4 Days of Thanksgiving

Monday, November 27, 2006

4 Days of Thanksgiving Current mood: full So wow, do I have a lot to be thankful for! I have so much to be thankful for that last week, I not only had one amazing Thanksgiving dinner, I had four! And a birthday dinner for my sister to top it off. Here's the breakdown of one of the best food weeks ever.... Night: Tuesday Location: 18th and Noe, San Francisco Hosts: Tamara/Aliza Company: Tamara, Alize, Christina, Carolina, Kat-tastic, Zena, Tiffany, Carly, Jackie, Bryona, myself +6-8 others (I can't remember 14 new names all in the same evening!) Chef: Chef Sexy Menu: Turkey, homemade stuffing, carrot mashers, mashed potatoes, gravy, orange-cranberry sauce, salad w/lettuce, candied walnuts, feta cheese. Night: Wednesday Location: 617 Marseille, Half Moon Bay Hosts: Brett and Kathleen Company: Dad, Kathleen, Nick, Kelsey, me. Chef: Dad of course! Menu: Butternut squash soup w/crab meat, potato casserole w/gargonzola cheese, steak. Night: Thursday Location: 2150 St. Andrews, Half Moon Bay Hosts: Patrick and Mom Company: Mom, Patrick, Kelsey, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Sue, Emily, Sean, myself. Chef: Patrick, Mom Menu: Turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, ham rolls, carmelized brie, green beans, stuffing, ice cream, pumpkin pie. Night: Friday Location: 626 Occidental, San Mateo Hosts: The Feinns Company: Phillip, Cameron, Joe, Sandy, Sandie, Patrick, Jessie, Charles, Derek P., Emily, Sean, Kelsey, myself Chef: Cameron and Phillip Menu: Crab, guacamole (appetizers), Butternut squash soup, baked potatoes, prime rib, pumpkin pie, chocolate pecan pie. Night: Saturday Location: House of Prime Rib, Van Ness, San Francisco Hosts: Patrick and Mom Company: Patrick, Mom, Emily, Sean, Kelsey, Jessie, myself (Happy Birthday Emily!!) Chef: House of Prime Rib of course! Menu: salad, yorkshire pudding, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, prime rib. Now if that's not a week of eating to be thankful for, I don't know what is! Thank you to all the hosts and chefs that made my Thanksgiving not a day but a week!

12 Hours of Drinking

Monday, November 20, 2006

12 Hours of Drinking Current mood: drunk That's right. You read that correctly. I'm going to tell you about the day that I almost died. Ok. That's an exaggeration, surely. But I don't know that I've ever been through a day that felt longer. Let me first tell you about my wingman in this endeavor. Derek is a good soul. He's a decent sort of person. He's also single by circumstance and therefore an excellent addition to any drunken outing. When I pick him up at about 1:30 on Saturday, I tell him that we're not only going to play Pub Golf for Alli's birthday, but that we need to keep ourselves coherent and awake enough to make it to Bubble Lounge for Katie Buckstein's birthday afterwards. We agree that this will require food at various points, water and a healthy amount of shit talking each other to stay on track. We begin at 2. I earn the nickname Dust for being swept in 5 straight games of Beirut by Derek (let's not forget, he owns a table!)...Those beers help, as I'm still reeling from the night before and the mind erasers that totalled me then. By the time we make it to the first bar, Bar None, I'm starting to feel my normal self again. For those of you who don't know about golf, it goes like this....you pick a certain number of bars and create a par drink amount for each. On this particular course, 2 drinks was par for every bar. You mark on your scorecard the number of drinks you have at each place, and if you have more than 2, that's worth a stroke, more than 3 another stroke, etc. The person who ends with the most drinks dies. Er, wins. When we cruise in, you can tell who's golfing. You've never seen so many people wearing hats, plaid, knee socks and putting gloves in your entire life. Actually, I'm full of lies today...how about saying that you've never seen so much of the above when not on an actual golf course? Pitchers of beer are on the order, and imagine my surprise when I'm confronted by two guys who know me as "Adam, Kelsey's brother from Half Moon Bay." Definitely not what I'm expecting to hear in the marina. Now, we got there late, which means that we have only a certain amount of time to catch up before the referree blows the whistle and it's time to move on. I start chugging beer. For those of you that know my predicament, and the fact that I still don't physically know how to make myself burp, this can become a problem. But the whistle blows and on the walk to the door, I kill the second beer for the hole, walk outside into the light of day (even when you know it's day time, walking out of a bar and being hit with sunlight is still a bit disconcerting) and spend the next two blocks fighting the need to throw up. Derek tries to talk to me. Sean tries to talk to me. Julian tries to talk to me. The most I get out is a grimace, a very pained expression, and I manage to spit bile onto the sidewalk. I do this for three blocks, and then, amazingly, and thankfully, the feeling passes. I bounce up and down for a minute in celebration, and find myself dumped with the rest of the golfers into City Tavern. It's bad when bartenders know you. It's even worse when they take it upon themselves to make you more drunk. This is what happens to us throughout the USC v. Cal game. Mind erasers, beer, shots, they keep coming, and our group grows steadily less manageable. The game's on and the dichotomy between the SC and the Cal fans in the bar grows. Derek feeds me water. It's time to eat, but I can't leave the football game, so I stand outside and do only the second dumbest thing I could do, right there behind drinking more....I smoke a joint. Sure, it tastes good, and almost rights the ship for me, and then I realize that it's made me fucking high and I'm in a lot of trouble because there's no way I can finish golfing now. Derek returns from KFC/Taco Bell and hands me some sort of chicken wrap. I don't bother to go back in the bar, instead opting for the always popular street eat. At this point, the game ends with SC asserting their rightful place at the top of the Pac10 food chain, the whistle blows and it's time to go to KTs. We make it across the street where the atmosphere is much more dancy. The group, hearing the music and sensing new blood, gets rowdy. It's at this point that we lose Julian....in a bid to make him the undisputed golf champion, he takes several shots to cement his victory. He earns the medal and wears it around his neck for the rest of the evening, which for him, ends up being short. He takes us to some place called Andole's, which I couldn't find right now if you dropped me off in the Marina with an address and a map, to meet up with Brigid and Christina. We're drunk, we've been smoking, and Brigid and Christina immediately hate all three of us. I decide a long island would be a great idea, and then have a hard time understanding why a guy standing in front of a full bar says that they can't make long islands. I'm a little confused, so Derek gets us Coronas to go with the steak quesadillas. Julian gets watermelon juice, which he doesn't really get the chance to enjoy because he's in the bathroom throwing up the victory shots he put down at KTs. Brigid and Christina leave us without a goodbye. I guess at that point we either don't deserve it or they figure it's a waste of their time cause we won't remember it anyways. And now, comes the push. At this point, we're working up to about 9 o'clock and it's gut check time. Either we come up with the final move to Bubble Lounge, or we end the night as dead weight on the couch. We get to Julian's, and he's in bed and asleep before I make it to the bathroom. At this point, Derek and I rally. It's amazing. We get a game of Beirut going and by the time Charles picks us up, the second wind is upon us and we're ready. We get to Bubble Lounge as by far the drunkest people in the room. I don't remember a whole lot other than smoking a joint on their smoking patio, talking to many people (I remember the people, but not the conversations), and being flirted with by Katie's mom. I'm told the next day by Charles that I pretty much sat down in Jess Goldman's lap, continued telling people, "fuck you, pay me," and that the only consolation prize for me was that Derek was more drunk than I was. Honestly, Bubble Lounge is like Andole's for me...I couldn't find it again if you paid me. By the time Charles drops me back off at Julian's, it's all I can do to get back on the couch, and it's been just shy of 12 hours since Derek and I started the first game of Beirut. Waking up on Sunday, drinking water was the best feeling ever, simply because it was a beverage that didn't have any alcohol content. Now to prepare for Thanksgiving weekend and a football game. Cheers all.

Visualize Vivid Verbplay in My Vortex

Friday, November 17, 2006

Visualize Vivid Verbplay in my Vortex Current mood: high That's right, that's everyone's funkiest homosapien, Mr. Del. Last night, Alan, Derek, Victor, Sutton and myself had the pleasure of visiting the Fillmore to see the most legendary of the Hiero crew come to spit. Evening starts when we pick up Sutton and his bag of goodies way up on Market. Cruise to Vic's place where I can tell it's gonna be an early night...he's already on the couch two blunts deep, lights dimmed, watching some history channel bullshit. We get him to raise the lights (ruining the romance for him), turn on some music and I find a basketball game on tv. Sutton realizes he still doesn't have a ticket, so we pile out and head to the show, at which point I finish the 40 I was working on. Mickey's does me in once more. We get to the show and Sutton gets his ticket right there, no sell out crowd here. Which is actually disappointing, because as we go inside to the sounds of Motion Man (think Pablito's Way) the place is pretty empty and the crowd is almost all white. Definitely not what I was expecting. Motion Man finishes up and out comes some chick I hadn't heard of before...Song 1. She's dope. Real fast over the beats, coherent, solid. She gives way to Mike Realm who rips off a fantastic set on the 1s and 2s, using the same video scratching technique employed by Cut Chemist (see my blog "When Chemistry Cuts" for a description), using clips from various movies including the "O Face" scene from Office Space. And then comes the man. Decked out in a pair of tie up slipper type shoes, white pants, a light lime green polo shirt and a sick fedora style hat that's a white base with spiraling lines of black, green and white. Very sick. He comes out much less inebriated than I had anticipated. In fact, I'd almost say at this point in the evening that he's actually the closest to sober that I've ever seen him. Don't get me wrong, this changes throughout the course of the show, but for an opening song, I hadn't seen him that lucid in a bit. He comes out and rips a set. It's got solid freestyles throughout, and some old and new favorites. He starts it off with the perennial classic At the Helm off Third Eye Vision. When this ends he goes straight into the Virus cut off the Deltron cd which he parlays into the heavy violin sound of my all time favorite Del song, Catch a Bad One. But the hits don't stop there. Phoney Franchise is next, and at this point, the blunts and Heinekens have come out and I start to get the feeling that our time left with Mr. Sapien is dwindling with every puff or sip. Powers That Be comes next (with A Plus backing him) and then they go into the Souls song Make Your Mind Up which they follow with a new APlus song off his new album. At this point, Del goes into the usual selling of product by announcing the his new album (long awaited, I might add) is dropping soon and will be called 11th Hour. Now, the last two times I've seen Hiero, he's been talking about this same album, so I have to assume a) not only will it be out soonish, but b) if Del's taking this long to work on it, it oughta be pretty fucking hot. Then they play a few I hadn't heard before, We are the Funky Homo Sapiens, and some song called Thank You bookend the popular Mr. Dobalina. At this point, we're into the encore part of the show, and Del's really letting loose on the freestyles, my guess is because he's tossed. His hat comes down lower over his eyes, his cadence quicker and a bit more slurred, and he's paying less attention to moving the show along and more to spitting. He freestyles over the beat from Dead Prez's Bigger Than Hip Hop and then goes into another new song called Foot Down. He flows one more time before breaking out my Dad's favorite, If You Must. Personally, I hate that song. Anyone who has breath so bad it melts ice cream is not something I want to hear about. Finally, he closes out the set with a bang. You Never Knew and the Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood. Fucking sick. We get another half hour of show after that, but it's just the DJ and Del partying with the audience...at that point, he's trashed and done rapping. But, he was and continues to be, Del the Funky Homosapien.

The Weekender Chico, and Everything In It

Monday, November 06, 2006

The Weekender Chico, and Everything In It Current mood: okay You always know it's gonna be a good weekend when USC students bombard San Francisco to bring their own special brand of mayhem with them to play Stanford. However, it's an even different sort of weekend when UCLA students need to come up here to watch their team get kicked around by Cal as well. My weekend starts Friday night. Julia Yates, Anthony Jenkins and myself go out dancing at this place called Mr. Smith's. Hadn't been there before, but what a weird layout. VIP on the top floor, bar on the entry floor and the dance floor in the basement? It kinda fragmented the entire thing, split up the crowd and left the dance floor basically for the three of us plus a few other randoms. As Julia is my DD for the evening, I make ample use by getting trashed. I don't really remember being dropped off at home, but wake up on Saturday morning feeling suprisingly well. I immediately throw this good feeling in the garbage can by meeting up with the 2801 Ellendale crew at the Stanford v. USC game where there are two kegs and vicious games of flip cup going on. Our team mounts up for the first game, and we get slaughtered by the women's soccer team we all know and love. They talk shit. Then they talk more shit. Then the team after us waxes them, giving us another chance on the table. It was not a chance we were about to throw away. We beat that team up. Then the girls get back on the table, we take them out too. Long story short, we win 5 games of flip cup in a row, an unprecedented showing. We wander to the game where we watch USC kick the living shit out of Stanford 42-0. I leave the game content, a little faded, and ready for Saturday night. (Now, there's a little bitterness coming here, so if that makes you uncomfortable, or you just don't want to read it, skip ahead to the **** at the end of the section....If you want to know how I'm really feeling, read on.) ******************************************* Now, I've gone to great lengths to stay positive, stay happy, and stay unaffected following my break up. I've also tried very hard to stay as un-bitter as humanly possible, and keep the majority of my thoughts and feelings on the subject (and her), especially the negative ones, to myself. I will only say here that for two and a half years of that relationship, I tried everything I could think of to get her to go and experience a football game with me. Free tickets, requests, begging, bribing, everything. Never worked. So it got under my collar upon returning home to find out that on this weekend, not only did she go to a football game, but she didn't even go to her own football game in Berkeley. No, she went to the SC game. Not only did I want to throw my computer off the balcony, but I seriously considered about 100 other things that I could do that would not only have been stupid, but extremely unproductive as well. I find it only stupid and retarded on my part that I let stuff like this get to me. And really, in the end, I know it only hurts me, which makes it even more stupid. I'm working on that, but haven't completely found the ground I need to stand on yet. Enough of that. I'm done. *********************************************** I cruise up with Charles to Mike and Julian's, where Mike has once again been castrated (and probably for good purpose) by Sonya, and Julian, Charles, Derek and myself are ready to go out. We hit City Tavern, where I must say, Julian's connections work wonders. We skip the line at the door, get to the bar quick and get some strong ass drinks. Charles then spends the evening attempting to repay me for hazing him on Halloween by ordering me a Mind Eraser and telling me after I've pounded it and feel like vomiting on his shirt that it was in fact a double. These are the types of friends I have. And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. He drives us home, drops us off and after some fun, I pass out. Hard. I wake up and remember, shit, it's 49ers game day!!!! I eat a special treat from the club, meet up with my grandparents and Patrick (let me tell you, most non-exciting tailgate ever, but it made the grandparents happy)...we have some wine, eat some lox and lobster. I can't tell you how amusing to me the difference between the SC tailgate and the 49er tailgate was. One was keg beer, flip cup and some chips if you were lucky, the second was luxury box style. And, the Niners won!!!! 9-3. Amazing. Not like Sunday night needs any treatment here...y'all know what goes down then. New Wire, new Dexter, and then I passed out before I could finish Desperate Housewives. The world, chico, and everything in it.

Can I Get a Bullet with That Pretzel?

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Can I Get a Bullet with that Pretzel? Current mood: jubilant The evening starts when I invite Nick, my 17 (almost 18) year old step brother to join Cella, Julian, Charles and I for Halloween in the city. Jordan Harbind meets us as we're getting ready. Nick hasn't partied up there before, and Castro seems like an excellent introduction. I stop by the club on my way to King street and get introduced to what the guys there call racing the cheetah. I've been high in my life. But racing the cheetah? Yea, don't try it unless you want to be stuck in the clouds for a few hours. It's a bong load that has some weed on the bottom (they used ATF), bubble hash on top of that, topped off with Trainwreck keefe. Now multiply that by two monster rips, and you see how my evening kicked off. We get to 255 King and get into several heated games of Beirut. Believe it or not, Charles and I spend 4 or 5 games mopping the floor with various competitors, which ends up turning Julian into a rageaholic. Once our liquid blankets are in place, and our costumes fitted (imagine 5 backpack wearing, bible toting Mormons), we head out, grabbing a cab and getting dropped off outside one of the pedestrian zones at the Castro. We walk in and no one is impressed. I tell them to wait for it. "Dude, there's no one here" Hello, we're not even on Market yet! And then it hits, the throngs. On a quick sidenote...I haven't seen a costume draw as much attention as the Mormon costume. Now, if you had one or even two, it's easy to lose the costume in a crowd. But with 5 of us, we stand out to everyone walking past and get some of the following comments: "Mormons!!!! Yaaaaay Mormons!!!!" - hot chick ..1 "Oh wow, what an awesome costume. Go Mormons!!!" - hot chick ..2 "Fucking Mormons suck!" - meathead ..1 "I'm gonna kick your religious ass" - meathead ..2 "If you guys aren't Mormon, that costume is soooo wrong." - girl in the street and finally, my favorite, from about 1 out of every 4 people we ran into..... "Are you guys really Mormons?" The throng hits us and we start walking, looking for a little space, but mainly just sinking into the masses. I happen to love it. In any street carnival, fair, public mass of people, the feeling of anonymity that comes with the masses is always welcomed and embraced by me. At this point, Charles decides he needs to piss. I see a pretzel/churro stand. Excellent, a pretzel and a churro for 5 dollars. One combo, please. She hands me the pretzel, and as she does so, and I survey the scene for my fellow Mormons and revelers, and then the shots ring out. 4 or 5 of them, rapid, which I'm torn between thinking are real gun shots and perhaps fireworks? But they're loud, and about twenty feet from the pretzel stand I'm at, people scatter from what's obviously the epicenter of the shots. One girl comes out with blood on her face, to which Nick states, "shit, she's got blood on her face!" and one guy ends up on the ground with what appears to be a bullet in his leg. Meanwhile, as everyone is running around and I'm watching this, I think, "this is really stupid people. There's not gonna be MORE gunshots, and it's not like once you've heard them you can get out of the way. You're not faster than a speeding bullet, so stay where you are and don't get swept up in the pandemonium. People look at me like I'm nuts for standing and watching. I realize at this point that I've got the pretzel, which I've taken a few bites of and is rather bland, but there's no churro. And there's no pretzel lady to be seen. Literally, the gunshots rang out and she disappeared. I look around some more, generally upset that I don't get some cinnamon goodness to go with my bland ass pretzel and see her cowering behind the cart. At this point, me, caring man of the people that I am, looks down at her shaking behind her cart..."um, could I get that churro now?" The look of fear, bewilderment and downright astonishment on her face that I could even think of eating, let alone asking her to serve me at a time like this makes me feel a little funny for not being as scared as she is. But like I said, once you've heard the shots, you're not gonna dodge the bullets, so might as well stay in one place (that's what my mom told me to do when I got lost as a child). She shakily gets up and hands me the churro, looking at me with disgust for my selfish "feed me" attitude. Then, I figure, why not. "Excuse me, could I get some salt on this pretzel?" (honestly, when I ordered the pretzel, I didn't think I'd have to order salt extra.) She shakes her head at me, looks at me once more like I've fallen out of a tree and goes, "you already took a bite, I can't put salt on it now" and gives me two or three more shakes of the head. At this point, the place has started swarming with cops trying to contain the scene and figure out who shot who. It's probably a good time to leave, but Nick is with us, so where does one take an underage high school senior in the city? We decide that if ever there's a time to test our mettle and love at City Tavern, this here is the night. We cab it over to the Marina, thinking of ways to get Jordan's ID out to Nick. All of this becomes a moot issue when we find out that no one at City is carding and he walks in the front door. Of course, with all of us dressed as Mormons, he blends right in, and with Julian and I ordering the drinks, no one even thinks to look at him like he's too young. Nick, my stepbrother, let me introduce you to the Mind Eraser. Kahlua, Vodka, club soda, chugged through a straw. Well, apparently, after all this, Julian, who didn't join us in the Castro, and Mike have wandered outside and unbeknownst to any of us, almost gotten into a fight with some juiced up adrenaline freak wearing a shirt that says, "fuck you, pay me." And he's ready. Julian's ready. Mike's trying to avoid everything and I get to walk right into the middle and this guy starts screaming at me. Finally, his friends and our muted response get him to calm down a little. He says one more thing, and Nick, who has no idea what a street fight is really like with 20 something boozed up meatheads, starts talking back. This of course gets dumbass all riled up again and he starts really jawing with Nick. After yelling at him to shut the fuck up and get back, I finally get Nick to listen and we diffuse the situation. This guy probably would have mauled Nick and not thought twice about it, but for the rest of the evening I get to hear how Nick "would've kicked that fucker's ass," no matter how many times I explain to him that he would have been in a hospital. And then, that's that. Cab back to 255 King, I throw Charles and Nick in my car as Jordan is throwing up in Julian's bathroom (he also spent almost the entire time we were at City Tavern in the bathroom, alternating between standing up against the wall of the stall and throwing up), Jack in the Box after being turned away from In-N-Out, and home. Halloween. Castro. San Francisco. These are words that will live in infamy. Check back for pictures of the Mormon crew.

The Benefaction of Bridges and Schools

Monday, October 23, 2006

The Benefaction of Bridges and Schools Current mood: ecstatic Alright people. For those of you that didn't make it to Bridge School Benefit this weekend, I feel very sad for you. Not only do I feel very sad for you, but I view you as largely unintelligent when it comes to music and attending concerts. For 50 dollars (that's right, the price of an eighth), we saw the following concert....... It started at 4. We weren't there...Kevin, Charles, Derek, Jordan, Keenan and myself. We were busy drinking Mickey's 40s in traffic. But we parked and made it in for the last half of Devandra Banhardt's (or however you spell that) set. It was decent. The crowd was thick...we managed to poach a spot dead center stage about halfway up the lawn. After Devandra, someone else came on. This too was mediocre. And then came the bands....I'm missing songs in almost every set list, but that's because they were ones I didn't know the names of...the rest I got... Death Cab for Cutie. Y'all know them. Hadn't seen these guys live before, but it was an excellent venue. The melancholy hopefulness of their songs fit perfectly in my mind with the Bridge School theme. They came out and played one song I didn't know, Title and Registration, Brothers on a Hotel Bed, Summer Skin and Soul Meets Body...so, mainly new stuff, but Title and Registration was by far my favorite. Then came the highlight of the show. Everyone in the group was excited for Trent Reznor, but no one was prepared for him. Our thoughts were a band, some acoustic, probably a lot of him on piano. Well, we got a lot of him on piano, but no one would have predicted that he would come out with a full string quartet playing arrangements of his songs as he sang and played the keys. These string players were amazing...the drums, the pounding pulse of a lot of his songs, were all brought out on these instruments. He started with an intro off the Fragile, Something I Can Never Have, Pig, La Mer, The Fragile, Right Where I Belong, a song I didn't know and then closed with, of course, Hurt. We were hurt when he left...by far the most amazing and spectacular performance of the evening. Following Trent came the Foo Fighters. They played two or three songs that I missed because of the outrageously long bathroom lines (this was a problem ALL evening. The songs I caught were Hero, Big Me, Skin and Bones and Times Like These. A decent, spirited performance that the crowd seemed to like. Next came Mr. Wilson from the Beach Boys. He asked if people had heard of this album called Pet Sounds and then proceeded to rip off a set of old favorites that kept the baby boomers happy (after Trent and Foo Fighters, they were probably wondering why they had bought tickets to the show)...Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B, God Only Knows (most of us remember this as the Big Love theme song now), Do You Wanna Dance, I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, Johnny B. Goode, Surfin' USA and Daddy Took the Tbird Away (not really sure what the name of that one is, but I think you're picking up what I'm putting down)...He had by far the most complete band of the evening, over 7 people on stage singing and playing various instruments. Pearl Jam came on next. Vedder looked less drunk than I expected of him, but I guess Bridge School brings out the moderate in all of us. They played several songs I didn't know, as well as Daughter, Better Man and Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town, the last of which is my favorite due to memories of Jaclyn Zimmerman's house and the overall feeling of it. They played a great set, as well as playing Throw Your Hatred Down with Neil off the Mirror Ball album. Then came that band that some of us know, some of us like, and a few of us used to think had incredible promise to be the best band ever......Dave Matthews Band. Dave's set was decent, but really, for the setting and the feeling of the show, I thought they didn't play as many rares and acoustic type songs as they should have. They played Loving Wings, easily one of my new favorites (reminds me of a more up tempo Seek Up in the texture), followed by a stream of radio hits that kept me vomiting in my mouth....Grace is Gone, Warehouse, Ants Marching and Cortez the Killer with Neil Young. We stayed for the beginning of Neil's set, but he didn't even come on until like 12:30 or so. It was 12:45 when we walked to the parking lot and he was still playing, and trust me, after seeing all those bands play all that incredible music, when Neil came out, it was, to be honest, a bit of a buzz kill. But, for anyone who's ever spent 50-60 dollars on a ticket to see one band, you gotta know that the concert I just described was worth it. 8 + hours of incredible music, acoustic style, with fantastic bands and a great crowd (we smoked a lot of pots)...If you've never been to Bridge School, remember this blog when it comes time to buy tickets next October.

When Chemistry Cuts

Saturday, October 21, 2006

When Chemistry Cuts Current mood: shocked Category: Music Boy, let me tell you something....you do NOT want to mess with Cut Chemist. He will chew you up and spit you out. He'll burn the vinyl on the turn tables and then leave you dripping with the wax. Saw Lyrics Born and Cut at the Independent last night...Lyrics Born is alright...lots of energy, but just a little too much poppy sounding, up beat stuff. He had a live band, which was cool and all, but really, in the range of hip hop shows I've seen, save your money and go see Del on Nov. 16th. Then up comes Cut. Cut, for those that don't know, is a slightly overweight scruffy white guy with crazy hair that sweats profusely. His set up includes two CD turntables with a mixer and two regular turn tables with a mixer. His friend sits on the side of the stage with a lap top and controls the visuals which range from old stock tv/movie footage, post apocalyptic images, music video clips to a close up camera angle looking down on his turn tables as he works. I've seen quite a few DJs spin in my life. Technique, speed, as well as an ability to put a set together are all important. I have never been more impressed with a mixer than I was with this guy. His set was impeccable, and for as much scratching and mixing as he did, he was still able to keep the audience dancing throughout. His technique was unrivaled...the scratches all fit, the drum machine he worked kept punching in and his ability to incorporate the cds and the wax at once was, to be honest, a bit frightening. You have to wonder if the guy's mind is as fragmented as his musical ADD would suggest. And then comes the speed. I thought I had seen fast fingers watching the Baraka scene where the sweatshop workers roll cigarettes. I thought I had seen fast fingers using Mavis Beacon. I wasn't prepared for this guy. He uses all ten of his fingers on the mix levers and volume controls, and the speed in which he uses them makes you wish the camera on him had slow mo so you could figure out what the hell he's actually doing. There were times during the show when I was a bit breathless from trying to keep up with his hands. Finally, as the show's winding down, he stops the music and tells the audience that he's gonna try something, and it might not work out, but if it does, he warns, it'll be sick. He pulls out a video camera, plugs the mic into the stereo and starts recording. He records himself saying hello to San Francisco, hyping the show, and then records three people from the audience saying their names and where they're from. He then puts the camera down and starts mixing another song...kinda slow, but you can tell his visual tech is working on something. Finally, the visual gives Cut the thumbs up, and the video monitors behind the tables start showing the video he just made. At the same time, he drops the Chemical Calisthenics beat off Blackalicious' Blazing Arrow album. As the instrumental of that plays, his set up has allowed him, through his turn tables, to control the video on the screen and the sound accompanying it. At this point, he literally starts mixing and scratching the video on the screen, doing so in a way that the sounds and people talking on the video go with the beat of the song (and if you've heard the song, you know that's not the easiest of tasks)...but he scratches the video through the entire song, and the last clip he recorded has him saying, "Good night San Francisco, much love," which he throws on scratchless after the last beat of Calisthenics fades out, walking off the stage. Good night San Francisco indeed.

P-Fest to Remember

Sunday, October 15, 2006

P-Fest to Remember Current mood: bouncy I woke up around 10 am, still hungover, and wondering what it might take to have a somewhat normal day. Bloody Marys seemed like an excellent way to accomplish this. Mix that with a joint, and before I can get the taste of tomato juice out of my mouth, I've got a funnel coming at me. By 12, as we're leaving the house, the sky is starting to look slightly drunk, and I'm starting to feel slightly cloudy. We walk to Cameron's Pub for a few pints and a joint on the Smoking Bus (complete with tvs, how cool is that?) and eventually, we spill out onto Main Street among the throngs. Cameron, Charles, myself, 2 Kelseys, Kevin, Kelly, Jessie, Derek, Alan. It's food, it's smoke, it's masses, pumpkins, calamari, chowder, more pumpkins. We get beers, but they're five bucks. For the rest of the afternoon, it's 22s of Corona poured into empty cups costing a fraction of the price. Jessie decides to make it a practice of the day to run into people she doesn't want to see, while we stagger around from party to party, failing to make it to the free keg somewhere down Miramontes. Or was it Spruce? By the time we've rolled through the festival, making friends with cops on the way, not many of us are standing straight. We stagger back to house where the adults have brought in themselves and food to feed everyone. Mashed taters, Cesar, tri tip, beer, wine, etc. By about 10 o'clock, my memory starts to fade a little bit. I think it was that shot of tequila someone told me would be a good idea. Or maybe the rest of the dope we burned through. After all that, I pass out on the couch, and wake up this morning to start all over again with Mickey's and the 49ers game.

The Move

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The Move Current mood: blank Been looking all over the place, and gotta say I love the places I've seen in the city. Some of them are too small, yes, or in bad parts of town, and all of them are overpriced, but just the act of looking, of feeling the streets breathe around you, is exhilarating. I've been driving around so much, I think I could be a pretty decent cab driver in the near future. After searching everywhere, Jessie and I are pretty sure we found a place, although I'm not gonna say where so it doesn't get jinxed. In other news, the Giants let us all down again, the Niners are on their way to the playoffs (with a little help from other divisional teams), and somehow, in early October, there's already not many sports of interest for the fairweather bay area fans. Here's to bringing Bonds back next year and having him pay us! This weekend is the Pumpkin Festival. While city dwellers believe that nothing outside the outer Mission boundaries is worth driving to, I can tell y'all that you should get on over. Keg and bbq at my mom's place. On a final note.......I've been reliving my college days recently, so if you're out and about or want to be out and about, hit me up.

Ruth v. Bonds

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Ruth v. Bonds Current mood: annoyed Ok, ok, so I know I'm biased. I'm a Giants fan. I'm a Bonds fan. But more importantly, I'm of the opinion that sports, the athletes involved in them and the rules surrounding them only become more advanced as the years progress. In the past few weeks, there's been much talk about Ruth, Bonds, and the homerun chase. Everyone points to the ALLEGED (please, show me a blood test, or at least something more conclusive than rumors, allegations and the "schedules of drugs" brought out in the Game of Shadows.) steriod use by Bonds and claims that it taints his numbers and his currently tied status with Ruth. I say bullshit. Ruth played in a period of time where the rules were less advanced than they are now (not that that has anything to do with home runs), and where he was the reigning stud. Sure, he crushed home runs, he had a great career, but how many of the pitchers facing him used sliders, curve balls and fast balls, most of which topped out at 89+mph? How many pitchers in Ruth's day could put out a 101mph fastball? If Bonds played in Ruth's day, I think he'd be over the 800 mark...which brings me to the second part of my rant here... Oh that's right...he couldn't have played. Because they didn't allow hispanics, asians or blacks to play the game. So now we're supposed to believe that Ruth's accomplishment is as good or better than Bonds when he didn't play against anyone but other white baseball players? I don't think so. See, in a sport like baseball, and a category like home run hitting, it is all about who you're up against. Not only did Ruth not have to face anyone outside his own race, but the training techniques, throwing techniques and other intangibles were nowhere near as advanced as they are now. We could very well say that Pistol Pete was the best basketball player ever, which he might have been, had the league never opened up to black players...but he isn't. You can't just look at the records from a segregated time and equate the numbers to our current situation. Ruth made his mark against inferior opponents, drawn out for him by the racial lines our culture and society had built at that point. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Bonds did use steroids between 1999 and 2003...how many pitchers did he go against that were juiced? How much more spin and more speed were these pitchers able to throw at him? If anything, I think the training, techniques and competition of modern baseball make Bonds' accomplishment more substantial, not less. Finally, and this has almost nothing to do with baseball, but if you look at the way Ruth is revered, he's almost like a God. No one likes to mention that he was an alcoholic during the years of prohibition. He broke the law for years on end, living life hard and living it up, and we still look at him as the best in baseball history. I say let Ruth's mythical status die in the monochromatic league he played in. This is a new day and a new age, providing more equality and competition than Ruth probably ever imagined. He was a great man for the game, but his league was limited, his competition weaker, and in my mind, if he played today, he'd be lucky to hit 600, let alone 700.

The Texans Took Who?!

Monday, May 01, 2006

The Texans Took Who?!? Current mood: amused Hahahahahhahaha. Laugh. That's about all you can do when the number one team in the draft takes a defensive lineman over who could potentially end up being the best running back/receiver/return man in NFL history. If you don't want to take Bush because you want hometown hero Vince Young to bring in the ticket buyers, fine, that makes sense, but don't even try to pass off this bullshit like you took Williams over Bush because it was the right "football" move. a) It was a horrible football move. You just drafted a D Lineman over the consensus number 1 football player in the entire draft b) It wasn't a good personnel move. Last I checked, Houston won 2 games last year...so they're saying, by focusing the majority of their picks on defense, that David Carr and Dominack Davis are a good offensive duo. I think I'd actually qualify them as just plain offensive. c) It wasn't a good business decision. They just paid a number 2-5 pick 1st pick money. Didn't it occur to them that they could have traded to almost anyone in the first five spots, still gotten Mario Williams and paid him money that he's worth? I'm sorry, but no rookie D lineman, regardless of how good he may become someday, is worth 6 years at 54 million. Let's be real, the only person worth that type of money is someone scoring touchdowns for you...Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Vernon Davis. How many touchdowns do the Texans think Williams will score for them this season? Good luck Houston. With this type of draft, you most certainly have a problem, and, more importantly, you now deserve to lose every game for the next five years with that type of draft day intelligence.

Good Job Construction Men

Friday, April 28, 2006

Good Job Construction Men Current mood: bouncy So they're doing a bunch of construction in our office...basically they're creating a stairway that will link our current first floor office to the second floor office we're adding in June. Well, yesterday, the fire alarm starts going off, followed by the sound of running water in the ceiling. About five minutes later, water starts raining from the ceiling and seeping out of the walls. Apparently, some genius broke through a water main and flooded a good portion of the second floor and our office as a result. On a follow up to a previous blog, now they're saying that the prostitute that is accusing the Duke lacrosse players apparently accused someone else of rape 10 years ago (for a rape that she said happened three years before she made the accusation)...looks more and more like a DA clusterfuck down in Durham. Watched Donnie Darko last night for the 10,000th time. God damn, that movie is frightening, funny, fantastic, melancholy and moving. How's that suit you suckers for some super strong alliteration? Sorry, it's Friday, I'm delirious, let this weekend begin......

Who Put the Best in CBEST?

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Who Put the BEST in CBEST? Current mood: amused So I go to take this test this morning in order to be qualified to substitute teach. CBEST. There's about 500 people at the testing facility and the test consists of three parts: reading, writing and mathematics. 50 multiple choice questions each in the reading and math, two essay responses in the writing. This test was a joke. Our educational system is a sad state of affairs when someone who can pass this test is allowed into the classroom. The reading is paragraph after paragraph with only 4 to 5 questions per passage. Very pathetic. The math is more a test of your patience in finishing it than anything else. The test is probably structured around the idea that half of the takers will doze off before they finish this crap. If these are the test scores of the students (list of scores here), what is the average class score? Here is a pie chart with only one percentage not filled in...what is that percentage? I don't deserve to substitute teach anyone, let alone be a high school graduate if you can't answer this thing. They give people 4 hours to finish this test. Oughta be called CWORST.

Duke Lacrosse Players

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Duke Lacrosse Players Current mood: disappointed Not that I'm maintaining that nothing happened, and not that I'm maintaining that the people they've charged are innocent, but this whole case strikes me as a little off. Last I checked, citizens in this country are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. It's bad enough that the court of public opinion has already condemned Barry Bonds, but here are two college students that have been accused of rape. Let's review the facts of the case...first, a DNA test of ALL the team players came back negative. Yet, even with no DNA, they're prosecuting these two guys. Secondly, and more importantly in my mind, apparently, one was at a restaurant when the party was happening, and the other is on camera at an ATM across town. Yet, despite a negative DNA test, and despite alibis that put them elsewhere during the party, these two guys are not only being charged, but suspended from Duke. Shouldn't Duke be waiting to hear if they're guilty before stopping them from attending school? This is starting to look more and more like a witchunt put on by a DA running for reelection and looking to make a statement. Apparently, things like "innocent until proven guilty," and "separation between church and state," don't mean quite as much as they used to.

Fuck the IRS

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Fuck the IRS Current mood: aggravated Ah, the Internal Revenue Sluts. Self employment tax, charging a portion before deductions come into play. And for what? So I can send more innocent people my age to Iraq? So I can drive on the same potholed streets that never seen to be fixed? Maybe it's so I can fund a drug war that is immoral and consistently draws attention, money and time from federal agents away from terrorism and other generally important things. Meanwhile, Bush has a plan, Congress bows to the Man, and we watch as the money gets pulled from our hands.

Welcome Friends, Robots, Countrymen

Friday, March 10, 2006

Welcome Friends, Robots, Countrymen Current mood: chipper So here I am. Unfiltered, untouched, unfuckwithable! Thinking about all those young impressionable catholic high school girls I teach to run finding my myspace profile and being shocked that I not only smoke pot, but also swing!? Jesus. That's not a conversation I want to have with parents or school administration. It made me cut out all the things that helped make me me, until my other myspace profile was but a hollow shell of the man known as Currier. So come here instead. The other one will exist, but in a form mostly there for business and other non-fun things. So kick back, relax, light up that massive spliff and don't forget who you're fucking dealing with here! p.s. party at cella's place tonight in the city.