Brad Barrish

Xfm has posted the entries for their Rock School contest. October's version of "T.N.T" made me laugh pretty hard. This is hours of enteretainment, folks. Cast your vote. [via MeFi]

Wired has a great article on keeping the government in check. Make sure you visit the links.

Musicians On Call is a cool place to send those CDs that you can't sell to the used stores. [via TMN]

The World's Shortest Comprehensive Recycling Guide. I'll have to remember to throw away the tops from my plastic bottles. [via MeFi]

Check out the gorgeous new Oxfam campaign. Donate some money for the holidays.

(This Is Known As) The Blues Scale is set to premier at the Egyptian Theatre on December 9. It will be shown as part of a tribute to the great punk filmmaker, David Markey. There are some pretty cool clips available on their annoying site as well.

With The Lights Out was officially released last Tuesday and The Internet Nirvana Fanclub has been cranking out the news. Rasmus Holman, who runs the site is a super cool guy. He's even sent me a few choice Nirvana bootlegs along the way. In any event, if you are remotely interested in anything Nirvana, it's the only place to start.

I decided to volunteer during the holidays for the Salvation Army. I was at the Santa Monica shelter today to serve some lunch and help prepare their Thanksgiving dinner. When I arrived, they were still waiting for the turkey. There were rumblings that no one knew how to carve a turkey. I wasn't aware that there was a proper way and had seen my mom do it plenty of times, so I volunteered. It was a complete success and they asked me back for Christmas to carve another one.

There weren't all that many people at the shelter, but everyone was very kind. I can't remember anyone's name, but there was this one guy who came out of the men's area looking pretty disheveled. His hair was longish and a total mess. He was extremely thin and drank a lot of instant coffee. I was carving the turkey when our eyes met. He was checking out one of the dining tables and asked if he could use the table. I told him of course he could (as if I had any say). He explained he would need the entire table.

He proceeded to walk to a back room and returned with a very large electric keyboard. He then went back to fetch a small generator and his laptop computer. I was pretty baffled and then he started running a sequencing program on the laptop, used a microphone for vocals and listened to everything on some cheap headphones. After some alone time, he took off the headphones and played "Imagine" and some Billy Joel song. His playing was impeccable and his voice was really good! I wanted to talk to him, but he wasn't very approachable. Perhaps I'll talk to him when I return for Christmas. I would love to find out more about this guy.

Bill Burroughs is so festive. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Ms. Magazine has a great article on church and state. [via MeFi]

Update: Apparently, Steven Williams didn't read the article.