FBO: 'Lends a Comforting Shoulder for Sam Patel's Tears'

Everything is good when this happens. Someone's been cooking up some meth -- an illegal drug -- in a $25 hotel room in Tulsa, the city found out, and wrote a letter to the hotel owner Sam Patel about it.

And Sam Patel is FURIOUS.

He's furious not about the druggies he checks into the hotel, or ignores the smells emanating from room 106 a few doors down from his office at all hours. He's furious about the city's 'TONE' in the letter.

The letter read:

"You must cease allowing drugs to be used, sold or possessed on the property."

Clearly the letter should have read:

"It'd be great if we could stop all that meth and heroin going on at your hotel, considering it's illegality and such. Up for meeting for a coffee to brainstorm on how to keep it out? Btw did you catch the Idol finale? Ruled! -xoxo"

Sam Patel, who has received four ordinance violations from the city now, may have to pay up to $500. He told the Tulsa World, "The city needs to send a better letter than this."

Sam Patel, the FBO is WITH YOU.


FBO Admin Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Talks about Robert Reid'

Robert Reid, an FBO participant and member, is now the Lonely Planet Travel Editor and spokesperson in the US. Some things about it are here.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Adopts Robert Reid'

The 'King of the Rebound' -- Robert Reid, who played for the Houston Rockets from 1977 to 1991 -- is in India (per a stunningly mistake-prone article) teaching Punjabis how the fundamentals of the ball game called basketball. In a sense, this is exactly what the Failed Bands of Oklahoma has been trying to do since January 2006.

Robert Reid, we adopt you.

Meanwhile, Magic Johnson acknowledges Robert Reid in unsubtle ways in 1981.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Failed Pakistani Band Invited to Panhandle Show'

Failed band in Pakistan, LAAL, is part of youth movement called "Responsible Citizens" to collect trash on the streets in Lahore. Apparently tired of the nation's apathy, the Taliban organizing and taking over lands, and of trash, the group meets to pick up trash in public areas.

We would like LAAL to come to the Panhandle Show to perform. We'll take care of the trash ourselves.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Panhandle Show News & Plan'

OCTOBER 29

A Halloween rock show at Tulsa's legendary Cains -- a stage that's hosted Bob Wills and the Sex Pistols' second-to-last show over the years -- may feature a five-piece-version Tall Tales this October, so the FBO is planning to stage the long-awaited Panhandle Show of Failed Bands around this time.

The show would include Tall Tales, Asylum, Soul Shaker, Cinder Biscuits, and we hope Rich Trott's Palace Family Steakhouse from San Francisco as well as Ancient Chinese Penis.

To expand the draw, the FBO is considering Failed Bands' Classes as part of the event. The idea was inspired after seeing an article about amateur guitarists combining travel in the English Lakes District with learning.

FBO Failed Bands' Workshops would include:

* Winner Bass Techniques, by Mitch Newlin
* Creating Bag-of-Lyrics, by David Cantrell
* Magic, by Danny Fallis
* Creating Your Own Studio, by Alan Hiserodt
* Dance, by Ty Kamm
* Guitar Sounds, by Gregg Dobbs


FBO Admin Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Failed Bands of Oklahoma Band Needs Singer'

We're open to technological advances, so begin the FAILED BANDS OF OKLAHOMA BAND: SINGER SEARCH with a vlog:




FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Pie Charts not Pies'

While working for Lonely Planet in London earlier this decade, I started up the LP Sandwich Club. A handful of willing folks and I would head out once weekly, usually within Clerkenwell, and go to a local restaurant and order sandwiches. The same sandwiches. We'd eat togtether, but keep our impressions to ourselves. Back at the office, we'd indivdually rank the sandwich, (1 for a baddie, 5 for top-shelf), then pool together our cumulative rankings, record the individual and group scores on an Excel document and forward the results, with a challenge!, to LP's Oakland office to do the same.

We sought to alleviate a little cubicle boredom and get some mid-day nourishment and, if lucky, mystify local business while doing it.

In today's New York Times, I see that Manhattan has its own (newer!) version with a Burger of the Month Club, who go to various restaurants, record rankings of 13 factors with ratings of +4 to -2. Members alternate choices, and pre-plan with the hopes of getting one of the year's best, thus advancing to a post-season tourney to determine the city's best burger spotter, and best burger. (Primehouse at Park Ave & 27th St has their best. I've particularly enjoyed Queen's Donovan's Pub in the past, which makes their top five.)

They seem a bit macho for my tastes, but I'm a believer in their tactics. I think travel -- or a lunch, Super Bowl party or group screenings of The Patriot -- deserves more than the ol' passive flow. Often introducing a theme -- one requiring acquisition of data!, which can be turned into flow charts!!, and comparative graphs (as can be done counting moustaches in Russia )!!! -- can give the experience a broader meaning.

So we applaud the Burger of the Month Club, even if they're website is down right now.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Partly Failed Bands Festival'

Is it possible to see the above photograph -- as appearing in yesterday's New York Times -- and not want to see the show? (No.) The article discusses 'one-offs' and 'shoulda-beens' of music history at the almost-failed band festival Ponderosa Stomp.

All participants are welcome to attend the Failed Bands of Oklahoma Panhandle Show, but not perform.

FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY

FBO: 'Travel Journals & YYYs'

Once the Gilder and Franc and Lira rolled into the euro, European travel became a lot less interesting. But there's always been shopping for stationary products. I love picking up locally made journals, oddly covered spirals and whatnot from shops when I travel. It's a key way I fill that space between meals on the road, and I liked having my journal itself linked with a part of my trip too. But it's becoming harder, I've noticed in recent years, as shops in Vladivostok, Plovdiv, Bogota and Danang seem to carry the same imports these days: imported Chinese cheapies with cartoon covers, or nicer -- but not too nice -- Italian ones.

Top 2 Notebook Purchases
My favorite notebook-procuring experience was a few years ago in Shumen, Bulgaria, where a snappy older woman insisted on the color of the of my belezhnik (notebook), a sickly yellow. When I returned two years later, alas, the store had become a trashy boutique selling neon purses.

Runner-up was in a walk-up stationary stand in Batambang, Cambodia, where I waited and waited behind a monk agonizing over which pen to get -- testing out several, then chatting a bit. It gave me plenty of time to consider my options, and the eventual winner: a tiny maroon one that read 'PP Book.'

In other news
The new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album It's Blitz! is excellent -- the 'deluxe' version has acoustic/orchestral versions of four songs, better than the 'full-on' ones on the regular album. The album also manages to make a statement in the postage-stamp space iTunes affords with its striking album cover of a hand-crushed egg.


FBO Admin
Mobile/Semi-Permanent HQ -- Brooklyn, NY