The Last of the Last

If you are going to go, go with a bang!

Beefcake Monday:



Thanks to Billy P. for allowing me to blog here. If it's OK with him, I will continue to blog from time to time here. And no, it won't be porn and Journey videos. Unless...

Lord, I'm Discouraged

Yes, that title is from the new Hold Steady release.  One of the bright spots in what's shaping up to be a very bleak week.  Ironically enough, an album entitled "Stay Positive".  sorry  Craig, I'm finding it hard.

---

Supreme Court decides every one needs guns, and trigger locks cannot be mandated, regardless of what the actual, you know, PEOPLE want.

SCOTUS also decides millionaires can buy political office with no recourse for opponents who are less wealthy, AGAIN leaving those pesky citizens with little recourse, especially when populists are running against oligarchs.  Let's call this one the Bloomberg/Perot law.

And, of course, the useless Republican lite faction of the Democratic Party conspires to continue the rapid erosion of what used to be known as the Bill of Rights and is now more akin to what the Clash referred to as "Know your rights; all THREE of them... unless, of course, you try to actually use 'em"

Back to the SCOTUS:  punitive damages may now be known as slight, inconsequential  reprimand based on what the offending party wants to pay.

And on top of this, the ongoing tragicomic drama that is what's left of my professional life.  At least I got a couple free drinks out of it last night.

I'm sure there's more hell out there, that's the visible tip.  But I can't bear to look anything else up, and I have to get out.

11 days of Fest now, and I hope I can pull out of this.

What's She Going to Post Next?

Hmmm...

Since it wouldn't be AG like to not post something off the wall how about this:



and this



It's official! This blog has been totally femmed up.

VMD Coming at Billy Philistine

A little mood music for Billy to sing after he finishes watching this post:



Three:



Two:



And for the kill:




Eat it, bitchz!

Stand Back or you Might Get some one you

This is just a great video. Look at how young they are!!




And for the femmes, the Ugly is all natural, baby. They also did a song called Ugly:



Now that you've been lulled by the opening salvo, here's one to make the brains melt. If you're at work, turn it up loud!!

Song for Steve Perry

And a song to inspire Zelmo to switch sides.

Because I Want Him to Stick It In

Going for the kill:



and:

Striking Back

I couldn't find Mojo doing "Don Henley Must Die" so here he is doing "Burn Down The Malls"

AG's place is down again. I didn't do it.

For Blue Girl

Because she made the request and AG hearts her so much:




Maybe she meant these:



Hmmmm:



or was it this:

Never Live to See The Day!

Oh sure you thought it. Sure you did! You would never live to see the day. Nevah. Evah. But there it was. A Gloria Gaynor post on Empire of the Senseless.

We are looking at you, Mistah Zemo. You hot gorgeous stud.

Maybe guest posting should be like Bossy's roadtrip. Where AG pops up on blogs for 5 weeks. AG can travel across time and Internet cords. Oh hellz yeah.

Now, the question is how long can Billy Pilgrim and AG live in sin before someone gets banned?! The betting booths are open...

And if you see Res Publica, aka whatever we are calling him these days, could you tell him to put down the butt plug and fix RoD!

*Note there are no spelling errors. Unlike the ole RoD this baby has spell check.

** Special thanks to Billy Pilgrim for hosting me. I was beginning to need to take meds for the shakes and convulsions that come along with being AG and not having a blog. AG hearts Billy Pilgrim. For this, he will never be banned in AG's heart or blog.

Trouble Down South

AG has broken her bloggo, so she might use these spaces to feed the blogging jones.

And she brings it hard. I expect it to hurt.



PS. For Any readers who are unfamiliar, Adorable Girlfriend, is NOT, per se, billy pilgrim's adorable girlfriend.

Teeth

Time to get the depressing stuff offa the top of the blog.

This is Ted Leo totally kickin a cover of an Old Old Mekons song. Of course, it's for AG.

Cuz she banned me. With Teeth.

It's shameless the way she flirts, and I'm married. And goy.

Monkey Gone To Heaven

aaahhhh shit.


George Carlin died yesterday. I thought something felt missing.

Go find your own youtube videos. I'm bitter.


Goodbye Rufus. Thanks for everything, you acerbic misanthrope you.

[EDIT]  Lowermanhattanite over at GroupNewsBlog has a very nice eulogy for Mr. Conductor.  As always, GNB brings the real.  Go read it, it's way better than this crappy lil bloggo.

Absolute Reality

Excuse me.

I'd like to exchange this political party. It seems broken.

In fact, these Democrats seem to have .... gone over.

How do I know? The lady has been projectile vomiting since tasting them!!

Attention fellow progressives:  Electing Obama is a proud step forward, doubtless, but he IS GOING TO CRUSH OUR HOPES. He is still a centrist Democrat, at the end of the day, and he will play the game.  We will get some wins, but it's going to take work and continuing to beat these people with the idea that WE are their bosses, not AT&T.  

Fuck.

Seriously, though, I love Russ Feingold, every Jewish inch of him.  I would vote for him twice.  AND I'd use my teeth.

(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures

It's funny how they shoot you down
when your hands are held up high
open up your heart and soul
but that's not enough for most.

Friday Musical Poop Shoot, Pre-Summerfest, Happy Birthday TBD Edition

ZORG: Summerfestblog is active and ready for the new season. Bookmark it and stop by for commenting and hangovers!! Or look at my schedule and come buy me a beer and a Famous Dave's Link Snorkel!!!


OK, now for a quick confession: I like the new Coldplay album.

I fully expect agents to revoke my IMS charter immediately.


Itunes tells me we're at 32,355 items. I deleted the Maroon 5 video yesterday. Do not attempt if you are not aware of all INternet Traditions.


1. Give Me Back My Name from the album "Little Creatures" by Talking Heads When this album came out, I played it incessantly. One of the few times I would put the turntable on repeat. Albums. You know, vinyl. 12" black discs, with mechanical translations of sound pressed into a concentric groove. Stone knives and bearskins, children. Unlike many other IMSs, I don't feel transitioning to digital sound reproduction has lost anything; what happened, especially in the early days, was that digital reproduction avoided the ability of the mechanical process conceal the real noises, which sound engineers had been able to compensate for. When I first got a CD of Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, I heard parts of the music that simply were not audible from the vinyl.

2. Home Motel from the album "Twisted Willie" by X
3. Adventures In Solitude (Live) from the album "Live from SoHo (iTunes Exclusive)" by The New Pornographers iTunes EXCLUSIVE, there Zelmo. You don't have this song. Hah-hah!
4. Mistress Of The Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl) from the album "Tyranny And Mutation (Remaster)" by Blue Öyster Cult
5. Breaking The Choke Hold from the album "Contemplating The Engine Room" by Mike Watt This is an excellent post-punk concept album, tribute to Watt's father. Watt hasn't had a ton of output since fIREHOSE broke up, but what there has been is fantastic. Check it out if you like the Minutemen, or even if you didn't.
6. Gin Soaked Boy from the album "Swordfishtrombones" by Tom Waits What's a Friday without Tom Waits? It's a Monday, that's what it is. Or maybe the second Thursday in February.
7. Frank and Jesse James from the album "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (Disc 1)" by Warren Zevon Waist to Warren is a pretty good seque, actually.
8. House Of Fun from the album "The Business (Disc 2)" by Madness Madness were always at least as much of a pop band as they were ska, but they got labeled with the other Two-Tone bands and their later, more pop-oriented output got kind of overlooked. This song, although a big hit, showed the first indications of change...
9. A to B from the album "The Futureheads" by The Futureheads
10. Land from the album "Horses" by Patti Smith What would you say about Patti Smith? She was punk before there was such a thing.

11. Ever Open Door from the album "Brother Where You Bound (Reissue Remastered)" by Supertramp Admitting Supertramp affection is an Internet Tradition.
12. Dead End Street from the album "To The Bone (Disc 2)" by The Kinks Nick never believed, I think, that I had plenty of Kinks on my iTunes. Do so!!
13. The Will of a Volcano from the album "Feel Good Ghosts" by Cloud Cult. One of my favorite bands, and excellent live, if too earnest for Canadians. I keed, I keed!!

14. Sealine from the album "El Momento Descuidado" by The Church
15. Lucky from the album "OK Computer" by Radiohead
(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures


Furthermore: I am aware of all internet traditions.

Technorati Tags: Not Nice But Loud

I Think I'm Going Bald

Occasional visitor Ricketyfunk and his band where the i divides are playing tonight at the Jazz Estate for an evening of shoegaze and 'boring the pants off of you'.  Actually, he usually visits AG's place and only shows up here when he's slumming.

Zelmo is ostensibly meeting me there; any other sad souls who simultaneously: a) are in Milwaukee; and b) don't have anything to do) and c) read this pathetic blog; are welcome to stop by and buy me a beer.

I should be there shortly after 8PM.  

The Musical Box

Well, it's time for about the only thing I can manage to do regularly on this little crappy blog, which is of course Friday Musical Poopery. Today, we're not going full random, cuz it's a Special Day!

Well, not really. A Special Day, I mean.

But a Not-So-Random, yes. But maybe we'll call this one a Friday Random Musical Box.

It's probably not a secret that I have a certain fondness for Genesis. I know it may not seem like it, but I even like the music more than I like Rush! It's a fondness that held even while I was getting my punk on.

I first really heard them back just before I started college. Duke had just come out, and I loved that album. A friend that I worked with invited me over to do something a bit illegal and loaned me the two previous albums, which I taped (One annoying habit of mine; these are longish albums, so they don't fit on one side of a 90 minute tape. So I usually just let 'em cut off. For the longest time, I HAD NEVER HEARD all of And Then There Were Three or Trick of The Tail. Used to drive my friends nutzoid)

(I realize, of course, that you kids have no idea what I'm talking about with the 'Tape' reference above. Stone knives and bearskins, my children)

A friend and I made a road trip to Madison to see them on the abacab tour and our little brains were permanently twisted.

You know the Vari-Lites that everybody used after lasers became passe? The little, intense, colorful swiveling things? Back in the 70's, as Genesis was looking for ways to maintain the theatricality of their show as they were playing larger venues, they wanted something more dynamic than the standard gel-cans. So they approached a lighting engineer, and financed the development of these little babies. Legendarily troublesome during those early days, but eventually such a success that they've become a de facto standard lighting element. I often think that their return on the investment in these lights has been at least as responsible for their wealth as the music.

By the time they were touring behind abacab, the Vari-Lites had become reliable, and the light show had been refined over several years. It was facken amazing. 150 minutes of absolutely riveting engagement between music and visuals, and Phil Collins had not yet become a crowd-stroking weenie emcee.

After that, I saw them every chance I got, through the Invisible Touch tour. Skipped that last tour, because I was not initially  impressed with We Can't Dance, but we had planned to see the Calling All Stations tour until it was cancelled. And in the interim, Genesis became a bit of a guilty pleasure. I listened often, and the music became a touchstone of warmth and solace for me. In the years since, I always counted on this stuff when things weren't going well. It gave me ....faith, I guess. Faith in art, and music, and beauty, and.... people in general. The future. A future.

Time passes, and a few who hang out here may remember that recently, Genesis got the band back together and swung by close enough to make it worthwhile. Chicago, actually. The show was largely a re-hash of the previous tour back in the 90's, but they developed a whole new set and stage show around new technologies. Unfortunately, the stage set was drastically scaled back for indoor shows, and not having been developed over time, had not grown the impact of those old shows. Still; it was good, and maybe it was just that time had put such a rosy glow on memory that expectations were impossible.

But the last few weeks have been such hard bark that I've turned the iPod back again, and looked for some solace there. Thankfully, the disappointment from the latest show has subsided, and there's still some to be found.

1. Follow You Follow Me (Live In Paris) from the album "Live Over Europe (Bonus Video Version)" by Genesis This was one of their first big hits, and made most people kind of overlook the And Then There Were Three album. Sometimes I kind of wish Rutherford had saved it for Mike And the Mechanics.

2. Wot Gorilla? from the album "Wind & Wuthering" by Genesis An instrumental that presaged abacab, from the last album that Steve Hackett played on. There was talk early on about bringing him back in for the recent tour, but it was predicated on Gabriel also participating; Gabriel was scared of the group dynamic after so long solo, and ultimately declined. What a lost opportunity.

3. There Must Be Some Other Way from the album "Calling All Stations" by Genesis Much-overlooked album that I actually really liked. The absence of Collins let the group return to some of their longer form, more instrumentally-driven work, and it sounds more like a follow up to abacab. Banks and Rutherford use their lifetime of playing together to bob and weave around each other like Astaire and Rogers. I can hear a lot of similarities to and Then There Were Three. This tune builds up to a longish instrumental bridge that combines the best stuff from the previous four albums.

4. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight (Excerpt) [Live In Rome] from the album "Live Over Europe (Bonus Video Version)" by Genesis From the European leg of the recent tour. Not much to say about this. Not from my favorite era, but still a pretty good song. The recent tour pushed the electronic drum sound into the background a bit, which would have pleased Nick I believe.

5. Dukes Intro (Live In Manchester) from the album "Live Over Europe (Bonus Video Version)" by Genesis
A lot of stuff from this live recording coming up. I read somewhere that for several shows back in 1980, they played the "Duke Suite" as a medley. I sure would have liked to see that.

6. Domino from the album "Live/The Way We Walk" by Genesis Disturbed did a metal version of this song that's ... umm, interesting. Collins said they were thinking of that version when they rehearsed the recent tour, stripping the song a bit and making it more lean and aggressive, bringing the guitars forward in the mix. Worked really well.

7. Carpet Crawlers from the album "Live Lamb" by Genesis Finally a Gabriel song. One of the really fine moments on the Lamb album, they resurrected this song as the encore closer on the recent tour. Great choice; lousy decision to lead into it with "We Can't Dance" which is a completely disposable tune.

8. Do The Neurotic from the album "1983-1998 Bonus Disc" by Genesis A tossed off instrumental from the 80's. Sounds like an instrumental break in search of a song.

Come ON, iTunes!! Throw some red meat out here!!!

9. Broadway Melody Of 1974 from the album "Live Lamb" by Genesis They released a live tape of Gabriel's last tour, when they performed the Lamb in it's entirety. Pretty good, and you can hear him miss the vocals a couple of times.

Toronto's The Musical Box has developed reproduction stage shows of early Genesis, and they came through a couple of years back doing the Lamb. Amazing, simply surreal; especially when you think that it was performed in 1974!!

10. Mama (Work In Progress) from the album "Archive 1976 - 1992" by Genesis missing a few vocals, but this is even more minimalist than the released version, and much longer. Played live, there's one moment where the lights all die, and Collin's face is lit from below while he cackles 'hah -hah, hah!' The visual is a direct reference to the way they staged The Musical Box when Gabriel was singing. (check out the end, about 9:30) Such a nice touch.

11. Evidence Of Autumn from the album "1976-1982 Bonus Disc" by Genesis Extra song from Duke. Would have made a fine addition, it would fit into the album perfectly. They could, I suppose, have made Duke a double album.

12. More Fool Me from the album "Selling England by the Pound" by Genesis First one sung by Collins.

13. Behind The Lines from the album "Three Sides Live" by Genesis Nice ending , lucky 13 on Friday the 13th.



That's all.

Technorati Tags: noise, Not Nice But Loud

The End

It's Over:


That's McCain's base; sleepy fat guys.

Just make sure everybody spreads this photo around. Especially use it to reply to those annoying relatives telling us how awful Obama would be...



via Trex.

[EDIT]  Also, McCain is computer illiterate.

Again, WTF?  I worked for a guy who was a bit older than me and who refused to learn computer skills, because he viewed them as glorified typewriters and that was a secretary's job.  But he was a sexist bigoted asshole.  Maybe that explains McCain too.

My parents were roughly his age when they passed, and even my Mom used a computer.  I think my Dad mainly played Minesweeper (I tried to get them on Macs, but they balked at what they saw as the price difference; buying a low end Dell and immediately loading it up with options until it cost nearly the same, for not as much computer).

I have been using computers for ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE, and I'm an old guy.  Seriously, when I was eighteen, it was BASIC, FORTRAN, and machine language in engineering school.  I know I'm an early adopter, but hey that's been thirty years folks.

They're playing up McCain as being experienced, but really what does that experience consist of?  Acquiring trophy wives?  Crashing planes?  Cashing lobbyist checks?

A Preznit who relies on his wife for email?  That's a better leader?  I don't think we should trust the judgement of a man who can't even look up porn on the internet.

I can't understand these Modern Republicans.

[MOAR EDIT]  A commenter at Big Orange came up with this one.  It's more in-jokey than the other, but I still like it.  Check out the Yellow Choppers!

Fear and Whiskey

I was going to name this post "The Sound of Fear" from the eels, but really, when I've got the choice to use a Mekons title, what would you expect?

Or maybe Fear of Music. Tears for Fears. There's a lot of good ones, actually .

Just spent far too long deleting several hundred spoofed returned emails from the iPhone. the smart phones don't have the good spam filters like the computer. effin spammers.

Oh, but wait. We interrupt this Musical Poopery to bring some more politics. Howard Dean:

As we move toward the general election, the Democratic Party has to be the Party of ordinary Americans, not Washington lobbyists and special interests. So, as of this morning, if you're a federal lobbyist, or if you control political action committee donations, we won't be accepting your contribution.

OK, even if Obama is just as bad as the alternatives, as fish has been opining, at least he's done this. He and Dean have banded together to leverage the power of the intertoobz and community organizing to demonstrate that it's feasible to run a race without becoming a slave to moneyed interests. And anything that pisses off Terry McAuliffe can't be all bad.

You know, there's basically two blocks of power in this country; money and people. The money can deliver an election, but so can people, because in the end, ya gotta count the votes. Since Reagan, the Democratic Party has become more and more indebted to the money. But this presents a problem; the money is always going to flow more freely to the Right. ALWAYS. There's more consideration there. So the Ds become more and more Republican light, the voters said meh, not bothering to vote in a nearly direct proportion. Obama (and Hillary) demonstrate that when you can actually speak TO the people of the country, they will respond. And, not coincidentally, respond with money. Maybe it's small dollars compared to what AT&T can cough up, but it's adding up. And it's swamping McCain.

Hopefully, this can continue. The professional lobbyists and political consultants have oozed into the Democratic Party far too extensively, and if they can rediscover themselves as populists again, the voters will return.


1024 artists, 32260 songs, 86.5 days of noise. Whoah. I could listen to iTunes for nearly three months without repeating....

1. Pictures Of Matchstick Men from the album "Key Lime Pie" by Camper Van Beethoven From what I hear, they didn't like to do it, but this is still a kick ass cover of a pretty good song. I like how CVB transitioned to the major labels, although the label didn't apparently care for it. BTW, their reunion album, New Roman Times, is excellent. As well as being a facken concept album. Silent Mike and I saw them at Shank on that tour; they used a couple of iBooks rather than guitar processors...

I hear that Tori Amos has kissed off the major labels. Good. Another nail in the forehead of the anti-music brigade. It's long past time for the Music Industry to die a horrible, horrible death. Remember the 'Home Taping Is Killing Music" effort? Money and weasels were killing music. It takes a special kind of chunderhosery to decide that suing your customers is a viable business strategy....

2. Where You Going Northern from the album "The Big Shot Chronicles" by Game Theory Scott Miller always works for me. This is from the olden days, when even Scott could get a label contract (only a subsidiary, true). Scott once referenced his voice on the liner notes as 'miserable whine'. but that's a bit harsh. It may be a bit of an acquired taste, but only so much as Robyn Hitchcock is. Mellow little power poppery, even featuring a little falsetto.

I've seen Scott and whatever band he's got a several times, and it always seems that they come here from Cali in the winter. Weird.

3. Footprints from the album "Babylon And On" by Squeeze Ditched work one day, when I was working for some other asshole, to catch them do an in-store for this album. Brilliant popsters.

4. Station To Station from the album "Station To Station" by David Bowie Watched 'Velvet Goldmine' last weekend. Good flick, excellent soundtrack, and watching Christian Bale and Obi-Wan Kenobi making out with other guys made it interesting. There were so many obvious parallels to Bowie I'm SU-PRIZED he didn't sue....

5. Market Square Heroes (Alternative Version) from the album "Script For A Jester's Tear - Remaster (Disc 2)" by Marillion Fish is going to be at Shank next week; I can't believe the Z-crew is bagging because now he likes the new Marillion vocalist better after I dragged him down to Park West in Chicago to see the Marbles tour.... one of my taekwondo friends is former head of the Marillion worldwide fan club and definitely going, But I think I've gotta save a bit of money for Where the I Divides and Grand Parade ( A Genesis cover band) .... and, of course, Summerfest. If only Steve Jobs had hired me for his house....

6. Rollercoaster from the album "Honey's Dead" by The Jesus & Mary Chain Hey, look, it's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!! JK. I actually kind of like BRMC. It's just so 90's retro though, once you hear JAMC.

7. This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide by The Kings I gotta figure out how to make songs like this play consecutively on iTunes when it's playin the Musical Poopery. More old schoolish Power Pop. Sweet. One hit wonders can be sublime, indeed.

8. Big Money from the album "Power Windows" by Rush woah. Rush almost never pops up, it's like Jennifer exudes an anti-Geddy force that leaks all over here just through the link over there. The last time I saw them, they had a slide show of pictures on the screen behind them. There were some hilarious hair and fashion crises that represented this era from the 80's, but hey, who doesn't? Even funnier, though, were the pictures from the early 70's - long hair, platform boots, capes (!).... One thing about Rush, you may not like them, but the lack of self-consciousness and sense of humor is respectable.

9. Don't Pick It Up from the album "Ixnay On The Hombre" by The Offspring

10. Get Out Of This from the album "Without A Sound" by Dinosaur Jr

11. Driven To Tears from the album "Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings (Disc 2)" by The Police They're on tour again this summer, and even though I never saw them when they were originally fighting, we were probably going to give it a miss. Meh.

Until they added elvis to the bill. We can't miss Elvis. So not Meh, it might as well be a Take Five Pinko Brick.

12. Singapore from the album "Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years" by Tom Waits What's a Friday without Tom Waits?

13. Go Home Paddy from the album "Home Of The Brave" by Black 47

14. Stop The Cavalry from the album "The Stiff Records Box Set (Disc 3)" by Jona Lewie what the hell???

15. Wave from the album "A Man Under the Influence" by Alejandro Escovedo

Technorati Tags: cobaggery, Not Nice But Loud

True Confessions

It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

Out of the blue and into the black
They give you this, but you pay for that
And once you're gone, you can never come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.

It's a little late, and this may run too long, to send over to one of AG's Monday Confessional posts.  But I'm still going to put it out there; it's like a huge pus-filled growth and it needs to be lanced. 

Glue Birl recently wrote a post about anger, and  fear.  I don't know if I completely buy the relationship;  I've usually found myself more on the Johnny Lydon side of the equation.  But I can see how fear certainly intensifies anger; hell, I think fear intensifies everything.  And it seems I have a bit of fear going on lately.....

On Tuesday I had a job site meeting.  We've been having code issues on a 4 story building under construction, and much of these issues are being driven by a particularly zealous Inspector - and one that doesn't have a particularly thorough understanding of the codes, or even of his function in the process.  Actually, this guy has also disrupted the other project that was just finished, and the Owner is looking at me for culpability in the inevitable cost overruns due to this interference.

Have you ever met someone and taken an instant dislike to them?  I feel like a cat with every hair on my back standing on end.  The first time I ever talked to this guy on the phone, before I even met him, he  shouted into the phone that he felt I was not doing my job properly.    He may not know the code well, but he certainly is convinced that I'm professionally incompetent and works diligently to demonstrate it.

Oh, it's quite a long story.  But on the prior project, we spent time during construction over and above what we normally anticipate to the tune of $25,000, in unbillable hours.  Certainly hasn't helped the bottom line during these final days, and it seems to be a similar pattern on the current project.  Fear or not, I confess to  a bit of .... anger.

Tuesday; we had a meeting called to try and resolve the major issues that had erupted, and I found myself standing in the job trailer with a dozen people, standing directly across from this guy as he tried to portray me as incompetent, unresponsive, and unreasonable.  Doesn't matter much whether he has a point or not, and this isn't the place to determine it.

One of the cardinal disciplines integral to most martial arts is control.  After a bit of work, you can develop techniques with a fair bit of speed and power; by the time you reach the higher levels, you are expected to display control of the things learned, many of which have some lethality.

Standing there, four feet from this man, it struck me that even though I'm not the most limber, his head was just about the perfect height for an inside crescent kick that would have put him down, and the urge to do so was.... almost irresistible.  [a crescent kick is the kick Chuck Norris likes to use; it's quick and direct and comes from the side] 

There were quite a few people around, but I knew I could black him out with a carotid strike, smash his nose into his brain with a palm heel strike and make a perfectly valid attempt to break his neck with a kick before anyone could stop me.

And I could barely participate in the flow of the meeting because I couldn't stop visualizing this. Quite vividly.

It was more than a little disturbing, and fortunately we were able to dispense with most of the agenda and I got the fack out of there before I .... fell down.  I managed.  The discipline and control maintained... barely.

I suspect some of the folks there had an inkling, though, because nobody spent any time trying to talk to me after.  Let's call it lucky.  Wednesday night I sparred, working with some boxers, and broke some boards.  It helped.