Slicks hair back vigorously, causing it to lather.)  Oh shit...
THE QUAIL:  You kinda smell like my shower gel.
JOHNNY D:  Yeah, I think I used soap by accident.

Posted by The Quail  2006-10-28  11:21:22

Irony, Thy Name Is Homan

Posted by The Quail  2006-10-20  16:40:55

Conversations (Saturday Night)

JOHNNY D (to Shark): Shark, it's going to be a big night.
SHARK: Why?
JOHNNY D: Because I'm going to wear my red leather jacket.
SHARK: Well, I'm not --
JOHNNY D:  -- and I'm going to do coke. 

 ***

JOHNNY D: It's so funny to find out what the singer of Wolf Parade looks like.
THE QUAIL: ... What does he look like?
JOHNNY D: He's tall and he's got blond cropped hair - just like Hip E.

Hip E.:

***

REID:  What's the worst concert you've ever been to with a girl?
SHARK:  Um.  I don't know.   That's a really dumb question. 
REID:  Oh. I was just remembering this really bad concert I went to with a chick. Some John Mayer wannabe.  I can't remember his name.  But it was really terrible. 

 ***

JOHNNY D: Apparently iTunes 7.0 has done away with the inter-song hiccup!

Johnny D spills his beer all over the place.   

 ***

JOHNNY D (walking home from the bar with Shark):  I don't want to be hostile. Well, actually I do.  But I'm just wondering why I have to ... pee behind this bush right now...

Posted by Shark and The Quail 2006-09-16   22:51:38