March 31, 2005

Still Alive.

Busy busy busy. I will come back to you soon. I swear.

March 26, 2005

Of Shows and Games

Kaiser Chiefs - Bowery Ballroom

Ok. The show was great last night - maybe not as crazy as the Mercury Lounge show because the lead singer hurt his leg recently and you could sort of see it in his face - but definitely a great great show. There is hardly a bad song on that album, Employment, and they ran through about an hour of the most energetic ones. Unfortunately, my current fav: Born to be a Dancer was excluded - but by this morning I have already forgiven them. They're just too damn good.

Ricky Wilson, the lead singer, was still jumping and hurling himself around on stage for the whole set. He didn't act like someone who was in pain - and maybe no one would have even noticed or thought about it had he not mentioned it during the show. Still, it did seem like he was being a bit more careful than when I saw them last month.

Nevertheless, the band was really tight and the crowd was very enthusiastic - warmed up nicely by the local NYC band, Morningwood. There is a lot of good press swirling around about the Kaiser Chiefs right now so it will be interesting to see where it goes. Someday I hope to bore any children I might have with the story about how I saw them back in '05 before they were anywhere.

AND THEN...

In other news, I am suddenly the only person in the office without a PSP. This happened practically overnight. Seriously, Friday morning three people came in with newly acquired PSPs and joined the ranks of the two that had already purchased and received theirs from Japan about a week and a half ago. I quickly found myself in a room of people hunched over little screens, connected wirelessly and shouting out games to play.

I'm a bit on the fence about it. On the one hand they are super cool, but on the other hand, I totally suck at video games (recent development... I was better once, oh, like 20 years ago). I'm not sure that I need a portable device to showcase this deterioration of my gaming skills in a public forum. I can play x-box at home and nobody needs to know that I can't get past the fucking tutorial in Splinter Cell II, thank you very much. Actually it's not that bad. close. But not that bad.

I'm not sure when this happened, or why, but I think it it got progressively worse as game controllers evolved from the simple "stick and button" to the current "mission-control-task-selection-yoke" that they have become now. I can get myself around a standard keyboard for a networked game of Halo or Quake and hold my own, but put a X-Box Controller in my hands and I might as well be holding a Cuisenart stand mixer and an accordian for all the effect it's having on my game play.

So, who knows? Perhaps the pressure will eventually get too great and I will crumble. Add another compulsion to my already busy schedule. At this point, I am content to observe and appreciate the PSP from afar... so far.

March 25, 2005

Tonight

Kaiser Chiefs tonight at Bowery Ballroom tonight. I am very much looking forward to this show. I hope they're as good as when I saw them last month.

March 22, 2005

Late Night

I was up until 2:30AM this morning at the WFMU marathon where the atmosphere was appropriately charged with many positive vibes. By 9:00 Sunday evening they had reached their fund raising goal and spirits were very very high. All night, DJs were performing karaoke accompanied by a live band and the performances just got better and better. Once the goal had been reached, the pressure was off and people could really relax for the first time during the two week marathon.

There were so many excellent performances, but one definite standout was Bryce's stirring rendition of John Ashcroft's Let the Eagle Soar, complete with full instrumental accompaniment (including saxaphone). A few others off the top of my head were Baker Street, Tattoo by The Who, I Love You, Dummy, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, And Tom Scharpling's version of Born to Run. Honestly there were so many more but I can't remember the titles.

It was an amazing time. I took many photos and I've put them up here.

March 19, 2005

Marsupial Tea Mug

I now have this very handsome mug constructed specifically for the drinking and enjoyment of tea. I have to assume that this is its intended purpose, because it has this little moulded pouch on the front to secure your used tea bag (actually, it should be on the back, but I'm left handed). Take away the pouch and it's just another mug, but with the pouch it's a stylized and specialized piece of tea drinking apparatus.

I've used it only once so far as a tea bag dock; just as a test and to get the most satifaction I could from the product. Despite it's undisputed utility and attractive design, the pouch is still on the wrong side of the mug and causes discomfort and embarrassment when used left handed.

I suppose there is nothing limiting me to using the pouch for only used tea bags. There was nothing in the instructions - no warnings or advisories - to restrict or prohibit the introduction of other items to the mug pouch. So that really leaves it open to my imagination to experiment with all sorts of things from loose change, postage stamps, guitar picks and matchbooks to spare keys or condoms. It all depends on what direction I think my day might take, I guess. I will initiate some tests and get back to you on this.

For now, the novelty of the mug pouch is wearing off a bit. I may just move it to the back of the cupboard and take it out only for special occasions.

March 17, 2005

Green

I hope you're wearing green today. Apparently you get pinched if you're not.

Them's the rules.

March 16, 2005

YO 'FMU

It's almost 1AM and I just got back from volunteering at WFMU for the evening. I was answering phones and taking pledges for the annual Fund Raising Marathon at the station in Jersey City. Tonight was Tom Scharpling's Show and, for the 10th year, Yo La Tengo was performing listener pledge requests live in the studio. It was a great night to be there and I met many cool people.

I took a few photos, but I turned off the flash so everything is a little blurry. Sorry about that. Here is the band in the downstairs studio. In between phone call waves, a few of us would run down to watch them play for a bit.

So the deal is that Yo La Tengo will pretty much play whatever requests come in - or at least give their best attempt at it. Some of the songs they performed were, Hey Ya!, Mindless Child Of Motherhood by the Kinks, Can't Explain, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Purple Haze, I Wanna Be Sedated, Psycho Killer, Palisades Park, Lido Shuffle, Search and Destroy, Take The Skinheads Bowling, Two-Headed Dog, Aliens In Our Midst, Chewy Chewy by the Ohio Express, and they closed with Sonny and Cher's The Beat Goes On - which totally rocked because that's one I wrote down when a caller couldn't think of a song to request. They actually did a cool version of it too.

I have two more shifts to do this week. You should call up and make a pledge.

March 13, 2005

Eric & Julia

This past week has been crazy. My friend Eric and his girlfriend Julia came to NYC from San Francisco last weekend and my sister and her boyfriend Luc drove down from Canada last Sunday. I've been out drinking late every night for 10 days straight, drove with my sister and Luc down to Annapolis and back again, and smuggled two cats into Brooklyn and back out again this morning at 7 AM. It's been a long week.

It was great seeing Eric again and Julia, who I met for the first time, is really really cool.

Eric and I temped together at two different jobs: Optical Data and Peterson's. Hanging out with him over last weekend made me remember all of the weird people and freaky stories from those jobs. I have to get those straight because I want to write them all down here. I have to get all the facts right, though. So many things seem to run together over the years, I forget what happened when and where.

Ah, yes. the stories must be told. It has been long enough. Let me get my head straight and I'll try to relate them as accurately as I can.

March 07, 2005

Squeak

I found a mouse in my apartment this morning and I guess - in a sort of cosmic way - it makes sense. You see when I first moved in, a mouse ran into my apartment. Then for the whole year I was mouse-free. This morning I renewed my lease and when I came back upstairs to get my bag, there was another mouse. So it's sort of like a mouse renewal. I think. Or something.

March 03, 2005

Blinded by Falafel

I have just made the world's worst falafel and, in the arduous and humiliating process, almost blinded myself as well.

When the burst of hot oil flared up from the skillet like an angry volcano, the only thing that saved me from possible disfigurement and almost certain uncontrollable profanity was that the oil had not yet been heated to the surface temperature of the sun. Close, but not quite there. Nevertheless, I was compelled to continue my preparations with a wet dishtowel full of ice cubes applied to my head. Bravely, I soldiered on.

The next disappointment was that, although remarkably painful to the touch, the oil was apparently not quite hot enough to have a visible effect on falafel. Instead of sizzling happily, it merely languished there in the pan and then gradually started to break apart at the slightest provocation. This was most likely the result of a further mistake in not allowing enough time for the falafel to set; but since I have no way to gauge how much time was spent writhing in pain on the kitchen floor, I really can't be held accountable for that error.

So after I cooked the falafel into crisp little black husks, I tried to scoop them up out of the skillet. Unfortunately, at this point, they lost all structural integrity and practically dissolved before my eyes. Determined to salvage something from this experience, I fished out some of the larger chunks using two wooden spoons as pincers and laid them carefully on a pita.

The resulting "falafel" was a soggy, oily mess - additionally undermined by a mealy tomato I unwittingly chopped up and included as garnish. The recipe yielded enough "falafel" to feed a small caravan and I'm sure someone, somewhere is having a good laugh about that. I threw out the remainder of the oil soaked "patties" and refrigerated the uncooked ones for their potential use in home defense.

As a final parting insult, my apartment now smells like an armpit. I will never again make the mistake of preparing falafel without a "buddy" to call 9-1-1 when the whole process inevitably goes awry. Apparently falafel must be left to the professionals.

March 01, 2005

Guitar Wolf

Aside from the lyrics to "satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, I can confidently say that I didn't understand a single thing that Guitar Wolf said or sang from the stage. Actually no, that's not entirely true. Towards the end of the second encore he stammered out something in broken English that I think was, "We can change our past by changing the future!" and then was immediately drowned out by feedback. As far as rock stage declarations go, it was a bit sub-par, but at least it was intelligible.

This was a great show. I made a special effort to attend this show because I have wanted to see Guitar Wolf perform for a while and I had never been to CBGB's (and now with the rumor that it might close, it seemed like a good time to go).

For about an hour and a half they played non-stop-ultra-loud Japanese punk rock. The only time they stopped was to comb their hair back. The bassist and drummer always seemed to do it at the same time - in that kind of 50's Fonzie sort of way. I have also never seen a musician sweat as much as Guitar Wolf. Of course, dressed in motorcycle leather under hot lights in a small crowded room will probably do that to you. I was sweating too and all I was trying to do was avoid flailing drunkards.

I'm a bit past the whole slam-dance-mosh-pit scene, so whenever some overeager and sweaty oaf hurled himself in my direction I would neatly sidestep to the perimeter. And a few songs into the set, that happened a lot.

At one point an audience member was plucked from the crowd to play guitar. Guitar Wolf showed her the chords and then turned his attention to shouting at the crowd. Unfortunately, she seemed really uncomfortable and tried to give the guitar back several times. He would just wave her off and jump up and down a bit on stage.

But I really liked the band live. And I'm glad I got to CBGB's no matter what happens in the future. There are not too many outlets left to see black-leather clad Japanese rockers scream over feedbacking guitars to a crowd of adoring fans.