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Want to know what my week in Iceland is like so far? It’s like that.

I’m not going to write much here since it is way past beer thirty, but I had to post that picture. And besides, I’m writing this on Adda Snackfish’s computer, which has a Swedish keyboard set for Icelandic characters, but they aren’t marked, which means it’s basically a random character generator. I was writing the Airwaves daily diary yesterday and it took me ten minutes to figure out that to make a question mark you hit the shift key and the circumflex. To make a @, you hit ALT GR and Q. ALT GR?

But it can do this: Æ Ð ó ú æ ð í þ

Often when you don’t want it to.

I’ve started the daily diary entries. You can see them at the Iceland Airwaves site. Click on Airwaves Insider, then Daily Diary.

Tim Pogo, Tim Burgess and me

By the time you read this, I will be…

in Iceland. I’m going back for the third year to the Iceland Airwaves music festival in Reykjavík. “My previous visits are chronicled at my other site, Jostled by Vikings.” I went in 2001 and created that site when I got back. My friends at Icelandair, the festival organizers, liked it and invited me to come last year to write a daily online diary. It was a sort of, oh, I don’t know, “weblog” of the festival. “If you’d like to read them, go to the Airwaves site and click on Airwaves Insider. I wrote a lot of the other stuff in there, too.” They’re bringing me back to do it again, so in essence, Fistful of Plooble has moved to Iceland for the coming week. Maybe I should call it Fistful of Putrefied Shark Meat for the time being. Or Fistful of Funny Letters. “You use the character map a lot when you’re writing about Iceland.” I’ll start posting to the diary on Thursday. I might post here, too, if I’m not too drunk busy.

I would write more about Iceland and the festival, but I already did that, on the Jostled by Vikings site. Suffice it to say that it’s an amazing country and an amazing festival. There are dozens of great Icelandic bands playing all kinds of different music, as well as acts from the US and Europe. Last year I met a bunch of really cool Icelandic musicians including Siggi from The Sugarcubes and the guys from Jagúar, as well as visitors like The Hives, Remy Zero and Blackalicious, and narrowly avoided seeing Norman Cook “a.k.a. Fatboy Slim” in a bathing suit. I also got to hang out with Tim Burgess of The Charlatans and his wife Michelle. We went to see a geyser together, and later he played me rough mixes of his solo album, which was just released last month. It’s that kind of festival.

This year there are a bunch of Icelandic bands on my must-see list “SKE, Jagúar, Mínus, Trabant, Úlpa, Vinyl and 200.000 Naglbítar, which means “200,000 nail clippers””. The Airwaves site has mp3s of most of the bands, and I highly recommend checking them out, especially SKE. I’m also eagerly awaiting the shows by US acts The Album Leaf and TV On The Radio. And I really want to see Bent & 7Berg. You haven’t heard rap until you’ve heard it in Icelandic. But I’m most excited about seeing SKE. They were one of last year’s buzz bands, and of course I missed the show. I bought their album “Life, Death, Happiness & Stuff,” and I couldn’t get it out of my CD player for weeks. This year they’re playing on Thursday at Þjóðleikhúskjallarinn. Right. Sure. I hope I don’t have to ask for directions.

I’m also looking forward to hanging out with Adda Snackfish Egbertsdóttir, and meeting Taavi. It’s nice to know I won’t be the only one in danger of peeing on the floor.

Okay, y’all be good while I’m gone. Oh, and please don’t rob my house. Thanks.

dogs love me ’cause I’m crazy sniffable

I went to a pet store yesterday to pick up some gifts for Taavi the Viking Wonder Dog. Now I was raised by with dogs, but I’ve been owned by cats for more than ten years and haven’t been down the chew toy aisle for quite some time. Man. If it was ever attached to an animal and can be dried and shrink wrapped, you can buy it. Care for a pig snout? How about a cow ear? There was some stuff I couldn’t even bring myself to look at. Taavi’s care package is full of desiccated swine and bovine appendages “I can’t wait to see what the airport sniffer dogs make of that”, and includes no fewer than five “steer pizzles” “Unfamiliar with the word? Here’s a hint: bulls have ’em, cows don’t. And it doesn’t mean “bad attitude””

I’m tempted to make a “fistful of… joke, but I will restrain myself.

I was chatting with the clerk there at I’m Not Gonna Pay a Lot for This Pizzle, and he said, “I guess it’s good that they find a way to use all the parts” Yeah, other than hot dogs.

You wouldn’t think I would have much of an appetite after PizzleFest 2003, but I stopped at Wellspring on the way home “where the pizzles are packaged in BMW SUVs” and picked up some stuff, including a package of sliced ham that reads “pork used never administered any antibiotics” Well, good. I’d hate to think I was eating some kind of doctor pig.

gratuitous donut porn

I stopped at a convenience store Saturday night and found this rack of donuts sitting forlornly outside. I assume they were old and about to be thrown away, but I couldn’t help but feel an intense “hey, free donuts!” rush. It was a struggle not to scoop them all up and dash away into the night. And I don’t even like donuts much when they’re fresh and not, you know, parking-lot aged. Wouldn’t that be fun to explain to a potential employer when I had to disclose on my application that I had been convicted of misdemeanor pastry theft?

I’ve been enjoying checking my site stats and seeing how people found this blog. Most have wandered in through links to other people’s blogs “and thanks very much to the people who’ve linked me”, but here are some of the more interesting search terms that have led people to Plooble:

Arlus Fruck

Natasha Fattedad “I hate to think she and Arlus found themselves on my list of funny names”

North Korea the democracy

fuck you you fucking fuck get shorty

2003 email directory of hung in korea “from Google Denmark”

oenophiles

Ballantrae Shiraz 2001 “my apologies to the wine enthusiasts who found my tasting notes”

2Xtreme Sports Chair

laptop looks like a car

Nokia’s commercial dishwasher

I want to buy a chuckwalla.

I also found a link that totally wigged me out. I knew there were sites that allow you to translate web pages, but seeing my site in German was very disorienting. Useful if you want to know how to say “Holy Crap” the next time you’re in Berlin.

And now, ANUSTART.

I first heard about this from my friend Katie, who either saw the vehicle in question, or heard from someone who did. It’s a minivan somewhere in the Chapel Hill area with a personalized plate reading ANUSTART. Anus tart? How did that get past the DMV? When the driver was asked what her plate meant, she pronounced it “a new start.” But I’ll bet she gets lots of strange looks in traffic, not to mention interesting propositions.

Artist Kirk Fanelly, who definitely seems like a Plooble kind of guy, immortalized this monument to inside-the-box thinking in a painting. Here’s a closeup. Thanks to Ryan for alerting me to this. He loves this plate even more than the one he saw on a Jeep that read BUMTOY. I hope those two have found each other.

Bellafea at Kings

As much as I love writing and music, I hate writing about music. I’ve made a few attempts, including one published in The Independent Weekly, but I just never feel comfortable doing it. I read far too many impenetrable wankfests disguised as music journalism in the NME in the ’80s, and that probably instilled my antipathy for much of the genre. The worst music reviews seem to be about anything but the music, and mostly about the reviewer. All I ever want to say anymore is “I like them: they sound like Sonic Youth or “I don’t like them: they sound like a trap case full of symbols falling down the stairs” Besides, in Chapel Hill everybody is a music critic, and a casually tossed-off comment like “this reminds me of Beulah’s first album can get you into a tedious ten-minute argument.

So don’t take it as dismissive that I’m not going to say a lot about Bellafea’s set last night at Kings in Raleigh other than this: it was great. I first heard about Bellafea through Myküll, who is friends with Heather, who is half the band “with Nathan on drums”. She sent me CDs to give to my friends who work for labels or otherwise help to influence the direction of Chapel Hill music, and everybody enjoyed them. I really like their sound. It’s unusual without being unapproachable, and I love the way they play with the mood of the song, going from quiet and introspective to loud and frenetic and then back again “of course, this leads to embarrassing moments of clapping-before-the-song-is-over, which I did last night”. Heather is a lot of fun to watch onstage, jumping around like Laura Ballance and contorting her face as she sings from the depths of her tiny body. Bellafea recently relocated to Chapel Hill from Wilmington, and they’re going to be a valuable addition to The Scene. I think they’d be perfect in a lineup between Work Clothes and Lud, if that means anything to you.

Okay, I guess I did say a lot about the show. And one other thing: I think it’s great that The Rosebuds used their CD release party as an opportunity to give exposure to their friends, but six bands are too much. I know this will further brand me as an old fart, but I’ve only got about 90 minutes of rock appreciation in me anymore. And turn it down, you kids.

Kings is only a 30-minute drive from the Cat’s Cradle, but Raleigh feels like another country sometimes, even though I grew up there. There is some Chapel Hill-Raleigh scenester cross-pollination, but mostly they seem like two different species. For instance, in Raleigh some of the women actually dress up. I saw one woman last night who looked like an escort, and quite a few more who were seriously working the rock ‘n’ roller thing. One emaciated blonde sported the classic drugged-out vacant stare along with a shoulder-baring Motörhead t-shirt that relegated the sleeves to the role of bicep warmers. She looked like she should have been hanging out in a dressing room waiting for Lemmy with a towel and a bottle of Jack. Contrast this with Chapel Hill, where the typical female hipster looks like she got up at 3:00 p.m. and put on the clothes her drummer boyfriend dropped on the floor the night before. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that look. As long as it’s not smelly.

I realize now I might have illustrated my point with photos, since I had my new digital camera with me, but I’m not sure how I would have gone about explaining myself. “Hey, do you mind if I take your picture to illustrate a blog entry about Raleigh women dressing like slutty heavy metal groupies?

That reminds me: I still haven’t written about ANUSTART. Oh, well. No time now. I’ve got to wipe down my leather pants and head back to Raleigh.

This photo is only marginally related to this post, but I still like it.

I’ve been using the word “crap” a lot. I blame Strong Bad.

So, REM is in town, and apparently they were hanging out last night at Orange County Social Club. Sure, it would have been fun to see them drinking in one of my locals, but you can see plenty of great musicians getting shitfaced there on any given Tuesday. However, today Ryan tells me this:

When they left the Social Club, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey went to The Cave, and played an impromptu set with Jon Wurster on drums. Ken Stringfellow and Pete Yorn also sat in. The set list “god, I love the Internet” included The Ballad of John and Yoko, Hang On Sloopy, and a medley of Bang a Gong, Mr. Soul and Sweet Jane.

At The Cave. “It’s slightly larger than my kitchen, only with a lower ceiling. It’s cleaner, too.” The first time I saw REM was in 1983 at the Concert for African Relief at Meredith College in Raleigh. It was a smallish show, and I met Peter Buck and Mike Mills afterwards. The next time I saw them was at the Dean Dome on the UNC campus six years later, when they had Gone Major, and it was nowhere near as much fun.

I know I live in Chapel Hill and we’re supposed to be blasé about rock stars and stuff, and I’ve missed plenty of “must see” shows. “When people ask me if I was at “that Archers show” or “that Superchunk show,” I usually just say yes. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. I’m sure this statement will brand me as a philistine for many, but unless somebody spontaneously combusted onstage, only a handful of shows stand out after five years.” But damn. I wish I had been there last night.

Tonight I am going to Raleigh to see Bellefea, The Rosebuds, et al. I’m sure that while I’m gone, REM will come to my house and make pancakes.