i'm heading for that golden gate hoping i won't be too late

the weekend turned out to be as expected, which is to say busy but amazingly fun. there was good music, good hiking, good eating, good soccer, good wandering, and more good eating.

friday was the death cab/spoon/mates of state show at the greek. spoon and mates of state are two bands that i've heard songs from on kexp and though i've liked what i heard, i just as of yet haven't thought to buy any records. well, after these shows i just might. the mates do the two-person band thing (keys and drums) really well. i really dug that the drums were real, not programmed. if they'd started in the 1980s i'm certain they'd have been a two-synth band.


i've long been a huge fan of ben gibbard's songs, so knew what i was getting with death cab, at least song-wise. not having seen them yet i was a bit surprised at how frantic and energetic they were on stage. i didn't expect shoe-gazing but i didn't expect that much bopping around. but it worked. as for the music, i was glad to hear them expanding the songs, reworking some arrangments and showing some dexterity as more than once ben, chris and nick switched off on instruments, sometimes in the middle of songs.

what was most impressive was how confident they seemed. they've been around for a while, toiling their way from obscurity to indie pop heroes to major label success. they played like a band who know they're good and don't have much to prove at the moment -- the show seemed to be them reveling in the current moment's glow of their accomplishments. there might also have been some extra energy in the air due to the fact that it was ben's 30th birthday.

the next day was a trip up to point reyes national seashore.
i've been there before, along the palomarin trail and up to mcclure's beach. this trip was all inland, 7+ miles at a brisk pace along the bear, old pine, sky and horse trails.

that evening was a dinner at maverick. the grilled iowa pork chop was tender, and the whole grain mustard sauce nice and tangy. good company from a friend visiting from out of town and two more of her friends who live in the city.

sunday's packed agenda began with a soccer game at the fields on treasure island. odd but fun experience -- the island is a surreal kind of place, an abandoned navy base that's now got some people living there but it's nonetheless got a real ghost-town quality to it. the field was a bit small and had just been aerated so there were soil peelets all over the place. in addition it is home to some canada geese, meaning another kind of pellet all over the place -- just great when you're the goalie and have to dive all game. bleh. finally, the regular goals were broken so nets were strung up to the rugby goal-posts meaning that us goalies had less horizontal space to cover but more than the usual amount of vertical space. somehow neither team managed to exploit the top part of the net and we tied 1-1, this despite our team being down two players the entire game. here's to good defense and poor shot selection. and i played alright, i guess.

a short while later i was in golden gate park wandering with a friend.i had no idea before today, but every sunday afternoon near the 8th street entrance there's a swing dance thing happening. pretty cool scene and run by volunteer djs. i need to go back and dust off my (hopefully not rusty) limited set of swing steps. nice stroll thru the botanical gardens as well.

the day and weekend was capped of by an excellent dinner at the fillmore grill. i had one of the evening's specials, a savory chicken and sausage jambalaya. mm had a very good goganzola and walnut spinach ravioli. very tasty food, good sized portions, good service. if you go, try and get one of the enclosed tables...very private and romantic.

this was the kind of weekend every weekend should be.

you're the one for me, fatty

This interesting article in the NY Times examines the possibility that for some people obesity isn't a problem relating to calorie intake/burning but may be caused by microbes and viruses.

well I got a foggy notion, do it again

from the "when it rains it pours" files...a weekend with pretty much no down time...tonight is the death cab/mates of state show at the greek theater. saturday a cancelled surfing trip has morphed into a hiking adventure, then that evening a friend is in from out of town so it's dinner with her and some of her other bay area friends. sunday is a 10am soccer game and then separate afternoon and evening hanging out with two different friends...i may need to take monday off just to chill out.

i installed haloscan commenting the other day and accidentally deleted all previous comments. didn't mean to, it's not that i don't value your thoughts...i'm just a dumbass sometimes.

finally, a quick word of praise for tide to go instant stain remover sticks. given my propensity to wear my coffee on my sleeve (and shirt-front, tie, pants) it's a godsend.

sunny day, sweeping the clouds away

shots from a sunny afternoon in dolores park...i love my neighborhood

pie blogging

mmm...the perfect summer dessert...key lime pie. from this foodtv recipe comes this pie, made for a friend's birthday this past weekend. i've made it enough times that i've got it down pretty well -- from start to finish in just under an hour. one of the many useful skills i picked up in the four years i lived in florida. here in california it's hard to find actual key limes, but thanks to the grocers along mission there are plenty of similar limes from mexico. but still...mmmm good. and i've got most of the bag left, so i just may have to make a few more. anyone want some pie?

world shut your mouth

those who know me in real life know that i'm fairly well up-to-date and opinionated on current events and news. have been since i was a kid...the newspaper was on the kitchen table every morning, and both my parents read it cover-to-cover, a habit which i've kept to this day (though now the morning papers are on my computer screen). one day after running around the neighborhood seeing what some police to-do was all about, i announced in the way that 8-year olds do that i wanted to be a reporter. i blame most of my interest in news and such on my dad -- the newspaper always in the house, the issues always a regular topic of dinner-table conversation and, when i moved away from my hometown, of phone conversations.

sadly, the shyness that was a major part of my personality until my early twenties would have made it hard for me to be a good reporter. it helps to not be anxious about talking to strangers. i could probably do pretty well now, but it's too late for that kind of a career change. for instance, the idea of being a talking points memo intern sounds appealing, but it would have been more feasible if i were just coming out of college.

so i'll stick with being a pretty good social science researcher and non-professional barroom political and world affairs pundit/gasbag.

this is all by way of making the point that i've been asked why (and have wondered why myself) i avoid commenting on more weighty things anymore. i certainly used to, mainly in repsonse to innanity from charles krauthammer. however, i've realized a few things lately...

first, so many others do it much better than i can ever hope to, mainly because they make their lives all about blogging about news and world affairs -- the blogs i read most frequently -- daily kos, talking points memo, atrios, and the ridiculously prolific and incredibly astute glenn greenwald.

there are plenty of other semi-pro and totally amateur bloggers who do it well also -- kos contributor susang comes to mind, as do the growing legions of local bloggers, best personified at the moment by the connecticut bloggers taking the piss out of joe lieberman.

i just don't have that kind of time or singularity of purpose to read enough other material and be active enough on the ground to post the kind of quality information these folks do. and if they do it so well, and there's so many folks out there already doing it and many others on the way who will be more dedicated than me, well, i'll leave it to them. i don't feel the need to add to the echo chamber if i'm not going to make a substantive enough contribution.

then there's the reason that it's just become all so taxing...iraq; israel/lebanon; a president and congress who do not care about ordinary working americans, are more interested in lining their own pockets and making the rich even richer, and even worse are in fact disdainful of the constitution and the basic underlying values of democracy; a lazy press who have been compliant and complicit in allowing the current ruling class (junta, regime, whatever term fits) to run roughshod over the country...i could go on and on, but it just gets me depressed. thank god for the daily show and the colbert report for the comic relief they provide.

so i'd rather post about new music and hello kitty darth vaders and monkeys on subways. and as newgy points out that i should do more of, write about the egypt/morocco trip.

tactile diplomacy

as seen on kos (and somewhere else, but i can't remember where) the bush backrub game...how well can you score with angela merkel? it may help to put on some barry white, light some candles...

hello kitty's evil overlord

linked by atrios, via hecate




*update*
Apparently, it's a photoshopped image (go about 2/3 of the way down the thread). I'm both amused by the creativity and crushed that it's not real.

an ape like me can learn to be human too

New Delhi subway fights fire with fire...

NEW DELHI, India - They say it takes a thief to catch a thief, but India’s Delhi Metro has hired a monkey to frighten off other monkeys from boarding trains and upsetting passengers.

In an effort to keep monkeys out of the New Delhi subways, authorities have called in one of the few animals known to scare the creatures — a fierce-looking primate called the langur, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Wednesday.
{...}

This guy? fierce?

how long will it take?

via mcdougall, a cool dhtml tool, like google maps....the smilie timline, here used to chart monet's life.

information travels faster in the modern age, as our days are crawling by so slowly

one of the happy consequences of the 45 minutes per day that i spend on public transportation is that i'm getting tons more reading done. for whatever reason i tend to do much more reading in transit than i do even if i have a few nights at home. when i travel or commute i just plow through stuff. my subscriptions to the nation and atlantic monthly, along with a weekly newspaper in my field isn't enough to keep me occupied...i've got time for books again.

on vacation i read an old tom robbins book, even cowgirls get the blues, and sightseeing, a collection of short stories by rattawut lapcharoensap lent to me specifically for the trip by my friend linh. cowgirls was what i'd come to expect from robbins, no surprises. if there was a unifying theme to the stories in sightseeing it was about the underlying strength of family and local culture in the face of intrusion from external elements.

in fact, three of the last four books i've read have been short story collections...the vintage book of amnesia (an anthology featuring a number of differnt authors) and most recently oblivion, a collection by david foster wallace.

i enjoy dfw's non-fiction essays. a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again was hysterical and informative. reading his fiction, however, i get the sense that he's showing off at how skilled a writer he is. and i'll give him that -- he has a command of language and an inventive mind. and he's super prolific. but while reading it i can't help but be reminded of the jon lovitz parody of the ACTOR who when on stage shows he's ACTING. with dfw it's like he's making sure you know he's a serious WRITER. he's a bit guilty of it in his non-fiction, but it's very apparent in his fiction. his essays are of course famous for the footnotes, so much so that he's been parodied by the onion. high praise indeed.

anyway, i'm now back to novels, halfway through the virgin suicides, and with a stack of things on deck. this public-transport commuting thing isn't half-bad.

now you find you're amused with it all...

i'm getting back into the swing of things finally...i moved at the beginning of june and was so busy didn't have time to unpack many of the boxes before the trip to egypt and morocco. so when i got back there were tons of things to put away. and work to catch up on. and 650+ pictures to cull and select for posting.

so finally i feel like i'm actually living in my new apartment, as opposed to it just being a storage place where my bed happened to be. i finally have a feel for the rhthym of the days...how to manage the commute to the east bay (bart has been great for my reading). i am also finally starting to get more social again. it's little things like deciding on which side of the bay i should play soccer, finding a decent yoga studio near to me, and just plain getting out and doing stuff. the world cup final in the park was spontaneous for me, happening just a few days after i got back from the trip. now i'm actually starting to plan things again.

all of which is to say this weekend shapes up to be a good one. the incoming fog banks mean the heat is broken. friday night a friend is visiting and a couple of intriguing east bay options are in the offing.

one option is the book burning comedy showcase at the ak press warehouse. rising stand-up comics, more or less. but sounds promising.

the other option is the sonic foundry performance of the edgetone music summit at 21 grand. it's music played on invented instruments, including one person playing amplified rocking chairs. how can that not be interesting?


saturday is a retro shot of summer blockbuster cinema, as the san francisco neighborhood theater foundation presents raiders of the lost ark in dolores park. i've seen it a million times, know all the key lines by heart ("snakes...why did it have to be snakes") and it never fails to entertain.

also, i feel a bout of introspection coming on brought on by two things. first, my boss is retiring this week. and earlier tonight i was at a book reading where the readings and q&a discussion centered around major points of transition in life. so a million thoughts are swirling about where i've been, where i am, where i am in relation to where society says i should be, where i want to go...

that's gonna leave a mark

you may have heard about the violent storms that blew through st. louis in the last week. well, check this out, via crooks and liars. some poor lady gets absolutely pasted by a flying trash can at busch stadium. ouch.

dome of the sky

it's kind of photoshop for dummies, but what the hell, i like picasa. the image to the right i took with no flash, lightened a bit in photoshop, then used picasa to sharpen a bit and add a soft focus using city hall as the focal point. yes, it's not up to the technical snuff of serious digital media students like my friend jackie (who's given me a few basic lessons on photoshop), but it's good enough right now for a hobbyist like me. it's also clear to me now that i need a tripod if i want to continue to do night-time and low light shots.

in other news, i think i found a good source for mangoes. now that berkeley bowl is too far away from where i live, my new pusherman is one of the grocers along 16th near the mission bart station. but i can't tell you which one, because i want the mangoes all for myself.

the splatter effect

Via Ray...supremely awesome...create your own Jackson Pollock.

and the sun is beating me senseless...

i really wanted to not reference the heat in this post, but there's no getting around the fact that it's hot...real hot. hot like i used to have to deal with in south florida. but i hear that ocean breezes and fog are gonna control the weather again this week. so sue me, i don't like the heat.

in non-weather news, not to get all meta, but this sf chronicle article delves into a pew report in why people blog. do you recognize yourself in any of the anecdotes and statistics?

i'm finally catching up on music after being out of the loop during the egypt/morocco trip. thanks to the always amazing gorilla vs bear i'm a fan of "sloppy" popsters boat. download last cans of paint and see what i mean.

in the vein of guilty pleasures the pipettes (though with more of a fuzz guitar/electronica thing happening, as well as being wonderfully more weird), how about teddybear stockholm? gvb has stuff about them here, as does my old kentucky blog (though the song samples probably won't be up for much longer). a pitchfork review (via gvb) is here.

hooray, the new sliversun pickups record comes out this week. song samples (not downloadable) here and on their myspace page.

sounds like an onion article...

but it's for real...

Washington -- The American bison, once hunted almost to extinction, is now so revered in the United States that its image graces the seal of the Interior Department, where it stands proudly in the shadow of mountains.

Still, a senior political appointee at Interior apparently thought that the real thing might look better stuffed and mounted -- so he shot one.

David Smith, a hunter who until last Friday was deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, shot and killed a bison grazing at a friend's ranch in Texas in December 2004.

He had the hoofs made into bookends and kept the skull, wrapped in taxidermy packaging, in the garage of his home.

Smith broke no laws by shooting the semi-domesticated animal in the head with a rifle from 50 yards away.

<...>

when you have friends who are authors....

...you may find yourself at public readings of their work. and this is a good thing.

so it is that tomorrow night i will be at pegasus books on shattuck ave in berkeley to see my friend elline lipkin read from her newly published book of poetry, the errant thread.

where you least expect it

this youtube clip of a 700 club story on the democratic senate primary in connecticut is astonishing...who'd have thought that the 700 club would have a political story that's better reported than anything seen on network news (including cnn and fox) in a while.



you may rightly take issue with their using the aclu's freedom scorecard (and that they called it a "liberal rating"), but the aclu's measure is a broad measure of basic civil liberties issues. you may rightly take issue with their using john kerry to define the liberal wing of the democratic party, but he did tack more and more left (moving from super-mainstream to milquetoast pseudo-progressive) as the 2004 presidential campaign went along.

the bottom line is, that was an astonishingly well reported story, the points above notwithstanding (there are far worse distortions and half truths woven into mainstream media news). it presented the overall case, tried to explain both sides, and analyzed some of the major reasons (the kiss, the standing o) for which progressives take issue with lieberman (mainly that he's become bush's lapdog).

pat robertson's coda, of course, was half-assed, calling out the dems specifically but letting the GOP off lightly for the same sins of hyper-partisanship (and also not distinguishing between the kind of partisanship necessary for competing parties to stake out policy decisions and the kind of ugly partisanship promulgated by the likes of delay and boehner). not that i'm about to start watching the 700 club, but the reporter who filed this should go for a gig with the majors, hopefully not losing his reporter's soul in the process. at the very least it would be interesting to see what he'd do without the constraints of working for an avowedly biased news organization.

this rather simple epitaph can save your hide your falling mind

catching up on randomalia after a busy week...

* i had a tooth extracted today, a root canal gone bad and the tooth had of late been chronicly infected. first step in a long process of getting an implant. but right now there's a hole in my mouth, which i'm tempted to photograph and then post the pic. sadly the dentist didn't let me keep the tooth, which had broken into pieces anyway...it was extracted because a new root canal wasn't feasible due to the lack of structual integrity in the tooth. no major pain right now (5 hours after) but he shot me up with novocaine pretty good and that's now starting to wear off. sadly i can't do narcotic pain relievers...they make me queasy. so ibuprofin it is.

though it's kept me in tonight, said extraction won't keep me from a soccer game saturday morning and a surfing trip to santa cruz sunday.

in sartorial news of the week...

* i lost a ring i wear on my left hand, and the hand feels naked. thank goodness for the telegraph ave vendors and the plethora of jewlery makers.

* on tuesday of this week i wore a shirt which i somehow had managed to only iron half of. so my left side was nice and pressed and my right side was wrinkly. i need a valet.

music-wise, i'm in need of getting the (sort of) new raconteurs and new thom yorke among many other things, including the upcoming silversun pickups. what else? i dunno, the walkmen maybe. i'm open to suggestions.

otherwise noticed...

jeff goldblum and nicole ritchie on a date? forget the age difference (which seems astounding even by hollywood standards (hello harrison ford and calista flockhart) or the height difference. obviously i don't know either of them, but from public appearances it's not an obvious match.

cbgb's to move to vegas? apparently so. according to the mtv news article, hilly kristal is looking to the downtown vegas area, which is a relief. i can't see that place on the strip. i've played cb's a few times (just about the best on-stage sound for any small club i played), and have seen tons of bands play there (generally good sound and sight-lines for the audience as well). it's where television, the talking heads, blondie, the ramones and countless other new york area bands forged a scene and a sound. if there were to be a signal that rock and roll has died, cb's on the strip would be it. but downtown has the kind of grit that cb's needs. if you're in vegas, go downtown to the art bar. there's also a good mexican place near the art bar, but i can't remember the name.

interstellar overdrive

hmmm...apparently syd barrett died friday july 7. unfortunately he never had a career resurrection like brian wilson. because of that, and since he didn't die young like chris bell, there was a certain museum effect to his existence, as if he were a living curiousity piece. i tend think of barrett, wilson and bell in the same breath, as songwriters who challenged basic pop song conventions, in the process inspiring many other artists, including robyn hitchcock who is self-avowedly influenced by barrett.

cairo and the eye of the beholder

as i mentioned when posting from cairo, it's a big, fast-moving city. for a short while, i had begun to wonder if it was the smartest way to start the vacation. i'd come off a very, very busy stretch at work, plus i'd just moved. i realized after a few days that i was working as hard at trying to relax as i was when actually working.in addition to the kind of heat you'd expect from the middle east during summer, there was crazy traffic and pollution and noise. i'd started to wonder if maybe i should have gone to a beach somewhere and totally vegged out.
but after a few days, things changed. the company of newgy and her friends was certainly a major factor. also, though, i started to accept the city for what it was, and get into the mission of exploring...starting with the ancient relics. another avenue of exploration was egypt's islamic heritage. instead of church steeples, minarets dominate the skyline. calls to prayer punctuate the days at regular intervals, and you don't need a watch to know that it's noon, or 4pm, or a couple of hours after sundown. but it wasn't just about buildings...living things -- people, animals, plants -- caught my eye as well, each showing a unique kind of beauty

in the end, the cairo I captured in my lens held more beauty than the cairo I remember actually being in. maybe my camera served as the means by which I'd appreciate the experience in ways not readily apparent to me while there.

beautiful day for a ballgame...

a beautiful, sunny day; a big screen in the park; a large, festive and overall pretty relaxed crowd...perfect place to watch the world cup final between france and italy. one of those events that makes me so glad to live here
any seat was a good seat, just as long as you were there to root for your side even the pups came out, if not to cheer, at least to be outside...and of course, the ubiquitous sign guy, frank chu all in all, a great day for flying the flag and cheering for victory

say it ain't so, zizou

update...from youtube via gr, the full incident...is that a nipple twist from materazzi?

les bleus vs azzuri

for the record, i think the italians will win the world cup final today, but i'm rooting for the french. both teams have played so well throughout the tournament, but because the french came in as such underdogs, i'm pulling for them.

far out...funny meeting you here, think fast...courage gotta go

weird. three times in the last two days i could swear i passed on the street women who i've had anywhere from two to a handful of dates with. yet i wasn't quite sure if it was them and there was no recognition of me that i picked up from them.

all of which says a host of things not only about my sometimes spotty memory, but more importantly that after only 13 months out here certain aspects of my life are already making this feel like a small town. which i know it isn't. but still...it was weird that it happened in such a concentrated time span.

posting about the trolleyox reminded me...

...it's time to get back to playing music again. some good leads already on craigslist. after 4 years in the dj/electronica/salsa dominated scene of miami (not that i hate those styles of music, just not what i want to play) how nice is it to be in a city where people actually like to write good songs? it's very nice.

if you're reading this, need a bass player and wonder what i'm looking to do, listen to the trolleyvox and you'll get a sense, though the styles i'm fine with are a bit more varied. just as long as there are songs...good songs. that's all i ask.

detonate your dynamite and i'll be yours forever

hooray, new music from the trolleyvox! yeah, so maybe there's some hint of self-interest as i used to play bass in the band, but take my word for it and go listen to songs from the upcoming record the trolleyvox present the karaoke meltdowns.

you can also see the new video on youtube...



older songs (including my contributions to the leap of folly album) are available for download here. pics from the leap of folly sessions are here.

maybe he was auditioning for "wanted: ted or alive"

brian heidik, survivor thailand winner, a former car salesman and soft-porn actor, shot a puppy with a bow-and-arrow. no seriously. he shot a puppy. with a bow and arrow.

i've given all i can but we're still on the payroll

wait, what i wrote about it's nice to come home? maybe so. but here i am, first day back at work and only 35 minutes in wishing i were still away. maybe if i close my eyes and concentrate, i'll still be on the sunset felluca ride.

moving the goalposts

of the four teams remaining in the world cup, the only team i predicted or expected are germany. i thought italy would self-destruct in the quarters, france was too old, and that portugal as usual would have the talent but not have enough heart to get this far (and frankly, they got a gift that the dutch played shoddily and that england had no offense besides rooney after owen was injured...when rooney took the red card, england were done). so surprise, surprise....there's the final four.

while in egypt and morocco i did take some time to watch matches. at first i thought that was nutty...being on vacation and that i should be seeing stuff. then i realized...i was on vacation. that meant doing stuff to make me happy. and with the games starting at 6pm and 10pm in egypt and 3pm and 7pm in morocco, it actually turned out to be good timing in terms of a break after a day full of sightseeing and other activities.

with plenty of locals and tourists stopping to watch the games at cafes, it was a great communal activity where you could communicate with the guy at the next table even if you didn't speak a common language besides the game. i watched the england-sweden match at the british community association in cairo, amidst a lively crowd of mostly brits, with more than a few swedes present as well.

the highlights of the tournament so far:

* france playing with more heart than any other team among the final 32. they were counted out as old and slow and fighting with each other. but they've played as a group and zidane's return to form has been awesome to watch. yes, they benefitted from brazil's "defense" inexplicably leaving thierry henry open to score, but good teams take advantage of mistakes.

* the germany-argentina match -- for 120 minutes (90 regular and 30 extra time) it was generally a tense and thrilling match. it only really opened up after the argies scored in the 49th minute. all of a sudden the argies realized that they should keep attacking. unfortunately their coach thought he should sit on the lead and sub his offense for plodding defensive midfielders, especially considering that it was the starting argentina midfield that were totally controlling the match. no matter, as the excitement continued. of course, one defensive mistake was all it took, and when sorin let klose go by for position on the header to tie..well...also, i wasn't shocked that the argies would lose if the game went to penalty kicks. i'd seen it happen before, in the 2004 copa libertadores final between boca juniors (of Buenos Aires) and columbia's once caldas. the heavily-favored bocas made *no* penalty shots. none. that is truly remarkable at that professional level of play.

* ghana -- they played a fun if sloppy style, forgetting to defend sometimes, playing a bit too rough at others, and being a bit awestruck against brazil, watching too much and not playing enough. but we've seen this before from african teams, recently cameroon and nigeria. we haven't seen these teams sustain it over the years...they flash into the news for one or maybe two cups, then fall apart. i watched their game against brazil in fes, amidst a cafe full of men cheering on the ghanians. i guess the former french colonies of west africa want to stick together.

* the us-italy match -- the only one of the us games worth watching, it was thrilling, especially watching the americans control play despite being down a man for the 2nd half. well, control things until they clearly ran out of gas. then they were just trying to hold on for the draw, which they did.

lowlights and disapointments:
* the u.s. play in general -- they played horribly against the czechs and not well enough against ghana. low delivery on high, maybe too high, expectations.

* the portugal-netherlands match -- the ref lost control of the game early on, and tried to regain it by handing out a record number of yellow and red cards. the players couldn't control themselves, and what could have been a fun match between two teams that play exciting offensive-minded soccer was reduced to a rugby scrum. all involved should be ashamed.

* the switzerland-ukraine match -- an awful, boring game, in which the ukes clearly played for a tie and hoped to win on penalties, which they did. the kind of soccer game that makes people hate soccer.

my heart says the germany and france will win the semis and france will win the final. my head says germany and portugal to play for the title, and the host germans taking it.

everything sounds like "welcome home"

an aphorism maybe, but it's true...as nice as it is to be on vacation, it's equally as nice to come home. and so after two+ weeks gone, back i am. of course coming home to a place like san francisco feels a bit like extending the vacation.

i haven't yet figured out how to organize my thoughts and experiences of the trip for a diary. i kept a pretty good journal, consisting mainly of accounts of the days but also included some general thoughts. how to diary something like this though...not sure. haven't ever done it. a plain travelogue would be boring to write much less read. some organizing principle will hit me soon. probably while i'm sorting through the 650 pictures that i took. gotta love having a 1-gig memory card for the camera.

so more details soon, but for now i'll note one thing...if you ever get even a whiff of a chance at it, find a way to spend time in marrakesh. it's touristy, yes. but a few hours during the evening hanging out in the main square, place djemma el f'na (or jemaa-al-fnaa), is something that's sure to get all of your senses engaged.

and the days go by...

the mark of a good vacation, for me anyway, is when you've forgotten what day it is. and so, only a few days into the trip, i lose track at least once a day. thank goodness i have my overpriced cheapo swatch watch that i bought in the frankfurt airport because i realized that my cellphone, non-fuctioning outside the 50 states, can no longer double as my watch.

anyway, i'm not going to post anything lengthy now. only posting something because my sleep patterns have been haywire, even though i thought i was over the jet lag quickly. also, i'm enabled by the broadband connection and laptop in the flat where i'm staying (friend of tour guide).

three+ days in egypt and my initial impressions (as go the typical question to any visitor, especially in a land much different from his own) are that a) cairo is a fast-paced city that makes new york and even tokyo seem like small towns. mainly because the speed of things, though roughly the same, is in a more compact and densely populated area, and more importantly (and not unrelated) the chaos factor is x10. also, and related, to know this city is to have been here for a while and have people slowly fill you in on the ways to make it work for you. some cities, like philadelphia, are easily grasped in order to be easily liveable. cairo demands that you work hard, pay *constant* attention and seek wise counsel. without the wonderfully patient and resourceful and good natured tour guide and her hooked-up alexandrian counterpart, i'd be lost. and i'm a pretty good city-goer.

so yeah, sleep now (it's 1am tuesday, 3pm monday for you west coasters, 6pm for you easterners)...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

newviewfinder

finally got the chance to play with the new camera, and tested it by shooting the new view.
and also? fun with the macro...that's some detail...pores and hair and fabric
ok, time to pack.

countdown to cairo

wow, outta here thursday morning. it's been two years since my last real vacation, and i'm ready.

tour guide has lived up to her billing and has set up a good week. i land friday, which happens to be her birthday, so it's right away to a dinner with a bunch of people. hopefully i won't be too smelly. or tired. saturday is apparently a group trip to alexandria, which should be good fun. during the week there'll also be pyramids, wandering about town, a sinai trip.

the morocco leg of the journey is shaping up well, with some minor itinerary adjustments. no longer will the atlantic coast swing be part of the deal...too much lost travel time. that journey needs a week in and of itself. so that's next year, after a week in spain (barca, madrid, granada, tangier...down the coast...i'm already planning...)

so for now it's fly to casablanca, train straight to rabat. there for a couple of days then train to fes. hang there for a couple of days (well three effectively) then an overnight train to marrakech. two+ days there, then a train to casablanca, for an evening and part of the day. then fly to cairo and back to the usa.

of the guidebooks i've read or bought, the most useful so far has been the lonely planet food guide for morocco. ok, the dk eyewitness travel guide is good as well, but i'd rather read about the food before i get there. mmmm...tajines....

stanky

strange as it may seem, i once had my football dreams

missed yesterday's opening world cup matches, the opener between host germany and costa rica, followed by ecuador-poland. apparently the germans and ticos played an entertaining offensive-minded game, as evidenced by the 4-2 score. poland once again look to be a world cup disappointment. i thought they'd come through 2nd in the group, but doesn't look like it now.

did watch this morning, a couple of matches this morning, england's 1-0 win over paraguay and the 0-0 draw between sweden and trinidad.

sweden should have won. they played a team with much less talent and got a gift when avery john was sent off a minute into the 2nd half for drawing a second yellow on a hard but not bookable foul. at least not bookable when he was already carrying a yellow. but trinidad clamped down as teams often do when down a man. trinidad keeper shaka hislop was outstanding...made a few amazing saves. though i'm danish and thus should nominally be rooting more for sweden, i like trinidad because a) they're major underdogs, and b) i've met lots of folks from trinidad and every one of them are fun people.

the england-paraguay match was kind of eh...blah. england got a gift own-goal early on and never really got an offensive rhythm. paraguay seemed fine with packing the defense and not creating any offense.

the argentina-ivory coast game should be fun, but i've got my own game to play this afternoon.

for what it's worth, i see final 8 matches between germany-argentina, italy-france, england-netherlands and brazil-spain, semis of germany-italy and brazil-england and a germany-brazil final won by brazil. but there are always surprises in the tournament, which is what makes it so much fun.

your axe belongs to a dying nation, they don't know that we own you

if i had the gumption i'd trek out to amoeba thursday night to see the raconteurs. but seeing as it's gonna be hellaciously crowded, maybe not. or maybe. they will be back, in july at the warfield.

also coming soon? blasts from the past...the church august 20 and mission of burma (shouldn't they now be mission of myanmar?) september 2 at great american. since the clash won't be regrouping, all i need is for culture club to get back together and it'll be like high school all over again for me. only this time i can go to the shows, instead of moping because i'm under 21 and don't have fake id.

here we are in our summer years, living on ice cream and chocolate kisses

Dinner tonight was Platanos. Very good...dishes are tapas style, a Latin fusion vibe. Started with a very spicy ceviche done Peruano style. Perhaps a bit too hot, but very good. The chicken empenaditas were interesting...some savory and sweet going on...savory filling but sugar topping with sweet tomatos on the side. They might have been better served last, not before the tamale puerco which was savory but not too spicy. Last was a cold salmon dish which was not bad. A bit too much sauce so it felt a bit drowned. Nice malbec wine to accompany it.

For whatever reason I can't get this Grandaddy song out of my head. Meow, meow meow meow meow indeed.

Also sticking with me is playful sex, or rather, Asobi Seksu (which translates to playful sex...not that playful sex in and of itself wouldn't stick with me), a Japanese band and their songs New Years and Thursday.

I'd hoped the elves would have come to put away my stuff and store the boxes, but sadly no. The unpacking is left to me, it seems.

And oh my, the World Cup starts Friday. More on that later. Suffice to say that no matter the weather, this Saturday and Sunday will be all about watching the games (well, and playing a game each day).

This is the first WC since 1994 where I won't be able to see a good portion of the matches. The last two happened when I was in grad school and had a job with the flexibility to se my own hours. Now? Not so much. I assume in Morocco and Egypt the games will be on and people will gather in cafes to watch. And normally I would, but I'm not traveling to North Africa to watch soccer.

bust a move

finally, all my stuff is in the new place. of course, most of it is all over the place in boxes but it's all there. is moving stressful? apparently so. but the worst is over.

a quick plug for cunningham moving. excellent people to deal with...professional, pleasant. the best experience with movers i've ever had. that includes the impressive driving job of negotiating a big truck up and down the incredibly steep street on which i now live. also, amazingly, i was able to get cable and internet hooked up saturday on just a few days notice.

now it's just the unpacking and putting away to be done. and then prep for the trip. though said prep consists mainly of reading the morocco guide book and learning how to use the new digital camera.

being and nothingness

it's been said many times by almost everyone when they move...i have too much stuff. mostly in the form of books and cds and kitchen stuff.

it's whenever i move that i wish i were illiterate, didn't like music so much, and didn't like to cook.

(yeah, yeah, i know...e-books and an ipod)

marriage is when we admit our parents were right

Sunday was the big day for KB and Steve. An event that I was not surprised would happen, given the way she talked about him from the time they met five years ago. The reception was short and sweet, officiated by a college friend of Steve's.


Then off to the reception at the Franklin Institute...started with rooftop drinks, then into the main atrium, with Ben himself presiding...


Decor, food, music, and the company of old friends who I hadn't seen in a while all made the weekend worth a red-eye flight and whirlwind coast-to-coast turnaround.

soaking from the inside out

my god, i'd forgotten what a humid philadelphia day is like. i mean, i grew up with summer days like this. and in miami had it worse and for longer stretches of time. but after a year in the temperate climes of the bay area i'm out of practice. bleh.

the day started out fine...survived the red eye, slept most of the way through despite that it was a crowded flight. landed to a bright, sunny morning.


got to my friend's place (though he and his wife aren't here...they're westward for his brother's wedding...but their cat orpheus is around..he's good company). figured i'd hit the markets down the street for some food. first stop was a fruit stand for a nice granny smith apple (i like my apples like i like my women...tart and crisp...wait, that didn't sound right).

anyway, then to dibruno for some cheese and bread. got a nice gouda and while that was being prepared the song "mickey" (you know, "hey mickey you're so fine...") came on the radio. guy behind the counter offers a free loaf of bread to the first person to name who sang the song. me being a music freak and having a head full of useless trivia knew it instantly and said "toni basil" the people in the store gave me the "check out the big brain on brett" kind of reaction. i'm thinking..."that was easy". nice to know that my head full of useless trivia comes in handy beyond the many nights of quizzo that i did during grad school.

later on was lunch in the reading terminal market, a huge and juicy and good pulled pork sammich.

festivities later tonight, wedding tomorrow. naptime now.

** quick update...yes indeed, i did randomly run into kieran's sister at 16th & chestnut.

also forgot to note...philadelphia international airport's baggage claim takes for friggin ever.

weddings, parties, anything

another month, another wedding. the long slow march of the weddings (lots of them the last two years) nears its end this weekend. but none on the horizon after sunday's fest.

so it's 11pm red-eye back east tonight, hang out with various folks tomorrow, wedding on sunday, lunch with my parents monday and then back here monday night.

a moment on the lips, forever on the...

Is there anything chocolate can't do? Supposedly enough of it can have your brain thinking you're in love...

Perhaps chocolate's key ingredient is its phenylethylamine (PEA) "love-chemical". Yet the role of the "chocolate amphetamine" is disputed. Most if not all chocolate-derived phenylethylamine is metabolised before it reaches the CNS. Some people may be sensitive to its effects in very small quantities.

Phenylethylamine is itself a naturally occurring trace amine in the brain. Phenylethylamine releases dopamine in the mesolimbic pleasure-centres; it peaks during orgasm.

Now comes this...it makes you...smarter?

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Chocolate lovers rejoice. A new study hints that eating milk chocolate may boost brain function.

"Chocolate contains many substances that act as stimulants, such as theobromine, phenethylamine, and caffeine," Dr. Bryan Raudenbush from Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia noted in comments to Reuters Health.

"These substances by themselves have previously been found to increase alertness and attention and what we have found is that by consuming chocolate you can get the stimulating effects, which then lead to increased mental performance."

To study the effects of various chocolate types on brain power, Raudenbush and colleagues had a group of volunteers consume, on four separate occasions, 85 grams of milk chocolate; 85 grams of dark chocolate; 85 grams of carob; and nothing (the control condition).

After a 15-minute digestive period, participants completed a variety of computer-based neuropsychological tests designed to assess cognitive performance including memory, attention span, reaction time, and problem solving.

"Composite scores for verbal and visual memory were significantly higher for milk chocolate than the other conditions," Raudenbush told Reuters. And consumption of milk and dark chocolate was associated with improved impulse control and reaction time.

Previous research has shown that some nutrients in food aid in glucose release and increased blood flow, which may augment cognitive performance. The current findings, said Raudenbush, "provide support for nutrient release via chocolate consumption to enhance cognitive performance."

has it been a year already?

so a year ago today i packed up the car with what the movers didn't take and set out north and west from south florida to california...

this was the proposed itinerary and slate of things to do. the actual route and trip log here. not too much deviation except that i didn't have time for bbq at the railhead in texas. also, albuquerque didn't quite go as planned thanks to something i ate along the way leaving me with a fever, the chills and shakes, and a rebellious digestive system. i did catch a minor league game in fresno, though, the grizzlies. but overall a fun trip. good times in flagstaff...99% of what i drove through between miami and norcal i'd never been to before. not sure i'd want to do a solo cross-country trip again, but this was worth doing.

not sure why the formatting is all messed up with the table. also, check out the obvious spam comment. i had to leave it up...too funny.

oh...some pics here

i said to my reflection let's get out of this place

prepped for a night of packing by scouring about for some music...among the things making it more bearable to box up my belongings...

the year of - stephen hawking

iron hero - pilot

some band of horses, live at kexp

the concretes - miss you (yes, the stones song, which i mentioned a while back)

a few tracks from dc area band middle distance runner

all the streets are crammed with things eager to be held

from life's grab-bag...

the lease is signed, the movers hired...now it's time to pack. two weeks until moving day. hopefully i can get my current place sublet. in the meantime it's cross-country for a wedding over memorial day weekend, and more planning for the trip, including getting a new digital camera. my current one is 5+ years old, a technologial dinosaur. while it's served me well, i could do with a few more megapixels and more x on the zoom if i want to take some better shots.

sadly, this show which i'd hoped to be promising was just ok. i don't want to slag any local bands here...let's just say that while i may not have liked a few of the acts, i could appreciate the time they've put into things. three of the five bands just weren't my thing (as opposed to outright suckage, which for me is when a band can't play their instruments and/or have nothing in the way of songs..not the case here). citay were alright...layered instrumentation (including thin lizzy-like matching guitar riffs and solos), lots of instruments including three guitars, keyboards, flute (which often was playing unison or harmony with the guitar riff), xylophone (evidently there's more in the way of non-rock-standard instrumentation on the record...glockenspiel for instance)...abstract song structure and lyrics...my only complaint really is that with three guitars there was some sonic crowding out of the keys and the flute. you had to really pay attention (live at least, on record that can be more easily separated) to figure out what she was doing. don't know that i'd go out of my way to see them again, but they were worth seeing this time. and who knows...if i see them again because they were in a show i was heading to anyway, i might come away liking them even more.

the highlight for me were the first band, willow willow. according to the bio on the website jessica and miranda are childhood friends, and their stage presence and harmonies certainly seemed natural, like two people who've been performing together for a long time. beyond me (click on link for mp3, recorded live at the freight and salvage) was most memorable...a sweet mid-tempo melody that starts out as a song about a girl letting a guy into her world and then drops a hammer towards the end with the line "you're nothing beyond me". no surprise that their encore was a beatles song ("she loves you")...having played in a beatle-esque band or two before, i can easily spot fellow travelers.

soccer-wise this was supposed to be a three-games in two days weekend, thanks to one league having scheduled a make-up game following all the march rains. so what happens today? our game was rained out. but yesterday was two games back-to-back (thankfully i got to play goalie in the first game) in two different leagues...a win and a loss.

i can't remember where i found the mp3 (checked the usual mp3 blogs i frequent but no mention of the band), but i've been digging on "mindstalking" from lunascape. some song samples up on the band's website.

oh, so a few weeks back i went to an art opening put together by a friend and featuring painter sharla flock and photographer john nieto. i really enjoyed flock's textured paintings with whimsical titles, though of course 3 weeks later i can't remember the titles. anyway, interesting venue for an opening...at a hair salon. and it wasn't just a one-night gig, the works are up through july.

hey i am just a city boy, and really not the country kind

This NY Times story on downtown development in Miami caught my eye because, well, I lived in Miami for a few years and I love cities. Though I'm not an urban development specialist, nor do I play one on tv, I have some considered opinions on the subject because I've lived in urban areas pretty much all of my adult life (didn't have much choice about the suburban location of my youth) and when I travel I prefer to stay in cities and wander around.

A few things about the story, which focuses on the furious development of the downtown core and stretching north up Biscayne Boulevard...

Anchoring this effort is the immense Miami Performing Arts Center, due to open in October, which includes a 2,200-seat concert hall and a 2,400-seat opera house.

"Cities like Manhattan, Boston, San Francisco — these are the examples we are using to move our downtown forward," said Johnny L. Winton, a member of the City Commission, adding that some 90,000 housing units were in various stages of construction citywide.

Of course, this being Miami, development is not exactly, uh, well regulated or planned.

But many residents, environmentalists and even developers believe that the growth has been too rapid and undisciplined to support an influx of new residents. They say that buildings are going up without adequate mass transit, parking and water systems or a workable street grid.

{...} So far, the condo development has not been accompanied by a comparable spurt in support services, like restaurants, grocery stores and dry cleaners.

"Big is not better — I don't know if it's even logical, having that density," said Michael Y. Cannon, a Miami real estate analyst. "You can't just build on every square inch of land."

Nancy Liebman, president of the Urban Environment League of Greater Miami, which argues for the preservation and enhancement of public space, agreed. "If we're going to be left with a bunch of empty condominiums, I don't think it will bode well for the future of that area," Ms. Liebman said.

Wait, overdevelopment and empty condos? How can that be? Oh, right...

Many of the condominiums under construction are expected to be bought up by foreigners as investments or second homes in the sun.

The major problem with the number of units that are planned and those that have been built in the last 5 years (South Beach, especially south of 5th street has seen a number of high rises come up) is that so many do go to investors, snowbirds and people from Central & South America who realize that US real estate is a safer haven than their local banks that might get nationalized or in local currency which might be severely devalued overnight.

The end result is twofold -- local investors flip the properties right away, driving up already high base prices, making the units not really affordable to young and/or middle-income professionals. Also, absentee owners who don't rent their units don't really add much to downtown life...they aren't there.

Why the worry about young and middle-income professionals? Because they are the core of urban development...they buy or rent their first home in cities because they want an urban lifestyle. They go out to eat, to bars, to clubs, to coffeeshops. They buy food and clothes in the neighborhood. Exclude them and you also exclude variety...if all you have are a bunch of very-high-income bankers and lawyers you don't have much of a heterogeneous population...it's mainly upper 30s and 40s+, maybe with families but also demanding more upscale and expensive establishments. To wit...

Others say the development is squeezing out the residents of surrounding neighborhoods, like Overtown, Miami's historic black area, with little concern for including low-cost housing. "The development that's happening is gentrifying the current residents right out of the neighborhood,"said Denise Perry, director of the Power U Center for social change, a local nonprofit advocacy organization. "These buildings are being built for a richer, whiter class of people."

I'd take a bit of issue with the "whiter" comment, since Miami has a fairly sizeable educated and professional Latin community (though I guess they generally are paler than the mainly Black residents of Overtown).

Anyway, the point is that vibrant urban areas need a mix of people...young, old, rich, middle and lower income...this is what makes the urban experience. To cater only to a very wealthy and thus economically homogeneous group of people, well, you might as well be building an ersatz urban theme park with a $350K entrance fee.

you don't seem to grasp your own importance

random assortment...

it's almost getting impossible to summon up any more outrage, disgust, and amazement at what's going on in iraq, what's coming from congress and what's being said in the white house press room. in fact, tony snow is on a hot streak of idiocy.

but never mind that...

to those of us who've lived in miami, this is no shock...overly aggressive drivers? cutting people off? tailgating? no signaling turns? describes miami driving perfectly. every day is like a nascar event there, even on city streets, never mind the highways. there's very little police enforcement except maybe once or twice a year, and usually then only as part of the click it or ticket campaigns. yes, miami has to be the worst city in america in which to drive. and i've driven in boston and new york.

but let's end on a (sort of, given everything) positive note

too bad, but the concretes have cancelled a bunch of dates, including their show scheduled for this coming saturday at great american. good thing i'm resourceful...other options that night include this promising show at the rickshaw stop, the writers with drinks night at the make out room, the spam all stars (speaking of miami) at the elbo room. and wow, no shit? new edition at the paramount. ok, i have no intention of going to that show, but geez, they're back? who knew? looks like the best way to start the evening is the amoeba in-store show featuring jason lytle of grandaddy.

and finally? listen to this voxtrot cover of comet gain's "you can hide your love forever". your ears will be glad you did.

hint...the voxtrot vault has tons of good stuff. bookmark the link.

woof!

from a now expired craiglist post advertising an apartment for rent...

"No large dogs. My definition of 'large' is anything big enough to injure me."

i hate myself for loving you

speaking of guilty pleasures, let's talk about the pipettes, three charming girls from the u.k. who are essentially an unabashed homage to 60's motown/brit-pop/girl-group goodness.

obscure sound has a couple of mp3s up, and like flies on sherbert links to a few acoustic numbers via skatterbrain.

you'll tap your toes, you'll wanna clap your hands (and say yeah), and you'll sing along. and then you'll feel all guilty about it because it's so crassly pop and borderline gimmicky. but then you'll hit the repeat button, or if you're on their myspace page you'll keep playing the tracks over and over.

it may be ear candy, may not have much staying power beyond this month, but damn it's fun. and it's done with such conviction you can't help but dig it.

it's exactly what we need to take our minds of off this. or, um, this.

so yeah...the pipettes. go. listen. now. you'll still love me in the morning.

everything in its right place

** update and bumped...

from the radiohead fan site, greenplastic radiohead...

It was reported earlier that San Francisco radio station LIVE 105 (who coincidentally is often credited for breaking Radiohead in the United States by airing the "Creep" import first in 1992) announced that Radiohead would be performing two shows at Berkeley's Greek Theatre in June. LIVE 105 has responded to this by saying, "No, we did not. Nothing is official."

While it is most likely true that Radiohead will be performing two dates in Berkeley, we are still waiting confirmation.

that alone will make june a great month.

**update...

grrr....the show has been scheduled for june 23, and i'll be away. of course, i'll be in fes, morocco that evening, so it's not like i should be complaining too much. and i've seen radiohead before. still...i'm going to miss this show, calexico at the fillmore, band of horses at the independent and tapes & tapes at cafe dunord.

still, between the trip, the move, and other things, june won't be all that bad, missed shows notwithstanding.

breaking news...snow falls in hell...

...and i agee with krauthammer. normally i like to poke fun at him. in fact, the only reason i read him from time to time is if i'm bored and need to get my juices flowing by seeing which narrow-minded conservative colunist i can poke holes in.

no, really. i find myself in the odd position of reading today's krauthammer piece and thinking "yeah, exactly".

he writes about the zacarias moussaoui verdict, and how it was a good thing that it ended up as life in prison and not death. and all the reasons uncle chuckie lists -- that the death penalty should hardly ever (if ever) be used (though i'm pretty much totally anti-death penalty); that if used it should be only in special cases (eichmann, hussein); and for sins of comission, not omission (moussaoui was guilty of conspiracy in 9/11, more than anything for not informing authorities about 9/11, though it's debatable how much he really knew); and not for closure for the families of the victims (the aggreived party in any murder case is society at large...justice cannot be personal, then it's revenge) -- i agree with him. i even agree with his reasoning that the jury was a bit off in how they came to the decision, even if it was the correct decision (they found moussaoui's childhood traumas as mitigating circumstance...which if used as precedent would be problematic for the justice system).

anyway, yeah. whodathunkit?

related is the story in the post about the deliberations. it sounds not unlike the basic plot for the film 12 angry men. which if you see it, make sure it's the original version. henry fonda is fantastic.

somebody took the papers, and somebody's got the key

maybe this is a harbinger or maybe it's just two blips on the local literary radar, but it's a shame nonetheless that cody's will close their flagship store in berkeley, and that a clean well-lighted place for books is up for sale.

while there are a bunch of independent bookstores in the area, when two of the more well-known and loved stores can't keep going on the way they'd like, citing on-line and chain bookstores as the big reasons for declining sales, well, you have to wonder. the owner of a clean well-lighted place is apparently opening up a smaller store elsewhere in the city.

there's lots to say here about chains, media consolidation and flow of information, and because a) i need to get back to work and b) i'd need to think those thoughts through a bit before posting now's not the time to get into it. but i'll note that art and the business of distributing art has a remarkable way of reacting to crises of inspiration and consolidation. activist artists initiate new movements, c.f. impressionism, punk rock...and aided by production and technological advancement they find ways to get their work out via non-establishment channels, c.f. the success of the indie music distributors during the last 10-15 years, especially now in the age of the mp3 blogs and on-line retailers that specialize in indie labels. (a quick plug for parasol...great customer service and good prices during first weeks of release). the internet is a major democratizing force in all of this, so the bubbling net neutrality issue is worth keeping an eye on (and taking action on...call your rep and senator) wrt how art and information flow.

to bring it back to the bookstore closings, i'll note that there are more used bookstores along a few blocks of mission than i noticed in all of miami (lived there for 4 years). there are more venues for readings and more events than i recall seeing in the years i lived in philadelphia (which is a fairly well-educated and literate city). so this area will hopefully always continue to be at the vanguard of what it means to maintain a vibrant lit scene. but the closing of these indie stores is still worth mentioning...though hopefully they won't be the first of a wave of closings.

not just another mouth, in the lipstick vogue

for pure brain-dead entertainment where you get to laugh at stupid, vain, self-absorbed and venal people you can't do much better (worse?) than mtv's "reality" show 8th and ocean.

showcasing a bunch of early-career models working the south beach scene, it's the ultimate in guilty pleasure tv.

see sibling rivalry where one twin deliberately doesn't tell her sister about a casting call that the two of them should be on, and then lies to her sister about "forgetting" when the video is proof that she hung up her cell phone after hearing from the agency booker and didn't say a word. of course, she's blonde and a model so maybe she did forget between the time she closed her flip phone and turned to her sister standing a foot away.

see the agency owner whose face is full of botox and has had a lift or four.

see talesha bitch out tracie because tracie got made that talesha changed plans at the last minute. see, it's tracie's fault for not confirming plans, not talesha's for just deciding she didn't want to go and not telling her roommate.

it has extra appeal for me as i spent a few years living on south beach, and it's cool to see some of my favorite sights. it's also funny to see on video exactly the type of people that make me glad i don't live in sofla anymore.

but yeah, wow...as guilty pleasure it's tops right now.

I met myself in a dream, and I just want to tell you

hmm...so last night i dreamt that i had a separated shoulder. it wasn't terribly injured, just noticable enough. i remember being in a kind of denial that it was actually impaired, but when i'd try to move it i couldn't. it was pretty vivid.

from the dream interpretation sites i've looked at, shoulders tend to represent strengths or burdens, either that you have too many or it's a reflection of your ability to care and nurture others. injury and impairment could mean anything from an unconscious need to heal old wounds and hurts, or it could be anxiety and insecurity. that it was the right side is associated with your outgoing nature.

what to make of it all? i have no idea. it's just a new dream for me. stress and anxiety have produced the usual heavy legs/running in quicksand/chase dreams. i've never to my recollection had a dream where a body part was actually injured or impaired like this.

i'd like to remember more of what i dream. supposedly getting into the habit of keeping a dream diary helps you to remember more of what you dream and in greater detail. just great...that means another habit i'd need to form.

now, i dive black waters

sadly, grant mclennan, co-founder of the go-betweens, died over the weekend in australia. he was only 48. you can draw a direct link from the go-betweens to bands like death cab and belle and sebastian.

i wanna live where it's always saturday

saturday was another marathon apartment hunting day featuring an 8.5 mile walk. in this city it's clear that to find a decent place you've gotta put in lots of time, both in prepping and in walking around. amazing the shoeboxes that people want to let for $1500.

after a 5+ hour day of that i was able to muster the energy for the essex green show at the rickshaw stop, and i'm glad i did. three excellent bands all trading in major melodic currency. i'm enough of a melody slut that all a band needs to to is put out a hummable melody with some decent words and i'm theirs.

east bay's seiko and salome are a good, fun pop band. mario hernandez's high tenor doesn't sound like it should be coming from him, but it works and the songs are the right mix of indie and pop. as expected, irving were fantastic. you don't mind the totally pilfered 60s/70s fuzzpop thing because they write some excellent songs and look like they're having a blast playing them. songs can be heard on their myspace page. essex green were very good as well, though couldn't match the live intensity of irving. still, the greens write some very clever and melodic songs and they play them well. plus, they use a flute now and then.

oh, some mp3s of irving's on-air set at kexp can be found here for a while...

i hadn't been to the rickshaw stop yet, and it's a great place to see bands. good sound, the red velvet on the walls gives the place some warmth, the staff are friendly. the best thing are the rickshaws, which if you get there early and can snag one, are a great place to sit for a while as the bands get ready to play.

here comes a regular

NEW 'MATS!!!

ok, maybe that's a bit of over-excitement and maybe bob stinson's dead and maybe slim dunlap doesn't play guitar on it and maybe chris mars doesn't play drums on it (though he did sing back-up) but a new replacements song! just heard it on kexp, and well, as described in the rhino press release for the new best of compilation it does sound like it could have come off of pleased to meet me. doesn't approach things like "left of the dial" or "bastards of young", but it's not bad from first listen.

a song sample is available here. or go the kexp archives and enter may 4, 5:04pm as your search criteria. it'll be up for 14 days, though i'm sure they'll play the song once a day (for {i think} copyright reasons they can't have a song-title search feature).

we got ideas from some dangerous thinkers, we put our mouths up to some dangerous drinks.

saturday and monday are shaping up to be entertaining...some excellent music saturday from essex green and irving and some good lit for a good cause monday at the progressive reading night at the make out room.

essex green mp3 here and more songs here.

have i mentioned how much i love living here? now that rainy season's passed and it's sunny and nice...there's good music, good culture, good food, good weather...should have moved here years ago.

what's the world got in store for you

ever wonder what your travel footprint looks like? thanks to douwe osinga you can make a map of the u.s. states and countries around the world that you've visited.

in the city there's a thousand things i wanna say to you

porchlight was a good time. huge crowd, good stories. ted brinkley's small jazz argosy provided a musical score for two film segments, the first a 5 minute or so short of turn-of-the-century san francisco, shot from a cable car as it wends its way along market towards the ferry building. i'm sure with a little research i can locate the title and more details, but well, i should get to doing the work for which i'm paid. the second piece was a montage of clips from hollywood features filmed in sf, including dirty harry, the presidio, 48 hrs, vertigo and it came from beneath the sea.

stories included tony dingman's recounting of his being hired to be nicolas cage's drinking coach on leaving las vegas, tara jepsen's tale of trying to get an indie script produced, and adrian belic relaying his caper about trying to cross from afghanistan into tajikistan as a stowaway aboard a container ship, just as the fall 2001 us-northern alliance military operations were at full pace. jeannie epper provided the most "hollywood insider" moment of the night...the first line of her bio reads that she did the stunts for lynda carter on wonder woman, and you really can't get much cooler of a bio-line than that.

the highlight though, was cathy begien's emotional retelling of how her mother came to not just accept but to embrace the fact that her daughter was not going to pursue a traditional career, but would instead be an artist. her closing move was to offer up a toast to the room, the spirit of the toast being to follow your heart.

the soundtrack for the ride in and out of the city was the detroit cobras' latest baby, one of those "been out for a while but i'm just getting to it now" records. a fun update of old and obscure stax-volt, soul and motown songs, mucked up with dirty guitars. check out "i wanna holler (but the town's too small)".