James profile picture

James

jawood

About Me

Here are some basics: recent transplant to Las Vegas from the northeast;
teaching philosophy at UNLV; friend of Scout ; occasional world traveller; less occasional rock climber; part-time "indie" rock fan / part-time classic
rock fan; amateur jazz fan (as in "amateur fan of", not "fan of amateur");
full time coffee drinker; beer and whisky enthusiast

So, yeah, I really am a philosopher, but don't ask me about the meaning
of life. I leave that up to Strindberg and Helium ...

My Interests

fun, people, language (e.g., how it is that noises or marks on paper can be about other things, because that's kinda freaky), rock climbing, music, live music, beer, live music WITH beer, coffee, intense discussion, lighthearted banter, whisky and whiskey, Luv It's frozen custard, tasty treats

I'd like to meet:

VV and Hotel. Karen O. People who know the difference between contractions and possessives (your hot), and who know how to use adverbs correctly (like that).
The Flying Spaghetti Monster .

Music:

Amusingly sleazy, in that 70's kind of way...AHOWWWW!

Led Zeppelin, T. Rex, Bowie, Stooges, Ramones, Big Star, Stones, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Billy Bragg, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, The Velvet Underground, Television, Galaxie 500, Pixies, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Elvis Costello, Serge Gainsbourg, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Mazzy Star, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Shins, Belle & Sebastian, Saturday Looks Good to Me, Spoon, The Magnetic Fields, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills, The Hives, The Fiery Furnaces, Of Montreal, Kings of Leon, LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens, Wolf Parade, The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Hold Steady, Uncle Tupelo, Robert Johnson, Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Bird, Dizzy, Davis, Coltrane, Monk, Mulligan, Baker, Brubeck, Getz, João Gilberto, Jorge Ben, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Anita O'Day, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra

Movies:

The Philadelphia Story, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Breaking Away, The Princess Bride, The Usual Suspects, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Clint spaghetti westerns, His Girl Friday, Some Like It Hot, Top Hat, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Roman Holiday

Television:

Dexter(!!), Entourage, The Daily Show, Big Love, Deadwood, Sopranos, Da Ali G Show, Cowboy BeBop, Buffy

Books:

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harry Potter books, OED, Where the Wild Things Are, Neuromancer, David Sedaris books, The Broom of the System, Red House (by my pal Sarah Messer!), Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein), The Duty of Genius (about Wittgenstein), Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals (Fritz N.)

Heroes:

Chuck Norris, Stephen Colbert , Strongbad , and Bobby Henderson .

My Blog

Os Mutantes!

Back in the late 60's, during Brazil's Tropicalia music revolution, Os Mutantes took psychadelic rock to a new level. My (Brazilian) friend Catarina introduced to their music a few years ago, and I b...
Posted by James on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 02:41:00 PST

Siren Music Festival with Team Whiskypants

Last Saturday I went down to the Siren Music Festival on Coney Island with Princess DJpants (aka Stephanie--up from Buenos Aires on her US tour) and Ms. Sassypants (aka Miss Teen Whiskypants 1994, aka...
Posted by James on Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:59:00 PST

skateboarding's not a crime, dude!

An interesting consequence of having my nomadic life land me 5 miles from my mom's house for this past year, is the resurgence of a long neglected element of my youth. A month or so ago I rented the ...
Posted by James on Sat, 17 Jun 2006 12:44:00 PST

Dungen!

Last night, those groovy swedes of Dungen came and rocked our asses off at Bar with their psychadelic wall of sound. Pretty fucking great. Here are some pics....
Posted by James on Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:22:00 PST

Take *that*, Creationism IDiots!

So, I just found out about The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and their bid to have their views included in Kansas's science curriculum. Hee-fucking-larious! Go Bobby Henderson!...
Posted by James on Tue, 23 May 2006 09:54:00 PST

Wolf Parade!

The show Monday at Toad's was amazing. Great tunes, incredible energy, hard hard rocking out. Unfortunately, none of my pics came out, so I'm gonna cheat and use some from the Oct. show. They'll st...
Posted by James on Wed, 19 Apr 2006 07:10:00 PST

Buenos Aires

...is mulletastic! Just look and see...It is also just a plain old fan-tastic city. I've just arrived back home from there, and I'm missing it already....
Posted by James on Sat, 18 Mar 2006 02:49:00 PST

Argentina

...is the land of hotties. Really...I'm not joking.Buenos Aires! Bailamos!
Posted by James on Mon, 13 Mar 2006 07:17:00 PST

adventures way south of the border

Tomorrow I'm making good use of all those frequent flier miles I recently racked up, by heading down to South America for two weeks. With the hectic two months I've just been through it will be good ...
Posted by James on Sat, 04 Mar 2006 06:50:00 PST

Viva, indeed

So on Friday I accepted a tenure-track job for this coming fall at UNLV. That's right--Vegas, baby! Ok, so it is all kind of surreal, in particular to think of going there to do what I do (you know, t...
Posted by James on Mon, 27 Feb 2006 10:05:00 PST