Feel Good Friday: Cesaria Evora

For the last several years, my three favorite older musicians were R.L. Burnside, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Cesaria Evora. Interestingly, they all shared the fact that as talented as they are, they never enjoyed any recognition or acclaim until later in life, which is a great lesson to us all about never giving up but more importantly find something you love and doing it because you love it, not as an attempt to get rich or famous {yeah I'm talking to you 80% of commercial pop artists today}.

Sadly only Cesaria is still with us today. I was fortunate enough to see Ibrahim Ferrer in concert in Atlanta in 2003, and what an amazing experience to see a 75 year old man singing and dancing his ass off with the joy of a playful child{or course, sitting in the 2nd row in the center sure helped}. Sadly, I never did get to see R.L. in concert before he passed away in 2005. That leaves Cesaria, her mesmerizing voice and wonderful band, all of which I have long hoped to see in concert one day. Well that day is going to be this Sunday evening, when I cruise down to Mountain Winery on Saratoga to see her in concert at an incredible outdoor venue that sits in the middle of a winery on top of a mountain overlooking San Jose. I'm very excited to see the "barefoot diva" perform in person and without shoes, and as such Feel Good Friday today is all about Cesaria.

She is in her 7th decade and hails from the Cape Verde Islands; She sings in Portugese, Spanish, and French, and her voice is flat out mesmerizing, which in and of itself is incredible considering that she smokes like a chimney and drinks whiskey. Her self titled album Cesaria {1995} as well as Cafe Atlantico {1997} were nominated for the Grammy for best World Music album, which she finally won in 2004 for Voz d'Amor.

I love listening to her music when I am driving along or near the ocean, for some reason it makes me think that I am in the Mediterranean, driving the winding roads along the Amalfi coast in Italy or getting ready for an afternoon of wine, feta, and olives at a roadside cafe in Greece overlooking the sea.

So here's four Cesaria tunes to get you in the a properly tranquilo for the weekend. Enjoy.

Sangue Berona


Petit Pays


Amor di Mundo


Sodade

Happy weekend or Feliz fin de semana, whatever your persuasion. And apologies for the back to back international versions- I promise next week will be in English.

Feel Good Friday: Manu Chao En Vivo

So last weekend when I was in the National Parks I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things, and one very minor thing that I decided was the need to start combining my love of music and my love of work weeks coming to an end, and start a new segment called "Feel Good Friday". It was a stream of consciousness thing, as I was driving through Sequoia and "Mellow Mood" by Slightly Stoopid/G. Love came on, which made me think that I posted it a few weeks ago on a Friday to get into weekend/tranquilo mode, which then made me think that I would like to do that every week. And with 35 gb and counting on my 80 gb iPod, coming up with a feel good song or two each week should be cake.

And since I went to see Manu Chao in concert on Wednesday night, which was absolutely awesome by the way, and he is the modern day Bob Marley of socially conscious international feel good music, I figured we would start with him, especially since someone who got much closer to the stage than I did posted vids of the very concert I was at on YouTube. So here's Clandestino, Desaparecido, and El Viento from the other night; dude on the spanish guitar is a total badass. The only minor downer was that the sound effect from the video game Galaga that happens when the enemy fighters bomb you, that he uses on a whole bunch of his tunes, didn't make it into the live show, but it was still outstanding without the early 80s classic video game sweetness.

So get your hands on one or more of the albums Clandestino, Proxima Estacion: Esperanza, and Radio Bemba Sound System, and if he comes to a town near you definitely go check it out. Extremely high energy, great musica, and a great time.

Enjoy, happy weekend, or in this case, feliz fin de semana.


Clandestino


Desaparecido


El Viento

It's A Triple Celebration, Bitches.

After work today, it's over to the pub across the street to meet up with los amigos del Kanu. "Porque" you ask?

1) To celebrate via consumption of beer that I do not have herpes. A friend of mine has challenged me to stand up in the bar and pronounce loudly to the entire establishment at the top of my voice "I don't have herpes!!!" Not sure about that one, but you never know when alcohol is involved.

2) To celebrate the birthday of my good mate John John, who as of today has managed to accomplish what Jesus of Nazareth and Alexander The Great each failed to do: live to see their 34th birthday. Happy Birthday and congrats John John.

3) From the pub I'm walking over to the Bill Graham Civic Center to see Manu Chao in concert. I am very jacked about this because I really dig him and his music, and am also excited to check out this supposedly cool venue for the first time. Dude sings in Spanish, French, English, Arabic, and Portugese, has a cool ass voice, a great high energy vibe, and a Bob Marley/Che Guevara esque power to the people, anti establishment message.

Here's a taste for Manu Chao noobs:


Desaparecido


Mr. Bobby

Shit, this will get me through to Thursday. Short work weeks absolutely rule.

Sequoia Nat'l Park/Kings Canyon Nat'l Park trip recaps tomorrow. Hopefully...

Happy Weekend, Mellow Mood Edition

If your week has been as crazy as mine, then kick back, watch the ocean, and chill to one of my very favorite songs on planet Earth, "Mellow Mood" by Slightly Stoopid featuring G. Love.


"When all your money's gone, where will you be?
If your love is strong, that's all you need"

There, don't you feel better? I know I do. Additionally, I am extremely stoked that I have purchased my tickets for the Summer Haze Tour on August 11, 2007 at the Greek theater in Bezerkeley, where Slightly Stoopid, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Ozomatli will all perform in the same show- should be absolutely epic. I'm looking forward to hopefully hearing this tune, as I have seen both bands multiple times and they have never played it, but you have to think that playing on the same bill they will play it together. Can't wait.

Summer Haze tour info and complete list of tour dates here. If they come to your town, I cannot recommend it enough- all 3 bands are outstanding and put on really high energy shows- together they should be off-the-charts good.

So happy chillout, and happy weekend.

Slightly Drunk, Slightly Baked, Slightly Stoopid.

So Wednesday night I went up to Petaluma, a sleepy town about 45 minutes north of SF, to watch one of my favorite bands, Slightly Stoopid, play at a little joint called the Mystic Theatre. One of the ironies of my liking them so much is that they are a SoCal stoner/surfer band , and I am not a surfer or a stoner. They are very similar to Sublime, although I think they are even better, and they have the added benefit over Sublime of all being still alive. There are not many bands that I would drive so far to see on a weeknight, but they are certainly one. If these dudes come to your town, and you dig Sublime, Long Beach Dub All Stars, G. Love or even Jack Johnson, then go check them out.



The theater was very cool, and old single room movie house that has been converted into a concert venue- pretty intimate. We got there in time to catch the 2nd of the two opening bands, some group called The Wylde Bunch, who were actually very good. They were what would result if Ozomatli and Outkast had a love child of a band: 2 rappers, 2 guitars, a drummer, and a 3 piece horn set, highlighted by a tall woman in a miniskirt playing the shit out of the trumpet. Pretty good stuff actually, and they finished off by back to back versions of "Boyz In Tha Hood" by Eazy-E followed by "Sweet Dreams" by Annie Lennox, and amazingly it worked.

As the intermission wound down I was starting to feel pretty good as I finished my 2nd 22 oz beer and all of the high school and college stoners started to flavor the air around us. Then the boys came on stage, and damn if the saxaphone player wasn't rocking a blue #10 Zizou France jersey- I was so fired up that they could have walked out and announced that the show was canceled and that would have been just fine.


Even if your band completely sucks,
I will be predisposed to like you if
someone in it walks onstage wearing this shirt

They proceeded to absolutely knock it out of the park for 2 hours and send me home a happy, albeit slightly stoned from secondhand smoke, man. I don't really care that I am one of 7 people in the building over 30 or 1 of 7 who isn't blazing up- the music is outstanding and takes me to a happy place. Miles and Kyle both sing, and both play guitar as well as bass, and they switch often during the show. There is a drummer as well as a dude who plays bongos. The addition of a kick ass trumpeter as well as Zizou on sax was outstanding- I can only hope that they will both feature prominently on the new album that will be coming out this summer.

As excited as I was about the show, I was even more excited at the announcement over the weekend of the upcoming "Summer Haze" tour, featuring full sets from G. Love & Special Sauce, Slightly Stoopid, and Ozomatli together in one show. Holy shit- that is 2 of my absolute favorite bands and a third that I like that absolutely rocks their live shows. Oh, and it just so happens that on Saturday Aug 11 they are playing at The Greek Theater in Bezerkely, one of the coolest concert venues there is. Pretty much a dream show for yours truly- the only way it could be better is if Arsene Wenger spoke between sets and PV4 and Kanu had a kickabout up on the lawn above the seats. So don't even think about getting married that day if you want me to be there.

Weekend Review: All Over The Place Edition

Both G. Love shows were outstanding. Many bands are disappointing in concert as compared to their records, but this one is better - high energy show, dude is simply a great performer. The man-crush continues...

Kanu scores but it's not enough: Portsmouth are dumped out of the FA Cup by ManUtd (and a really great & cheeky 2nd goal from blockhead Rooneh).

Kanu scores but it's not enough: Red Stripes 2-3 Sex Pistols. Having only 1 sub definitely hurt us, as well as several of us, myself included, being severely hung over.


"Show me the way, to the next whisky bar..."

Thursday night drinks and then drinking & staying out until 3 a.m. both Friday and Saturday night is no way to prepare to play footy - I am truly amazed that Tony Adams was able to pull it off so well for so many years.


Don't know how the hell you did it, Big Tone,
but I'm sure glad you stopped.

Arsenal-Bolton FA Cup 4th round: rinse and repeat. Except this time it will be Bolton-Arsenal (oop Norf). A truly horrible game to watch, at least the first half. The second half was average. I am glad that the Mad Dog replayed it at 2 p.m., because I realized about 2 a.m. the night prior that there was no way in hell that I was making it up at 7 a.m. to catch it live at 8 at the pub. It was still very difficult to stay awake during the first half even at 2 in the afternoon.

After 30 minutes you had the feeling that the game had 1-nil written all over it; at the end of the half when Henry went for the career highlight reel cheeky backheel that didn't come off- it was cleared off the line (instead of turning and trying to blast into the net with his right foot), which was Arsenal's only real chance to that point, you had the feeling that it was going to be 1-nil for Bolton, Arsenal's bogey side. And shortly after the half 1-nil to Bolton it was. After only beating Bolton in 1 of these teams' last 7 meetings, and losing away to them last year and this year in the Prem, not to mention being dumped out of last year's FA Cup by them as well, I'm thinking at this point that perhaps Bolton:Arsenal is the new Florida football:Georgia football. Soon after Arsenal started asking all the questions as they say, and it finally paid off on 78 minutes in the form of a Kolo Toure diving header at the back post from a Cesc free kick and a Gary Speed deflection. By no means pretty, but it did the trick and saved them from being dumped out of the cup early for the 2nd year in a row, which would be embarrassing for a team that has played in 4 of the last 6 FA Cup finals. As Myles astutely noted, "Bolton scored an Arsenal goal and Arsenal equalised with a jammy Bolton goal."

So the 1-1 draw means a replay in 2 weeks, this time at Bolton's ground, where the Bolton hoodoo over Arsenal is much much more powerful. Hopefully the lads can have a Cerrano from Major League moment in the Reebok Stadium dressing room: "Fuck you Jobu, I do it myself!' The winner gets a home date in 5th round (round of 16) against Blackburn.

They were also showing Sampdoria-Inter and I saw Materrazzi get headbutted again, this time in the face {insert bad joke, clever remark, or witty snark here}.

On another TV was T Woods winning the Buick Open in San Diego. That is 7 wins in a row on the PGA Tour, giving him the 2nd longest streak ever. He also owns the 3rd longest streak ever when he won 6 in a row a few years back. Byron Nelson famously won 11 straight tournaments in 1945, which has always been seen as absolutely untouchable, akin to Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak in baseball. Hell, before Woods came along the 2nd longest streak was 5 in a row by Ben Hogan. Tiger can't possibly win his next 4 to match Lord Byron, can he?

And finally, from the Department Of Truly Epic:
I woke up this morning and read King Kaufman tell about the River Plate supporting tattoo artist who did a back tatt of the Boca Juniors logo for a Boca supporter. Except that he tatted a penis on dude's back instead. No, really. Swindle's all over it too. The next time an overenthusiastic yuppie tells you that UNC-Dook basketball is the most intense rivalry in all of sports, kindly tell him to fuck off and point him in the directions of any one of those links. The dude is suing the tatt artist, which made me think of something interesting: damn near everyone in Argentina is either Boca or River, and to say that they are passionate about it is a bit of an understatement. So dude will obviously be found guilty, which makes me think that the most important part of the case will be the judge who gets assigned to it. A River-fan judge will likely just give him a fine or make dude pay to have the tatt removed or whatever, but if dude draws a Boca fan he might be in big trouble: Boca-fan judge may go all Judge Joe Brown on his ass and make the River guy get a tatt of his own: not of a giant penis, but of a giant Boca logo on his back. And trust me, to the River fan, that would be 1,000 times worse.



Try explaining this tatt on your back
to your longtime buddies in the season
ticket holder section of El Monumental.

Weekend Preview: Capt. D G Love Comin', Capt. D G Love Comin'...

I doubt he'll play a cover of Scarred by Uncle Luke, but you never know - he is a hip hop head, he often blends Can I Kick It? by Tribe into one of his tunes, and he finished last summer's show with a cover of Snoop's Gin & Juice...

Tonight: G. Love & Special Sauce at the Warfield

Tomorrow night: G. Love & Special Sauce at the Warfield


Going to both shows: hell to the yeah

Sunday: Meatloaf at Emirates Stadium a.k.a FA Cup 4th Round: Arsenal-Bolton


We will beat Meat Loaf Big Sam this time.

Sunday: FC Red Stripes v. Sex Pistols

All that and apparently a bunch of rain. Bollocks, that.

Happy Weekend, I hope you have a great one whatever you get into.

Ridiculously Late Weekend Review

Saturday morning Arsenal beat the shite out of little sister Spurs 3-0. Another great performance without TH14 (beat Hamburg away in CL, beat ManUtd at Old Trafford, now this), who either has an injured neck, has has some sort of bust up & falling out with Arsene Wenger, or both - depending on whom you care to believe.

Later Saturday morning I walked downtown, jumped on BART, and headed over to Berkeley to take in my first Cal football game, which just happened to be the 109th Big Game. I met up with A10 and his crew for breakfast, and right away it was apparent that although there was a game day buzz in the air, we weren't in the deep South: the TV in the restaurant was tuned to one of the early games CSPAN2, where a dude was discussing his book on the socio-politics of Western Civilization in the 20th century. Awesome.

Quick breakfast and then over to a really cool bar called The Bear's Lair for pregame festivities. A few beers and then we walked up to the stadium. Unfortuantely we didn't see the people who climbed up the trees to protest their imminent destruction in the name of the soon-to-be stadium expansion. Berkeley-tastic. We made it to our seats, which were in the equivalent of the UGA student section, situationally that is. Memorial stadium is one giant bowl, no lower/upper levels, and I don't think that I had ever been in such a stadium before - I must say it was pretty cool, and the sightlines were very, very good from our seats that were 42 rows up. The seats were all deliciously old-school wooden benches, similar to what Orson Swindle described in his trip to Notre Dame earlier this year. Another interesting thing is that the students are given the most prime real estate - between the 40 yard lines on the sunny side of the stadium. Interesting, I don't think I have ever seen that at a football stadium. The students also pass people all the way up to the top of the stands after Cal scores, which looks pretty cool.

A beautiful 65 degree sunny day made it a really pleasant, and it turned out to be a much better game than expected. Cal were 29 point favorites, and although the game was against their big rival they clearly were still hungover from the back to back late season losses to Zona & SC, so they basically sleepwalked through the game while Stanford played way over their heads. In the end it wasn't enough, and Cal won by 9. We walked back down to town, ate some Indian food, and then watched SC shockingly lose to the baby bears at a pub. Walked back to BART, made my way home, and watched the 2nd half of Arkansas-Florida. Sorry no pics- I left the camera at home thinking A10 would have his, and he did the same. Next time.

Saturday night I went to see Ozomatli at the Fillmore. Fucking awesome: if they ever come to your town, go. Hard to describe, but basically a fusion of latin, funk, salsa, hip hop. Great music, and they certainly lived up to their legend of putting on an amazing show. High energy, very interactive- at the end they brought their instruments out onto the floor and played in the middle of the audience, then did conga lines through the audience for a while. Great stuff. The opening band rocked as well - a Brasilian samba band called I think Samba Da. And The Fillmore lived up to its legend as well - if you are ever in SF and have a chance to check out a show there, definitely do. I'm pissed at myself that it took me a year and a half to finally catch a show there.

Sunday morning FC Red Stripes wrapped up the regular season with a 2-0 win: Kanu even managed not to miss this time and finished off a nice team goal (with his left foot even), then celebrated at a Cuban cafe with a grilled chicken and plantain sandwich. Playoffs start this week, and Red Stripes are seeded #2 out of 16 teams, behind only Boutros Boutros Goalie.

The Amazing Race went to Barcelona, which reminded me that I still have not written up my trip there in March (not to mention Argentina in September). I need to get that shit sorted out soon. It is supposed to rain all weekend so perhaps I can finally knock it out.

A Rivalry Weekend of Sorts

Tomorrow morning Arsenal's local rivals Tottenham visit Emirates stadium for the first time in this season's first renewal of the North London Derby. As bad as losing to Fulham was on Wednesday, losing to Spurs would be 100 times worse. (the UGA paralell would be: as bad as losing to Vandy was, losing to Tech would be 100 times worse).

My stupid ass will be getting up at the butt crack of dawn and going to The Mad Dog In The Fog pub in the Haight to watch the match live at 4.45 a.m., which confirms that I am either dedicated or completely insane. Or both. (and Myles thought being in the US and watching Arsenal at the 'early' hour of 10 a.m. was tough? Hell, 10 a.m. is cake- 9 a.m. is about as good as it gets for a weekend match in PST dude, usually it is 7 and occasionally 4 or 5).

Then it's over to Bezerkeley to take in my first Cal football game at California Memorial Stadium with my buddy A10 and his mates. And not just any game, but rather The Big Game as it is known where Cal will absolutely destroy their rival Stanford and keep possession of The Stanford Axe (pretty interesting background story as rival trophies are concerned) for another season.


Barring a miracle or a rash of food poisoning,
The Stanford Axe will stay in Berkeley at least another year

Might check out the Ozomatli show at the famous Fillmore on Saturday night, then the FC Red Stripes regular season finale on Sunday morning and perhaps a little golf on Sunday afternoon if the weather is nice.

Not a bad little weekend. I hope you have a great one yourself.

Go Hogs, and Wake too.

Weekend Roundup

Friday night I went and saw Once In A Lifetime, the documentary movie about the rise and fall of the New York Cosmos and the brief moment in the sun that soccer enjoyed in the US in the late 70s. The movie is excellent and well made, which I wasn't sure that it would be as the opening credits rolled and I realized that 1) ESPN was involved and 2) the movie was narrated by Matt Dillon. But it turned out to be well worth it. Pretty trippy to see the footage of Giants stadium sold out with 80,000 to watch a domestic league soccer match. And amazing that they paid Pele $1 million a year to come play for the Cosmos at a time when the highest paid baseball player, Hank Aaron, was making $200,000 a year. I found out yesterday that they are showing the movie on ESPN on September 20 - I recommend that you check it out if you live in a town with indie/Landmark-ish movie theater or catch it on TV next month - very good stuff.


Never saw him play, but apparently he was pretty good.

Unfortunately I didn't make it to see Ricky Bobby, but that will be remedied soon enough.

Floyd Landis' B sample came back just like his A sample, which was kind of a no brainer since they are the same urine sample placed into two different vials/bottles/jugs/whatever. The only way I can imagine that an A & B sample would ever not come out the same is if an error occurred in the testing procedure, like Kramer's makeout with the scientist screwed up Mayor Dinkins' cholesterol workup. They added this time that the testosterone was not natural to the body but came from an outside source. Either way, dude has been fired by his team, Phonak (who were already getting out of the sponsorship game entirely anyways because prior doping by their team members, most notably former lead rider Tyler Hamilton- the team will become iShares team next year). He will likely be stripped of his TDF title, which will be awarded to Oscar Periero who came in 2nd. But first will be an appeal process in front of some court.

On the one hand , the whole thing seems to weird too be believeable. Dude was tested I think 6 other times during the tour, both before and after that day, and came clean. The merits of using testosterone one time are being debated in the medical community, it just doesn't seem to make sense, but there currently are no other solid explanations for how it could have gotten into his system. I suppose all it would take is a spiked water bottle or two to do it, but that is impossible to prove definitively.

On the other hand, the fact that the failed test happend on the tail end of the most insane, superhuman breakaway performance anyone has ever seen is circumstantially tough for Floyd. Either way, it sounds like it will be a long, drawn out affair.

One interesting sidenote to all the doping allegations and suspensions this year that no one is talking about is this: can people please get off of Lance's nuts nut about him allegedly doping now? Dude was the most tested athlete on planet earth for 7 years, those tests were administered completely at random, anytime/anywhere, and he never failed a single test. Not once. With all the riders being suspended before the TDF this year and now these allegations against Floyd, those whispering (and screeaming) "dopee" towards Lance seem to have even less of a case than ever.

Invasor won the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga on Saturday in very impressive fashion, first dueling with Flower Alley and putting him away, then digging in to fight off the late run by Sun King. Very, very impressive by Invasor, in a completely different way than Bernardini's win the week before where he casually romped. This was tough and gritty, and with 4 wins in a row Invasor is on a roll. Flower Alley disappointed after being put away by Invasor- he only had one race this year so perhaps this race was just to get the rust off and he will be better next time out. Also, Bluegrass Cat romped in the Haskell and will likely go to the Travers to challenge Bernardini. Lava Man runs next in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on August 20, and then the Travers Stakes goes down on August 26.


Invasor on the rail holds off Sun King.

Sunday I went to the Stern Grove festival to catch a free concert by Spanish Harlem Orchestra. The venue is cool, an outdoor amphitheater in a redwood grove, and the music was hoppin' - salsa, latin jazz, etc. They are very similar to Buena Vista Social Club only in their 40s. The coolest part was that of the few thousand in the crowd, almost half were dancing salsa in the crowd, shaking their shit and having a great time. Very fun.

Finally, G Love & Special Sauce straight-up rocked on Sunday night at the Mountian Winery down near San Jose. Another really cool venue, an outdoor amphitheater in a winery on top of a mountain with views overlooking San Jose and the South Bay. And the show was great. The man himself seemed to like it as well: "Last night was dope also; I played at one of the most beautiful venues I've ever been to--the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA. Its way up in the hills above San Jose. What a view." He also did his funny ass Crazy Legs Hirsch thing when he plays guitar sitting in a chair - hard to explain but funny as hell. Happy to hear Rodeo Clowns, didn't get that last time, and the cover of Snoop's Gin & Juice at the end was fierce.


Dude fucking rocks.

I would venture to say that 80-90% of bands are not as good in concert as they are in the studio, so when you go see them you are disappointed or not all that impressed. These guys are not in that majority - they are outstanding in concert.

Also, Toigah won the Buick Open - his 50th PGA Tour win at age 30. He is only the 7th dude to win 50 PGA Tour events, and becomes the youngest to hit the milestone, by a full three years (Nicklaus was 33). Tiger is now 7th all time in Tour wins, and he may very well be in 5th by the end of the year (Sam Snead 82, Jack Nicklaus 73, Ben Hogan 64, Arnold Palmer 62, Byron Nelson 52, Billy Casper 51). Que ridiculo.


He is pretty good, too.

Oh, and Ralphie is travelling to Athens for the Georgia-Colorado game. How cool is that? Won't be as cool as when she runs out in Boulder and the place goes apeshit, but it will be cool to have (in my opinion) the two best mascots in college football between the hedges on Sept. 23.


Ralphie & UGA on the same field? Sweet.

I was kind of hoping in the back of my head to make it back for that game, but it looks like it is not going to happen. I will defintely be in Boulder in 2010 though, as well as Tempe in 2009. Keep scheduling road games out West, Damon Evans, and make those Oregon and Oregon State games happen as well, s'il vous plait. Merci.

So there it is. I hope y'all had and excellent weekend yourselves.

Poor Man's Ice Cube

I haven't messed around and got a triple double, seen "Kanu's A Pimp" on the Goodyear Blimp, or put any butts to sleep. Yet.


Perhaps it says "Kanu's_ THE Pimp"...

That being said today has been pretty good. No, not because Fidel Castro ceded power over Cuba to his brother.

The day started off pretty solidly when I realized that today is my half-birthday. 32 pernt 5 today, son. Then, while doing a mondo pain in the ass re-org of all of my music files on my work PC, I was able to listen to the Third Eye Blind self-titled CD as well as Lovers Rock by Sade for the 1st time in almost two years. Why is boring and irrelevant, but I must say that I was pretty fired up about it, as I thought that bad memories would have prevented me from enjoying these pretty much forever.


I was in the wilderness,
She was in the music,
In the man's car next to me.

Then at lunch I went over to the Asian Art Musuem and got in for free, since it is gratis on the 1st Tuesday of every month. Not a bad way to spend my lunch hour. Additionally it was sunny, about 70 degrees with a nice seabreeze: one of those perfect days here, that when the rest of the state and country is 100 degrees, helps you rationalize why you pay so much rent to live in the city.

Then I realized that since it's Aug 1, two cool-ass things were dropping today: 1) G. Love & Special Sauce's new CD Lemonade, which I acquired earlier tonight and am listening to now. I recommend that you do the same; it's pretty great. I am going down to Saratoga to see him in concert on Sunday night at some outdoor amphitheater at a winery that is supposed to be tip top; I'm pretty stoked about it. I saw him when he was in town in February and it was one of the best shows I have ever seen in person.


G. Love: naming albums after Tasso since 2006

2) The complete Season 5 DVD of "Dallas". Suh-weet! Hopefully this means that Season 6 will come out for Christmas, at which point we will be pretty close to having the very best years of Dallas before the long, slow decline which occurred after the tragic death of Jim Davis, Bobby's death at the end of season 8, and the stupidity of the "dream season" copout to bring Bobby back from the dead (granted, they painted themselves into a pretty tight corner by showing him die on screen). Next year it will be great to be able to watch these early seasons when the show was simply incredible to help offset the world class shittiness that "Dallas: The Movie" will surely be.


Oh hell to the yeah.

I even managed to work out and do situps. So all that's left is a random phone call from the Republica Deportiva chicas saying that they are in town from Miami and that they want to meetup for drinks. Shit - that means that I need to grow a world class moustache in the next 30 minutes. Ciao.

From The Department of Are You Shitting Me?: North Beach Festival 2006

Just about every weekend during the sumer in SF, a different neighborhood hosts a street or neighborhood festival. There's the Union St. Fair, the Fillmore St. Jazz Festival, the Haight St. Festival, this weekend's upcoming Gay Pride Festival down in the Castro, etc., etc.

Last weekend was the North Beach Festival, which is held in its namesake neighborhood, which is SF's Little Italy. So Saturday I walked over to North Beach to watch the Italy-USA match and soak in the atmosphere and spectacle of it all, and also meet up with the legendary Chris Smith and enjoy the North Beach festival, the people watching, the music, the beautiful sunny day, and later what turned out to be one hell of a weird double date.

After watching the match at two different packed bars, I met up with Chris Smith and his half of the double date, whom I already know (my half arrived later and was blind, figuratively speaking). So we walked around, took in the scene, and grabbed some lunch at a great Italian cafe. The entire North Beach area was packed and straight-up hoppin'. After lunch it was time to drink, so we tried to dip into 3 different bars to start things off but they were all so busy that we literally could not get served. Then we went to the park, where they had live music, food, beverage, and vendor tents. Same problem. So I had the bright idea of crossing street, getting a sixer in the package store, and brown bagging it in the park, as many others seemed to be doing. Took awhile but we finally acquired some beer.


Washington Square: scene of the crime.

As we are crossing the street from the packy back over to the park, a new band's music is blasting through the air, and the song is a really familar old cheese-rock tune from the 80s. Giddy and giggly, we try to remember who it is. Foreigner? Nope. Heart? Nope. Then Chris Smith nails it: Starship. "Wow", we all comment, "I can't believe a band is covering this lame-ass Starship tune", which turns out to be Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now.

We get back to the park, place our beer bottles in our respective brown bags, and it's on. We comment on how bad this song is, and I think I even mentioned my concept of the International Bad Line. No big deal. The song ends, and the next song played is Sarah. Holy shit - why are they playing another Starship song? We are flabbergasted. I say with genuine amazement to Chris Smith and his ladyfriend:

"Dude, this band is covering Starship."

Chris Smith looks me in the eye, serious as hell, and without hesitating, retorts with:

"Dude, this is Starship!"

No fucking way. I don't live in a universe where the possibility exists that Starship are still being paid to play their music in public, be it by individual concert-goers or public festival organizers. A raging debate ensues. I take several long chugs of my brown bag Amstel Light. Sarah ends, the debate continues, and more beer is consumed. The next song is Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight. I am starting to seriously consider Chris Smith's argument. I walk 10 paces to my right, to get a clear look at the stage unobstructed by some trees and a statue (why there is a statue of Ben Franklin in the middle of Washington Square I'll never know). After watching for about 7.2 seconds, reality hits me like that old video of the cannonball smashing the shirtless fat guy in the stomach: HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS IS STARSHIP.

At this point it is still funny, and we all come down with a severe case of the sillies. After chugging another beer, the buzz starts to hit me, and I turn to Chris Smith and state aloud the amazing reality that has suddenly beset me:

"Dude, we are standing in the middle of Washington Square, drinking bottles of beer covered in brown paper bags, listening to Starship."

We laugh and realize that this is simultaneously the greatest place to be in the universe at this very moment, as well as the worst.

Then things take a turn for the worse. With the end of each song, the novelty of this funny cheese turns a bit older and passe, and we are now ready and eager to hear the beginning of their sure-to-be finale song "We Built This City" beause we know that the end will then only be 5 minutes away. Timid hope turns to bitter desperation as three more songs are played. It is ironic and funny that we actually want them to play the song voted by Blender magazine as "the worst song of all time", not because we want to hear it, but because this stopped being funny or amusing 15 minutes and 3 songs ago and we couldn't be more ready for this horrible audio experience to come to an end as soon as possible. What the fuck? Were Kenny Loggins and Dan Folelberg not available? What retard thought it would be a good idea to have Starship play even one song, let alone the now six that we have suffered through? People literally start heading for the exits of the park.


"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now":
Isn't there anything we can do to make you stop now?

The one part that is trying so desperately to hold onto being funny is this: although most of his bandmates have the resigned look of way past it gravy trainers who know in their hearts that they are making minstrels of themselves for an easy buck, the guitar player is just the opposite. Dude is so into it that you can just see in his body languange that he really thinks that they, Starship, are still a badass band that is rocking the faces off of the drunken revelers below. It is amusing and pitifully sad all at once. We either need way more beer, a substantial amount of hard liquor, or to leave altogether.

We hang on for one more song and then it is just too much to take. At this point we are envious of deaf people, and finally we give up and bolt. Just as we are crossing the street and walking away from the park, we hear "We Built This City" echoing through the air and know that the end will soon be near for the poor bastards who stayed and rode it out.

Then it dawns on me as I look at my watch: It's 5.50 p.m., and the official part of the festival in the park runs until 6. Suddenly I realize the genius of the event organizers: they purposely booked Starship and rolled them out last, knowing that it would send many of the drunken festival revelers home, leaving the North Beach residents a little less bothered by the sum total of drunken disruptiveness caused in their local neighborhood. Genius, that.

So there it is. I have now seen Starship. In concert. The worst song ever. Live.

Aren't you jealous?