"... - 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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September 04-1
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October 04
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June 05
July 05-1
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August 05
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October 05
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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
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Pliska
Mini-Shark
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Bain
Fritz
Yahoo Serious
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Fabulous L-Breeze
Saki
Kristin
Booby
Joe
Jonelle
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Rebecca P.
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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

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* Links updated never

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

 

Shark's Top 20 Songs of 2006 (con pinturas!)

By now you are all justifiably tired of me talking about music.  So here are pictures drawn by various jo-teliers (and presented in sexy fashion) during the top 20 songs countdown. 

At this point I would like to take the time remind everyone of a jo-tel that no one really knows about.  We will usually embed a comment within every picture so that if you place the pointer on a picture the comment will appear.  Cheap thrills.  Speaking of Thrill, this one by PETE is probably my favorite picture comment:

______________________________________________________________ 

#20
M. Ward
"Poison Cup"  (from Post-War)

[picture by Shark] 

#19
OOIOO
"uma" (from Taiga)

[picture by Shark] 

#18
Asobi Seksu
"New Years Eve" (from Citrus)

[picture by Johnny D] 

#17
The Mountain Goats
"Woke Up New" (from Get Lonely)

[picture by Hip E.] 

#16
Howlin Rain
"Calling Lightning with a Scythe" (from Howlin Rain)

[picture by Reid] 

#15
Sunset Rubdown
"Stadiums and Shrines II" (from Shut Up I Am Dreaming)

[picture by Shark]

#14
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
"Bobby Malone Comes Home" (from Etiquette)

[picture by Shark] 

#13
The Envelopes
"It Is the Law" (from The Envelopes)

[picture by Patsy]

#12
The Evens
"Cut from the Cloth" (from Get Evens)

[I forgot to assign anyone this picture.  Natch.] 

#11
Peter Bjorn & John
"The Chills" (from Writer's Block)

[picture by Patsy]

#10
Figurines
"Back in the Day" (from Skeleton)

[picture by Patsy]

#9
Thom Yorke
"Atoms for Peace" (from The Eraser)

[picture by Reid]

#8
Okkervil River
"No Key, No Plan" (from Black Sheep Boy Appendix EP)

[The Quail was supposed to draw a picture for this song.  He said he would.  Then he did not.  The end.]

#7
Ratatat
"Lex" (from Classics)

[picture by Hip E.] 

#6
My Robot Friend
"One More Time (featuring Antony)" (from Dial 0)

[picture by Reid]

#5
Man Man
"Van Helsing Boombox" (from Six Demon Bag)

[picture by Johnny D]

#4
Tapes 'n Tapes
"10 Gallon Ascots" (from The Loon)

[This was also supposed to be done by The Quail.  Instead, we all replaced it with a pizza box with stuff drawn on it.  The pizza box was too big to scan.] 

#3
The Futureheads
"Skip to the End" (from News & Tributes)

[This picture by Johnny D was awesome and was given as a gift to a young child such that it could not be scanned for this post.] 

#2
Joanna Newsom
"Sawdust & Diamonds" (from Ys)

[picture by Hip E.] 

#1
Girl Talk
Night Ripper (entire album)

Posted by Shark & Johnny D  2006-12-31  14:06:03

I Don't Like To Dunk Things in My Coffee

I take my coffee black. 

I don't enjoy drinking coffee.   For me, coffee is like a drug that helps me do work really intensely for about 17 minutes.  I don't drink coffee for the taste.  It follows, then, that dunking stuff like donuts in my coffee doesn't excite me.  Coffee tastes bad.  Putting stuff in my coffee makes the stuff taste bad like the coffee.  You wouldn't baste your ham in heroin, would you?  No. 

I take my coffee black.

Posted by Shark  2006-12-29   23:24:41

Boom Goes the Dynamite

This is old, but amazing.  If this doesn't make you laugh, you might want to smoke weed more often.

Posted by Shark  2006-12-28   19:33:22

Shark Takes Year-End Top 50 Indie "Rock" Fantasy League Crown for Second Straight Year

In a competition that was touted to be a close match, Shark handily defeated his competition once again to win the 2006 Indie "Rock" Fantasy League draft.  The nearest competitors were Johnny D, who scored 547, and Patsy, who finished with 429.  But neither could top Shark, who scored 771 and bagged three of the top five scorers.  This is Shark's second straight victory.  The final point tally is listed below.

1. Shark, 771
2. Johnny D, 547
3. Patsy, 429
4. PETE, 325
5. Kristin, 234
6. Hip E, 210
7. Reid, 204

The top artist performers were as follow:

1. Ghostface Killah, 142 (Shark)
2. Clipse, 139 (Johnny D)
3. The Knife, 134 (Reid)
4. Joanna Newsom, 128 (Shark)
5. TV on the Radio, 126 (Shark
6. Grizzly Bear, 118 (Patsy)
7. Sunset Rubdown, 106 (Johnny D)
8. Hot Chip, 105 (Kristin)
9. The Hold Steady, 98 (Patsy)
10. Belle & Sebastian, 86 (Johnny D)

Thanks to everyone who participated.  I hope to see you all again next year. 

Posted by Shark  2006-12-28  09:43:56

Patsy's Top Ten Albums of the Year

 10.  M Ward - Post-War

This album is very simple and beautiful.  Poison Cup is my favorite song.  It makes me sad.   :(

9.  OOIOO - Taiga

This is a very fun album and has children screaming in the background. Nicole's friend Misty really likes this band. She is beautiful and voluptuous.

8.  Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon

I have never heard this album but I don't like it because of the guy's name.  It shouldn't be on this list.  

7.  Girl Talk - Night Ripper

We are going to Girl Talk's concert. I will be fun. I like the song with the part from the Breeders song.  

6.  Beirut - Gulag Orkestar

I selected Beirut in the draft and I do not understand why this band did not score higher.  Their album is very good.  I imagine that their singer is hot.

5.  Islands - Return to the Sea

I pretended to not like the Unicorns for a while because Jay liked them so much.  But then Jay moved on and I was free to appreciate them.  Now Islands is the new Unicorns band and I am very much into the song "Swans".  In the concert the lead singer was a hot indie boy who use a severed head prop. 

4.  Liars - Drums Not Dead

I liked the last album by the Liars that was about witches. I like all the songs on this and I especialy like the slow ones such as track 5 or 6 - I saw the video for this and the singer is hot.

3.  The Knife - Silent Shout

This is the most fun CD this year. When we went camping we listened to it by the river and did strip teases.

2.  Sunset Rubdown - EP

I really love the songs called "A Day in the Graveyard".  

1.  The Walkmen - A Hundred Miles Off

The Walkmen show was one of the best concerts that I have ever been to.  It was so good that Kristin peed her pants. The lead singer is hot.

Posted by Shark  2006-12-23   17:22:43

Moment: Joanna Newsom Concert Review, pt. 1

When the Joanna Newsom concert at the Great American Music Hall began, I was standing alone behind a tall dude with a hairy neck and had two beers - one  half empty, one full - in each hand under my cross arms.  Newsom opened with "Bridges & Balloons" and about 10 seconds into it I cried from the second time ever at a concert.  It was just like the first time at a Xiu  Xiu concert at Bottom of the Hill when Jamie Stewart played the opening  chords to "Fabulous Muscles (Black Mama Widow Version)" and all my thoughts around that time about meeting Patsy and her friends and a weekend when the sun cut through the clouds onto her porch in the inner Richmond where I was hanging out with her and her friends drinking beers and not even thinking about what we were doing because what we were doing right there  was what we were doing and what was running through my mind at Bottom of  the Hill against a backdrop of dusty-cornered apartment rooms with posters tacked to the wall and old beer hanging out the dresser and scratched-up burned CDs of the latest mainstream indie bands stacked in piles around the scuffed-up CD player on the floor while I stood there and listened to Jamie Stewart sing "Smashing my face in/ was the kindest touch you/ ever gave" for some reason caused me to cry just like I did two years later when Joanna Newsom sang over her harp "We sailed away on a winter's day/ with fate as malleable as clay" but this time thinking instead of a damp city street (probably Larkin) and the sounds of the harp soundtracking everyone's desire to distinguish themselves and live lives that could fit in with the beautiful strains of a harp in an ornate live concert venue, but more specific even - I was thinking about myself  and validating my life by writing something that people cared about and being able to think that I did it from the raw materials of this damp city street and gave it to everyone and no one even thought that I was arrogant or presumptuous and so no one needed to wait until I died to appreciate the stories that I wrote and even while I thought of myself, I believe I only cried in that moment when I drew myself together with every other person whose strives/ is striving to do something that they think befits them more than what they are currently doing but can't quite leave behind that self that wants to just sit under an awning in the rain and feel sorry for itself.  So when I cried during this song  it wasn't so much because the performance itself was emotional or anything (while I enjoyed the concert, I felt the songs to be a bit  rushed) but because of how the music bounced off all the thoughts in my dome including my consideration of just how fast I should finished the beer in my left hand before moving on to the beer in my right in order to perserve an adequate buzz for the entirety of the concert.

(There it is.  I hope you’re happy.  Because I'm going to get a ton of shit for this post.)

Posted by Shark  2006-12-22   15:46:08

Philosophical Rift Divides Church into Sects of Evil Idiots and Not-as-Evil Idiots

A philosophical rift is in the process of dividing members of the so-called Episcopalean Church.  This kind of stuff was all the rage in the 1500s when pioneering a new religious sect was as cool as founding your own records label is today - making Protestantism and Anglicanism the Apple and Swan Song Records of the Renaissance, respectively.  Now days, most smart people that I know only pay attention to religion as spectators in the Coliseum would have paid attention to the main event in order to see a frail Gladiator get eaten by a lion.  Dumb people, on the other hand, use religion to rule countries like Iran and America.  But anyway, the Episcopalean Church is currently having trouble determining whether gays should be allowed in their church.  :(  

A handful of churches in Virginia have left the Church because they are pissed off that an openly gay minister was ordained in New Hampshire.  A church in Fresno is the process of separating also.  More to follow apparently.  What a proud moment for the seceding believers.  Finally!  We can hate gays and worship God without being bothered!

And the shitty thing is that these morons are going to be clogging up our courts, which will be enlisted to determine whether the gay-haters should be able to remain in their temples of intolerance and hatred or whether the church property should return to the Church proper.  Whoa whoa, did you see that?  One of the gladiators got his arm bitten off!  Nice!  

Posted by Shark  2006-12-18   20:29:50

New Review Review!

The Review Review has long been considered the best idea that Johnny D. ever had, but due to its immensity and our laziness it has never really gathered the steam that it deserves.  Tonight I am compelled to bring it back in order to highlight Ryan Schrieber's latest hit, from Pitchfork's Top 25 Worst Album Covers of 2006 (To read the review itself, click on this link and scroll half-way down the page, between Lupe Fiasco and Mew).

Review of Mecca Normal: The Observer
Ryan Schrieber, Pitchforkmedia.com
Rating: 8.9

This review is a perfectly executed judo move; utilizing the energy of its opponent's motion, directing and channeling it back on the hapless foe.  At the same time it is a Picassoate sketch: three lines scratched with a twig on the beach, evoking his idea more completely than a museum full of crisp black & white photographs.  Granted, Schrieber starts with high-quality raw materials.  The badness of this album cover speaks for itself.  It would be easy to be too forceful with the review and overwhelm the delicately layered flavors of its badness.  Instead, Schrieber goes to the press release and unearths that gem of a blurb, fixing it Martin Luther-style to the page with the gleaming dagger of an emoticon.  The only thing holding this review back from receiving a full 10.0 is the inexplicable space between the eyes and the frown.  Hey Ryan, 1998 called - they want their emoticon back.  Maybe he's a ruthless visionary and I a mere status quo-tidian, or maybe he just needs to reign in his expansive instincts.  This is a minor quibble, though, with a masterful piece of work and will not prevent me from enjoying this review again and again and again.  

Posted by Hip E.  2006-12-18 10:57:43

Family Circus: WTF

If you look in the comics section of almost any American newspaper, you'll see a little one frame comic by a guy named Bill Keane called "Family Circus".  There has never, ever, been a funny Family Circus.  This is pretty much just an objective fact.  Yet, still, week after week, the badness of the jokes in Family Circus ably defy all logical categorization.  I've begun to imagine Bill Keane as a severed head, constantly infused (intravenously) with methanphetamines and bong water, who spits out Family Circus comics strips into a little gum-ball machine-like slot at the base of his pedastal.  Here are some examples:

                      Good advice, Grandma.

                      Because they're professionals!

                    Well, you didn't write a funny comic strip...

                      You mean, your uniforms. 

                                   I just threw up in my mouth.

Posted by Shark  2006-12-16   12:07:28

Archiving The Jo-tel Has Never Been My Strong Suit

The text file with my hot new Review Review on it is downstairs in Johnny D.'s laptop.  I will grab it tomorrow.  Until then, please enjoy the hot shit link (below).  That will take you to the rest of the posts from December and some amazing deals on Phentermine and Viagra.  Don't you understand what's funny about The Family Circus?  Well then click More Hot Shit (below).

Posted by Hip E.  2006-12-17   22:05:35