One of the most-viewed, most-commented on pieces on My Big, Black Cock is a review I did of the promotional CD I got of the attempted Stiv Bators-less revival of The Lords Of The New Church. (I’d link to it, but it’d just encourage people. You can find it with a little digging.) I wrote the review almost 6 years ago, and as recently as today, people associated or formerly associated with the vocalists ill-advisedly brought in to attempt to replace Stiv continue to post, or attempt to post, anyway, flame war-esque comments about them in the comments section of the review. I suppose I shouldn’t bitch about the traffic, and probably should put 20 or 30 ads on that page to monetize it, but really, I just kind of want them all to take their little playground pissing matches elsewhere. The revival was a bad idea 6 years ago, it failed 6 years ago for a reason, and the people involved in it were disreputable. We get it. You can all go back to MySpace now and spend your time moving the burning skulls around your profiles, instead of bothering me about it.

Just a short one, lasted all of 15 minutes and .7 miles. Needed to get out of the house and get some air. Wanted to walk for longer, but I couldn’t. Got more than I bargained for, though. I got possibly usable data.

I’ve got a pair of ASICS Gel-Kayano XIIIs that I’d been running in before the left leg gave me so much shit that I had to give it a rest. I use them to walk sometimes, too, even though they’re not the best walking shoes, not being designed for that. Over the summer, I’ve switched back near-entirely to my Saucony Jazz sneakers to walk, and my leg’s been recovering. However, I put the Kayanos on today for my walk, and I was barely out of my parking lot before I started experiencing some of the familiar discomfort I’d been dealing with.

Now, it could be that I did something else to the leg over the past week, but I don’t think it is. Very interesting. I’m thinking that, after years if not decades of not having it, my legs are just not that into superior arch support. Could also be that I need to just bite the bullet and stop procrastinating on wearing braces for walking/running. I’m going to have to run this by a few people at running shoe stores, and maybe, eventually, if one will ever see me, a proper podiatrist. Finding a general practitioner who really gets the mechanics of walking and running is tough.

In today’s junk science experiment, those are two very rough, but very important numbers. Why? Because I believe that they’re the numbers by which you should multiply all hitting totals accumulated from 1993-2006 in the American League (.748) and National League (.699) respectively, to gain some perspective on how ‘roided-up players might’ve done under non-Steroid Era conditions. Are they fair to every player in every instance? Not by miles. This is just an experiment, and one done by someone without a huge, academic background in math.

To arrive at these numbers, I looked at HR-per-game totals from 1969 (the point that divisional play started)-1992 in each league, then from 1993 (when the true jump in HR totals started)-2006 (right around when the party train started to come to a grinding halt; there’s been an over 6% decrease in HR-per-game in each league since the beginning of the 2007 season). Then, I divided the 69-92 HR per game number by the Steroid Era HR-per-game number, and came up with those percentages, which may well be an accurate reflection of what guys actually did during the Steroid Era.

I’m just kinda putting this one out there, raw and early, for the hell of it. Let me know what you think, even if it’s “You suck!” or “You’re full of shit!”, but I think that, for instance, Sammy Sosa hitting 375 HR rather than 537 from ‘93-’04 (I didn’t get into his dismal ‘05 with the Orioles, because he was hurt and I’d already pretty much proven my point) is a lot more realistic, given his ability prior to his huge jump in HR totals and some of the anecdotal evidence. (To Sammy’s lawyers: I’m not accusing anyone of anything, just using him as a test case in a hypothesis that covers all players of his era, so back off, man.)

Thoughts?

Welcome to the 8th Annual Motherfucker Day, motherfuckers. For you motherfuckers who are late to the party, here is the story of Motherfucker Day, as it was written 8 years ago today:

“From this day forth, September 11th will be known to all people as “Motherfucker Day”. Motherfucker Day honors the word “motherfucker” as one of humanity’s greatest contributions to planet Earth.

To observe Motherfucker Day, all one needs to do is say “motherfucker” at the end of every sentence, or at least every sentence that you remember to end it with. For instance, “Can you please pass the salt, motherfucker?” Or, “I love you, motherfucker.”

You can also put up banners that say “motherfucker” at your home, workplace, school, or place of worship; write the word “motherfucker” on walls everywhere (if you get busted, simply tell the police “I’m no criminal, motherfucker!” They’re sure to understand, and let you go.); and, if you’re so inclined and they’re consenting, feel free to go ahead and fuck someone’s mother. Hell, they could probably use it. This is just a short list of ways to celebrate Motherfucker Day, and is by no means complete. If you can think of another way to celebrate Motherfucker Day, feel free to do it, and certainly feel free to tell us about it here!

That’s all for now. Hopefully, by issuing this decree to all of humanity, I’ve done something to make an otherwise ordinary day feel just a little more special and festive. Spread the word! Tell a friend! September 11th is Motherfucker Day! Enjoy your new holiday, motherfucker!”

“Flashdance…What a Feeling” by Irene Cara, as done by VNV Nation.

It’s that time of the month again! No, I’m not menstruating, silly! I’m a bloke! It’s time for some stats from the music department!

August:

zenova: 328
sybil: 264
sybil inst: 242
tonight: 241
the scott crawford show: 230
love life and sign: 228
wolftab: 207
new song: 199
sybil vers: 196
something in my drink: 184
untitled: 181
ecstacy: 164
puppet: 163
chord: 162
something true: 158
something true (overnightscape): 113

total:

zenova: 1157
sybil: 1065
sybil inst: 969
wolftab: 750
sybil vers: 711
tonight: 672
untitled: 630
something in my drink: 614
puppet: 602
ecstacy: 585
chord: 502
love life and sign: 424
new song: 423
the scott crawford show: 323
something true: 158
something true (overnightscape): 113

Some of the songs that did great on plays last month dropped considerably, but some of the ones that have been slow movers jumped some from last month’s numbers, which is good to see. The newer songs are doing well, especially “Something True”, which did really good numbers in less than half the month. Again, I have no idea where these songs are going to or who’s listening to them (my biggest non-Google contributors are Bing and Baidu, so I’m guessing a lot of this traffic is Asian). I read things that people like Trent Reznor say about how you should require an email address from people to let them download, but in my mind, 99% of all email I’ve ever gotten from the mailing lists of musicians has been spam, so I really don’t subscribe to that logic. Plus, I think people who are serious about music use other ways to track artists (last.fm, iLike, artist pages on MySpace and Facebook, etc., and more and more, I’m finding from my discussions with folks about music, people are returning to artists’ actual web sites) that are targeted better. I’ve got some concerns about vital demographic info being hosted in places I don’t have full control over, but I also do pretty regular exports of that data whenever possible. The bottom line is, the fewer hoops people have to jump through to hear my stuff, the better. If it’s just getting hits and not getting heard, so be it. That’s what I have a hosting account with decent bandwidth limits for.

As far as donations go, it’s been dead silent since the first month. Again, not a shock in rough economic times. Donations are kinda like a “dead air” deal anyway. They’re abstract. This isn’t to say that they’re not appreciated, but I can totally understand folks’ apprehension about making them so far, even if they have the money. It’s a one-way transaction, or it was, anyway. As of right now, and this extends back to past donations, if you’ve donated money to me and you’d like to be thanked on the liner notes of my album, “babykiller.”, when it’s finished, drop me a line. I’ve got records of all of your past donations…somewhere…but to be sure, drop me a line. Alternately, if you donated and absolutely DO NOT want to be thanked on my liner notes for whatever reason, drop me a line for that as well. I have pretty fond memories of reading the tiny liner notes on my cassettes as a kid, though, thinking about how cool it’d be if I were thanked on the liner notes of “Appetite For Destruction” or whatnot, so I’m thinking that the least I can do here for your continued support is make y’all feel even just a fraction of that. I’ve got no immediate plans to release “babykiller.” on cassette, but you know, shit, I could make some homemade, signed ones when the album’s done if folks are interested. Let me know on that. People get all hepped up about vinyl, but I grew up a tape guy. I’d have to figure out where side 1 ends and side 2 begins on what’s currently a single, long-form work, but I think I should do that anyway. It feels like cheating not to have a side 1 and a side 2.

Anyway, I’m just sorta thinking out loud at this point, so I’ll leave you to your business, and thank you for another month of your continued interest and support. Oh, and one more thing. If you’re on Facebook, stop by not just my page there, but also the page for my other band Get Precious and become fans of both. It’ll make us feel all warm and squishy inside. OK, here’s the get thanked on the liner notes of “Appetite For Destruction” button. More next month on the music, or when more music’s ready.