Since new Wire magazine cover boy R. Stevie Moore has so helpfully posted nearly 200 of his own albums on Bandcamp, I have gone to the trouble of listening to about 75% of them. Rather than point you toward a few select albums such as Swing And A Miss or Returns or Advanced, I will take the time to collect some of my favorite tracks as a mixtape of sorts. I will do this like it fits on a 80-minute CD-R because I don’t know how to dub cassettes from mp3s. Helpfully again, all of these are individually for sale through the RSM Cassette Club Bandcamp. All of these tracks can be bought for $1 a piece. This mixtape I just concocted would be $16 and well worth it.

On newsstands now. On the cool newsstands, at least.

• “Idiot Opium” (from Urgent/XVII, 1980) (6.51) – One of the few songs that sounds like its’ title. Reminds me of solo John Frusciante but with a sense of humor.
• “Lisbon Lesbian” (from FM FM, 1983) (3.52) – Chattering drum machine clangs with a fake salsa beat, helped by trashed percussion, acoustic guitar, nice popping bass and RSM’s borderline monotone.
• “She’s Not Ready (I Won’t Wait)” (3.02) (from It’s What’s Happening Baby, 1983) – New wavish, wahed-out guitar, dubbish bass. RSM sounds David Byrne-y.
• “There Is No God In America” (5.00) (from Crises, 1983) – Mostly pulsating synth beds with some great guitar work as RSM intones the title as only he can.
• “I Not Listening” (from NEXT, 1974) (3.33) Finally out of the 80s with an great early cut. Impressive feedback control.
• “What Do I Do With The Rest Of My Life” (from Manuscription, 2006) (4.52) Collaboration with Lane Steinberg who handles verses while RSM sings choruses.
• “National Debate” (from Stalactites & Stalagmites, 2011) (3.46) Stately melody over rocking militaristic backing from Tropical Ooze. Sounds vaguely Elvis Costello, if Elvis Costello were any good.
• “Pi” (from Errorism, 2010) (8.30) A shrill ambiance that build and builds. Feedback, musique concrete, Frippertronics, and Godley and Creme know what else.
• “My Bad Music” (from Quits, 1979) (5.29) I put this song in just for the line “Live music/makes me sick/I hate it”. It’s also a sad catchy song from a guy who was already fed up.
• “I Go Into Your Mind/Quite Nice Dream)” (from The Yung & Moore Show, 2006) (5.01). Yukio Yung remakes RSM’s 1978 classic track and rockets it into the stars where it always hinted at being from.
• “Parents” (from Gets Off, 1984) (3.50) At times, RSM’s singing sounds like a strangled muppet and yet his songwriting sounds as carefree and tossed off like he could do things like this in his sleep.
• “Cannot Keep My Fingers Out Of My Mouth” (from Sample For Approval, 1978). (4.11) There’s a bass on this song, but you can’t really tell.
• “Steviepink Javascript” (from The Jinx, 2001) (5.59) – Be patient for the first seventy-five seconds, because after that it gets gooooood. RSM and Michael Zanna go at it like two hipsters passive-aggressively throwing shots at each other while a great rhythm plays under.
• “Play” (from Play, 1976) (3.45) – Power-pop with some great guitar licks and RSM’s squeaky voice.
• “Habitat” (from It’s What’s Happening Baby, 1983) (5.16) – A great example of RSM revisiting his older tracks. This one was originally done for Play in ’76 then revamped with a fast drum machine beat.
• “We’re In Vietnam” (from A.W.O.L., 2008) (5.56) Another remake from Play, but this one was revisited many times in the 32 years inbetween. A McCartney & Wings-take on a song that compared a painful breakup to war.

In 1996, when I was seventeen years old, I broke someone’s neck.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should caution that the kid lived and was not paralyzed. Furthermore, I was not charged with any crimes as it happened in the middle of an amateur-wrestling match in the Kentucky high school state finals. Don’t bother looking this up.

I did three years of amateur wrestling in high school. By my junior year, I had made it to the state tournament in the 182 lb. weight class. Yes, it’s true. I once weighed 182 lbs. But I finished in the semi-finals of the state tournament in my weight class and had a good reason to believe I could win it all senior year. Don’t bother looking any of this stuff up. It’s a waste of your time.

Senior year, I jumped in weight class to 195 and dominated the region. I went undefeated in the region, and went back to the state tournament looking forward to winning the whole thing. I was offered a scholarship to a college in Iowa that had a great wrestling team. Things were looking up.

My first-round opponent was a kid from Russellville. I threw a suplex and he tried to fight it. I accidentally dropped the guy on his head. I can still hear the sick smack of his head against the mat as he laid out, arms and legs dangling out. The ref held me back and called for the EMTs. . . who were already busy tending to another kid with a busted lip. They got to our mat after a minute but it felt like a lifetime.

I went back to my bench and sat in horror as I watched the EMTs try to secure him and call for extra medical staff to help get him in a gurney without making it worse for him. There were other matches going on around us, but more and more attention was being paid to the EMTs tending to the kid on the mat who was being fitted with a neckbrace. I heard his mother crying as I held my head in my hands. Don’t bother looking any of this up. This was before they had the Internet.

I felt horrible. Maybe I hadn’t killed the kid but I was almost certain I had paralyzed him. The EMTs finally got the kid on a gurney and carried away, to sad polite applause.

The state athletic officials gathered together with the referee to decide what they were going to do with me. My coach went over to suss out what they were talking about. I didn’t find out until later that the officials considered disqualifying me from the tournament for committing an illegal throw. If it hadn’t been for the referee’s judgement that I had attempted a legal suplex (pronounced soo-play) and that this happened to be a horrible accident.

They made the public announcement that I had won by forfeit and would move on to the next round. The referee called me to the middle of the mat to raise my arm. You would think I took a dump on the American flag because the wave of boos leveled at me was staggering. I had broken someone’s neck. I was the bad guy. I was the worst guy. Don’t look this up. Newspapers don’t have searchable databases.

Later, I had another match. By now, everyone in the building was against me. I was too busy feeling guilty to care about the outcome of the match and lost handily. When I lost everyone was happy. When I left the gym floor, someone threw a drink at me. My coach wanted to stay for the whole tournament and award ceremony (he thought I was bringing him a trophy. . .oops). I stayed in my hotel room for the rest of the tournament.

After the tournament, I decided to drop out of my Iowa scholarship and dropped out of wrestling entirely. After graduation, I enrolled at a local community college. I withdrew from sports and from society and got deeper into music, and subsequently binge eating.

Don’t try to talk to my family about any of this. They are in such denial they’ll tell you that I was never an amateur wrestler in high school. Nor should you talk to the people I went to high school with because they’re in such denial that they’ll say our high school didn’t have an amateur wrestling program during the years I was there. Don’t even bother contacting any of those colleges in Iowa about whether they offered me a scholarship or not. They’ve tried to forget, and who can blame them.

But I. . .I will always remember. And that is why I regret. Regret, regret so much.

Reviving my old advice column, I take random questions from Yahoo Answers and try to add my expertise and wisdom. The original question is (sic).

My friends dad opened auto body shop, but he couldnt use his name for some reason of him just getting out of jail. So, she went ahead and got the shop under her name, she wants to know what she can do about city taxes,she wants to take her name of the shop but she doesnt know where to start..I really dont know any more details about this, just trying to help her out. She wants to hire an attorney so he can help her. Anyone know anything about this?

First of all, you need to not concern yourself with the troubling aspects of what seems like a very doomed business set up by a conman and the daughter he sees as a mark of some type.

If you’re going to concern yourself with anything, it should be the strange dynamic between the father and daughter. He’s out of jail and wants to start a business but can’t because he’s a felon? Does this sound like a trustworthy type? And yet here is his daughter who is willing to help him out and lend her legitimate name to the business he wants to start so it’s all on the up and up. Why? Because she loves him? Because she wants his approval?

If he had such a great idea for a business, why couldn’t he find a legit business partner that wasn’t a relative. I’m afraid your friend is being taken for quite the sucker here and no lawyer is going to repair her broken heart when Daddy finally runs off with the contents of the till when he’s sick and tired of the straight and narrow life.

Don’t come to me when she’s in her crying towel while he’s off trying to sell rubber pencils in Alabama (don’t ask).

I just won a game of Cellphone Battery Chicken.

My friend Lyle called me up about 1:30 this morning. We proceeded to discuss tuxedo shirts, the craft of professional announcing, the Japanese custom of committing seppuku, fixing the results of international soccer, blockbuster movie franchisbraines and the Hollywood bigwigs who make them suck, among other subjects. Three hours later, Lyle’s phone died. Because my phone outlived his, I pronounced myself the winner of C.B.C.

The rules are simple because they were made up on the spot. We would continue talking until one of our phones finally died. There would be no plugging in to charge. Winner triumphs, loser does whatever. Both participants end up charging their phones in the end.

I survived a three-hour brain-bash with a man who felt burned by the first GI JOE movie who yet still intended to go see the followup even as he outlined the reasons why it would be completely stupid. He made a case for garroting the directors of both the first and upcoming second GI JOE films, as well as McG who ruined the last Terminator movie. I reminded him that much as it does to raise a child, it takes a village to ruin a great movie franchise.

You should be thankful we didn’t record this and make it into a podcast or ask you to listen to it.

This is my favorite scene from Happy Gilmore, the one where Adam Sandler’s titular character is encouraged by golf coach Chubbs to go to his “happy place”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z5qpyxRR-A

The last two nights (or mornings, depending on how you look at it) I’ve finally gone to my own personal happy place.

I can’t go there physically. Not right now. Maybe not even soon. But I want to be a part of it, like Sinatra sang. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. And if you can’t make it, at least you’ll have some stories about what happened while you failed. Just thinking about being in New York City makes me feel good.

I watched the last round of the Premier League, with Manchester City taking on Queens Park Rangers. Some considerable drama at hand, with Manchester City trying to secure their first Premier League title, and Queens Park Rangers trying to win to avoid being sent down to the second-tier Championship Division. Anyone who cares already knows how it went, with Man City winning 3-2 after scoring two goals in the final minutes. But to a guy like me who had never paid any attention to the game of soccer apart from the World Cup, it was exciting.

So here’s what I’m thinking. Since we’ve got some time until the next season of English pro soccer (and yes, I’m calling it soccer to distinguish it for the Americans who read this stuff), I’m gonna try to find a team to get into between now and then. But here’s the deal. I don’t know where to start. I want to find some teams I can get behind. Since there are at least seven levels of professional football in England, I feel comfortable in choosing multiples.

Which team am I going to get in fistfights over?

I don’t have any parameters other than I don’t want to root for a front runner. So that means that even though I enjoyed the Man City triumph, I can’t root for them. And I certainly can’t root for their hated in-town rivals Manchester United who have won thirteen Premier League titles in twenty years. That would be like a Briton coming to the States in 1967 and deciding to root for the Celtics in the NBA.

I would ask friends and strangers for teams to suggest. Note the lack of geographical significance to a guy who has never been to England, the best thing I can do is just pick the coolest names like an old lady picking brackets in March.

That said, the English have some fantastic football team names. I will outline a few for you. Also, you wonder why I haven’t spoken about Major League Soccer in the US. C’mon, get real. I don’t drink wine either but I know to avoid the stuff that comes in a cardboard box.

CRYSTAL PALACE. Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful place? Or something a young girl fantasizes about? Crystal Palace sounds pretty goddamn amazing. That’s the only thing I know about this Championship League team.

NOTTINGHAM FOREST. I liked this at first because I thought Nottingham Forest was where Winnie The Pooh lived in the cartoons. Turns out I was very wrong, so Nottingham Forest loses points. If there’s a soccer team called “Hundred Acre Wood”, I’m all in. I don’t care if the team sucks.

BURY. Can you get more metal than a team named “Bury”? I’ve done some further research and as it turns out the players and coaches do NOT wear King Diamond makeup. In their favor, the team wears all-black away uniforms. Thumbs up.

WATFORD: Elton John used to own this team and is the team’s president in emeritus. That should be enough.

For the record, I am willing to consider any and all teams to root for. Please present me with a case, any case. If it’s compelling enough, I’ll take it up.

My goodness. I was at the Owensboro BBQ Festival today, where I learned a man couldn’t carry his baby because he had food in both hands.

I could have totally kidnapped a baby today if I wanted to. I DIDN’T. I’m not the kidnapping type. Just letting you know. But I could have. I am a benevolent person who doesn’t kidnap kids when he doesn’t need to.

The amount of foot traffic at the BBQ Festival in Owensboro was staggering. Quite staggering. Very easy to lose a baby if you’re absent-mindedly tugging along four kids under the age of five. That’s one of those situations you need to have all of the rugrats on one of those elastic kid-leashes.

In front of me was a woman who did not have a kid-leash and one of her kids got away. In the middle of a very busy intersection, 2nd and Daviess, right on the corner of the Riverpark Center. All kinds of bright, shiny, noisy distractions that a small child will want to explore no matter how many times you demonstrate you don’t want them to run off.

So she panicked. She gathered her other three kids and they tried to look around for number four. They got about twenty feet of confused, directionless walking before a nice, concerned lady brought the kid back to her mother. Luckily, the kid was easy to spot as she wore the same kind of homemade shirt as her mother and siblings. Her mother thanked the lady profusely, slapped the little girl on her wrist and then I stopped caring. My interest in the drama subsided.

Had that mother any sense, she would have gone home, slapped herself in the face and then apologized to her own hand for letting her own kid get lost in that crowd. That could have been a disaster. Had the kid been white, she’d be on Nancy Grace for the next three years.

I did not buy this belt.

My name is Junior Dos Santos. I am from beautiful country of Brasil. I am mixed martial arts fighter. I have fought fifteen professional fights. I win fourteen on them. I UFC Heavyweight Champion of World. I am best mixed martial artist in the world.

I am train in Jiu-Jitsu from Brasil. I beat many many people in octagon. I knock out many men with great strong punch. I beat the crap out of Cain Velasquez. I beat Shane Carwin. I beat fat Roy Nelson. He no fall down. He too fat to knock out. I win decision instead.

I have knocked out many men. Ultimate fighting been very very good to me. I am possibly toughest man in world.

This is how I smile.

My name is RuPaul Andre Charles, and I’m a drag queen.

Hey, fella!

Anyway, I dress up like a lady. And not just any lady but a ferocious, fierce, glamazon of a queen. I don’t actually engage in fistfights or make people tapout or affliction or Bellator or whatever the fuck you meatheads are into these days. But I do engage in the crotch tuck, which hurts just as bad as not worse as anything going on in your cute little oc-to-gons.

To do a crotch tuck, you have to push the testicles up into the body cavity, then tape your penis back between your legs past the now-empty sack. And then you have to walk around like that all night if you’re going out.

Now that I think about it, I’ve been in a lot of scraps in my day. Child, you have no idea how crazy things have gotten. I’ve been in fights with other queens, homophobes, people who just said some shit to me on the wrong day. Milton Berle. I chin-checked that old fart Uncle Miltie.

But yeah, I’ve been in some fights, Junior. Have you ever pushed your testicles up into your body and then taped your dick back between your cheeks? Would you rather do that or get in the oc-to-gon to fight?

That’s what I thought, bitch.

You’ll observe a rare video of Aerosmith performing a concert at Oakland Coliseum in July 1979. At around the :55 mark of this video, you can see Steven Tyler snorting something off his hand. One can make assumptions it was not chalk dust.

So there in front of 60,000 people and several video cameras, Tyler decided to take a bump on-stage, mid-song (“Get The Lead Out”, if you care). He couldn’t even wait for the song to end or go over to the monitors and turn his back. Also, it’s the middle of July and the guy is wearing an robe over his jumpsuit. What an asshole.

This guy is judging singers on TV now. Think about that.

I didn’t pee on two chickens before leaving a Kentucky Derby party in the pre-dawn hours o May 6th, 2012.

I have mentioned this party briefly in an earlier blog, but I went to a Derby party hosted by some old friends. The allure of the party was in seeing old friends I hadn’t connected with in a long time, telling stories and eating some bbq chicken.

I went to the bathroom and found two four-week old chicks pecking around in a plastic tub on the counter. The tub was lined with whatever kind of bedding chickens like and it had a bowl for water and a bowl for something else, presumably food.

I didn’t want these chickens to watch me pee, but what could I do. I was stuck. I was told by my party hosts to close the toilet lid when I finished in case the chicks hopped out and got in.

I don’t know why these sort of things happen. I tried to forget that two live chicks were pecking innocently a room away from a party of people eagerly tucking into bbq. . . chicken. Who do we think we are? We’re an arrogant species. I went back to pet those two birds with my grease-covered fingers after I ate.

As the night wound down, somebody brought out a fiddle and washtub. This might sound like your idea of a good time but to me it’s a sign to leave. And that’s where my great regret comes in. That I didn’t get back in that bathroom on the way out and drop those chicks in the sink and let loose a torrent of piss on the poor bastards.

You could say that’s a bad thing to do, but I ask you to consider this situation. I was peeing in a bathroom. These people kept chickens in their bathroom. Which of us is the bigger fool?