hooray for bike riding?

last night i stepped out of the subway after work and found myself invited to a dinner party. what i didn't realize is that the hosts had been drinking sparks all day, which made for a hilarious scene. it was sort of like hanging out with people on speed. which is pretty much only fun if you're on speed too. and since i think sparks is just about the most foul beverage on the planet, i passed and became merely a spectator to the caffeine/taurine/guarana/ginseng fueled madness.

since it's getting on the warm-ish side of winter, i decided to ride my bike. it's still a little cold to ride comfortably, but it wasn't so bad. actually nice to be back on the wheels after most of a winter away.

but i don't think my body was ready for it. i think i tweaked something. something...important.

it feels like someone has grabbed my left testicle. and not in a good way. and they won't let go.

testicular pain makes everything easy and awesome! have a great day!

happy birthday!

today is my friend elaine's birthday! happy birthday elaine.

it's also the birthday of a one dock ellis.

my baseball-minded readers will know mr. ellis.

for those who don't, dock ellis pitched for a number of teams including the pittsburgh pirates.

in june 1970, dock was under the impression that he wasn't pitching that day. so he dropped acid with his girlfriend. and then discovered he was actually pitching.

imagine your worst moment on acid. i don't have any since i've never taken drugs*, but i know some of you have. now imagine that worst moment AT WORK.

whew. that would truly suck.

here's the crazy part: HE PITCHED A NO-HITTER.

you can read the story here:

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher's) glove, but I didn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me.

*not necessarily true

why to avoid teenagers

i try to stay away from teenagers. other than my sister* they're pretty obnoxious. even early 20s seems young to me now. my god, am i really pushing 30? more like it's pushing me.

sigh.

anyways, here's a great story about how awesome teenagers are.

STDs rife among US teenage girls.

thanks for ruining all the fun, bbc!



*the one who actually reads my blog

elections

did you know that other countries have elections too?

malaysia has just elected a new prime minister.

he better watch his back!

your morning meditation

i'm still working on oliver sacks' musicophilia -- with breaks for vonnegut's the sirens of titans (thumbs up) and rob sheffield's love is a mixtape (thumbs somewhere in the middle).

this morning he was discussing learned muscle activity and explained that

fetal horses gallop in the womb.



one word: ouch.

chuck norris is awesome.

"Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris."

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

new sins

yes, thank you for pointing out the new sins, tempy. you just beat me to it.

speaking of new sins...

hmm... why isn't the new york times site loading?

maybe it's because

NEW YORK GOVERNOR ELIOT SPITZER HAS ADMITTED HE IS LINKED TO A PROSTITUTION RING.

keep an eye on that one!

who you gonna call?

whew, what a weekend. losing an hour in the middle of the night sucks.

"it's cool, i'll head home at 2."

WAIT IT'S 3 AM OMG DID I JUST BLACK OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAST HOUR?!?!?!?

that was sort of my experience on saturday night.

yesterday i rested and played guitar and went and saw be kind rewind, which is a very silly movie. basically michel gondry wanted to make home movies with jack black and mos def. i can't find the full versions, even though at the end of the movie it said we could go online and find them but of course i don't remember the exact URL. so a preview will just have to do.

books!

i love em. don't you?

well now i've been asked to write for one. yeah!

they want me to write about the power of blogging to reach a mass audience.

ha! i hope all four of my regular readers found that hilarious.

no, it's a book about arts and HIV. a university press and everything!

details to follow.

a long goodbye

ok i know this is a little more wordy than i usually tend to post but too bad. i'm starting to realize that the field closing means more than a quiet night of sleep. that bar closing means the end of a place where i know there'll always be a friendly face and a warm hello. and in this harsh and unforgiving place that is new york city, that is priceless. and i'll miss it.

there's one more chance to sing live band karaoke, and it's next friday the 14th. but here's their goodbye letter from paul's blog - the original post is here.



Goodbye Magnetic Field

Needless to say, we are all heartbroken at the news that Magnetic Field is closing. We're looking for another regular venue but for all the guys in Bunnie England & The New Originals, the Field has been our home away from home and the staff our second family. We've been doing live band karaoke at the Field for almost 4 years now and I think all the guys in Bunnie England would agree that playing at the Field has been the most rewarding and fun experience we've had as musicians.


Here is something you may not know….Bunnie England & The New Originals would not exist if it wasn't for William Crane and Magnetic Field.


I've known William since 1999 when we both worked for Deja.com along with William's then future wife Cena Pohl and Field co-owner Stephen Freeman. Deja was one of those cool but ill-fated dot.com's that disappeared after the dot.com bubble burst around 2000. William and I remained friends after Deja went away and I was psyched when William told me that he was going to open a bar. He had very big ideas about the décor (sci-fi western?), talked about what a great music venue it was gonna be and mentioned something about a game show??? He told me that owning a bar had always been a dream of his and I was excited by his excitement.


A few months after the bar opened, I got a call from William asking me to put together a live karaoke band to play at the Field. I promptly said NO because I was already in a couple of bands and wasn't too sure about doing the "cover" thing. William was persistent and after a few phone calls in which he mentioned something about actually paying the band and the possibility of all the free beer we could drink, it seemed like a no-brainer. I asked Paul Gil, my band mate in Bastards of Melody, and Dave Noel of the late-great Mexican Elvis if they would like to join me in this endeavor and they both said yes! (I figured they would when I mentioned the thing about the free beer.) Thus, Bunnie England & The New Originals was born.


William even gave us our name….Back when William and I worked at Deja.com, we had a company band. Lot's of great musicians worked at Deja so it seemed like a cool thing to do if for no other reason than to play at the company Christmas parties. I played guitar, William played drums and Cena played bass. The other band member shall remain nameless at this time….Anyway, William was already using the name Dick Swizzle and dressing up as the old, drunk, used up, Vegas style game show host we've all come to know and love. Some of the other band members also had nicknames so I wanted one too. I came up with some really lame ones that nobody liked. Then one day, out of the blue, William walked up to me and said "you're Bunnie England." I have no idea how he came up with it or what it meant but it sounded cool so I was Bunnie England…at least for that day.


Fast forward four years - We still hadn't come up with a name when we decided to schedule our first live band karaoke show at the Field, but William went ahead and started promoting the show on the Field website as "come sing with Bunnie England." I really didn't want to be a "solo artist" but William already had the ad up on the site. What to do…I asked the guys in the band if they had a good idea for a name and Dave Noel started doing that scene from This Is Spinal Tap in an English accent…"we were the Creatures, then the Lovely Lads, then the Originals, then the New Originals..." That was it. We put the two together and viola! Bunnie England & The New Originals, the world's greatest live karaoke band.


I don't know how many shows we've played at the Field, probably close to 100. The Field opened up a lot of doors for us including a long running residence at the Cutting Room in NYC where we backed up some semi-famous TV stars such as Chris "Let Me Stand Next To Your Fire" Noth from Law & Order and Horatio Sanz from Saturday Night Live (we couldn't get him off the stage.) We were also featured on NYC's TV25 and have played tons of private parties and various and sundry clubs and bars in New York and New Jersey.


The staff at the Field always treated us like the rock stars that we thought we were. Thanks to William and co-owner Lee Greenfeld who let us use their gear, hired great soundmen and, as mentioned, kept us well "lubricated" during Bunnie England shows.


We have some great memories of the Field including the crazy, over the top, way too much fun Kentucky Derby parties hosted by Michael Boyd, Nina singing "99 Red Baloons"…in German!, the guy who nailed "I Feel Good" complete with authentic James Brown dance moves, William spraying beer all over the stage while singing "Crazy Train" and slipping and falling on his ass (this happened more times than William cares to remember) and Bunnie England host Steve Reynolds blowing us away the first time he sang "Surrender" with us.


Thanks also to all the regulars including Boyd, Ed, Jon Quinn, John Sic, Aggie, Abigail, Jessica, Billy Reno, Miguel, Joe, Cindy, Matt, Katherine, John McD, Gregor, Kathryn, Marya, Jamie, Melanie, Cassie J and YOU if we left you out…Thanks also to the staff past and present: William, Lee, Devon, Charlene, Michelle, Jonah, Matt and Kate.


Oh yeah, I guess we should thank all the great drummers we played with at the Field, if I can remember them all….Scott Treude (Grandma Death!), Troy Messina, Jeff Prosetti and Dave Noel.


We've got two more Field shows and hopefully we'll see you all again when we get settled in our new digs, wherever that may be. Bye bye Magnetic Field, thanks for birthin' us. We're gonna miss ya.


Paul Crane (Guitarist - Bunnie England & The New Originals)

i have a dream

last night i had a dream that i was bartending and this super drunk guy came in and i wouldn't serve him and he got mad and i asked him to leave and he jumped behind the bar and picked up a garbage can and started throwing up and then he threw up on me and then i got mad and he got madder and put down the garbage can and pulled out a gun which i knocked out of his hand and then i started throwing glasses and bottles at him until he left and then i got in trouble for breaking glasses.

the end.

how to smoke in bars

looks like they've found a loophole in the new-ish smoking ban in minnesota. turns out smoking is permitted in theatrical productions. so they've turned the bars into "theatre"...

At The Rock, a hard-rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St. Paul, the "actors" during "theater night" do little more than sit around, drink, smoke and listen to the earsplitting music.

"They're playing themselves before Oct. 1. You know, before there was a smoking ban," owner Brian Bauman explained. Shaping the words in the air with his hands, like a producer envisioning the marquee, he said: "We call the production, `Before the Ban!'"

....One bar on northern Minnesota's Iron Range, the Queen City Sports Place, calls its nightly smokefest "The Tobacco Monologues."

i have decided

that karaoke is awesome. anyone who wasn't at the field last night missed a magnificent display. i seem to remember falling asleep to my bed vibrating to people screaming I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL etc.

now if only i had any voice left today...

do... re... ME ME ME ME

as if this blog wasn't the ultimate form of self-obsession already...

here is video of me on TV! this version is much more exciting than the old video.

good morning

toothpastefordinner

guess who i just talked to?

marky ramone's manager. she was trying to find a nonprofit to partner with for this:

yay 2007!

i'm working on my taxes this morning. when the boss is away, the workers will... play? i wouldn't quite call doing my taxes "playing," but it's nice to relive the wonders of 2007 and the four-figure income i made last year. man, that was the high life!

it's official, i have become utterly obsessed with pandora. the aretha franklin station had me bouncing through the monday doldrums. i've merged all my stations today into a quick mix. i know you're curious. here are the stations i'm mixing:

aretha franklin
marvin gaye
the meters
bill frisell
sigur ros
mum
john coltrane
juana molina
sufjan stevens
iron & wine
the velvet underground
tom waits
prince
stars
andrew bird
the besnard lakes
the rolling stones
the flaming lips
los campesinos
the arcade fire
the magnetic fields
the b52s
atom & his package
mates of state
neutral milk hotel
the mountain goats

now that is some fine lis'nin. nothing quite jumping from prince to tom waits!

post number 357

good morning! what a beautiful day. incredible how a little warmth and sunshine can change your outlook on everything.

also, this is the sweetest thing i've read in a long time. thanks again, craigslist!

Intelligent atheist white man seeks sweetie

I'm a single atheist white man, 54, reputedly intelligent, with unusual interests in politics, science, music and dance.

I'd like to meet a woman with varied interests, curious about the world, comfortable expressing her likes and dislikes (I hate struggling to guess), delighting in her ability to fascinate a man and in being loved tenderly, who values joy, truth, beauty and justice more than "success"--so we can share bouts of intense, passionately kind awareness of each other, alternating with tolerant warmth while we're absorbed in other aspects of life.

My 23-year-old child, the Free Software Movement, occupies most of my life, leaving no room for more children, but I still have room to love a sweetheart if she doesn't need to spend time with me every day. I spend a lot of my time traveling to give speeches, often to Europe, Asia and Latin America; it would be nice if you were free to travel with me some of the time.

Reply and we'll see where it leads.

new layout!

it's friday afternoon. time for a new look.

this template is called "snapshot tequila."

i couldn't resist.

enjoy your weekend folks!

practice this weekend!

sunday night i will be holding a buzkashi tournament. so start practicing.

what? what's buzkashi?

haven't you been to afghanistan? even prince harry has been to afghanistan.

well, buzkashi is a afghani game.

"buzkashi, or "goat dragging", is played with two teams of horsemen competing to throw a decapitated goat into a scoring circle."

AWESOME!!! LET'S PLAY!!!!

garfield minus garfield

i'm getting a little tired of the cold. after a couple winters in minnesota, the new york winter doesn't get to me as much, but it still takes a lot out of me. i have a feeling that march is going to be a bleary month, what with the endless concerts and such in the last month of magnetic field's life.

speaking of which, i've just set up an acoustic show on sunday march 16th. i'll be playing with the 5th and i promise you that i will play songs. and so will they. there will be shots of jameson. this is our drunken agreement.

anyways, here's a new favorite webcomic. i feel like it completely captures the dark mood of late february.

garfield minus garfield.

morning wisdom

enjoy this rare february 29th!

wondering what to do today?

more good advice from our friends at toothpastefordinner.

goodbye silver trees :(

closing bell video

click here to watch the video of the closing bell ceremony! awkward clapping! loud noises! boring clips of the stock exchange floor!

yes!

three:fifty-five pm eastern

a link to a live video feed of the closing bell ceremony goes live at 3:55 PM ET. i'll put up the archive link tomorrow in case you miss it!

click here for live video feed

electricity is important

especially when you're on the subway and there's no power. i love spending an hour getting to know my fellow riders.

actually, i don't.

being stuck in the subway SUCKS.

cnbc, fox business, bloomberg

the above cable channels will be showing myself and my company closing the stock exchange tomorrow at 4 pm!!!!!!!!

fyi, nyse

for your information i will be closing the stock exchange with my coworkers tomorrow.

hells yeah.

improv everywhere

their newest project is mobile desktop.

i only wish my setup was as convenient!

neutral milk hotel

is one of the best bands ever. well, they at least produced one of the best albums ever, that being in the aeroplane over the sea. it's an album so fraught with emotion that the lead singer/songwriter pretty much went crazy (if he wasn't before) and started recording bulgarian folk music.

a friend of one of my co-workers is involved in a project to record videos to every song on the album. they just finished!

check it out!

http://tomatoes-radiowire.com/

wetriffs

check out this amazing gallery. wet people playing guitars. probably not safe for work, depending on where you work.

and speaking of work, my boss just gave us a snow day! who wants to go and play in the snow???

snow!

a sad, sad day

BROOKLYN'S MAGNETIC FIELD TO CLOSE DOORS

After five-plus years of rocking Atlantic Avenue and entertaining thousands of customers and welcoming hundreds of great bands, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn will be closing its doors on March 31st. Co-owners Lee Greenfeld and William Crane would like to personally thank all of Magnetic Field's staff and patrons for their loyalty over the past few years, as well as all the numerous bands who have brought some truly tremendous and memorable performances to our stage, such as The A-Bones, Black Hollies, Black Lips, the Brought Low,Cynics, Dansettes, Detachment Kit, Mitch Easter, The Figgs, The Fleshtones, Gabby Glaser, Insomniacs, Lenny Kaye, Lilys, Klimpter, Lyres, Glen Mercer, Mugs, Nashville Ramblers, Nouvellas, The Plimsouls, Ponys, Reigning Sound, Real Kids, Shaw Nuff, Steve Wynn And The Miracle 3, Voxtrot, Woggles, and so many more!


We are currently working on a blow-out last week of shows to run March 24th through the 31st. Check our website (http://www.magenticbrooklyn.com) or our MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/magenticfield) for details about these shows when they are announced.

--

Lee Greenfeld will continue to book and promote shows -- as well as manage bands -- through his Dead Flowers Productions (www.DeadFlowers66.com).

William Crane will work towards expanding his ever-growing gameshow empire via his Dick Swizzle alter-ego (www.DickSwizzle.com).

high fructose corn syrup

first of all, the lunar eclipse was pretty awesome. next time, though, moon, could you please schedule your eclipse in the summer? it got damn cold up on the roof.

i want to take a moment to talk about corn. i'm in the midst of reading the omnivore's dilemma by michael pollan. as the book explains, basically, humans have become walking piles of corn. you can find corn in 30% of the 45,000 items in an average grocery store. corn feeds our cattle, pigs, chicken and even fish. it's more or less impossible to avoid, unless you're motived (or wealthy) enough to eat from local markets (farmers, CSAs etc).

anyways, i've had it on my mind and today as always, toothpastefordinner is right there with me.

united states of food additives

cutest toddler ever?

a message for today (marriedtothesea.com)

worst. movie. ever.

i sat down for the long flight from san francisco. it was a bittersweet trip - no one likes to see their heroes (aka my grandparents) broken and ravaged by age. at nearly 90, they are tired. my grandma is mostly blind and my grandpa's spine has been disintegrating for twenty years. so it's not the happiest time hanging out with them, even if their spirit is still strong.

so with a heavy heart i boarded the flight home and discovered that delta's satellite tv system was broken. so to pass the long trip i watched "dan in real life." it was horribly, painfully bad and i wish i'd never watched it.

i just thought i would share with you.

the service industry

i'm not in it any more, but it can be exhausting, infuriating, just maddening. sometimes a customer will treat you with such contempt that it's tempting to do worse than just spit in their drink.

here's one way to get back at those assholes.

total eclipse of...

the moon!

on wednesday night!

who wants to go to coney island?

ward of death

back from a peaceful, quiet trip to california, a trip full of naps in the afternoon, sleeping in and staying up late catching up with old friends and giggling. i walked a lot, marveling in the simple joy of warm sun on my face and knowing which curbside plants are edible.

but all was not exactly peaceful. saturday evening we heard gunshots ring out on ward street and quickly the block was swarming with police and their requisite sirens and spinny lights. like five squad cars in less than a minute. as we walked out to head to san francisco, we heard a woman screaming, please, she's bleeding, let me help her before the ambulance comes. whoa.

when we came back late that night, the street was sealed off and the cops escorted us to the door. excuse me sir, but what happened tonight? we asked our uniformed, middle-aged bespectacled asian escort. "well, there was an incident that we responded to."

ok, thanks for the thorough description. we immediately checked online and discovered that the cops had shot and killed a drunken grandmother wielding a knife.

and now the debate begins. self-defense? or unnecessary and extreme violence?

"neighbors blame cops in shooting death"

the depth of february

i have escaped. from the frigid, bustling northeast i find myself in a palm-treed paradise. spring is already here, the cherry blossoms are full and splendid and the first thing i noticed this morning was the smell of freshly cut grass.people are people again, with arms and legs and faces; no walking piles of down and wool here.

would someone please remind me why I moved to new york?

please, help this man find love

from the best of craigslist. somewhere out there is this man's perfect woman. let's hope she's in kansas city too!

lvl 8 ogre mage seeks moon queen or druid

I am a lvl 8 warrior seeking my adventuring companion for game play and fornication. I partake in only adventure/fantasy role play, no creepy goth stuff, it’s too weird. Only sanctioned spells allowed, costume dress optional but preferred. I have the body of a wandering Norwegian brawler and short brown hair. Please be quite buxom and imaginative for play and enjoy fantasy role play aesthetics. Please send pics, leves, preferred adventure type and spell list. We could go get dinner (under $20), and watch a movie. Also I’m allergic to cats.

oh, and

happy valentine's day!

i hate being single on valentine's day.

ready to go

i'm not in a good mood today. i'm not sure why. maybe i'm underslept. maybe i need to get laid. maybe i'm just ready to be in california. i'm not at all excited about a seven hour flight in a middle seat -- it's all that was left -- but man oh man, am i looking forward to being out there. it's cold today and the possibility of warm sun on my face is pretty damn appealing. weather forecast: in the 50s all weekend. hells yeah.

jesus = beautiful

this is an ad for lip balm. flavor, virtuous vanilla. awesome.

countdown: 45 days

it will be 45 days until our new phone system is installed. it's going to be awesome. caller ID (finally!), online-based call forwarding to mobile, pretty new phones with computer screens.

i want a remote headset. aw yeah.

on such a crappy, rainy day, i have to find optimism somewhere. the arcade fire station on pandora is helping. but the fact that i'm playing a late set tonight at a dive in the lower east side isn't making my outlook brighter.

uno = one

i hope you all watched the westminster dog show last night. i damn near cried when the beagle won. i would love to write all about it but i have a meeting uptown. if someone is selling us something, shouldn't they come to us?!?

a little morning adventure

the crush of the morning commute. not my favorite part of my new job. in fact, it may be my least favorite part. i take the 4 train into manhattan every day, and there are some days where the crowds are beyond pushy towards rude and obnoxious.

this morning i managed to get a seat as i got on the train, a rare luxury. as i sat down and cracked open a new book (love is a mixtape, rob sheffield), two riders bumped into each other near me. one went absolutely nuts, cursing and spitting and telling the other to back the fuck off and find some space.

the other, a tall dreadlocked black man, turned slowly towards the man, now nearly frothing at the mouth. he looked him calmly in the eye and said

stand down, wannabe soldier.

after that, silence.

don't you wish that worked with president bush?

shred forever

i don't know whether you ended up watching the shreds clips i posted a while back.

well, i went online to show some friends last week and discovered that all the shreds clips were gone! pulled assumingly for copyright infringement... or because the artists were totally embarrassed. i was pretty bummed, as these clips are now part of my regular viewing.

thanks to the magic of the wired blog, the posts are now online in full:

watch them here.

music genome project

ok, back in the goodle days i worked for an up and coming internet company as a professional almost-spammer (and my friends wonder why i email and text them all the time!). when i worked there i was obsessed with pandora, a personalized online radio station. it's been a long time since i checked them out, but after years of indexing their music the quality of links and relevant groups is way beyond what it used to be. and now i am a man obsessed.

my favorite stations so far are stations for neutral milk hotel and the meters. check it out for yourself!

www.pandora.com

r.i.p. roy scheider

heaven is going to need a bigger boat.

frozen

ok, the temperature today is completely unacceptable. definitely below zero wind chill. in minnesota the weather includes a pain index rating - that's how much it will hurt when you go outside. i'd say we've got about a 6 out of 10.

and speaking of frozen, my favorite crew is at it again. i'm finally on their mailing list so i won't miss out on things like this:

how to market aggressively

with recent indicators of an economic downturn, things are getting hard for local merchants. they're starting to accept euros in manhattan. and why not?

i found this picture in the subway. i guess the local merchants are really struggling to keep their customers.

c'mon doughboy, you were such a good shopper! please come back!

we need a new intern.

so we help her keep her visa. but if she doesn't do any work, can we send her back to france?

anyone feel like labeling CDs and doing data entry for no pay?

contender for worst book ever

i finally finished foucault's pendulum. umberto eco, i give you the same advice connery gave trebek.

suck it, eco. suck it long. and suck it hard.

onwards to vonnegut!

an important message from the staten island zoo

the age of aquarius

sister's birthday on saturday, uncle's on sunday and then my mom and grandpa today. i can't take it any more! plus, if i'm going to call you for your birthday, answer your dang telephone! a birthday message just doesn't cut it.

speaking of astrology, there's a full lunar eclipse this month, and it's visible in all of north america. make a note in your calendar: for the east coast, check it out february 20th between 8:43 and 11:09 pm, with totality between 10:01 and 10:51.

in other news, i figured out how to make those embedded youtube clips tiny!

it's understandable that a cowboys fan would be angry at the cowboys loss to the giants on their way to super bowl glory! tickertape parade tomorrow!

man, that would suck

i don't know if you heard, but whole continents have lost internet service and it may not be up for a while.

how are these people entertaining themselves at work? how are they keeping abreast of the britney situation? what are their sources for video of sedated cats?

i feel for you people, i really do.

stupid undersea cables.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh is very different from AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

the event is over and a smashing success. it was one of the most stressful days of my entire life. not a big surprise that it was a little challenging: four different DVD and slideshow inputs on 13 video screens and having them look sharp and at the proper aspect ratios with the proper timing and synced up with a soundtrack and live stage cues... whew!

but i did meet gavin degraw and danced with germany's next top models. and by with i mean on the balcony above them. close enough.

thanks for emails and texts of encouragement -- especially all who let me know that the mets had picked up santana!

since we had an official photographer i didn't bring my camera but i'll let you know when there are pictures online.

for now:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

the benefit

crunch time.

did i tell you seal is performing?

he's bringing along his pretty wife.

that would be heidi klum.

did you know her legs are insured for $3.5 million dollars?

she's bringing some friends.

did i mention that

THEY ARE THE CONTESTANTS ON GERMANY'S NEXT TOP MODEL?

well they are.

it's my job to host them.

no, that last one isn't true. but i wish it was.

dancing

the benefit is tomorrow! aaaah!

and now, dancing.

glumbert - Best wedding first dance ever

the reuters board

so i've been working on various design elements for our upcoming benefit -- invites, flyers, full page ads in fader, entertainment weekly and people etc. i've learned a huge amount about design in the past couple of months but i would never imagine that i would ever take part in something so grand.

on monday and tuesday, go to times square at the corner of 43rd and 7th avenue. look up.

i made this!

dammit

sorry to miss the match game last night. i'm sure it was family-friendly fun, just like dick always is.

for the second day in a row, i've been at the hard rock cafe in times square before 10 am. times square is pretty much my least favorite place on earth, but damn, before i've had my coffee it's just brutal. although it is cool to see people up on cherry pickers with giant swiffers cleaning the displays.

the dammit title is for the feeling i had when i opened my bag this morning and discovering i'd left my book at home. staring at dr zizmor ads is not my idea of a good subway ride.

it's probably all for the best though, because i'm reading foucault's pendulum by umberto eco, which is a little bit like reading a book in a foreign language that i don't understand very well.

"o ? with the ? in the arms of ? and forced by ? to make a sacred vow that ? would revere" etc etc etc.

a new world order

turns out a couple of welsh crazies have started

the CHURCH OF THE JEDI.

We would read out essays members of the congregation have submitted on their feelings about the Jedi and the Force: do meditation, relaxation and visualisation techniques and a bit of light-sabre training.

check out the linked article, especially for the picture of darth vader with the tagline

It is hoped Jedi church members will resist Darth Vader's dark side.

well, i think i know what their theme song will be:

never forget

marriedtothesea.com

yo momma's on crack rock

here's a link to video of amy winehouse smoking crack.

"The star, her new bottle-blonde hair looking dull and lifeless, then drifts through her lounge in search of the next fix."

below: why i love image search.

life after people

this morning as i ate my yogurt and granola i watched the first few minutes of the new special on the history channel called life after people.

i learned a couple of things.

1) computer animators love to create footage of big things falling down. like bridges, skyscrapers and apartment complexes.

2) if the sump pumps that keep new york subways groundwater-free were to stop working, the tunnels would fill with water within 36 hours.

3) footage of starving dogs trying to pry open refrigerators makes me want to cry.

DON'T WATCH LIFE AFTER PEOPLE IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY.

this is from the show's website:


Small Dogs - Bred over hundreds of years to be smaller, easier to care for and to require less food and exercise, small breeds of dogs, like the ever-popular chihuahuas, Yorkshire terriers and pugs, will have difficulty staying alive after the demise of their owners. Although they can be highly intelligent, these small dogs have short legs and little strength or endurance, which will make it difficult for them to compete for food-if they can even make it out of the house, the first test of their survival. The smallest dogs probably won’t last a week without humans.

i have a dream

i have a dream.

that i wasn't working today.

r.i.p.

rest in peace bobby fisher.

you were a damn fine chess player.

but man you were weird.

oh say can you see...

can you imagine if our national anthem didn't have words and we just sang LA-la la la la LA instead? sort of fun i think.

MADRID (Reuters) - Proposed new lyrics for Spain's national anthem have stirred national divisions rather than pride and have been scrapped, the Spanish Olympic Committee said Wednesday.

Spain's "Royal March" national anthem has been played without words since 1978, when lyrics approved by right-wing dictator Francisco Franco were ditched.

With the Beijing games approaching, Spain's Olympic committee held a competition to find new words for the anthem rather than see its athletes hum along or chant "la, la, la," as has long been the case.

Spanish opera star Placido Domingo was to be the first to sing it.

But the winning version was leaked and met derision in the Spanish media and among members of parliament responsible for approving the lyrics.

The anthem's opening words, "Long live Spain!" had an authoritarian ring to them and one prominent left-wing leader said they "stank" of the Franco era.

The nationalistic tone did not appeal to separatists in the Basque Country and Catalonia.

Not even the political right showed much enthusiasm for the words written by an unemployed 52-year-old, Paulino Cubero, who said he wanted lyrics that would appeal to ordinary Spaniards.

"The words needed to unite and have a general consensus. But we have seen the controversy they have caused and have decided to withdraw them," Spanish Olympic Committee Chairman Alejandro Blanco told a news conference.

"We are continuing with the idea that the hymn will have words and that Placido Domingo will sing them at the presentation."

Domingo said he backed the decision.

"If these words aren't generally acceptable, we have marvelous writers that will be able to come up with something. But I don't want to go with something that causes controversy," he said

The Olympic committee will next meet on January 22 to see if it is possible to find national anthem lyrics that get all Spaniards singing off the same song sheet.

there is a reason

there is a reason why computers shouldn't come with built-in cameras.


of all the swag we give away, kazoos are definitely my favorite.

300th post!

i'm back into the swing of things, i guess. made it to 300! i woke up at 6 am and headed straight to work. our big benefit is just around the corner and things are getting a little hairy.

so i'll have to let another clip speak for me. in honor of the new magnetic fields album, here's stephen merritt... on a local news morning show.

when you choose to interview a sardonic writer of anti-love songs, be ready to face the consequences.

SANTANA ROCKS OH YES!!!

how not to kill a mouse

we have a mouse living in our stove. i thought maybe cooking things in the oven might make him/her uncomfortable. so far no such luck. and now i'm having second thoughts about my technique.

Blazing mouse sets fire to house

A US man who threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves could only watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the building ablaze.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico, found the mouse in his home and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," he was quoted as saying by AP.

Though no-one was injured, the house and everything in it was destroyed.

"I've seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one," Fire Department Captain Jim Lyssy said.

New Mexico has seen several major blazes after unseasonably dry and windy conditions which have destroyed 10 homes and devastated more than 53,000 acres (21,200 hectares) of land.

best headline of 2008

yeah, i know we're only 11 days into this year.

but so far, i haven't seen a better newsheadline:

News Flash: Universe Still a Mystery

speaking of gross...

twins separated at birth accidentally get married. wow.

new sights

y'all know how much i love the toothpaste. and having it for dinner.

what you may not know is that drew, the artist who runs toothpaste, is also a talented writer. in one of his old posts which i can't seem to find, the ohio native described a trip to new york city.

and what did he take away from a weekend in this glorious epicenter of culture?

he noted the lack of bathrooms.

yes, it is a problem, and i've got to say the day i spent in the lower east side with a pregnant friend was quite a challenge. that baby-to-be pressing on her bladder brought us to some interesting places in search of relief.

drew's technique was to pretend to be very, very drunk and fall down in the gutter. bushes also work well. once stationed properly, he would unzip his pants, pee in the gutter, zip up and walk away.

genius. if a little gross.

but drew, i am happy to say, at least in the flatiron district, you now have options.



read about the "first flush" ceremony here.

for the ambitious cripple

ok, so i am busy right now. i think about posting but dammit, i have a lot going on.

when i get off work, i like to get home and relax in a comfy chair. hmm, i wonder what it would be like if i could take that comfy chair on the road?


something like this, maybe?

what not to say

report on espn this morning:

Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman has apologized after saying during Friday's telecast of the PGA Tour's opening event that today's young players should "lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley."

According to New York Newsday, a spokesman for the network said Tilghman apologized on Sunday's telecast and has reached out to Woods' representatives to express her regrets for the comments.

Tilghman, who played college golf at Duke, works as the main play-by-play announcer during The Golf Channel's PGA Tour telecasts.

happy new year!

obviously i resolve to post more. sorry! it's been a crazy holiday season. i hope you've all enjoyed yourselves!

i was in minnesota for xmas. it snowed almost a foot. and then one night i took my dog out for a walk and it was 12 below zero. nice to have some real wintertime.

i also resolve to cook more. i made a parsnip base for homemade udon soup last night.

but this year i'm going to focus on cooking bread. and luckily my friend ameet found a source for cooking videos.



later, 2007!

happy holidays?

after fighting the flu all week, i am way behind on my xmas shopping. and by way behind, i mean i haven't started. i usually get super into the whole spirit of givng thing, but having just received my first paycheck at the non-profit, it looks like mix cds, used books and thrift store clothes for everyone!

maybe i should ask santa for help giving presents to other people.

and if he doesn't have time, i'll just ask this aggressive woman on crutches for a little help.

to whom it may concern:

i would like to express my distinct dissatisfaction with the management of the live music concert event at your venue ______ on saturday night this 15th of december. i myself participated in the event, in the band known as luff, and dear sir or madam, i regret to inform you that the music concert was poorly organized, executed and hosted.

firstly, your ceilings and walls made of tin make it quite difficult to play with the sort of fiery passion that makes music engaging and a live event successful without utterly destroying the sensitive eardrums of your concert-going audience. soundproof your venue post haste.

secondly, as a former mixologist, i may be particularly picky when it comes libational services, but i was quite put off by the attitude of your staff. as one of your performers, i expect no especial treatment, but to be treated with disrepect and a lack of caring by one of your bar-tenders i found quite offensive. after a long wait watching the young man lumber cluelessly from end to end, he asked if we would like anything, and when we responded in the positive, he simply walked away and ignored us. that is unacceptable and the young man should be terminated immediately.

thirdly, and most important, when you should happen to schedule a concert event, please confirm that there is indeed enough time for all the various acts to manage their melodious magic. for as the evening progressed, the acts became shorter and shorter until the very act with which i was performing had time for merely half of the music we had planned. i would hope that your lesson has been properly absorbed: four bands cannot fit into three hours. please discontinue this unfriendly habit of over-scheduling at once.

and in conclusion, suck it.

more amazing news

i still can't get over that karaoke story. i just keep thinking about the joy of screaming welcome to the jungle over an intercom system. and the absurdity of the teacher who thought "you're gonna die" was a death threat.

at least, i couldn't stop thinking about it until i saw this story.

Japan Scientists Develop Fearless Mouse

a slow, snowy day

i think i have the flu. i probably shouldn't be at work. but here i am. luckily it's a slow day. i'm watching the swirls of white spinning down broadway.

i wanted to point out this story about the power of karaoke. it is not a power to be wielded lightly.

ROXBURY, Conn. - Karaoke can be scary, but threatening? A school custodian's impromptu after-hours karaoke performance prompted a police response when a teacher thought she was being threatened over the loudspeaker.

State police say the teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N' Roses song over the public address system for a threat.

She was working after hours and thought no one else was in the building. Then she heard someone say over the loudspeaker that she was going to die.

Six troopers and three police dogs showed up and found three teenagers, one of them a custodian at the school, who had been playing with the public address system.

Police say one of them sang "Welcome to the Jungle" into the microphone. The song contains the lyrics "You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die."

The teenagers were cuffed for about 15 minutes while police investigated. They didn't realize anyone else was in the school at the time. No charges will be filed, said state police Sgt. Brian Ness.

picture!

a while ago i mentioned the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotations -- a shot from my trip down to new orleans was highlighted today. take a look!

"some bunches"

santacon

last night a friend said, you don't blog any more and i miss you. sorry about that!

i'm finally settling in well enough that i have some extra time. not so much that i can tell the whole story, but saturday was santacon. if you saw santas running around in your city, there's a reason. i'll get my pictures up soon!

santas on the rampage:

busy busy busy

so this new job is insane, and i barely have time to think about writing, much less take the time to actually put it up. so i'm taking a break from the adventures to try and stay focused at work. the job is going great and the switch of life schedule is tough but manageable. it's much easier to get up in the morning when i have a good reason to do so.

excuse: big change

sorry, the adventures have fallen silent for the past week. but i promise you, i have a very good excuse. last week i was training at my new job! it's all happened so fast that i haven't even had time to write about it. and now i have so much to do that i barely have time today.

so here's the story: i am the new administrator for a non-profit that (mainly) organizes volunteer musicians to play in hospitals around new york (and philly and nashville too). we also deliver CDs and discmen to hospitals all over the country and record musicians who themselves are in hospitals.

i'm going to be doing a little of everything, from office management to online marketing to event planning to graphic design. i think it's going to be a challenge! and i'm looking forward to it.

i love bartending. and i'm going to miss it! it's hard work and the hours are long, but when it's fun, it's the most fun i've ever had at a job. my bosses have treated me well and i'm sorry to have to leave.

but since i moved to new york to deepen my involvement at the intersection of music and health, how could i not take this job?

and look, the view from my desk is across madison square park to the old met life building.


and check this out -- an office full of smiles and CDs to the ceiling.



i just have one question: who could ask for anything more?

bad

i am in a band called luff. they are on the myspace. we are headlining at union hall tomorrow night. yay!

so today is all day band practice. i will be a bad blogger today. but i will be a better musician for it.

come see my band tomorrow.

the headlines

there are plenty of places to read about the chaos in pakistan or the oil spills everywhere. but only adventures in brooklyn provides you with news that really matters. today, two stories out of germany.

check out this man. now that's how to prove your innocence. or not.

BERLIN - A German flasher stunned lawyers during his appeal hearing on a flashing conviction by stripping off in court, authorities said Thursday.

"The court withdrew for deliberations and during the adjournment the man removed his clothes again," said a spokesman for the court in the western city of Duisburg. "It appears he sees it as art, and views himself as a living work of art."

The 60-year-old was in court to appeal against his conviction for running onto the pitch naked during a girl's soccer match and striking a range of "body builder poses," the spokesman said.

State prosecutors filed fresh charges of indecent behavior against the man after the court incident.

berlin is just the happening place to be! flashers naked in court, and now this excitement at a local gas station.

BERLIN - A German man forgot his car after filling it up at a petrol station, police said Friday.

"He just forgot about it and walked off home," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Wuppertal.

After the car had sat blocking the pump for about an hour, a woman working at the petrol station became suspicious and alerted authorities.

Officers contacted the 63-year-old from Remscheid, who came straight back to fetch the vehicle. He had paid to fill up the car before walking off.

seriously, i can understand forgetting your sister at a gas station, but your car?

sorry jessie.

more truth from toothpaste

i'm excited about the new apple leopard os. but there is one major problem.

from toothpastefordinner.

worst sex columnist ever!

i have my beef with dan savage from time to time. but this disheartening bathroom reading from my housemates really puts it in perspective. what terrible advice!


Talking Dirty

No one knows O.P.P. like Alexyss K. Tylor. the Atlanta sex therapist and TV host advises some of our disturbed readers.
From KING Magazine’s October ‘07 issue

Dear Ms. Tylor,
I’ve been married for seven years, and our sex life is pretty healthy (role playing, bondage and porn). But since my wife made some new work friends, she’s been trying to persuade me to let her play with my butthole. I’m really not feeling that. I feel like you need to draw the line somewhere, and I draw that line at my anus. The last time we made love, she attempted to probe me with her finger, and I instinctively smacked her, but she still insists on penetrating me. How do I talk her out of this?
Colin D. Rigeur Teaneck, New Jersey

You needs to find out where this is comin’ from, because she’s suddenly changed friends, and they’re telling her that for added sexual pleasure—or to dominate you—she needs to poke you in the ass. It’s just the fingers now, but the problem is the whole dick is gonna come in a minute. You gon’ need to open ya ass up and get relaxed and greased up for that. Sounds like she just wanna damn dominate and hump you into submission! She’s trying to secure a deeper, more authoritative alpha-male role. If I was you, I wouldn’t let her do it.

Dear Alexyss,
After watching the Kim Kardashian sex tape with my lady, I’m feeling inadequate. I feel like I’m an average size, but this dude, Ray J… My girl won’t stop talking about his meat, and now I have performance anxiety. What should I do?
John Paynesworth Tallahassee, Florida

She done made it very clear she like big penises. She watchin’ that man on that tape and it done turned her on; now, in her mind, she’s fantasizing about a piece of that dick. You can’t never erase that fantasy out that girl’s mind. You’ve gotta decide whether you respect yourself enough to let her go, or are you gonna share her? ’Cause it seems to me like a level of respect for yourself is gone—she done thought to discuss another man’s dick with you?!

finally!

whew! what a week. i've got to get my final new orleans stories out of the way so i can get back to work pointing out stories about toys contaminated with GHB and the dangerous challenges of living in central washington.

i spent my last two volunteer days working on a house in the 7th ward. as noted in my mobile entry, the house was almost completely destroyed by katrina. rod and camile, the couple that lives in the house with their two daughters, said that the water came through as high as the top of a stop sign. the city had actually planned to demolish what was left -- mildewed plywood and crumbling, termite-infested studs -- but there is such an unimaginably gigantic backlog that they never got to it. so, we rebuilt it. my sister and mom had both worked on the house during previous visits, first to gut the house and then to put up walls. now here i was, working on the finishing touches before the family moves in at the end of this month.

the first day i mostly followed instructions. they had put the only four male volunteers on the project and we worked together well. no, that's an understatement. we worked fluidly and efficiently. we made some serious progress, i spent hours finding studs, or what was left of them, so that when we cut the baseboard we could lay it down quickly. with a nail gun. man, that thing is such a rush. i was a nail master. and i'm not talking manicures!

nothing like spending time with men looking for studs.

after our day of construction, we took rod and camile's family out to dinner to celebrate the near completion. we let them choose and ended up at a fast food-ish burger and seafood joint. you cannot imagine the waitress' face when we walked in and asked for a table for 22! ouch. bonus: $7 pitchers of abita amber, the delicious local brew.

my god, that put new york bar prices into perspective. can you imagine $7 pitchers? a bottle of bud is $7 some places in manhattan.

by the second day of construction, i was more or less working on my own -- measuring walls and angles, cutting baseboard and installing trim. now i know how to use a compound mitre saw!

throughout my experience down south, it felt like a privilege to be able to step away from my life and give some time and energy towards making even a little difference.

but the real privilege? getting to wear these amazing work goggles. damn sexy!

an intense end to the day came when the volunteers from the tureaud school arrived. this was the school where, just two days previous, we had helped host their halloween party and i had walked through the neighborhood, trying to capture boarded-up houses and burned-out churches. our volunteers were spending the day working on letter recognition when from outside the school there was a hail of gunfire and a man was killed. the school went into lockdown. remember, these are elementary school kids who have already had to survive the storm. post-traumatic stress disorder is a way of life for some of these kids. and now there was a corpse in the street in front of their school. i don't envy our volunteers who were there that day.

after finishing up at rod and camile's, we headed out towards the north shore of lake pontchartrain. driving across the long causeway at sunset, i marveled at the long views out all windows and wondered how such a pretty lake could have such a devastating effect on its neighboring city. the rise in pontchartrain was responsible for the worst of the flooding in new orleans, but in the glow of dusk, it was at peace.

the north shore unitarian universalist fellowship has hosted us and helped in our efforts since the first trip down, eight weeks after katrina. two of their members, tim and carla, live in an other-worldly magical house out in the woods. the house survived the storm remarkably unscathed, even as they lost half the trees on their property. we arrived to a giant homecooked meal and sat around the bonfire for hours singing, telling stories and jokes and making general merriment. a welcome break from being constantly surrounded by destruction and reminders of death, racism and the complete ineptitude of our government!

after our magical night in the woods, we said our goodbyes and parted ways. it's always hard to leave a community of service. you've all worked together towards a common goal, striving to make the world a better place, bit by bit. but then eventually you have to return to your lives and routines. if anything in your life makes you unhappy, returning to it puts it in stark contrast.

as i lay down to sleep that night, in my own soft bed and not on a church floor, i listened to the roaring trucks, the growl of buses, the screams of the ambulances and police sirens, the gleeful conversations of drunken patrons from downstairs. i wondered how i had survived it so long.

an anniversary

today is the anniversary of galloping gertie. check out the news footage from 1940. if only the news were still presented like this!

still busy

i should have time for a nola wrap-up tomorrow. in the meantime, i'll let toothpastefordinner do my work for me.



it's like he sees straight into my soul.

dang it.

i have so much i want to put up here. but i am insanely busy right now. notice that i'm up before 11 am after bartending last night. yeah, i'm that productive.

i hope that you've taken a look at the pics from new orleans. i'm proud of them. i think the pictures of the kids on halloween are so unbelievably cute.

just before my camera died i was able to get some video of the chaos of halloween in the french quarter. not the best quality, unfortunately. but c'mon, you can't argue with thriller!

pictures!

while i work on my final new orleans entry, here are some highlights from my pictures.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonah.ei/NewOrleans

progress.

Six months ago, this wall was nothing but plywood and rotted studs. It was damn near washed away. You could see through to the house next door. My mom and sister worked on the drywall and i installed the baseboard and trim. The family moves in at the end of the month. How cool is that?

halloween, in school and in the quarter

the tureaud elementary school was our destination yesterday. i was sorry not to head back to gregory. it's obvious that so much needs to be done in that prison camp of a school -- so much, unfortunately, that our presence is not necessarily helpful, which i hope to get to. the 7th ward school tureaud was in much better shape, and i felt a bit useless. we helped move some things around and did some inventory, but after that hour of hard work was over, we spent the afternoon helping to set up the school's fall festival and halloween party. and yes, it was easier for the people setting up the event with us there -- who would have carried the giant roasting pan full of boiling nacho cheese down three flights of stairs if i hadn't been there?

i guess i just had lofty goals for my time here. but hey, it was one heck of a party. i took endless pictures of children in costumes, kids playing on a playground looking out on boarded-up houses with the ubiquitous X. two years later, many houses still bear the marks of inspectors that identify the inspector, the hazards inside, pets if any and the number of bodies found. most of the x's have a body count of zero, but the ones that do make me shudder as we drive by.

still, we had one heck of a halloween party. i ran the ring toss and the pins were two liter bottles of soda, so the kids were anxious to win. they were like compulsive gamblers, going again and again and again in vain.

after our day, i expressed my doubts as to the effectiveness of our time at the school to our program leader and was transferred to construction duty this morning. a good morning for it, considering the real halloween party was last night in the french quarter.

some say the best halloween party in the country is in the castro. but it was cancelled after a shooting last year. those from madison wisconsin say their's is the best in the midwest. i haven't done the west village yet, maybe next year. honestly, i'm not sure that i will ever be satisfied with another halloween after last night. i can't wait to put my pictures and videos up. seriously, this is one helluva time. i couldn't believe the insanity. so many amazing costumes -- michael vick seemed to be a local favorite, with stuffed dogs dragging behind.

the highlight for me was in our last bar. we stopped to wait in line for the bathroom before we began the long search for a cab home. a couple girls were dressed in full kiss makeup and suits and started singing i wanna rock and roll all night. me, being dressed in my full freddie mercury costume, started we are the champions. kiss shouted me down and i challenged them to a rock-off. they went silent and it became obvious that rock and roll all night was the only kiss song they knew. so me and my sister started rattling off song after song from the queen library. eventually a guy dressed in a terrible florida costume (egg crate mattresses tied to his body with duct tape) joined us for bohemian rhapsody.

rock off final score? queen 7, kiss 1.

we truly are the champions.