Turns out I wasn’t so novel with my Paranoid Android hypothesis. But of course, it only makes sense. Somebody else has to have read the book and heard the song. I guess it’s both cool and not cool to know that I found something cool that many others have found.

I think I know where Radiohead got the title for their song Paranoid Android. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the book I’m reading, there is a human-like robot. It was given a personality by its manufacturer. The personality is a new feature and has yet to be perfected, so the robot does not know how to control its emotions. It is, in a sense, paranoid. The characters in the book ask whether or not they have to take the robot with them to a nearby planet. Specifically, the exchange is as follows:

“Are we taking this robot with us?”
“Oh, the Paranoid Android…Yeah, we’ll take him.”

A friend introduced me to Taboo sometime during college. In fact, I think he introduced a whole lot of people to Taboo during college. Over time, I noticed its uncanny ability to get a party moving (party of total dorks, that is). When alcohol is added to the equation, things get even more uncannier.

So, imagine my satisfaction when I was at a pot-luck dinner last night and someone busted out a Taboo game. Whole chapters of my college career came flooding forward.

Last night’s Taboo session was a little tamer due to an unfortunate lack of alcohol, but one guy in particular had been drinking and therefore supplied plenty of entertainment. I’m talking about Russell. When the other team was trying to guess words, he would butt in with random explicit comments. For example, for the word ‘cocktail’, the exchange went as follows:

Tracy: why do you go to 6th street [downtown Austin]?
Russell: (suddenly) DICK. COCK.
Tracy: Shutup! Yes, kind of.

Kyle: What’s the Weezer song titled “In The blank”?
Kyle’s team: (dumbfoundedness)
Particleman's internal dialogue: GARAAAAAGE!!!
Kyle: C’mon, you know the song, “In the blank, I feel safe, da da da da da da da”

ACL was awesome. I ‘discovered’ some new bands and was thoroughly converted. Ween, Ben Kweller, and Yo La Tengo were all very impressive. Special mention goes to Ween for innovative lyrics, vocals, kick ass drumming, and killer guitar solos. David Garza was a pleasure to watch. Liz Phair, however, was considerably less energetic than I was hoping. Then again, I don't know her music very well.

REM was phenomenal, as always. This was my third REM show and likely my favorite so far. They played songs that were released when I was a toddler as well songs that are so new they have not yet been released. Some gems were Fall On Me, Begin The Begin, Drive, Man On The Moon, Finest Worksong, Don’t Go Back To Rockville, Losing My Religion, and The One I Love. They closed with a charming version of Nightswimming and It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. For a full setlist, go here.

I saw an old friend I hadn't seen in ages and finally met her sister and boyfriend. A bunch of old college buddies were also in attendance, so I spent a lot of time with them (and bummed rides – thanks much). I also ran into a gaggle of random people, including my Management professor from senior year.

Overall, it was a great weekend despite the crummy weather. Oh yeah, and Will Wynn (the mayor of Austin) and senator Lloyd Doggett introduced Lance Armstrong, who introduced REM.

Austin City Limits Festival is this weekend. Three days of music in Zilker Park ought to give me the shot of music I’ve been craving for the past 7 months. REM is headlining, and other bands I’m psyched to see include David Garza, The Gourds, Liz Phair, The Dandy Warhols, and G Love and the Special Sauce. My friend Erin is coming in from NYC to see the show and hang with her sister, so it will be good to see her again.

Now beginning The Case for Israel by Alan Derschowitz. Here is a brief review of it and a similar novel by Yaacov Lozowick, Right to Exist.

Via nerygirl: “Blogger has some tips on how not to get fired because of your blog.” Good stuff, especially since paychecks should always trump your blog.

semaphoria must have a really cool job.

Is San Antonio weather on crack? I went to bed last night and it was like 60. When I woke up this morning it was 33 (and my nose was stuffy again). A friend from work told me how he went for a ride on his motorcycle out in the country and saw a line of dark clouds in the sky. A few minutes later, the temps dropped “a good 20 degrees” and the wind almost blew him off the bike. He hit the gas and raced the cold front back to his house, weaving in and out of it as the roads wound through the Texas hill country. When he got home, he saw it tumbling towards his neighborhood and WHOOSH the wind blew and the temps dropped. Cool stuff, weather.

It just occurred to me that Rid of Me by PJ Harvey is 11 years old (recorded winter ’92, released ’93). After that, Steve Albini recorded two more of my favorite albums: In Utero and Last Splash. Why are most of my favorites from the ’90-’95 era? I must be getting old. Pretty soon, I’ll be listening to a classic rock station playing Mudhoney. I rue the day.

This web site is on my referrer list under four different URLs. What gives? How did it find me? Strange.

Cool new exploding dog drawing [click above link].

As long as it gets above 40, I'll be going mountain biking with a friend from work today. I'm a little concerned because i don't want to get sick before the trip, but i really want to go ride. I need to get outside. I was cooped up in cubicle land for 50 hours this week and i'm ready to let loose.

addendum: I just found out The Special Goodness [link on right] has signed with Epitaph Records. Congrats guys! From the humble beginnings of recording on Pat's laptop in his garage to a contract with Epitaph...not bad at all.

Thanksgiving with the family in Little Rock was good. Lots of food, lots of Maya, lots of lounging. She’s starting to resemble a unique person rather than just any baby (babies all look the same to me). The greatest thing is making her laugh. Making funny faces, singing random tunes, and doing silly dances all bring smiles to her face and occasionally, she laughs. Her laugh is the best laugh in the world.

On a sad note, some morons in my sister’s neighborhood decided her husband’s car was in need of a new windshield. His car was parked on the curb, so they drove by and launched a 20-pound landscaping boulder at it and peeled out. The rock put a ginormous dent in the windshield, bounced off of the roof, knicked the fender, and fell to the ground. We called the cops but all they could do was file a report. Bummer, especially considering it happened the night before Thanksgiving.

In other news, I gave Protection by Massive Attack a second listen. I think I was overly critical (what else is new). Protection really isn’t that bad; it’s just that Mezzanine so completely eclipses it in creativity and execution that it seems like it’s a moot point. I just found out that the vocalist they recruited was Sinead O’Conner – no wonder I didn’t care for the vocal tracks. I returned the cd to Chris having not copied it. I’m quite content with my copy of Mezzanine, which is probably the best album I’ve heard all year.

Travel update: I was supposed to meet my Dutch buddies Daan and Jaap in Spain this December for a two-week jaunt through Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, and wherever else we felt like going. First Daan canceled; having been awarded the honor of placing at the top of his graduate program, he was asked to give some kind of speech in some kind of ceremony. Jeez, isn’t bouncing around Europe with a backpack and two friends more important than being recognized for outstanding scholastic achievement in mechanical engineering? OK, maybe not. Then, last week, Jaap informed me he got into a disagreement with his graduate advisor and wouldn’t be able to make the trip. It looked like I was on my own.

I debated on whether or not to go, and if I should go, where exactly should I go? I was no longer tied to Spain. After some research on New Zealand ($$$) and a mountain biking trip in Cyprus (dumb and $$$), I decided Spain was the place for me after all. I’ve seen 99% of Western Europe; the only remaining behemoth of a country left for me to conquer was Spain. So I booked a flight to Barcelona for December 12th and returning the 26th. That’s two weeks of me, a backpack, and Spain. The weather forecast is a tad worrisome: rain comes and goes and temps drop as low as 40. Not exactly what I call vacation weather, but I’ll be in Spain which is enough to be thankful for. I’m already preparing for the climactic uncertainty by buying a pair of waterproof shoes, a good rain jacket, and other wintery items. Most of what I used for last summer’s backpacking trip will work nicely for this trip, so that’s a plus. Now I only need to figure out how to cram winter gear into a pack that, last summer, was filled (to the brim) with just enough summer gear to get my by. I may be doing a lot of sink-washing on this trip.

Pictures from Thanksgiving and Tarfia’s and Amanda’s party will be posted tomorrow (or sometimes this week). For now, please take a look at the adorable Maya, sticking her tongue out in a typical display of her photogenic-ness (word?).

On page 206 of Come As You Are:

(‘Macleod’ is Alex Macleod, Nirvana’s tour manager.)

Dave, who is not a “morning person,” began rooming with Mecleod [in hotels while on tour]. But as the tour went on, Macloed acted more and more annoyed at Dave. Finally, Dave couldn’t stand it anymore and confronted him.
“What’s your problem? What’s wrong?” Dave asked.
“Fuck you!” Macleod shot back.
Apparently, whenever Macleod would try to wake Dave up in the morning, Dave would yell in his sleep, “FUCK YOU! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE! THIS IS BULLSHIT!” then settle peacefully back into his pillow. Later, he’d go down to breakfast and wonder why Macleod was scowling at him.

I have a record player and some random Nirvana 45s. At the time I bought the 45s, I didn’t have the plastic adapter needed to play them, so I just shelved the records for when I got the adapter.

It’s been about four years and I still have not gotten the adapter. About 90% of that time has been wasted forgetting that I even had the 45s. So now I’m finally getting off my ass and looking for an adapter, and it turns out these things are extinct. I called Radio Shack, who referred me to Hermes Music, a local guitar/audio store, who referred me Bjorn’s, a local high-end audio equipment store, who referred me to Electronics Services, an unheard-of local electronics services store. Electronics Services is open 9-5:30 during the week and 9-12 on Saturday.

This basically means that I will never be able to get the adapter. In this day and age, it feels good to support your local music/electronics shop instead of automatically going to the internet, but you know what, the local music/electronics shop has some crappy hours.

Results from the office party last night: the most embarrassment I brought upon myself came in the form of a sad game of darts. I couldn’t hit anything with a number on it. On the bright side, the BBQ was good, the beer was plentiful, and I hit on, or got hit on, by the boss’ girlfriend. Sweet.

also – plans are in motion for particleman to visit Portland, Oregon. Beer will be consumed. Thai food will be inhaled. Geeks will lose glasses at rock shows. World problems will be solved. The Northwest will never recover.

It's midnight and I just got back from Austin. The one known as Tarflet and I saw Sonic Youth and they were great. A proper write-up is forthcoming.

I also finally finished Under Western Eyes. Commentary is in the works.

I won tickets to see Missy Elliot, Beyonce, and Alicia Keys tomorrow night so the one known as Tarflet will be in town for that. I'm sure some kind of write-up will follow.

I'm leaving to Arkansas to see my sister and co. on Thursday morning, so posts will be thin during the weekend.

All in all, there's lots going on but I gotta go to bed now. You'll hear more from me next week.

I just finished Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House, I’m listening to Turn On The Bright Lights [courtesy of a friend from work], and the floaty guitar riff on track one has somehow brought me to the keyboard. I must write about these card-counting whiz kids.

Mezrich’s book tells the story of a dozen or so MIT students and dropouts that, under the guidance of an MIT professor and the financial backing of undisclosed investors, take Vegas for millions playing Blackjack. They crack the system and do it perfectly legally. It’s not cheating – it’s outsmarting.

The aspect of the book that struck a chord with me the most was in the time management skill these kids demonstrated. It seems all too easy to screw up something in between weekdays in Boston spent taking care of a full course load and weekends in Vegas spent trolling the strip – not to mention the inherent difficulty in keeping the double-life secret from family, friends, and significant others. While the winnings were enormous, there’s no telling what kind of damage to said relationships occurred as a result of the secret life. But in the end, there’s not much to say other than “they did it to themselves.”

And if things weren’t difficult enough, the team broke ranks when the dangers of unorthodox play got it into trouble. Friendships built on weekends in Vegas and Atlantic City crumbled as friends got their teeth knocked out by questionable characters in casino restrooms. To some, Blackjack was just a weekend hobby. But to others, it was how the rent got paid.

So how did they do it? It’s not so much about counting the cards as it is tracking them. If you can keep track of when most of the low cards have already been dealt, you can figure out when to bet $10 and when to bet $5000. This is obviously an oversimplification, but that’s the general idea. It also takes a significant amount of calculations that, as it turns out, require MIT whiz kid status to perform on the fly.

Totally unrelated but very informative: FAQ on recording industry basics [via sellout central.]

Second installment of the “things that happen to you while” series; alternate title: “too many p’s: p-man in p-town”; written after a five-day excursion visiting four bloggers I had never met [in person] with three friends I met at my [now previous] employer.

Note: The links don't actually send you anywhere, they just pop up witty witticisms.

- - - - - -

On the way to Portland, you sit next to a woman speaking a language strangely familiar to you. It’s Russian. You talk with her for the duration of the flight about living in Russia, traveling in Europe, how your Jewish parents are basically the same, how writing code gets old, how lucky her kids are that they get to travel the world by age 10. You exchange information. You have now made a friend in Oakland, California.

After several bumbling mishaps, your friends meet you at the airport and whisk you away to a five-day vacation. Your friends say they’re in an orange car. When you see an orange car carrying your arms-flailing-hands-waving friends, your mind flips when you realize the orange car is a bright orange Mustang convertible. Your friends have rented a speeding ticket waiting to happen.

You and your friends drive like maniacs [safe maniacs]. No tickets happen.

You proceed directly to an establishment called the Kennedy School and wonder how long it’s been since you went anywhere with a name ending in “school.” You are oddly excited because this place apparently serves beer. What a great combination. You meet your blogger friends there and you discover their blogs are accurate representations of who they really are: interesting, cool, witty, fun, and just a little bit saucy. Or is it snarky? Both.

You, a couple of the bloggers, and a roommate continue the drinking at another bar. Upstairs, Sonic Youth is making a racket – a beautiful racket you would love to hear in a venue you would love to see. One of the bloggers happens to be a well-known bartender and musician in the Portland area and gets you and your friends in for free. Sonic Youth slowly gets louder as you climb the staircase and walk into a historical gem of a music venue. It’s a ballroom complete with chandelier, frescoes on the wall, and a spring-loaded wood floor. One of your friends says “Welcome to Portland!” as Kim and Co. do their thing onstage. You wonder why the hell you aren’t already living there.

An afternoon spent wandering the many trails of Washington Park reminds you why you like being outside and how much cube life sucks. You find a bench under a redwood and sit. For a long time.

Sushi Happy hour results in many beers and several rolls of rice, seafood, and vegetables. One of your blogger friends ingests an ungodly amount of wasabi. You laugh. He cries. You laugh more.

You spend the evening at one of Portland’s many brewpubs, Bridgeport. You take pictures of your friend’s simultaneously hideous and glorious parallel parking job. Imagine: right next to the pub’s patio sits a bright orange Mustang convertible with half of its nose sticking out into the street. The patrons gawk in amazement: “who the hell are these people?” You enjoy yet more delicious new beers.

Two of your friends leave the next morning, and with them, the ‘stang. You and the remaining member of the Texan crew rent a Taurus to explore the Gorge. Within thirty minutes of leaving Portland driving on a picturesque highway [only a little more picturesque than I-10 in San Antonio] you arrive at mountains and waterfalls. You ogle the waterfalls, want them to be thirty minutes from your door, wonder if you’d ever get used to them and stop visiting them if you lived in Portland. You pinch yourself and think, “stop daydreaming, asshole. there are waterfalls here that need your attention.” Your friend’s new motto for the trip is “that doesn’t suck.” You agree.

Over the next two days, you continue to consume refreshing beers and visit places like the Pittock Mansion, The Japanese Gardens, and The Chinese Gardens. During those two days, you end up at the Kennedy School once again and wander off the beaten tourist path to a pub called Bonfire.

You spend Monday morning wandering the many stacks of Powell’s Bookstore. At 1, your friend leaves for her flight back to Crap Antonio. You hug and realize this trip basically changed your lives. Now you’re on your own with one more night and no hotel room, you wander the streets of downtown in search for lunch and a good time. You invariably end up back at the bookstore.

Your friend's husband calls you and invites you to the park to see if there is any kickball to be played. Looking down at your feet clad in sandals, you wonder if that’s such a good idea. You say, “Fuck it, worse comes to worse, I can play barefoot.” You meet a lot of cool people and head over to the Portland version of a dive bar called the Triple Nickel for beers and music geek talk.

A show at Dante’s featuring the Short Bus Dub All Stars is waiting, so you head back to the house to change and pick up your friend’s wonderful wife, the one that let you crash on their couch. While the husband plays pool, you and the wife skank to the opening ska band and wait for Short Bus to come on. While the bands are loading/unloading from the stage, a high school-esque drum line entertains the audience with cool beats and crashing cymbals. The crowd starts to pogo; you pogo; everyone is getting into it. For a split second, you wish you were in marching band in high school. Then the next second arrives and you’re glad you weren’t. Jazz band was way cooler.

You end the night at a strip club down the street from your friends’ house that oddly has one dancer that isn’t stripping. It’s late on a Monday night and she’s hanging out and talking to the few patrons left. You aren’t the biggest fan of strip clubs but you like this one. You talk with your friend, the dancer, the bartender, and the patrons till late.

The next morning, you and your friend eat cheese and crackers and watch the best cartoons since Transformers. Imagine the old Hanna Barberra cartoons on crack. And a couple 40s. After a short drive to the airport, you pull up at the departure entrance and tell your friend he and everyone else are always welcome in Texas and to drop you a line if they ever go, but as soon as you say this you realize chances are better that you will end up in Portland before he or his Portland crew will end up in Texas. Lo and behold, he says just that. You agree. You say thanks again, shake hands, and hop out of the car.

On the flight home, you sit next to an elderly nun. There is an empty seat between you and her. You spend the entire flight engrossed in one of the many books you bought at Powell’s and gaze out the window at the black sky, a little fidgety in anticipation of getting home. The nun spends the whole flight motionless – she stares at the seat in front of her blinking for the duration of the flight. Doesn’t move. No book to read, no magazine, no music, no journal to write in. Just sits. You wonder what kind of thoughts she has that keep her entertained or if she needs anything at all to be entertained, or if, more simply, she needs to feel entertained at all. She just is. You wonder why the hell you can’t do that. You look at her and notice you’re staring. She turns her head and smiles. You smile back. You look at your hands and try to think of nothing.

And then all the badass people you met and all the badass things you did in Portland flood your brain. Hey, doesn’t Portland have a law school?

In response to a short article about a website listing famous guitarists and their guitar/amp rigs, the following exchange ensued:

Person 1: Juliana Hatfield isn't listed, so the site is worthless.
Person 2: It is well known that Juliana plays Evan Dando, or at least used to.
Person 3: 1994 called. They want your lameness back. Juliana Hatfield, Person 1?

PS: I actually kinda like Juliana Hatfield, but anyway…

PPS: the post category formerly known as "contact" no longer exists. my condolences. it never did much anyway. it has been replaced with a new category, law school. since that is where i'll be in about a month's time, i figured a post category was in order. also note its strategic placement - between "beer" and "about." excellent. [actually, that's just where contact used to be.]

in honor of contact’s demise, my friend aaron donated his spiffy email form, which I have placed in the official “about” post.

Richard Posner, pinch-hitting for Lessig, says in his last post:

The uncertainty concerning the proper scope of IP rights is magnified by the onrush of technology. As I said, repeating a Lessig point, law is relative to technology; technology can disrupt a balance carefully struck by law. But if we have no clear sense of where the balance should be struck, this makes it difficult to know what stance to take with relation to encryption technologies that enable IP owners to obtain greater protection from copiers than IP law would give them.

Any volunteers?

all the shit that's important is right here ==>

i now return you to your regularly scheduled whatever.

I have officially moved back to Houston. After leaving it six years ago for college in Austin, I never thought I'd return. Funny how things work out.

But six years can make a difference. I can [legally] drink, I know where I can catch all the hip bands, and the museums rock. I know a few people here and will be meeting more in law school.

So I think I'll give Houston a clean slate. No pre-conceived notions, no expectations [aside from the heat, humidity, traffic, yadda yadda].

One thing’s for sure – I’ll stay far away from my old high school. They tore half of it down the year after I graduated for health violation issues. Seriously.

click the above link. it takes you to a recent exploding dog drawing called "i can't hear you." then tab back to this page.

see? i may be a huge dork, but this just might be what i need to establish my hip indie cred. and everyone knows one cannot operate a hip indie blog without hip indie cred.

in other music news, i've been listening to Gorillaz a lot lately. imagine Blur, but stoned, and with an array of sampling devices and other instrumentation. if you aren't familiar with Blur, imagine good music. and go buy this album.

--------------

i posted the other day about Summerland and i'm happy [? or not?] to report i was right. the book stays corny. rebecca, that doesn't mean you shouldn't finish it, though. it does pick up pace towards the end. i think you'll like it.

there is one last thing i want to mention: religious allusions. the book alludes to several religious ideals about the beginnings of the universe and whatnot. at one point, a character says: "Back when old [guy who created the world] was making the Worlds, separating out all the Something from Nothing..." [page 437]. this comes straight from the Old Testament - the concept of separating two groups of matter as part of the creation process. i don't know why Chabon felt it necessary to make such allusions. if you're writing a fairytale story, why borrow concepts from common religious thought?

I would have liked to say “anywhere but unemployed” but i figured i ought to not embarass myself so soon in the semester. Here’s approximately what happened.

On the first day of orientation, the Dean gathered the entering class of 350 into an auditorium and gave a “congratulations on getting into law school” speech. Then, with spare mic in hand, he took to the aisles.

So imagine my surprise and slouching posture when the Dean began to discuss his desire to learn about where some of the students went to college, where they saw themselves in 10 years, and what kind of law they wanted to practice. As he spoke, he proceeded directly to ME, an aisle-seat occupant. Yes, it seemed I would be the first student to speak publicly to the entering class. I was thrilled. As he spoke some more about the various fields of law available to us, I prayed and hoped and swore to all that is holy in the world that if I was absolved of this task, I would perform an untold number of community service hours, study my balls off, stop drinking, post more to my website, so on and so forth.

The praying didn’t do shit. Never let anyone tell you praying helps. It doesn’t. He chose me.

The exchange, as best I remember it, follows.

Dean: Mr. [Particleman], tell us where you went to school and what kind of law you see yourself practicing in ten years.
Mr. Particleman: I went to UT Austin -
Audience: [cheers]
Dean: Oh, so we have some UT Grads? How about A&M?
Audience: [hands raise, more cheers]
Mr. P: [mumbles] Put your hands down, people.
UT Grads: [chuckle]
Dean: So, Mr. Particleman, now that we’ve given you some time to come up with a good answer, what do you say?
Mr. P: [internal dialogue: whatever you say will be held against you for the next three years. better make it good.] I’d like to get involved in copyright law dealing with music and the rights of musicians. [man, that was cheesy].
Dean: Ah, were you a music major?
Mr. P: Uh, no, but I play music.
Dean: Interesting... [commentary on the new wave of issues affecting copyright law resulting from the internet].
Every female in the audience: [internal dialogue: hey, he’s a musician, he’s gonna be a music lawyer, and he has cool glasses. i must flirt with him later.]

Overall, orientation so far has been very exciting. I already have plenty of reading and bar-exploring to do. I went out on Saturday night with an old friend and he introduced me to some local bars. And you know what, all that doubting I did earlier was unfounded. Houston has some cool hang-outs. I think I’ll be all right here.

Not what you'd expect.

In other news, do you remember Student Government aka SG? High school had it. College had it. Your job probably has it or an equivalent thereof. I always thought: Why spend more time than necessary on school stuff? Why spend more time than necessary at school?

I was never an SG person. The above questions were relevant to my decision, of course, but there was an underlying theory at work here: laziness. I had a bass and a guitar waiting at home. I sat in class all day anxious to get home and make some noise. School activities just weren’t part of my agenda at the time.

But law school is a new phase in my life. I’m not [quite so] lazy anymore. Law school’s version of Student Government, operating under the clandestine moniker “Student Bar Association,” is a great way to meet people all over the school. I’ve met some of these SBA people and liked them, so I’ll apply to join. From what I understand, SBA involves meeting people, notifying your class of happy hours, and getting plastered on the school’s rooftop terrace. I can do that, I think.

check out the above link. very cool site; a blog-not-blog with handwritten letters.

more linkness:

1. the real death star. kind of. [via mattsylvania]

2. chapelle is back for two more seasons. you may now rejoice.

3. while i move to houston, others move to better places

4. the latest in barbie technology

5. stepsss

6. bike against bush - a thesis. [via volokh]

also - once again behind the trend, i have finally discovered stereolab. why have i never heard this stuff before? and why don't i speak french? this will have to be remedied.

One large step for independent musicians looking for a cheap way to get their music disseminated.

Following the lead of a lower-court decision last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles said on Thursday that peer-to-peer software developers were not liable for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products, as long as they had no direct ability to stop the acts.
...

The decision marks a substantial--if not entirely unexpected--setback for the big record labels and movie studios, which have tried hard to win legal rulings that would clamp down on anarchic peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa or eDonkey.

Of course, none of this is consistent with my whole “want to be a fair and just lawyer” thing. Where do we draw the line? Is it a big deal if a moderately successful artist is hurt or only a massively successful artist? Who are we to judge how successful an artist needs to be before they fall off the “we feel bad that you’re losing out on album sales” list? Who are we to meddle in the capitalist nature of our market? How is music different from other intellectual property products, e.g., literature and software? Software is easily transferable via the internet but printed literature is not. But what about technology that could scan a document and produce an electronic version? People would trade books like they do mp3s.

My worlds are colliding. Something obviously needs to be done about the structure of our intellectual property concepts and markets.

I feel compelled to put something new up here but strangely have nothing of substance to say (do I ever?) I spent many hours today in a coffee shop doing homework and continued to spend many hours at home. The best part is that I still didn’t get everything done that I wanted to. You should not end sentences with a preposition. Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue is playing on the stereo. I think I’ll have another beer.

addendum, five minutes later: behold the power of the male bartender.

It’s become readily apparent law school is having several strange effects on me.

Ashley, one of the instigators who helped prod me to go on the infamous Portland trip, sent me a surprise care package last week. Its contents were: a cd of the pictures she took, a Lifescapes “Sleep” cd, Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime tea, a vanilla candle, and a sweet bottle opener I ogled over when drinking at her house one night. Better yet was the nifty artwork on the package and the purple and green confetti stuff on the inside.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ashley. You are awesome. Friends like you are a rarity. The care package is slowly working its magic and I am starting to get more sleep.

it's too good to be true. aaron has enlightened us to the glory that is They Might Be Downloads. can you believe it? TMBG downloads for $.99/ea. how cool is that? when my broke ass gets some cash, i'll let you know how cool it actually is. at this point, beer trumps music, but only barely.

Currently slogging through my paper and listening to lots and lots and lots of Fugazi.

Sometimes, you find yourself studying in a spacious and stale cube with whitewashed walls otherwise known as a study room. You and your buddy inadvertently end up trading mp3s via the wireless network and doing everything you can not to study. Then, you look up at the ceiling during one of your many neck-craning five-minute space-out sessions and notice one of the ceiling panels is made of perforated metal. You can see straight into the air ducts. You wonder what it would be like to jump up into the air ducts and crawl around until you ended up in another room, like they do in the movies. You could surprise some other students in the midst of their mp3 study session, have a good laugh, smile and nod, and head back to your corner of the library.

Sometimes, you could really use a margarita.

and you can download the whole thing, sample it, and do whatever else you want with the tracks. and it's totally legal. artists include beastie boys, david byrne, spoon, chuck d, and gilberto gil.

thank CC Mixter, creative commons, and wired.

[via slashdot]

After some initial confusion, my new years ended up at The Continental Club, which featured a wild and crazy band and, a rarity on new years for any club, no cover. I met up with a law school friend and one of her friends. One of the highlights of the night was watching a bunch of college-aged girls shake their tuchuses on stage when the band exploded into an impassioned version of “Secret Agent Man.” What can I say, I’m easy to please. I don't think the club invested much in the champagne because I (and everyone else i saw) made the most horrible face when we drank it. Ugh. Cheap champagne is something to be avoided.

Listened to it on repeat for hours last night.

I’d write more, but I’ve got bookoo stuff to do.

The person upstairs is taking a shower and I can hear the pipes sqealing. And I think someone just turned on a freaking generator outside.

Paper, write yourself.

I talked to the old roomie yesterday. We both graduated from UT with the same degree at the same time and got hired at the same company at the same time. I left in July of last year for law school, and he stuck around to figure things out. Well, he figured things out. He’s off to L.A. to see about that screenwriting passion of his. I wish I had the balls he did. If it were me, I’d have left corporate life and toured with a band. I went to law school instead. Yeah, I’m really interesting.

Good luck, dude. You gonna start a blog or what? “Poker-Obsessed Screenwriting Philippino Ditches TX for CA.” And don’t worry, blogs are free. (Hah).

Lower courts have sided with the P2P companies, but there's no telling what the SC will do. Chances are (and the article says as much) that the loser will take their grievance to Congress.

This has been a crazy weekend so far and everything I wanted to get done hasn’t gotten done yet, but I still have 24 hours.

Friday was the usual happy hour at Front Porch. I managed to avoid getting towed this time, but my friend didn’t. Bummer. I feel his pain. I left around 7 to meet up with a couple other classmates to see a sweet bluegrass band, The Greencards. They consisted of a violist, mandolist, bassist, and guitarist, and they all shredded. Well, maybe except the bassist, but her vocals were excellent. If you get a chance to see them, do so. They played a great two-hour set complete with encore.

Aside from random cleaning up around the apartment, which you don’t wanna hear about anyway, I spent most of today working on/thinking about a paper and taking pictures at school. More on the pictures thing later. I don’t want to jinx myself.

I’m going to see Sophia for the first time in six (?) months tomorrow. She and her man will be in town for lunch on their way to Austin, and we’re getting together with another UT friend at La Strada. I’m psyched. I haven’t seen them in ages.

After that, I’ll try to get outside at least a little bit and enjoy the weather. But I’ll most likely end up at my desk working on that paper that’s due Tuesday, which coincidentally won’t get done Monday night because I’m going to see Steve Miller Band! Can you believe it? I never thought I’d get a chance to see SMB. My only memories of SMB revolve around high school and its various questionable activities at house parties and/or riding around in someone’s car. I don’t really listen to SMB anymore, but I know all the songs on that greatest hits album everyone has.

Law School Prom is this Saturday. Well, it’s technically called a Banquet, but it’s affectionately known as the Prom. People dress up, eat at big tables, drink mixed drinks, dance horribly to a band, and drink mixed drinks. Did I mentioned they drink?

Drink. Mixed drinks.

I’m very excited. Apparently, a good number of the teachers go and actually stay for the band (and the drinks). I’m extra-excited for that. I’d like to see my profs throw a few back.

But before I can revel in the glory that is law school prom, I must wallow in the misery that is my appellate brief. Oh yes. I’m about ready to pull out my eyelashes one by one (seems worse and more original than “poking my eyes out”).

i uploaded the image to flickr and added lots of notes. still working on the band list which is now at 84 entries. but i also have 24 pages for my paper, so i'm pretty much done. thank the lord.

i forgot my friend's birthday. i forgot my brother-in-law's birthday. i never forget birthdays. chances are, if you've ever told me when your birthday is, i still know it. if not, i can get one of the numbers right and probably the month too. so i'm not too happy that i forgot my friend's and my brother-in-law's birthdays. my only excuse, and it's a lame one, is that school is pretty much an all-consuming thing lately. i have dreams about it. how messed up is that? it's not that i'm bitter or anything, it's just that i'm sitting here in a coffee shop studying on a friday night.

ok, so i might be a little bitter, but only because i have a twenty-something page paper due monday and finals to study for.

i'll get back to my rage against the machine and torts now.

i'm making a list of every band / show i've ever seen. one hour and forty-nine minutes have been used up so far and i have 81 bands. i know there's a lot missing too since i saw a ton of shows at Emo's in Austin that i know i'm forgetting. when the list is done, i'll post the Word doc.

shawshank redemption sountrack
qotsa - songs for the deaf
ben folds five - unauthorized biography of reinhold messner
jawbreaker - dear you

drugs are bad. i saw Ray last night. great movie, great man (aside from all the cheating), scary lifestyle.

i'm going to austin this weekend with E, and after that, next week is my first week of work. that's right, i get to play lawyer for three months at a small law firm here in h-town. pretty exciting stuff. unfortunately, i don't plan to post about it at all for confidentiality reasons, and because i don't want to risk putting my foot in my mouth (please reference: my entire life).

one thing's for sure - i have some serious shopping to do. i have about four good ties, and most of my dress shirts worked well for a computer-y/IT work environment but are not of law-firm caliber. i need to look a little snazzier. so i did the smart thing and enlisted the help of someone who knows how to dress me.

my mom.

just kidding.*

E. we're gonna hit the mall in austin on sunday. hopefully it won't take too long because 1) i'm kind of impatient when shopping for clothes and 2) malls make me nauseous.

* but you would have believed it, wouldn't you have? actually, i don't blame you. my mom bought me a great shirt/tie combo a couple months ago, and i didn't even have to go with her.

enjoy!

Like most people, I maintain a spreadsheet containing a list of all the movies I’ve watched over the last 4 1/2 years. This is the first in (hopefully) several mass reviews where i draw upon my recent viewings and help you make the right decision about how to spend 90 minutes or so.

Led Zeppelin pman reviewed this before. i don't think he was effusive enough in his praise. it's an amazing document of a slice of history that just does not exist anymore. they're freaking powerful, i don't just mean that they're loud, i mean they friggin pwn. in addition to their own songs, they run through some badass blues standards and robert plant's hair has a 9 minute solo.

Veronica Guerin based on the story of a murdered irish journalist, this one is relatively accessible, but still harrowing. i first heard of this story on a 60 minutes profile. The acting is great, and even features a great cameo by colin farrell. the writing is predictably didactic but not preachy. moving up in the queue is a previous re-telling, When the Sky Falls, might make for an interesting double feature.

strangely enough, the movie really makes me want to visit ireland even more than i had before. it's so green.

A Dirty Shame john waters is back, baby. interesting exploration of fetish, sexuality, gentrification (or should i say, gayification), decency and head-trauma. it's over the top and has great, fun performances by tracey ullman, johnny knoxville (yes, that johnny knoxville), chris isaak (yes, that chris isaak), and selma blair (google her yourself). if you like john waters, rent/buy this one immediately to help remember why he was so friggin revolutionary (as that goes). if you don't like john waters, rent/buy this one immediately so you can remember what pissed you off so much, you uptight sob.

Double Dare neat documentary about a couple of stuntwomen whose career peaks are separated by 25 years. the stunt double for wonderwoman is paired with the stunt double for xena:warrior princess (not to mention the bride from kill bill). really interesting subject matter but the telling is kinda superficial and rushed. it doesn't do a great job of telling us what, if anything, the two women have in common besides their industry. the stunt footage is great as is the individual stories of the two women. even without the cool stunt footage, it's worth the price of admission for the footage from the xena convention. another version of trekkies, anyone?

Da Ali G Show: Season 1: Disc 2 what can i say about ali g that hasn't been said before? all i can say is i'll rent season 2 when it's available. i just hope they give borat and bruno more exposure.

Dogtown and Z-Boys awesome awesome awesome documentary about a slice of americana that was concurrent with my adolescence. yes, in the 70s i had a skateboard that i rode everyday. ask me and i'll show the scars (seriously, i still have scars from 20 year-old skateboard injuries). my professional skateboarding career ended tragically when the mailman ran over my skateboard after i left it in the gutter in front of my mailbox. to this day i don't trust the postal service. i still haven't told my mother that she was right to tell me not to leave my skateboard in the street.

interestingly enough they just made a feature based on the same story. nice work if you can get it.

Caddyshack thanks to my bosses' regular quoting of the dalai lama speech (click that link, especially you law schoolers) i was prompted to watch this one again. i think it's aged pretty well, rodney dangerfield and ted baxter steal every scene; chevy chase still seems like a total jerkoff. bill murray has come a long way from here.

there's a new sheriff in particlemantown.

goes by the name of skorloff. i'll be posting here until p-man gets over the kissing disease, or until he just feels like taking his blog back.

except for using curse words, i’ve been given no guidelines for posting. i probably wasn’t going to cuss anyway, but now i'm extra tempted.

• law? nope.
• bikes? nope.
• stuff? what does that even mean?
• music? sure, but not what p-man usually posts about, then again, maybe a little.
• books? prolly, although i don’t read a lot of inscrutable freshman lit-type stuff. in most cases, i'll likely substitute movies for books.
• beer? almost certainly, but i may use that category to discuss other alcohol-based vices.

so there you have it, alcohol, movies, music and whatever "stuff" means.

p.s. i think it would be wise and diplomatic of me to apologize, in advance, to p-man’s immediate family, ancestors and future kin. i’m incorrigible and p-man should have known better.

-s

Third installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.

You end up sitting next to a judicial clerk on the plane. Them lawyers just never leave you alone.

Your gf is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND when you get to the bus stop where she said she’d be. She shows up two minutes later and practically tackles you.

You eat delicious Greek food in an area of town known as Greek Town. Fancy that. The Walgreen’s “OPEN 24 HOURS” sign is also in Greek. Once at the restaurant, you watch as waiter after waiter serves guests an appetizer known as souvlaki that basically amounts to a slab of soft cheese lit on fire and placed on the table as the flames subside. The waiter lets out an “opah!” as he lights the cheese on fire. You wonder how it feels to say “opah!” every time someone orders that dish. You also wonder why every waiter is a waiter and there are no waitresses.

You proceed to an Irish Pub for a pint of Guinness. The place is packed and you’re greeted by a throng of guys singing drinking songs with glasses raised. You swear your flight took you to Chicago, not Ireland. GF leads you upstairs where a band of older guys in Hawaiian shirts plays a mix of Irish music and, you suspect, bluegrass. You smile and shake your tuchus with GF.

GF falls asleep on your shoulder on the bus ride home and spontaneously wakes up at precisely the right time because you had no idea where you were going and would have missed the stop.

Breakfast at a bagel shop leads you to run into a guy in a Longhorn cap waiting at the front. He’s with two girls. While walking past, you see the hat, realize he must have gone to UT, and say, “Whoa Hey” mid-stride. One of the girls turns around and gives you an unsavory look assuming you directed your comment to her. In the split second you realize what just transpired in her head, you seize on the opportunity and give her a nod through the window as you leave the restaurant. GF laughs.

You go to your first Cubs game and first game at Wrigley Field and stand in awe at this historical monument of American sports. This is the first professional sporting event you’ve seen in a traditional open-roof structure. Actually, it’s basically just a field with seats – some covered. There is no jumbotron. A 10-year-old girl in the seat next to you is wearing a Cubs hat and a Cubs jacket. She’s keeping track of the game with a pencil and a scorecard complete with player’s numbers, the plays, errors, and other details. She’s engrossed in the game, deep in concentration. Dad returns shortly and she updates him on the latest happenings. You notice that homes across the street from the field have bleachers built on the roofs. The two or three story narrow duplex-like homes common in Chicago make perfect perches from which to watch a game over Wrigley Field’s short walls. The Cubs win. Everyone screams. Earlier that week, they beat your Houston Astros two out of three games. You’re not too happy about that, but today’s game against the Rockies posed no problems of allegiance. You see someone else in a Longhorn hat. Go Horns.

On the way to the Aquarium, GF realizes the Blue Man Group performs in a venue nearby. Turns out not only do they have tickets for that afternoon’s show, but they’re in Row G (ie, 7) and you bust out the Student ID to get half-price tickets. BMG put on an amazing show beyond your expectations. It’s a conglomeration of music, wit, physical comedy, and creative audience participation. Toilet paper is utilized. Twinkies are cut with hand-held power saws and consumed. Paint is poured on the skins of tall bongo-like drums that are played. Said paint flies into the air with each strike of the drum and eventually ends up on a canvas. Viola, painting.

You meet GF’s friends for sushi and stuff your face full of rice and fish. It is quite possibly the first time you have eaten sushi in a group setting in which all the sushi ordered was actually eaten – there were no leftovers. The group congratulates itself on ordering exactly the right amount of sushi.

You proceed to a local bar. You encounter the first friendly bouncer of your entire life. He asks where you’d like to sit. Inside or out? Shall he get you a table? Have a menu brought over? You say “inside, thanks.” On the way inside, the owner greets you and immediately offers a table.

While walking to bar #2, your old knee injury starts acting up. Riding a bike for 180 miles when you were 19 was kind of a dumb idea, especially when you stubbornly rode the last 10 miles in excruciating pain. You’re paying for it now, six years later. You go home and nurse the bum knee.

The next morning, knee feeling better, you have brunch with more friends of the GF. This time, an Orthodox Jewish couple. You are not to hug GF. You may not kiss GF. In fact, do not even touch GF. Also, do not touch the wife. The couple is exceedingly warm and friendly and are very, very happy to have guests. They don’t get out much. There is enough food on the table to serve a family of 10. After much interesting conversation, the couple is kind enough to give you and GF a ride to the Aquarium (which you skipped to watch BMG) in the husbands new Honda Civic Hybrid. When stopped, the engine basically turns off and you swear he stalled the manual transmission.

There is a huge line at the aquarium but since GF is a member, you WALK PAST ALL THE POOR SAPS IN LINE AND GET IN FOR FREE. You think to yourself, “ Wow, gf is pretty handy to have around. Excellent job.” The beluga whales are fun and make cool sounds. The dolphin show is impressive but would have been better if you had come an hour earlier and actually gotten seats.

There is no skydiving on this trip, but you do go to the top (95th floor) of a skyscraper and share a glass of wine with gf in the lounge. The views are phenomenal.

For dinner, you have one of the best filet mignons you’ve ever had. It really is an exciting restaurant. Afterwards, you head to a small jazz club and watch a quartet do their thing onstage from the upstairs bar. The singer, female, takes requests from the audience. All you gotta do is scream out an artist’s name. I scream “Ray Charles!” and she obliges, though I’m not sure she got to him before we left. The band is tight and the singer is right on key. She looks good sporting her dance moves. You make a mental check mark next to the “see jazz or blues in Chicago” check box on the “Things You Must Do One Day” list. Mission accomplished.

Brunch the next morning with more of gf’s friends leads you to a tapas restaurant. You gorge on seafood, veggies, chicken, bread, and sangria. There’s nothing quite like an afternoon buzz. You realize the last time you had sangria must have been when you were in Spain. That’s way, way too long.

You catch a ride to the museum and gf, the one without the watch, realizes you have like an hour before it’s time to leave for the airport. You speed through a series of paintings that reads like an art history course lecture. The heavyweights are all in effect: Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugain, Seraut, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, and on and on. Remember that painting of the old couple with the farmer holding the pitchfork? Yeah, that was there too. As was the painting of a few lonely people having a late-night cup of coffee in a diner.

Then gf, in a blaze of glory, puts the both of you on the wrong bus back to her friend’s apartment at which you’ve been crashing. You’re several miles away from your luggage and the apartment. In a rush, you find an ATM, get some cash for a cab back to the apartment, and cunningly leave your debit card in the ATM machine. Lucky for you, this little morsel of information occurs to you only at the airport. After smacking your forehead until you feel better, you proceed to the plane and continue a nifty game you and the gf have been playing since your weekend in Austin.

Back in Houston, you’re greeted by highways 10 billion lanes wide and wonder what the hell went wrong in this city. Haven’t they heard of public transportation? Oh, not that kind. That kind.

And that, in a nutshell, is pretty much what happens when you go to Chicago. I promise. Identical results not guaranteed.

I wasn’t really “with it” when I was a teenager. I’m still not with it, despite impressions you might get from this here quasi-hip blog.

For example, one day at school, some kids were talking about rap. We were probably outside at recess smashing snow in each other’s faces. A majority of the kids in school were children of US Diplomats, meaning they all lived in Virginia. So when one kid asked me if I knew where Compton was, I answered, “Virginia.”

Any reaction by the other kids you can imagine is probably accurate.

but i know exactly where you need to be on the weekend of july 22nd-24th. lousiville, kentucky. before you scoff, here's why.

please pick me up a poster while you're there.

I’ve mentioned in passing here and there that I spent two years in Moscow. I was only 14 and 15, so I don’t remember that much, but I figure it’s worth a post or two. And since skorloff had control of the blog for a while, I had the time to sit and scrape the edges of my brain for what memories I can remember.

The company my dad works for had an office in Moscow and they wanted his help there, so they sent my family over for a two-year assignment. We lived on the 14th floor of an apartment building on a narrow residential street called Bolshaya Bronnaya. It runs directly into a major thoroughfare called Tverskaya, which leads to Red Square and the Kremlin. At the corner of our street and Tverskaya was a McDonald’s – a neighbor I found particularly loathsome as the traffic (human and motorized) around us was always nuts. Also, it was exactly the kind of American culture that I didn’t think should have been allowed out of America. Heading away from Tverskaya on our street, there was a small orthodox synagogue. More on that later though.

Remember that sorry excuse of a coup that happened in 1993? I was there when it happened. It’s one of the few things I remember well, probably because it was so whack. Politics in Russia has never exactly been a stable affair and 1993 was no exception: old man Yeltsin wanted to make changes barred by the constitution, so the members of the parliament declared Yeltsin’s presidency unconstitutional and holed themselves up in the White House until the military forced them out.

My school, the Anglo-American School of Moscow, was then on the American Embassy, which was strategically located across the street from the White House. The Embassy was in the middle of the city. Students were immersed in Moscow’s hustle and bustle – a cultural experience to say the least. With that, though, came certain dangers. Russians built the embassy before the fall of the iron curtain and thoughtfully placed bugs in the walls of one, if not all, of the buildings. That building was abandoned, of course, but it loomed over the school as a symbol of how things used to be.

I don’t remember the details of what happened that day, but I remember we were at school when the siege on the White House began. Everyone was evacuated and told to go home, which I can’t imagine was the wisest thing to do as who knows what was outside waiting for us. We might have been safer in the school’s underground areas. At either rate, I don’t remember anything during the evacuation.

The memories that have remained come from my room on the 14th floor of our apartment. The White House sat squarely in my view and the damn thing was on fire. Literally, black smoke poured out of it. It was shocking. Russians had set fire to their own White House. There it was, the symbol of their government, being blown apart by tanks and burned from the inside out. Coupled with that view was the sound of gunshots ringing out day and night for several days thereafter as the military drove out the stubborn politicians and other skirmishes broke out in the city. Meanwhile, I probably had some Led Zeppelin or Nirvana playing on the stereo, something a 14-year-old have been listening to 1993, which is consequently what this 25-year-old listens to in 2005.

And that’s what I remember of the 1993 coup. Since Skorloff allowed himself to use the “stuff” category for just about anything that didn’t fit in the other categories, I will follow suit. Good idea, dude.

Google, omniscient creator of all things cool on the internet, has embarked on a nifty new project: making snippets from books available for searching on Google. For instance, if you search for “somnambulist pineapple” on Google, not only will you get only every webpage containing that term (one), but you would also get any book ever published that mentioned that term. Cool, eh? Also debatably legal. Or illegal, depending on your point view. Google has accordingly and predictably been sued. The plaintiff is the Authors Guild.

There are several arguments here.

1. Google is doing the same thing a library does, except online. No, libraries buy their copy, and thus have a right to reproduce it along fair use guidelines.

2. This would discourage people from buying books. Do libraries discourage people from buying books? Does the radio discourage people from buying music? Does the internet? We may not have an answer of the last one, but that’s the basic idea. Also, Google only displays a small snippet – one or two sentences – around the searched term. You’d theoretically have to piece together a book snippet by snippet.

3. Google isn’t selling the books, so there’s no problem. But they’re making money on advertisements that come from the authors’ content being displayed to the user. So yeah, they are making money.

4. Google is doing the same thing it does to web sites: indexing. Sort of. Websites are always offered for free… most of them, at least. Books are not offered for free.

So what should happen? Google should pay for each of the books it indexes. It would then have a right to fair use. That Google makes money from ads is an incidental byproduct. They make money on ads for every Google product, or service, or whatever we call the things Google creates. At most, consider it as compensation for directing web-searches to books. At least at that point, the user will discover a book they might have not discovered, and never bought.

Via Lessig.

Fourth installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.

Your gf tells you to chug water like nobody’s business the day before you get to Quito and on the flight as well, because if you don’t, you’ll get altitude sickness. You do as she says and end up having to climb over the person in the aisle seat about three hundred and eighty two times to go to the bathroom. Your gf also tell you to get some altitude sickness pills and start taking them the day before you get to Quito, because if you don’t, you’ll get altitude sickness. You get to Quito, and within 12 hours, your body goes into shock after realizing, lo and behold, there is absolutely no oxygen in the air.

When you land in Quito and walk into the arrivals hall, you spot your gf, who you haven’t seen in a month, and make a bee-line for her completely oblivious to anything or anyone else in the room and wrap your arms around her and squeeze her and breathe in her shampoo.

The taxi ride to the apartment is a whirlwind. You gaze at your gf. You stare at the surroundings. You gaze at your gf. You notice a Ford Explorer and ask, “What the hell, it’s bad enough we make these things for ourselves, we have to export them too?”

You wake up Saturday morning unable to do much because there is no air at 3000 meters. You have to spend the day in bed. Which, after a long week at school, turns out to be a good thing.

That evening, you and the gf head to a café recommended by her flatmates. It is known only by the name “Café Guapulo.” Gf doesn’t know where it is, but the cabbie thinks he does, so he radios his buddies and figures out where to go. The café is cute and quaint and is perched on a hillside overlooking a church and much of the city. It is relatively empty and you sit and talk with sassy music in the background. You talk and share “Crepes de Pollo” which turns out to be chicken baked with dough in a tiny pan. After spending a month talking on the phone and the computer, talking in person is a whole lot better.

You have more energy Sunday morning and you head off to the equator. As every other site on the equator is much less accessible because it’s either on a mountain, in the jungle, or in the water, this part of the equator is considered the middle of the world; hence the name “Mitad Del Mundo.”

After spending a good two hours wandering the city for the right bus to take – aka taking the scenic route – you find the right bus and come to a strange realization: you are a giant in this land. At 6’2”, you’re almost twice as tall as many of the locals. You feel like a walking circus.

You get to the Mitad Del Mundo and notice there are two equators. After lengthy analysis conducted in your head and out of the earshot of your gf, you decide two equators are not possible. One must be a fraud. Which one it is remains to be determined. You eagerly anticipate the collection of evidence to disprove the validity of one of the equators.

The sign for the outdoor equator museum, Inti-Nan (path of the sun), says “LAT. 00? 00’ 00” CALCULATED WITH G.P.S.” and you are satisfied that that must be the real equator. And lo, the tour guide demonstrates that this is indeed the true middle. She fills a bucket of water on the equator and drains it. The water drains straight down. She moves the bucket three feet to the north and the water drains counter-clockwise. She moves the bucket three feet into the southern hemisphere and it drains clockwise. You stand flabbergasted.

Afterwards, you decide to head to Plaza Grande in Old Town. On the way, however, you take the sage advice of a semi-local that turns out to be not sage at all. While Old Town lies towards the center of the city in the valley, the bus you’re urged to take sends you into the hills, where the streets are eerily deserted. Thankfully, you get on a bus that takes you back down into the city center and get to the Plaza Grande.

Plaza Grande turns out to be a little on the bland side. It’s basically a big statue in the middle of a plaza. What is interesting, however, is a police car parked on the edge of the plaza. Policemen are inside the car. Instead of watching out for shady characters waiting to take advantage of unsuspecting tourists (hi), they’re texting each other and playing games on their cell phones. Ecuadorian tax dollars hard at work.

For dinner, you had to the Mariscal district, also known as Gringolandia (Land Of White People). It’s a little on the touristy side. You eat dinner at a tapas restaurant and drink sangria. Whatwith the higher altitude, one glass gives you a nice buzz. Your suspicious that you are a cheap date are confirmed.

The next day, gf wants to go climb a mountain. You say, “cool,” especially since there’s a cable car that takes you up there. The mountain overlooks Quito in the valley lying below. You’re at an altitude of about 4000 meters, so it’s much colder there. The clouds appear to be within arm’s reach. Off in the distance is Cotopaxi, the volcano overlooking Quito. Gf was there just the week before.

After you return to the city, you and the GF run some errands around town. After stopping in nearly every toy and knickknack shop in the city looking for dice, you finally find some in a mall. She plans to use them to play English games with her students. You wonder what kind of shady operation the school is running, anyway. Since you’re in South America, you figure you ought to score yourself a nice Panama hat. You buy a cool one from a street vendor for $8, which seems reasonable considering some stores sell them for $30 (up to $300).

Then, you and the gf attack the grocery store. You pick up food to make for dinner and have a great time in the kitchen as the other flatmates cook too. One of the flatmates is making an alfredo sauce and notices it’s taking longer than normal to cook. Upon closer inspection, gf notices her mushrooms and onions aren’t sautéing very quickly either. Upon yet closer inspection, we all notice the gas burners are off, resulting in the lack of heating being applied to the pans. Turns out the gas canister hidden in the cupboard next to the stove ran out of gas. The flatmate cooking the alfredo sauce proceeds to grab a spare canister of gas and hooks it up to the stove. Viola, instant gas stove.

One of the flatmates’ friends, an Ecuadorian, is leaving the country, so they invite him and some other people over for dinner. Not only do they cook for everyone, but they also write him a rap song. And then perform it. It’s possibly the most entertaining musical and theatrical performance you’ve ever seen. Three Canadian girls rapping with their pants and hats on backwards is a sight to be seen.

The next morning, you’re on a plane back to real life, where books and alarm clocks and construction on Highway 59 await. The next time you’ll see your gf is on December 20th. Until then, you patiently wait for her, and think of the good times you’ve shared.

and well-earned it is. i've spent the entire weekend studying tax and i'm on the verge of vomiting IRS codes. not a pretty thought, is it? all work and no play gives particleman cabin fever. the show costs $25, which is a tad steep for a punk show, but when's the next time i'll get to see them? they're usually in jail or rehab.

Lots to say, not much time. Have to catch up on reading because spent weekend in Little Rock with new nephew he’s aweome gotta have more of him. Prepositions and articles superfluous.

Thursday afternoon invited local Civil District Judge to school to speak about recent spate of Ten Commandments cases and Establishment Clause in Constitution. Very interesting got a pretty good turnout.

Went to cool show with buddy John on Thursday night, headliner Minus The Bear. Used to have two of their cds but lost them somehow but still remembered some of the songs when they played them. Guitar player was freaking insane had some kind of pedal board that looped his guitar riffs while he played on top of them sounded like there were actually two guys playing at once though it was only one guy. Show was moved from original venue (Walter’s on Washington) to venue across the street (Fat Cat’s) because vocals at first venue were impossible to hear we were all screaming “VOCALS!!!” but sound guy couldn’t figure out problem so had mass exodus of indie kids in Converse All Stars and buddy holly glasses (hey that’s me) crossing the street like herd of trendy cattle. Sight to be seen. Opening band The Headphones were pretty weird. Can’t remember name of two other opening bands. Minus The Bear rocked though you should see them.

New nephew Max Jacob Lain is cutest little guy ever he got his bris and cried bloody murder when the moyel (Hebrew term for the doctor who does the deed) snipped his pee pee but now Max is in the Covenant after being 8 days old and to celebrate, all the adults ate. What else do Jews do, all celebrations must involve food one way or another. Interesting story the moyel told us I learned when I was a kid but forgot about: Abraham (first Jew) entered into Covenant when he was 99 years old and GAVE HIMSELF A CIRCUMCISION, as did all the males in his family. Man that must have totally sucked.

Did you see the Astros and Braves game today? Holy crap it was EIGHTEEN INNINGS broke all kinds of records I fell asleep in the 14th and woke up in the 16th and nothing had happened.

I thought I’d write about all the homophobic morons in my state who showed up in droves to insert a clearly religion-based law into my state constitution. I thought I’d write about the nausea I felt in reading that the Kansas Board of Education now officially supports intelligent design, thus making sure they get a shot at turning students in their state into the good God-fearing citizens they need to one day become.

Instead, I’ll just mention that you need to check out a band from the UK called Bloc Party. The closest I can come to a description is (and don’t quote me on this) a pop-rock band making liberal use of electronic instruments and devices for effect. And their drummer is ridiculously creative.

Since that really doesn’t help, this is what they say about themselves:

Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day. Like many such kids, between them they eventually concluded that their own attempts to imitate what had informed them could be construed as a worthy variation on the many forms that preceded. They do everything that's required to conform to the currently received ideas of what a band is: ostensibly to play instruments at the same time, but also have a title for the work created.

The Supreme Court decision came down in June, but it looks like action is only being taken now.

From a legal standpoint, the Supreme Court’s analysis is a little wacky, but the result is right. Grokster was actively promoting its product as a way to help people infringe. They circulated internal documents that basically said, “Let’s ride on all this copyrighted material to sell advertising and make lots of money. We’ll be the next Napster.” That was pretty dumb. They deserve to be shut down. The worst of it is that they actually said the goal was to get taken to court and sued. They got their wish.

While I’m all for nixing the current structure of the music industry in place of a more DIY approach, I’m not for blatantly ripping off music and laughing in artist’s faces. Though the lower courts in the Grokster case sided with Grokster, the Supreme Court swiftly and thoroughly vacated their logic in favor of something that made more, though not complete, sense.

Part of why the Grokster case was so big is because everyone was hoping the Supreme Court would explain an old case it decided in 1984 about VCRs (then called VTRs). In Universal City Studios v. Sony, the plaintiff said Sony was secondarily liable for people recording their movies because Sony provided the tool to infringe. The Supreme Court disagreed, concluding there were “commercially significant noninfringing uses.” In terms of establishing a workable test that can be applied to other situations, that sucks. It doesn’t mean anything. What’s a commercially significant noninfringing use? Who decides? Do we need market experts? Technology experts? Since the Grokster case is similar to Sony, copyright geeks everywhere were hoping the Court would expound a little bit on what it was talking about when it wrote Sony in 1984.

Alas, it said Hell No. There is no reason to go into Sony. Since in this case there is direct inducement to infringe, we don’t even need to look at what a substantial (significant, whatever) noninfringing use is. They’re guilty simply because they so strongly advocated an infringing use.

On the bright side, I did detect a little skepticism on the Court’s part that this process – make new technology, help people infringe, get sued – will result in a never ending cycle. Technology will always find a way. It always has. Coders love a challenge. I also found it funny when Justice Souter made references to both Wilco and Modest Mouse in the decision.

With that, Grokster leaves with its tail between its legs and a posting on its website that looks like something they were instructed to say: “There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them.” Ouch. But, they do plan on creating a legal iTunes-ish service. As soon as they figure out how to pay that fifty million dollar settlement.

if you live in houston, and you have an urge to see a skinny white Jewish guy bang on a piano, you need to go see ben folds this friday night at numbers. it's an early show that starts at 6:30 and will be over by 10 or 10:30. i know finals are rolling around and all, but c'mon, it's BEN FOLDS.

Wow. Wow wow wow. Ben folds was AMAZING. The set was over an hour and a half long. He played old ones. He played new ones. He played new ones that haven’t been recorded that were written in sound check two weeks ago. He even played Brick, which is one of those songs you figure an artist would never play again. After playing Jesusland, he told us that they should have “dumbed-down” the production of the new album and that this was how it should have been recorded, and they then played a version of Jesusland you might hear, oh, on church TV? They were poking fun at large-scale televised church music and it was a riot.

For anyone that’s heard The Gourds’ version of Snoop’s Gin and Juice, you’ll appreciate this. Ben and the band played a Dr. Dre song called Bitches Aint Shit. Oh my god, it was so freaking hilarious. Hearing those lyrics come out of his mouth, with that loungy music, was so funny I was laughing out loud. But of course it was executed flawlessly without any hint of sarcasm, and after the song ended, he got up from the piano and started talking shit to it (the piano). If you can imagine a scrawny guy with glasses raising his arms and balking at a piano, yeah, that’s pretty much what it was.

Somewhere towards the middle of the set, the drummer and bassist left, leaving Ben to serenade us solo. This was when Brick showed up, and also Army, which had Ben doing some of the best audience participation I’ve ever seen. There’s a portion of the song that includes horns, and since he didn't have any horn players, he used us. I’ve seen bands try to pull this off before, and most of the time no one really gives a shit. A select few will participate, but most of the crowd (me too) just stands there. Ben got up from the piano and waved his arm at half of the crowd and told us to do this [insert bah-bah-bah type singing] and then told the other half to do more such singing, so that the two parts layered on top of each other. He essentially became a choir director so that we sang the stuff that the horns play on the recorded track. So when it came time to sing, all he had to do was look at us and every single person sang. I couldn’t believe it. He really got everyone to sing, and it sounded good, and it made my night. I was really hoping he’d play Army, but I didn’t expect he’d try something like that. Mad props to Ben.

He also did something similar on Not The Same, teasing both sides of the audience by having them start and stop in the middle of their part. Other highlights of the night included Don’t Change Your Plans, The Ascent of Stan, Annie Waits, Gone, Still Fighting It, Zak and Sara, Landed, Gracie, You To Thank, Trusted, Prison Food, and a version of Narcolepsy that absolutely rocked. The place lit up and the sound system could hardly handle it. They closed (the encore) with a high-powered version of One Angry Dwarf that taxed the sound system again. Rock.

But the music snob in me made a couple observations. 1) The intro to Landed sounds a hell of a lot like the intro to James Taylor’s Fire and Rain. 2) The main riff to Prison Food sounds like Brick, but speed up; the key even sounds the same. Anyway, those are small complaints. The show was great, Ben was great, the band was great, and I’d do it again even if I had a final the next day. Ok maybe not the next day, but they day before the day before the final.

we all know the drill. the faculty page at every school has a picture of the professor and his or her chosen quote. most choose some wise quote from a famous person, likely an author, politician, great leader, so on and so forth.

but one professor at my school chose an unlikely quote. he quoted a song lyric by Gibby Hanes of The Butthole Surfers. he gets mad props.

Like most people, I maintain a spreadsheet containing a list of all the movies I’ve watched over the last 4 1/2 years. i'm drawing from that list to bring you a list of ten movies that i've seen that have soundtrack albums that i really like.

1. Boogie Nights (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it. music: disco. 70s groove rock. 80s cheese. great party music. the deal: maybe i've lost perspective. maybe i like the movie too much. nevertheless, i love the soundtrack album (even though it happens to feature songs by both night ranger and rick springfield). both volumes. i've even bought extra tracks featured in the movie but not on the albums (i'm a compleatist, i needed "sunny" by boney m). even more, when i put all the tracks on the girl's ipod i reordered them to play in the same order as they appear in the movie. yes, i'm insane. bonus track: "feel the heat" as performed by dirk diggler and reed rothchild. the heat will rock you. also, don't forget, the heat will roll you.

2. City of God (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it. music: dreamy and often funky brazilian. has one of the saddest, simplest songs that i can't understand any of the words to. the deal: wicked raw movie shot on location in some of the poorest places in the world. music the soundtrack album really stands on its own. so much of the music as used in the film is textural. i had to watch it twice to notice my favorite song (mentioned above). it's not like it's one of those tracks in the background that happens to be playing on someone's radio; it's used as score. the scene just happens to be so intense that the music is like foley. bonus track: the soundtrack also has two volumes of remixes. each sold separately. each interesting in their own way.

3. The Royal Tenenbaums (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it. music: score by the guy from devo and mostly disaffected 70s new york and london rock
   the deal: wes anderson gets a lot less credit for his song selection than quentin tarantino does. i'm not sure why that is. sure, tarantino is more likely to use the theme from hong kong phooey and we all know that that would be friggin' hilarious. but wes anderson seems to actually get inside his characters heads for the music that he chooses. this record is rich. the score alone is worth the price of admission. bonus track: "look at me" by john lennon

4. Monsoon Wedding (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it. music: all-over the map indian and pakistani music. from acoustic film music to indian techno
   the deal: the movie is pure sweetness and heartbreak and joy. the soundtrack album delivers the same. the album features the bridal shower song from the movie, "Mehndi/Madhorama Pencha". i have no idea what the lyrics mean or what the words are but i sing along every time i hear it.
   bonus track: "aaj mausam bada beiman hai (today the weather plays tricks on me)" by mohammad rafi

5. Rushmore (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it.
   music: score by the guy from devo and 60s british invasion.
   the deal: wow. it's like a movie all by itself. my theory is that wes anderson made this as a mix-tape when he was 17 and frustrated in the ways of love. there's just too much pathos invested in each track for this to be simple accompaniment to a moving picture. i've never been been that into the who, but "a quick one while he's away" is worth the eight minutes, if you've seen the movie that's all you'll be able to think of while hearing it.
   bonus track: "nothing in this world can stop me worryin' bout that girl" by the kinks.

6. 54 (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: among the worst movies i've ever seen.
   music: disco. straight up. ok, not that straight.
   the deal: i can't think of anything to say about this movie. it was the turd that wouldn't flush for two hours. in 15 years, when mike myers is trying to get roles wherein people take him seriously as an actor, someone will trod this pos out and they'll give the role to a serious actor like seann william scott.

   except for those weird mashups and remakes they made just for the movie. the soundtrack album (both volumes) is great party music, the song selection is impeccable. really iconic songs like "i need a man" by grace jones, "vertigo/relight my fire" by dan hartman and "spank" by "jimmy 'bo' horne" - as big a disco fan as i am, i'd never heard these songs before. then again, i am lazy. bonus track: "contact" by edwin starr. yes, the guy that did "war" (as in "huh, what is it good for?") is responsible for one of my desert island songs and it's not "war", it's a disco song.

7. Garden State (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: it was what it was. maybe it wasn't so much for me.
   music: hip introspective rock for navel-gazers. like me.
   the deal: man, why is this record so cheap? i spent like $8 on it. it's almost like some record companies are trying to promote some relatively smaller bands with a movie. wait a minute...

   my two favorite tracks on it are "in the waiting line" by zero 7 and "lebanese blonde" by thievery corporation. the former reminds me of the movie. the latter just rules. bonus track: "the only living boy in new york" by simon & garfunkel

8. 24 Hour Party People (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it.
   music: late 70s punk and early 80s electronic
   the deal: what a great telling of an interesting micro-moment in music history. the scene where joy division records the drum for "she's lost control again" was eye-opening and wonderful for me.

   i have a real soft spot for joy division. i have another soft spot for the earliest new order (before they forgot about ian curtis). and to think, before i saw this movie i knew almost nothing of happy mondays. bonus track: "she's lost control again" by joy division. i swear, i've heard like 30 different versions of this song. this is version 31 for me.

9. Jackie Brown (movie | soundtrack)

   movie: loved it.
   music: quentin tarantino
   the deal: No self-respecting list of post-modern soundtracks would be complete without a quentin tarantino movie. Sure, i liked the Pulp Fiction soundtrack a lot, but Jackie Brown is the record i'd put on at a party when i want to seem cool and knowing. bonus track: "Longtime Woman" by Pam Grier

10. Dead Presidents (movie | soundtrack)

    movie: not so much.
    music: 60s and 70s r&b the deal: the movie was all over the place. it suffered from a serious identity crisis. it's a story of someone who is dealing with life in the 60s (a movie by itself), lives through hell in viet nam (a movie by itself), engages in a serious heist (a movie by itself). unfortunately, there was not the space to accomplish any of those three missions with any clarity in this one flick.

    the soundtrack album (both volumes), on the other hand, stands on its own. it's great r&b, it's powerful music. sure, it has james brown, but you'll remember it for curtis mayfield; from a live version of "we people darker than blue" to "if there's hell below" to "right on for darkness". it's also unique for two great isaac hayes songs (i believe they were released specifically for this movie): "the look of love" (originally popularized by dusty springfield) and "walk on by" (originally popularized by dionne warwick). bonus track: "if you want me to stay" by sly and the family stone.

yes, there others that i like and maybe even others that i like better. i didn't even have time to go into Saturday Night Fever (movie | soundtrack).

as always, the comment board is open.

My third set of law school finals start the 30th and the last day of class is tomorrow, so I must leave you for a few weeks as I duke it out with studying. But fear not. Your favorite pinch-blogger Skorloff will make an appearance once again. The last time you heard from him, I was battling it out with the infamous ‘kissing disease.’ I’m sure he’s traveled far and wide and amassed a great amount of stories to regale you with since he was last here. For all I know, however, he might just talk about dishwashers and the odd bottle of wine.

With that, I leave you to Skorloff’s devices (vices?). Enjoy. I shall return circa December 13th.

Before I go, I must say Thanks to Tarfia and JB for swinging by and saving me from more studying. They drove in from Austin for a belated birthday visit and we went out for sushi, beer, wine, and more beer. Much Belhaven was had by all. Belhaven is now the official beer of the Fall 2005 Semester. Hooray! Tarfia also brought her laptop and we performed a massive musical exchange, which sounds a little dirty but was totally kosher. I promise. Just don't tell the RIAA (bastards). Later!

Thankfully the kissing disease didn’t get me this time. Neither did any other ailment. Instead, I had five law school finals to contend with, and Skorloff was brave (and kind) enough to take on the blogging responsibilities of this here vessel. For that I am very thankful. We all learned a lot from Skoroloff. For instance, I didn’t know that “no self-respecting list of post-modern soundtracks would be complete without a quentin tarantino movie.” I also didn’t know that “we feed them every day which keeps them from starving and has cut down on the number of dead bird parts we find in the yard.” Neither did I know that “then i got old.” I’ll be damned.

What I do know is that I’m getting the hell out of dodge. My dad and I plan to take a road trip of sorts this weekend to somewhere in central Texas. Probably a state park. Someplace where we can canoe, hike, smell clean air, look at stars, and otherwise act like the rugged guys we really aren’t. Then E comes back on Tuesday and the wait will be over.

But before that, I’ve got a list of things to do:

Well, looks like computer won this fight. But it hasn’t won the battle. Once I got all my files off of the hard drive and onto my dad’s computer, I realized that not only is the “resource” cd the computer came with lacking a copy of XP, but my backup image of the factory setup is also gone. So I have nothing to install even if I can swipe the drive. What I will do, though, is buy a legit copy of XP (groan) at a reduced price thanks to my friend who is a student at an unnamed university here in town.

Also, that road trip I talked about? Yeah, not gonna happen. The weather in central Texas is going to turn hellish this weekend. Cold, I can handle. Rain and cold I cannot handle. I’m not that manly (and neither is 56-year-old dad). So looks like pops and I are just gonna kick it here in town. He needs a new light jacket, so we went to to REI and got him a cool fleece top. Then we saw Aeon Flux, which has gotten terrible reviews, but at matinee price, I don’t mind watching Charlize Theron frolic around the screen in that smokin’ hot outfit. Yes, I’m easy to please. The movie was pretty good if you're looking for a sci-fi action flic to kill some time. It was definitely a guy movie: sci-fi plot with some social commentary stirred in, topped with enough action sequences to keep most any male happy. Damn the reviewers, we liked it.

Tonight was Heather’s birthday party, so I got to hang with her and Andrew at Rudyard’s, a new (to me) dive. Her landlord’s band was an opening act and they were pretty good, so I’m looking forward to seeing them again.

You mix old school jazz with modern electronic music? Cool shit. It’s called Verve Remixed. Some of my more musically up-to-date readers may chide me for once again lagging so far behind the trendy music curve, but hey, I mean well. I’m listening to Volume 3 right now and it’s rockin’. Highly recommended.

Caution: legal mumbo jumbo ahead.

What’s also interesting are the legal ramifications of this music. The Verve has a copyright on the original jazz recordings and, from what I understand, could not or would not release the rights to other musicians wanting to use the Verve’s music. DJs were of course using the tracks anyway, but probably without permission. What’s more, the question of whether sampling of this nature amounts to fair use or a derivative work is a whole nother issue. If you want to know the answer to that one, you’ll need to borrow a copy of my notes from Copyright class, or take the class yourself.

I was good last semester. On my two off-days (Tuesday and Thursday) I read and did all my homework. Sure, there were breaks, but the work got done. This semester seems to be different. I didn’t have class today. I went to a coffee shop for three hours and read for maybe two of those hours. That is all the work I have done today.

The rest of the time has been spent by:
1. riding The G Ride around the neighborhood
2. channel-flipping
3. coming up with a tracklisting for heatherfeather’s and erik’s mix cds
4. waiting for Lost to come on
5. looking for jobs
6. see #1
7. reading Jane Eyre

You see, one of my teachers goes too slowly, so I’m already where I need to be for tomorrow’s class. Another teacher assigns cases for each student, and my case isn’t for another couple weeks. Another teacher asked us to read the “introductory” chapter, and after about ten (of 25) pages of that junk, I had had enough. So I occupy myself with the above seven activities.

Oh yeah, I also did a load of laundry. And charged my cell phone.

Fifth installment of the "things that happen to you while" series.

You wake up the morning of the flight with the beginnings of a sinus infection. You are thankful it’s not anything serious that could make flying difficult, like stuffed sinuses or ear issues. Oh, yeah, it’s a sinus infection, so you have stuffed sinuses and ear issues. You call GF at 5:50 am and explain the situation. She says, “Talk to my dad.” Dad is a doctor. Doctor Dad says I’m sending daughter over to your house with drugs. Take the drugs.

Drugs given to you by GF’s dad work. You fly on the big airplane and eat the breakfast of cereal and a banana. You are happy and sleep on GF’s shoulder.

Instead of having to pay money to stay at a hotel, GF’s cousins are kind enough to open their home to you and GF. They also open their fridge, which is a blessing. They also lend you a car, which is blessing upon blessing. You are very thankful for GF’s cousins. Thank you thank you thank you GF’s cousins.

You spend the night and following day recovering from the sinus infection and pop Advil Cold & Sinus like Reese’s Pieces. You are a useless lump of boy during this time. You drink so much water your bladder effectively becomes the size of a pea.

After the worst of the infection passes, you gather your strength to meet the GF’s family for Chinese food. Only part of the family of is present, which equates to about 10 people. You are particularly impressed by an 80-year-old member of the family named Bob who eats more than you, and takes longer doing it. He, like you, is thin as a rail. He, like you, stores the food in his hollow legs. The table marvels at the amount of food this man can put away.

You and GF decide it is your duty to find an In-N-Out Burger and purchase hamburgers for lunch. You do so. The burgers are good and you are happy. Mission accomplished.

GF goes with dad to Tijuana, Mexico to have a look around. You rest at the house and pray they come back safe. They come back and you expect wild and crazy stories of ligers and four-toed sloths. They say, “People tried to sell us stuff. It was kind of crowded. Sort of boring, actually.” Your heart sinks.

You and GF make an attempt at visiting the famous San Diego Zoo to no avail. By the time you get there, you only have an hour because you have to be somewhere else very soon to get ready for another Important Family Event. Instead of spending one hour at the zoo (and paying lots of money to get in) you opt to look at the seals on the beaches of La Jolla. They are fun and cute and smelly. You wish you were a seal so you could hang around all day and bask in the sun on the beach and be protected by national gaming laws.

You head to GF’s Parents’ hotel room to shower and get ready for the next Important Family Event, which happens to be the most important Important Family Event of the trip. One of GF’s cousins is getting married.

The wedding ceremony is beautiful and goes off without a hitch. GF even has a part in it, reading an English translation of some meaningful Hebrew passages whose meaning you have since forgotten. Thankfully, you got pictures of it, so it’s all good.

After the ceremony, it’s time to dance the Hora, the traditional Jewish dance originating in Europe. The Hora normally consists of a circle of people dancing around other people in the middle of the circle. Those other people in the middle could have their own circle or could simply be dancing with one or two partners arm-in-arm. Since only five people at the wedding actually know who you are, you feel compelled to make yourself known by throwing yourself in the throng of Hora-dancers. You work up a sweat and, satisfied you sufficiently contributed to the dancing, seek out the food.

The food must wait. First come the toasts.

The Bride’s parents and sisters toast the newlyweds as do the Groom’s father and sister. The final speaker, the Bride’s grandfather, gives a moving and witty speech on how the Bride and Groom met. The grandfather forms the speech in Biblical language – that is, for example, “Sam met Amy, and Amy was a comely young woman, and Sam was smitten, and Sam wed Amy, and it was good.” Etc etc. His speech steals the show and there is a flood of applause.

Afterward comes the food. You feast on salmon and mahi-mahi and pasta and salad and potato, and it is good. You and GF score margaritas, and they are good. Your bellies are happy.

You once again find yourself on the dance floor. The Deejay is playing music to which everyone can dance. Namely: disco, R&B, and Motown. You manage to avoid stepping on GF’s toes and, to you, this constitutes a successful dancing evening. You close the place down and are in bed by midnight.

You and GF and hop in the car and make another attempt at the zoo, this time allotting about two hours for yourselves. You take the guided bus tour to see as much as possible in the short time you have. Your favorites include the polar bears, the elephants, the Alaskan brown bear, and, of course, the Pandas.

You then head to the Bride’s parents’ house for a quick brunch before you leave for the airport and the flight back home.

The sinus infection is all but a memory and you reflect on all the amazing people you met and the fun you had.

idea graciously lifted from nerdygirl and hereby imposed upon heather, who must impose it upon someone else, ad infinitum.

I did it. I gave in to the iPower of Apple and bought an iPod Nano. I even sprung for the four gig model. Yeah, I’m am iLoser now like the rest of Americans between the ages of zero and 35. So it was only a few weeks ago that I was lambasting Apple for all the iThis and iThat. What can I say. I’m fickle. The nano has a lot more space than my old iRiver 256 MB mp3 player (strange, notice they also adopt the “i,” and they’re not even Apple…)

The nano also has other cool features that I’ll probably never use. But I tell you what. It’s packed full of questionably-obtained at antitrust-violating-prices memory! Four gigs is a lot for this small a device. I remember when four MBs (not GBs) of memory took up a whole room. Just kidding, I’m not that old. But some readers out there are. I am old enough, however, to remember when a 500 MB hard drive was the bomb, if that makes you age-advanced folks feel any better.

So, off I go to install iTunes and let Apple finally take hold of my life, like Google did a few years ago. They’ll just have to share.
addendum: though i may have bought the iPod, i will not be using the cheesy white earphones, which coincidentally do not satisfy my music-snob ears. i didn't completely sell out, only partially.

addendum to the addendum: damn, these earphones are actually pretty good. they sound much fuller then my old ones. freaking steve jobs with his black turtleneck and excellent R&D department.

It’s a rarity, but every now and then, we at particleman.org have to bitch and moan about certain things that require bitching and moaning. This is one of those things.

If you’ve ever lived in Austin, you almost automatically groan when SXSW rolls around. The city explodes with people cramming into downtown trying to figure out who the cool new band is going to be, to see the hip new films, and to sit in on panels where people talk about the sociological impact of blogs on our day-to-day interactions. Fascinating stuff.

I’m a little bitter about SXSW. I lived in Austin for four and a half years and had to deal with four SXSWs. SXSW clogs the streets and highways (which are already choked) with lost tourists. You can’t get a seat at restaurants. You can’t get into bars or pubs. You can’t park your car anywhere near downtown, which during SXSW, extends to all of central Austin. You can’t see any shows because everyone knows someone who got them a band, and you can’t afford a band because you’re a broke student and can’t muster the $300+ fee.

If you know where to go, there are lots of anti-sxsw shows outside of downtown. If you know where to go, there are tons of great restaurants and pubs to go to outside of downtown. But meanwhile, all the bands you ever wanted to see are in one place for one week, and you can’t get in…

Granted, I know SXSW is a tradition. It might even be a necessity. And it can be a great way to meet like-minded people. It’s a cultural orgy.

But for people on the outside looking in, SXSW is fucking annoying.

I figure you may be wondering about the wave of bike posts the past few weeks. During my first year of law school, I maybe rode my bike a grand total of two times. Things got a little better the following summer. Things returned to their status quo of non-riding in my third semester. So what’s the deal with this semester? Well, first of all, I’m taking two less hours than I usually do and the classes aren’t quite as intensive. Call it a much needed “break” from law school, though I’m somehow still in school…

There is another reason, though. I was going to wait till the very last minute to spill the beans, but what the hell, I have zero willpower.

I’m going to visit my friend (posts here as ‘carrico’) and his wife in Denver in two weeks. I’ve known this joker known as Carrico since I was a college freshman. He rides mountain bikes and all sorts of other wheeled things – and he is much better at it than I am. He taught me a thing or two about how to not crash and burn on mountain bike trails.

Denver is basically located in the stratosphere compared to Houston, so there will be less air for me to breathe, and since I’ve been a slacker for almost two years, I need to get my ass into shape. Thus, the recent spate of mountain bike rides and cycling-related posts.

I’m flying up on a Friday and coming back on Tuesday. While I’m there, I’ll stop by and harass Heatherfeather. How could I come to Denver and not raise hell with Heather? Carrico, Mrs. Carrico, Heatherfeather, and the rest of Denver are totally unprepared for what is about to hit them in two weeks. The last time I visited a blogger I had never met in person it resulted in copious beer-consumption, wild music fests, late nights in strange places, barefoot kickball with punk-rock people with various piercings and colorful tattoos, sushi happy hours complete with funny hats, and an orange mustang convertible, among other things.

1. It’s cool when a company like American Express sends you a check to compensate you for the money you gave them to pay a bill, until you realized it had several hundred dollars in fraudulent charges. What’s not cool is signing up for American Express Blue and dealing with the fraudulent charges.

2. I saw the Deathray Davies for the third time last night. And there were only about 50 people in the whole club. I guess that’s what happens when you play a show on the same night as Dinosaur Jr.

3. I really need to study today. A lot.

4. I really need to ride my bike today. More than a lot.

5. There’s a jewtastic happy hour tonight that I’m going to. Yee-ha.

6. There’s a law school prom tonight that I’m not going to, but I’m going to the drunken after-party. Ohhh yeah.

7. I’m volunteering for a benefit run tomorrow and I have to be there at 6:45. Ohhh crap.

8. I need to get new lenses for my glasses because the old ones are so scratched and smudged I can hardly see through them.

9. Remember how I lost my ipod a couple weeks ago? I heard that the 99 Cent Store was celebrating 999 days in Texas on March 31st, and each store would sell nine iPod Nano 2 GBs for 99 cents. They open at 8 am. I vowed to wake up at four am on Friday morning (a day I had to be at work at nine) and see if I could score an iPod. I woke up at four and arrived at the store at 4:15. There were already nine people there, some sleeping on the concrete. I guess they wanted an iPod more than I did.

10. Did anyone see the slashdot page today?

Sixth installment of the “things that happen to you while” series.

Day 1

Your trouble with the law begins before you even get on the plane. The small folding allen wrench you packed into your Camelbak that you packed into your larger bag has piqued the security peoples’ interest. Piquing their interest is not something you want to do. A security person tears apart your bag, fishes out the Camelbak, and runs it through the x-ray machine again. She then pulls out the offending allen wrench and asks the supervisor, “Is this ok?” Yes, my friendly security-obsessed airport employee, it’s a freaking allen wrench. You might want to watch out for the guy with golf clubs, though. Those look painful.

You arrive in sunny Denver and it’s a glorious 50 degrees. You couldn’t be happier. Mr. Carrico (let’s call him C) picks you up and you speed off immediately to what you’re told is an Engineer Party. You see, C is an engineer of sorts – an engineer that designs poo treatment plants. As such, it figures that these people need to party quite a bit to maintain their level of sanity (sounds like lawyers). Hence, the engineer party you’re going to in Golden, about a half-hour drive from Denver, is first on the list of attractions.

The party is held at the house of one of the engineers (let’s call him J). It turns out that no one is home when you and C get to the house. You have beer on the mind and are feeling impatient, so C does the sensible thing and calls J to see how to get into the house. And now your troubles with the law escalate to what we in law school call “breaking and entering” or “trespass.” That is, C reached his arm up through the cat flap in the back door and manages to unlock the deadbolt (he has long arms) thus gaining entry. Mission accomplished. One tort and perhaps one crime are committed on your vacation. And you’ve only been in the state forty-five minutes.

After you help ourselves to some beer (thanks, J) more of the engineer crew and their significant others show up and the party grows to nine strong. You meet Mrs. Carrico (MC) for the second time and hope you might finally get to know her. You only met her at the wedding and didn’t get much of a chance to talk.

Now would be a good time to mention the fireworks display that you’ll later get to see at the Colorado School of Mines. Yes. A bunch of miners are going to blow shit up and it’s going to be awesome.

Before the fireworks, however, there’s something you have to see. You kick off the fireworks party in the college’s ‘lab’ as it were – a place where they store all their mining devices and whatnot. J asks you, “You wanna see a big drill?” Do I? He walks you over to what looks like something out of Star Wars. Or Robocop. Or Wyle E. Cayote’s stash of tools that catch the Roadrunner. This drill is as big as a moving truck. The ‘bit’ is the size of a Honda. You stand under the drill and wonder to yourself that your old jobs playing with computers all day were really pointless.

The fireworks are held in the college’s football field. You and the engineer crew get the best seats – on top of the announcer’s box high above the field. The fireworks are phenomenally loud and close. You can smell the chemicals. The crowd of chants “BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP… BLOW THE FUCKER UP…” Your jaw drops, and you join in. For the grand finale, a man – assumedly crazy – runs out to a string a fireworks mounted across the field and attempts to ignite them by hand. It rained the night before and the fireworks are not lighting in succession as planned. He has no choice but to keep going back to light the fireworks when the fuse runs out. He appears to be wearing protective ear-coverings but you see no other signs of protection. He injures his leg the last time he goes back to light the fireworks – perhaps some shrapnel got him. Firemen and EMS show up.

You’re more than satisfied with the day’s events, but the party hasn’t even started.

The festivities end up back at J’s, the scene of the original crime. J proposes a neat trick to the group. A drunken stupid human trick, if you will. Fold a dollar so that it can stand on the floor by itself. Supporting yourself on only one foot, find a way to pick the dollar up with your mouth. Your hands cannot touch the ground. It quickly became clear that this was a great way to get people to do stupid things for a dollar – or just to do them. To up the ante, someone put a $20 bill on the floor. To up it further, you put your wallet on the floor, which was in fact not an “up the ante” because you’re broke. Though many had gotten close and you managed to fall and hurt your knee in an effort to retrieve the dollar, J was the first and last to successfully perform the trick. Bravo J.

Your hosts’ cat apparently discovered the air mattress, and well, that was that. You and C try to find the holes in the air mattress and find one. C seals it with a bicycle tube patch kit and it works like magic. For several hours. By morning, your back is on the ground and your legs are in the air. You end up on the couch cursing your long legs.

Day 2

You and C start the day at Green Mountain. Your lungs are still stuck at sea level so you have a hard time getting up the mountain, or as natives call them, foothills. Anyone from Houston calls them mountains, though. You have to walk half of the final climb and on the way got passed by a runner going up, who then passed you going down, who then passes you going up again, all before you reach the top. When you do finally reach the top, you see him again, and he turns around again. That’s called meshuggah where you come from. You hit Red Rocks after grabbing some power bars and ride another two or three hours there.

For dinner, you and your generous hosts planned on going out but somehow the party ended up at home. You head to Whole Foods, score some chicken, and start a BBQ. Others show up with more goodies to throw on the grill and Heathfeather and her friend also join the party.

It’s not long before the stupid human trick from last night emerges. Except this time, instead of setting doing the trick on a wood floor in a house, it’s on a brick patio in a back yard. Brick hurts a lot more than wood when succumbing to gravity. Needless to say, you abstain, having sufficiently embarrassed yourself the night before. Other stupid human tricks emerge as well. MC introduces the group to a trick wherein you cross your arms in front of you and twist them around so that you end up with your fingers on your nose. Note that says on your nose, not in, but that might be interesting too.

The last stupid human trick is proposed by J (the stupid human trick expert?). This trick calls for two people. One person stands, legs apart, preferably on a soft substance like grass. Person 2, preferably limber, jumps on Person 1’s back, crawls over their shoulders, down their torso, through their legs, and back up to Person 1’s back. J volunteers to be Person 2. Heatherfeather volunteers to be the standing Person 1, claiming to have served a stint in a circus. Que pasa? Circus? Then she reminds you that she knows how to ride a unicycle, but not a bicycle. Oh, right. Unicycle. You realize your hosts have like six bikes, none of which are unicycles. Too bad. Heatherfeather is unfortunately too short or not strong enough to support J. C, as it turns out, is about 6'4" and strong enough to support the weight of another grown man (man that sounds weird). J hops on C’s back, crawls over his shoulders, down his torso, through his legs, and scrambles up his back. You really had to see it. Oh wait, YOU CAN*.

You round out the night at a bar called The Funky Buddha.

Day 3

Your back is a little sore from the previous night spent on the couch. Thankfully, one of your hosts’ friends who we’ll call G graciously swung by with his full suspension mountain bike for you to borrow, so any back pain should be rendered moot once on the trail. Otherwise, this morning starts out quite the same as the previous, meaning that a bike ride is in order.

You and C hop in the car and drive to Boulder for a ride at Walker Ranch, deep in the foothills just west of the city. The trail is breathtaking and you wonder why people live anywhere else. Things like law school come to mind. Bummer. After the ride you head to a local brewpub, Southern Sun Pub & Brewery, for nourishment of the liquid and solid variety.

You take it easy for dinner and order Thai food. The free movie channel is playing Donnie Brasco and you watch Johnny Depp turn into a Wise Guy.

Before crashing you and C resolve to find the other holes in the air mattress. Or rather, MC issues a directive that it needs to be fixed. You locate two more holes and seal them. It does the trick. You sleep soundly on a bed of air.

Day 4

Your hosts go off to their respective office lives designing poop treatment plants and whatnot. With five final exams rearing their ugly heads in a matter of weeks, you set your sights on the nearest hipster café and ride a ridiculously small BMX bike to Devil’s Food Bakery. It’s closed. In fact, everything is closed. It seems Denver sleeps in on Mondays. You hang your head in shame and head to Starbucks. A city of full of nifty cafes and all you have at your disposal is a national chain... For shame.

Several hours later, Heatherfeather rescues your vacation from becoming a corporate-coffee-shop-law-school-study-fest and takes you to the Crazy Asian Café for lunch. You chat about the UN, Connie Rice, and They Might Be Giants (naturally). Agreeing you should at least make an effort at studying, you head to Stella’s, a café that is actually open. After an hour of conversation interrupted by occasional bouts of studying you face the facts and call off the charade. The Denver Folklore Center down the street sells all kinds of cool instruments and the allure is just too much.

You noodle with guitars, banjos, mandolins, mandolinas, basses, and other stringed devices. Heatherfeather gives you a sample of her sublime voice and guitar skills. You wish you could put a digital soundboard in front of her and record what you’re hearing.

Heatherfeather drops you off at your (er, C’s BMX) bike at Starbucks and you ride home. Your hosts arrive soon after and you head to Sushi Boat with C, MC, and their friend, who we’ll also call G (different than the earlier G). After stuffing your faces full of sushi, seaweed salad, and miso soup, you decide on the perfect follow-up for desert: Bonnie Brae Ice Cream. It hits the spot.

Day 5

Has it really been five days? Feels like two. Your hosts probably think it feels like 10.

Your flight is at noon. But before your hosts can unload you, you get to accompany them to a very special occasion: the inspection of their newly bought home. It was built in 1906 but is somehow in better shape than most newer homes. You follow the inspector around and carefully watch (from a distance) what he does. One day you’ll have to buy a house. Or at least you hope to buy a house, maybe in Denver.

OK I can’t write in passive present tense or whatever it’s called anymore, it kind of hurts my brain. Much, much thanks to Mr. and Mrs. C for having me, to J and G (the first one) for lending me their bikes, to Heatherfeather for wasting her afternoon with me, and to the house cat for not accosting me too much.

All of you are welcome in Houston any time. Except the cat. Sorry.

* it’s a little dark, so if anyone has video editing software and is willing to help, contact me via the link at the bottom of this page.

they should be at the top of the list, but you mighht have to sift through some others.

i changed the charity for my particleman and particlegirl stores. while the red cross is good, i don't think it was motivating people. i've chosen a charity that means more to me. the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation raises money for music education programs throughout the country, including 15 schools right here in Tejas. let's get those kids playing a new double bass, trumpet, sax, or some other instrument that might get them cool points. the links are at the top-right of this page. thanks.

Working till 6:30-ish and then going out means you get home at 11 and crash. Saw the Arctic Monkeys and We Are Scientists last night. AM were a lot better than I imagined and WAS were not as good as the last time I saw them. I think it was mainly the sound guy. All I heard was mud. No notes. AM are talented song craftsmen and the execution was tight and organized. I was very impressed considering they’re all 19 or 20 years old.

At one point, the AM singer was jabbering at us about something and I thought to myself, “I can’t understand a word this guy is saying. Those crazy Brits.” Then he says, “You know, I’m speaking very clearly for you guys.” If he was, I couldn’t tell.

Also, i bought new shaving cream.

One of the girls at work is dating a guy who plays bass in a few bands, two of which played in a Battle of the Bands last night. I went along for the fun of it, and to feel old, and boring. Everyone at the venue had an “X” on their hand. I was also still in work clothes, which, on that day, meant dark slacks, a blue button-down, and black shoes. ‘No, I promise I’m not an accountant, though I might as well be one.’ She was also in her work clothes so I didn’t feel that bad. There we were – two shiny and clean-cut law clerks - surrounded by high-schoolers in hip-huggers and too-tight shirts and hairstyles blocking most of their vision. The best part? The guy from the record label was wearing khaki shorts, white socks, and Birks. Socks and sandals!! But he was also dancing with three girls so mad props. But dude, enough of the dancing. It’s scary.

There’s a small town north of Dallas called Addison that had fireworks last night. Well, they had a limited version of their usual fireworks show because of a sudden rain that, strangely, pretty much everyone figured would hit. And just our luck, the rain directly coincided with the fireworks. After the fireworks, the rain stopped. Perfect. Since I had come straight from work and was still wearing my dress shirt (with undershirt) I took off the dress shirt to try to shield the rain for a couple friends and myself. It worked well enough but also meant I was left wearing slacks and a v-neck undershirt. For any of you that know me well enough, or those of you who have for some reason had the misfortune of seeing me without a shirt on, me in a v-neck is not a pretty sight. Chest hair abounds. I might as well have hung a bling Star of David around my neck and started swaggering around to the ladies saying, “Hey baby, you lookin’ sexy tonight, what you say we go hit club down street, eh?” This is what we call an “arse” in Israel.

After the rain we ended up in a crowded bar. I didn’t do much dancing because I wasn’t digging the music and most people were just hanging out. But when a couple good songs came on I had to break it down on the dance floor. Watch out people – wet, almost shirtless Jew gyrating to the beats.

Then, in total high school fashion, we went to IHOP at 1:30 am. I was in bed at 3. So have a happy fourth, be safe, and keep a spare shirt in the car.

In a first-time event for this blog, the author was prevented from seeing a show because it sold out. I had big plans to see Bloc Party, a great band from the UK, but my big plans to buy a ticket at the door the night of the show didn’t pan out too well. I’ve seen bands at this same venue on weekday nights and bought tickets at the door with no problem. I mean, come on, it’s a Wednesday night. Who sees concerts on a Wednesday? Lots of people, apparently. So many that they couldn’t fit me and my two friends. How lame.

So what did we do instead? Why, drink, of course.

On today’s agenda: clean old apartment, go to dentist for routine cleaning, sulk about Bloc Party. They better come back.

If you read my post on cherz’s blog, you would have seen that I had big plans to see the Reverend Horton Heat on Thursday night and skip class on Friday. Did I see the Reverend? No. It sold out. Did I skip class? Of course. I couldn’t possibly go to class when I had gotten it into my head to skip. Instead, I went mountain biking and the equipment gods sent their wrath upon me.

I’ve broken all kinds of bike parts on bike rides. If I haven’t broken it, I saw someone else break it. I’ve also seen people lose all kinds of parts while riding, including a crank bolt a few months go. But I could not have been prepared for what happened yesterday.

There I was, just riding along, and I notice that the drivetrain on my single-speed feels wobbly. Now this is especially odd because the whole point of a single-speed bike is that there are fewer parts to go wobbly and thus less headaches on the trail. There’s a crank, a chain, a chain tensioner, and a cog. That’s it.

So imagine my surprise when I stop and look down at my bike and see nothing wrong. What? Something was wobbling. I get off the bike and take a closer look and see that there is indeed a big problem. What’s wrong with this picture?

There should be four bolts around the perimeter of the chainring. Those bolts hold the chainring to the crankarm. One of the bolts managed to work itself loose and take a walk on the trail.

I tightened the three remaining chainring bolts, cursed, and headed back to the car. My epic three hour ride was cut short to one hour. But that’s ok because I don’t think I would have lasted for three hours.

Hell no. Not gonna do it. Why should I? I love my nano but I’m an iPod minimalist. I upload songs to the nano and that’s it. No pictures. No calendar. No notes. When I charge the nano I don’t open iTunes – it charges whether or not iTunes is open. I have no need for the jukebox-style album covers. When I hear of features like "jukebox-style album covers," I think, "slow my computer to a screeching halt." No thanks.

So to all the Apple junkies who downloaded iTunes 7... suckers!!! (insert winky smiley face thing here). I hope you had a good reason to install it, cuz I can hear your hard drive grinding from here.

Before i get into describing the staggering awesomeness and total exhaustion of the weekend, which will take me a couple days to get to, i have this to say: it felt good to be in a place where people have tatoos of Texas on various body parts. You don't see that so often in Houston. But in Austin it's standard issue. Gotta love it.

The Austin City Limits music festival has gotten cocky in its old age. They let you bring your camelback, but it has to be empty. WTF? No water allowed. Oh, but you can bring “two factory sealed water bottles up to 1 liter each.” I sweat two liters of water in five minutes. Two liters is a joke. Meanwhile, I’m betting a half-liter bottle of water costs $7. Someone out there in ACL-land is making way too much money, or getting a really good laugh out of this. Fuckers.

I just felt like channeling a little bit of the stuff that bugs me vibe.

The fun part is that I’ll be skipping class all of Friday and probably Monday since I won’t have read anything all weekend. Wait – I never read anymore. Looks like I’ll be in class Monday.

I saw:

• Gomez
  
• Thievery Corporation (only a few minutes)
  
• Gnarls Barkley (only a few minutes)
  
• Wolf Parade (only a few minutes)
  
• John Mayer (only a few minutes) (ugh)
  
• Ben Kweller (only a few minutes)
  
• Nada Surf (only a few minutes)
  
• The Shins
  
• The Raconteurs
  
• Massive Attack
  
• Ween
  
• The New Pornographers (only a few minutes)
  
• The Greencards
  
• Muse
  
• Tom Petty (only a few minutes)

My top picks were Muse, Massive Attack, The Raconteurs, and Gomez. Three of those bands happen to be from the UK and they happen to be bands I’ve been waiting to see for three years, so this ACL was kind of a big deal to me. These bands don’t come to the US often.

Muse was phenomenal.* Everything was there – musical accuracy, stage antics, variety of song choice, and sound quality. They must have a great sound guy. I was concerned they’d have a hard time translating the complexity of their studio recordings into a live performance but they seem to have a good handle on it. In fact, the same goes for Massive Attack. I didn’t know what to expect with them. I wasn’t even sure they’d have a full band, but they did. They had two drummers. I pegged them as more of an electronic outfit with various keyboards and synths doing all the work. I was also happy to see they toured with the two extra vocalists featured on their studio tracks. Massive Attack are experts at gradual builds and they pulled it off well in the live performance. The light show was also impressive. The main vocalist made a few comments about our buddy W, and on the next song, the light display behind the band scrolled factoids about the Iraq war: the number of Americans killed, the number of Iraqis killed, the cost of the war to American taxpayers, the number of displaced Iraqi civilians, so on and so forth. It was sobering.

The Raconteurs, Jack White’s new band, were insane. That guy is possessed. I saw The White Stripes a long time ago at Emo’s in Austin and I thought he was nuts then. He’s only more crazy now. If you get the chance, definitely check this band out. They will not disappoint.

Gomez was a little more reserved than I had hoped for. They didn’t really let loose and kept to the more mellow tracks. There was one song in particular I wanted to hear with a (surprise) distorted bass part, but they didn’t do it. What really bugged me was that the bass player hung back the whole show and stood by his amp. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a bass player who hides behind the band, musically or physically. Otherwise, they played some good songs and had a good time on stage.

What about Tom Petty? Yeah, there were about 50 million people standing between me and Tom Petty. Tom had already started by the time the Muse show ended. I walked for a while towards his stage and there was still at least a half-mile of people in front of me. There was no way I was going to get closer to see or hear anything. No amount of wattage could have moved the sound to where I and thousands of other people were. So I heard traces of a few songs and left with a couple friends. We ate at Magnolia, they went back to the hotel, and I hit the road to get home in time to sleep a few hours and be at work at 9.

Just my luck, I ran into a torrential downpour on I-71 that brought me down to 30 miles per hour. My sight was limited to 10 feet in front of me. Thankfully I finally got away from the rainstorm and cruised the rest of the way, getting home at 2 am. Seven hours later, I was at my desk, ears ringing and head groggy.

Pictures i lifted from flickr:

Muse:

Massive Attack:

The light towers:

The Raconteurs:

Jack White screaming his head off:

Gomez:

*Addendum: My only complaint about Muse was that ACL pulled the plug on them too early. They were supposed to have a forty-five minute set (which was already too short), but since Tom Petty had started playing, the singer said, "We'd love to keep playing but the people running show are going to pull the power on us because Tom Petty has started." Hence, some of my ambivalence towards seeing Tom Petty.

I spent yesterday enjoying the cool breeze and warm sun. Today, my allergies are kicking the shit out of me. Why oh why was I blessed with my mom’s allergies. Notice there is no question mark there. It’s more of a lament than a question. Oh, OH, did I mention that I have tickets to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tonight? I do. And I’m going, even though my nose is a sorry excuse for a leaky faucet and I’m so medicate I can hardly complete a coherent sentence.

I love it when you’re out dancing with a group of friends and the dance floor is so crowded that you bump into a couple dancing and turn around to find them mugging down while his hands are exploring various intimate areas of her person. No problemo, I think we’ve all been there, right? But when their bodies coated in love-sweat keep bumping into you, it’s about that time when one of your friends says, "Yeah, looks like we’re caught in the middle of a porn."

Dallas was fun. I think I scored on the dance floor.

I’m at the point where I’m chaining myself to my desk for hours at a time. The studying vibes worked. Whatever you sent my way did the trick. That, or I realized that two weeks of goofing off has really bitten me in the ass and I have a lot to learn. Four months of slacking (including seven days of skipping class) can really add up.

I did take my bass in to the guitar shop today for some routine maintenance. The humidity changes really mess with the alignment (we call that neck bow and string action in guitar-speak). I also went to a bike shop and used a coupon that was about to expire. I bought a helmet that fits a lot better than the one I bought in 2000-ish.

I clearly have nothing to say. I eat securities for breakfast. The SEC is the bane of my existence. Marital property laws are my bible. My relationship advice to everyone is never get divorced. In fact, you might as well never get married. Bad idea. I have to get back to studying now. Time to learn how to appeal a lower court’s decision on the division of your marital estate.

Hi, my name is Mr Pinch Blogger and I will be “helping” our friend P-man here for a while whilst he is mired in the throes of law school finals. You can call me “MPB” if you’re into the whole brevity thing.

P-man and I have much in common. While P-man chains himself to his desk for hours at a time to study, I am also chained to my desk for hours at a time by the man, with the proverbial chains being monetary reward, or more specifically, the ability to pay my mortgage. Deep stuff I know. I worked on that for hours. And its just a taste of the deep intellectual content you can expect (or dread or ignore) during what is sure to be my brief tenure as MPB.

But before delving into P-man and my similarities from a philosophical realm, I’ll ease into things with the more superficial topics. I like bikes, as does P-man. And, also like him, I have amassed a large collection that I somewhat rarely ride, and when riding, usually get smoked by everyone from casual riders to geriatric old men on cruisers. My overall lack of physical prowess on the bike doesn’t stop me, however, from practicing bike snobbery and praising the virtues of steel frames, singlespeeds, and the like. Of which I own none, of course.

Similarly, I have been accused of music snobbery as well. Unlike P-man, however, I have no musical talent whatsoever, and have never performed either, save the occasional drunken wailing of “Sweet Caroline” or “To All the Girls I’ve loved Before” (the Willie Nelson / Julio Iglesias version thank you). I leave that up to the professionals, and in this case, I am looking forward to a show next week in Denver featuring Gogol Bordello and Valient Thorr. I haven’t seen Gogol Bordello and am only mildly familiar with them, but hear they’re good live. I have seen Valient Thorr, and look forward to seeing them, as they hail from Venus (it’s a long tour) and feature a lead singer who resembles a balding, overweight early 80’s era David Lee Roth (complete with spandex). All that spandex can’t contain the rock though, and they rock hard.

Ok, so going back to work for the man beckons. Till next time, nice to meet y’all.

Mr. Pinch Blogger

Last night was my first foray into the world of gypsy punk rock, and I’ve emerged a completely changed man. Ok, maybe not completely changed, but at the very least recently entertained and to some degree hard of hearing.

The venue for last night’s show was the Gothic Theatre, one of many old Denver theatres (technically the Gothic is in Englewood {which you may recall is always up to no good}) renovated to be a live music venue. I’m a big fan of these types of venues. There’s a good sized area in front of the stage for group gyrations and a balcony where my vertically challenged wife can watch the proceedings: everybody wins.

J and G from the last post were scheduled to be in attendance as well, but J bowed out due to a claim of oncoming sickness. Something having to do with weakening his immune system over the weekend. Pretty lame excuse if you ask me. G was on board though, which was a nice surprise because she’s not much into the punk (or folk punk, or Ukranian folk punk for that matter) scene, but still very open-minded. Her previous experiences at the Gothic had consisted of filming for some death metal acts (also not her scene but you gotta pay the bills), so I applaud her for even returning after that.

We went to Genarro’s Lounge for pre-show activities. This place is awesome: great cheap Italian food, even cheaper beer, and a bunch of sociable regulars playing sad country songs on the jukebox. I can’t figure out why its not packed all the time.

We showed up for the show around 8:45 expecting to catch the two opening acts (advertisement said doors at 7 and show at 8:30). The place was already packed and I had no problem selling J’s extra ticket at a hefty profit of $0.75. I think I have a future as a scalper. To our surprise, the second act, Valiant Thor, was already winding down their set. As I had already seen them once it was no big deal (they really aren’t very good minus the schtick), but this had to be the first time in history that a punk act was actually going on early. Gogol Bordello showed up on stage around 9:30.

So… I can’t provide a set list since I am completely unfamiliar with any of their material. As such, the fact that I was totally blown away by them is all the more impressive. The lead singer exuded energy from the very beginning. After the first chord the floor exploded into an energetic (but surprisingly conscientious) pit. Immediately, I was pushed into the crowd and flailing to the beat with everyone else. Good times, great times in fact. The lead singer kept egging the crowd on and they kept responding with more energy. Overall, the band’s stage presence was impressive.

Musically, they reminded me of a Ukranian version of Flogging Molly, which isn’t a bad thing. The fact that folk tunes have had people dancing for hundreds of years is no coincidence, and the addition of a few electric guitars and an insane front man can only help things. The lead singer was really animated and involved in the show, even when he wasn’t playing or singing, and his dialogues with the crowd were funny. The Bordello girls weren’t really all that impressive. Personally, I still prefer Satan’s cheerleaders. And there were no Elijah Wood sightings. For a minute there I thought maybe a little rapper dude that came out was him, but no such luck.

The radio DJ who introduced them said all the new people at the show should prepare to have their “minds warped” during the show. I think they should avoid his introductions in the future. That’s just a tough billing to live up to. If Bordello girls dancing around in funny costumes and a lead singer banging a bucket on top of a microphone is mind-warping, then perhaps he was right. But I just didn’t see it. But I still had an awesome time and left mind fully intact.

Besides me, both G and my wife, neither of whom are into punk, also had a great time by all accounts. I can highly recommend Gogol Bordello should they be in your town. They definitely bring a lot of energy and in Denver they had a big group of loyal fans, which I think always helps the atmosphere. No mind warpage needed.

MPB

it's been a wild year. lots happened but i;m too drunk to talk about it. so instead:

album of the year: arctic monkeys
song of the year: way out by yeah yeah yeahs. if that link does not work, go here.
movie of the year: the departed

I finally saw Donnie Darko. Yes, I know it came out in 2001. I never got around to it. Now that I have, I must say it’s one hell of a movie. The version I saw was the extended director’s cut with deleted scenes. The extra material helped clarify what was going on, sort of. It was still confusing. And I still had to do some research on the web to figure out what everything meant. If you haven’t seen this movie, see it. And try to find a version with the extra scenes. I borrowed the DVD from a friend and the more I watch it, the more I notice that helps things make sense.

The soundtrack was also good. Plenty of 80s. One of my favorite scenes played Head over Heels by Tears for Fears while Donnie and his friends cruised down their high school hallway in slo-mo.

Addendum

[Seth is holding a knife to Donnie's throat as a car approaches along the road]
Seth Devlin: Did you call the fucking cops?
Donnie: Deus ex machina...
Seth Devlin: What did you say? What the fuck did you just say?
Donnie: Our saviour.

I never knew what Donnie said there because he was whispering. Now that I know, it makes more sense. Read about "deus ex machina" here.

Out with the old, in with something else, maybe older.

I’ve been playing a Fender Precision Bass* since 2001 even though I swore I would never buy one. They’re very plain and simple and ubiquitous. You’ve seen them everywhere. It’s the classic look that’s been around since the 50’s. Thing is, because there are so plain and simple, they always sound good, never break down, and are easy to fix.

I always wanted a Gibson Bass – either a Ripper, RD Artist, or Victory – so I could sound like Krist Novoselic from Nirvana.** Yes, it was a teenage dream. He’s basically the reason I started playing bass. I was 14. Give me a break. These Gibson basses look and sound completely different from Fenders but are hard to come by (and are expensive) because Gibson only made them for a few years, circa 1974-1983. Prices have steadily risen in the last few years because of increased exposure by other well-known Gibson users – Mike Dirnt of Green Day for one.

The time has come to sell my old Fender and get something else. Something completely different. My options are to get one of the Gibsons, a Fender Jaguar Bass (something new Fender concocted that combines 60s retro with modern technology), or what I like to call a geek bass.

A geek bass is a ‘high-end’ bass that normally comes in a natural or translucent finish that lets the wood grain show through. These basses abandon the classic Fender and Gibson shapes in favor of a more modern design that in some cases makes the bass easier to play. They may also come stock from the factory with complex electronics and an onboard pre-amp. If you don’t know what an onboard pre-amp is, suffice to say it’s like slapping a mini stereo amplifier inside the bass and wiring it up to the pickups.

I call these basses geek basses because of their new-fangled electronics – 5-band EQs, active circuitry, compression, expansion, pan, treble/bass boost/cut, blah blah blah – and exotic sounding woods – zebrawood, pau ferro, bubinga, purple heart, tiger eye, etc etc. It’s like listening to tech geeks talk about tech stuff. (Not that I’m one to talk…) These basses also don’t really exemplify the “rock” look. They say, “I sit around my apartment and practice jazz riffs” instead of, “I live a life of no rules, plenty of alcohol, I regularly trash hotel rooms, I engage in news-worthy shenanigans, and I generally live a rebellious lifestyle.” Cause, you know, that’s totally me.

Don’t get me wrong, these basses are excellent instruments that sound great. They are usually more expensive than “standard” basses because of the construction process, choice of wood, and electronics. Sometimes they are hilariously expensive. But hey, to each their own…

The point is – I promise there is one – is that I’m really thinking of replacing my old rock and roll classic with a geek bass. I wanted something completely different, and a geek bass would fit the bill. After 13 years of playing bass, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will never need to look like a rock star on stage, because I will neither be on a stage nor will I be a star. This is the bass I’m ogling. But don’t worry, I’d find a used one. A’int no way I’m paying full price.

* Mine is a mid-80’s model made in Japan that looks just like this one.
** Krist never played a Victory, but they look cool.

addendum: i'm playing with the comments settings. i've been getting a lot of comment spam and i'm trying to make it so that only approved commenters can comment.

I think i'm going to get one of these. Aw yeah.

No more after this, I promise.

The woman I shared an office with last week is a huge fan of The Police. I like The Police just as much as the next guy, maybe more. I have some LPs (you know, those black vinyl things) and a double live album on CD. But i was not prepared for her cell phone ring of "Don't Stand So Close To Me." After only a couple rings, the song got stuck in my head and I'd spontaneously start singing it at any given moment. And you can bet that I have a pretty bad singing voice. It must have not been pleasant for her, but the way I see it, it was her fault.

Strong words in the staff room
The accusations fly...

My friend bought four floor tickets to the last-chance-ever Police tour for $250 each. The show is on Friday, June 29th. I want to go. I don't have $250. Help particleman fulfill his dream of seeing Sting take his shirt off. Just kidding. But I would really like to see The Police. This isn't a Rolling Stones-type tour where they say, "Ok, THIS is the last tour. We mean it this time." This will really be the only time The Police tour together again. I'm pretty sure they hate each other and that's why they have never done a reunion tour. Until now.

I know there are a bunch of you out there who read this blog. If each of you donates a buck or two, that would probably be enough. For those of you requiring a guilt trip to encourage donation, consider the donation a small token of thanks for the many years of enlightening and humorous blogging. I did it all for you. Plus, it would be a great graduation gift, provided I pass my classes this semester...

Those of you that are still reading, I would really, really, really appreciate it if you could send a buck or two or five to my paypal account, registered under the email address mtnbiker7901 -at- yahoo -dot- com. Or, if you see me at school, I will happily take cash. Thank you thank you thank you.

I will be keeping track of who donates what (in an Excel spreadsheet, of course). If I don't get close enough to the $250 to actually go, I will return all of the money. You can consider this an enforceable contract.

This is the bass I finally settled on. I traded my old one in and I'm pretty happy with the new one. I'm so excited about it that I played till my fingers were raw. They kind of hurt now.

As you can see, the "stripes" on the back extend along the length of the bass. These stripes are actually strips of wood fused together to create one solid length of wood. Then, a piece of wood is fused to each side of the center piece, and presto, you have a bass. Using one solid piece of wood for the neck and body (called "neck-thru" construction) as opposed to a neck that is bolted onto the body results in a more solid feel and notes that sustain longer. This bass rings like a piano.

It has also has a longer-than-usual two octave neck so I can hit those high notes. Not that I'm one to be messing around that high on the neck very often, but it's good to know those notes are there if i want them.

I can't go to a concert with a ticket that costs $250. It's just not right. It's counter to everything I stand for about music. Here at particleman.org, we stand for things, and one of those things is not price-gouging music fans. I saw Fugazi for $5. I can't possibly see a show with a $250 ticket.

So instead, I think the My Chemical Romance/Muse show in two weeks is more reasonable. It's $30. I think I can handle that. The only thing that bothers me is that Muse isn't the headliner, they're the opener, so their set will be short.

Particleman.org therefore says, "F**k The Police." They charge too much.

You pervs. Get your minds out of the gutter.

The massage was nice but it didn't relieve the pain. It did give me some more mobility though. I guess it will just take a few days for my muscles to heal. I can tell you one thing - at one hour and three minutes, Massive Attack's album Mezzanine makes for a great soundtrack to a one-hour massage appointment.

Mexico won the contest. It's close, it's cheap, and I've never been. I am going to Riviera Maya with two of my Dallas friends for seven days. The itinerary will go something like this:

1. Locate beach with white sand and crystal blue water
2. Secure alcoholic beverage
3. Claim easy chair or hammock
4. Decompress

Repeat repeatedly. Other activities may include:

1. Snorkeling, sailing, etc.
2. Visiting ancient ruins
3. Hopping to nearby islands for day-trips
4. Renting a moped and riding around
5. See four items above

Thanks everyone for playing. One day, I will visit all of the other places. One day...

I had a free ticket to see Kofi Annan speak last night. I gave it up so I could see a ska show instead. I think it was the right choice.

I've been in a little bit of a funk lately. It's a combination of stress from finals, worries about the upcoming bar exam, and a lack of good shows. I haven't seen a good show in a while. But this Thursday a band called Vedera is playing and I'm really excited. I randomly found this band on myspace and I liked what I heard. Imagine a slightly harder and new-for-2000s-era-hipsters version of The Sundays.

Most of what I like about this band is the vocalist. So many vocalists in young bands pretend to sing but are unable to control what talent they may have. The vocalist for Vedera really knows what she's doing. Her voice is pure and clear, and it doesn't sound like it's been tweaked by studio equipment. She does seem to rely on some common emo-vocalist gimmicks, but hey, they're a young band. I'm willing to cut them some slack. The music is a little mediocre, so I'm expecting her to carry the show.

If you wanna go, it's $9 in advance/$11 at the door at Walter's on Washington. Show starts at 9. Get tickets here.

You can (legally) download two cd-quality songs here. Their old name was Veda, so I think Veda shows up in the file name.

The coolest thing happened today. I plugged my ipod in, loaded iTunes, and iTunes said:

So I said: "Huh. That's funny." I unplugged the iPod and performed a 'reset.' Then just to be on the safe side, I made sure all my music was still there. Lo an behold - it was all gone! Every last song! No where to be found! After spending weeks - no, months - honing the perfect playlist so that it had just the songs I wanted and none of the ones I didn't, it all went bye-bye. Now I get to compile the list for a second time.

*grumble*. apple, i shake my fists at you.

I don’t feel good about giving a negative review, but every Vedera song sounded the same. I was expecting a little more variety. And when a band uses lyrics that include “I see that sparkle in your eye,” (or anything close to it) I know it’s time for me to bail. Vedera are a great pop-rock band… if you’re in high school. The vocalist did steal the show as I excepted, and she was phenomenal, but the rest of the band did not impress me enough to get passed the general boringness of it all. I felt bad for them since only 40 or 50 people showed up and many of them were sitting at the bar. I figure that if I’m going to watch a band, I will show them enough respect to at least stand up. I guess I needed more rock and less pop. Twenty-five minutes of their set was all I could handle.

The other surprise Vedera’s opener. They were better than I expected. Though the singer looked about 16, This Is Me Smiling put on a solid show of piano-laced rock. Imagine a younger Ben Folds Five with electric guitar, but not quite that good yet. Give them a few more years (at least until they stop claiming “dependent” on their tax returns).

Vedera didn’t cure my music funk. I think what I really need is a Flogging Molly show.

Two neighbor stories for you.

1. I live in a garage apartment behind a duplex, which means my apartment is right next to someone else's backyard. They have fence, but it's not wooden, so you can see through it. They also have a patio where they tend to hang out. My washing machine and dryer are outside my apartment, which means I have to walk outside to do laundry (I share the washer and dryer with the tenants in the duplex). See Exhibit A below.

Exhibit A

There is normally no one in the backyard when I am doing laundry, so I tend to walk outside without a shirt. I figure hey, it's my place, it's not very far, and I'm basically in the privacy of my own backyard.

Well, I was doing laundry yesterday afternoon. On the way back from starting a new load, I notice that my neighbors are in their backyard, that their parents are there, and that their granddaughter (maybe 5 years old) is also there. I also noticed I'm not wearing a shirt. Oops.

2. I play bass a little loud every now and then. How loud? Loud enough to shake my walls, and probably let the neighbors know how much soul I have (I'm like James Brown - I got soul to spare). Around the same time I was doing laundry, I was also jamming out to some older Lenny Kravitz, a song called "Come On And Love Me." It has a really great drum beat and a simple, funky bass line. It's perfect jam-out fodder. So there I was, jamming away in my apartment, when I get a Gmail chat message from one of the guys in the duplex:

"play that funky music white boy"

I figured I was too loud. He heard me. Then he said:

"Just got back from some GREAT margaritas (very surprised for Pittsburgh)"

HE WAS IN PITTSBURGH. How did he know I was playing that funky music?

Neither had I until last week. So here you go. This is a medley of songs performed at a record store. It just cuts from song to song.

addendum: i just ordered two of her albums from amazon and i bought one more from iTunes. it's official - i am smitten with Regina Spektor.

Posted by MPB:

Does P-man even need pinch bloggers anymore? Methinks not. Ever since the summer began, he has been blogging quite prolifically. However.... seeing as he doesn't get out much anymore, I thought I'd blog in my two cents about happenings outside of the silver screen, so hear ya go...

Friday night I paid homage to drunken debacles past and went to see Reckless Kelly at the Bluebird in Denver. These guys used to play all the time in Austin, one of those bands you could probably see three nights a week if you were so inclined. And, as I had seen them a few times in Austin, they hold a certain nostalgia for me, as do many things Austin (Trudy's mexican martinis, the Greenbelt, and Barton Springs to name a few).

I'll be honest, they aren't a great band, but they are a good band, and they play loud and usually throw in cool covers. A local Denver band called the Railbenders opened up for them. I had seen them before, and enjoyed that show as well.

So, right off the bat, I noticed that the lead singer for the Railbenders was sporting a Reverend Horton Heat shirt. Nothin wrong with that. I had forgotten that they had sort of a rockabilly twist to some of their songs. They also have an upright bass thats painted bassboat red. Nothin wrong with that either. I also learned that the band members own this bar in Denver called Bender's (never made the connection). Bender's is distinguishable by its huge freakin mural of Johnny Cash on the outside of the bar. Mark that as three checks for this band before they even launched into the first song. Perhaps their most endearing trait is that they are unabashed rip-off artists. They have a song called "Whiskey Rain" thats alot like Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River", another song called "I-70 Westbound" thats pretty similar to Pat Green's "Southbound 35", and yet another song called "Southbound" that sounds alot like the Reverend. Perhaps their greatest contribution: a country cover of "Sweet Caroline". To be honest, they don''t get bogged down with "originality" or "artistic expression", they focus on the important things, like putting on a good show and keeping the crowd happy. I respect that.

To be honest, the Railbenders sortof stole the show. I went to see Reckless Kelly dredge up some Austin nostalgia but was successfully sidetracked by the Railbenders (pun intended). As for Reckless Kelly, they were only ok in my opinion. There were a few high points, including a cover of "Revolution" by the Beatles, but they never seemed to dominate the stage. Or maybe I had too many shots of Jack washed down with PBR (both were on special) by the time they came on (which is entirely possible).

In the end, I think the group I was with all had a whiskey-soaked good time. I lost my wife somewhere between the concert and my house (which is walking distance from the Bluebird). She came home to find me passed out on the rug in front of the front door snuggling with our basset hound Chloe. I think that says alot about how much fun I had.

So if the Railbenders are playing near you, go see them... and leave music snobbery at the door (they do own a bar with a Johnny Cash mural on the side).

-MPB

Posted by MPB:

I have an ongoing struggle with the indie-rock genre. Sometimes I think I just don't have the patience for it. For a long time most of my listening was devoted to punk and twangy alt-country exclusively. Somewhere along the line I started listening to more indie rock. Since then, I have amassed a relatively diverse and geeky music collection. Problem is, I'm not sure I really like any of it anymore. For example, I recently obtained a slew of new cd's from the Denver Public Library. The list is as follows (you're allowed to check out 7 at a time):

1. Broken Social Scene - Self Titled
2. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it In People
3. Broken Social Scene - Bee Hives
4. The Rosebuds - Night of the Furies
5. The Twighlight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters
6. The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse
7. I forgot the last one. because it was just. that. good.

Now, the reason I went and checked all these out is two-fold: 1. I am a rampant music pirater (At least I admit it, don't act so high and mighty!), 2. I read that each was the greatest cd ever, or of the first half of 2007, or out of Canada, or some such thing.

Aside: the DPL is the music pirater's best friend

Anyway, getting to the point (is there one?).... I listened to each of these cds and I can say that I pretty much dislike each and every one. Of the lot, only 2 have remotely grown on me so far. I think a big part of this is timing, some are ok in the morning on a long drive by myself. When I listen to them in the afternoon, no dice. And when I listen to them in the presence of my wife or carpool friend, that get turned off almost immediately (by the passenger).

Yet, according to an army of hipsters, each of these is brilliant, magical, or at the very least very good. I just don't get the connection. Maybe someone can explain it to me? Are there vast insights into the nature of life and humanity awaiting me with further listens, or can I just give up on this genre as a whole? I'm starting to lose patience....

This is the ninth edition of the "things that happen to you while" series.

Things that happen to you while on route to, at, and on route back from a wedding in Abilene, TX:

1. You drive through a bunch of small towns inhabited by people that probably consider a "home" to consist of no less than 100 acres.

2. You decide you should give up city life and get yourself some la-yand out in the country. It really does look like a nice lifestyle. Sure beats the hell out of sitting on 59 every day.

3. You meet (or re-meet) the groom's childhood friends who were an excellent group of people who you had a great time with.

4. With the groom present, you trade stories about the groom with said group of friends about his various and sundry exploits with women over the years. The groom turns red and buries his face in his hands. Only then do the really good stories come out. Almost every story starts with, "HEY, oh yeah, remember that time he..."

5. You watch one of said friends attach a ball and chain to the groom's ankle and give the key to the bride.

6. You drink a lot of beer. A lot. A really really lot. But somehow you don't get drunk, which could be a good or bad sign depending on your point of view.

7. One of the friends bought the bride and groom a Sony Playstation with a game called Guitar Hero. You try it out, and marvel at how much more difficult it is pretending to play guitar than actually playing guitar. You also marvel at the zen-like state of concentration exhibited by two of the groom's and bride's friends who are Guitar Hero experts.

8. You run into one of the groom's friends who you met when you lived in San Antonio and worked at "that company." You discuss all the crazy and stupid things the company did, and he updates you on all the crazy and stupid things the company is still doing. You're glad there is consistency in the universe.

9. You get to see your friend who you convinced to go to law school when you lived in San Antonio get married to a girl who went to law school with him, and you wonder what would have happened if he had gone to the school you advised him to go to instead of the school he actually went to. He probably wouldn't have met that girl, and he probably wouldn't have gotten married this weekend, and he probably wouldn't have looked like he was about to pass out for the thirty-six hours before the ceremony. "Dude, you're sweatin' like a mofo. Stand under this vent and have this beer. You need it."

10. As your friend is standing at the altar saying his vows, you silently pray and hope that he and his wife enjoy a lifetime of happiness and success. L'Chaim!!

10.5. You also pray and hope that he doesn't start using the excuse, "I'm married and boring now" to get out of trips to the bar and whatnot. It's not gonna fly. Like any good relationship, ours was founded while drinking, and it's important that we adhere to that standard.

I spend a lot of time complaining about how hard it is to meet interesting new people. I spend even more time complaining about how they all seem to get married and have kids and get lost in the land of "I hope you find someone so you can be as happy as I am" right before I never hear from them again until one day they want me to go to their kid's second birthday party even though they forgot me for the first birthday and forgot to call me for my own; not that I am bitter or anything.

Last weekend I went to True Colors, a concert promoting gay rights, with a straight friend and two lesbian couples I had not met. Aside from getting to see Erasure, Cyndi Lauper, and a 30-something overweight guy in a mesh shirt and hot pants with a wedgie, I also discovered lesbians. Not the ones in porn or confused college girls with broken hearts and seeking alternatives to evil men, but honest to goodness girls that prefer girls. One in particular is a Doctor, has 6 cars and a motorcycle, she likes beer, she likes to check out girls, and she is generally the perfect guy friend I've always wanted. The best thing about her is that her girlfriend won't change her and I doubt she will be having kids any time soon! We exchanged numbers and I hope that this relationship will flourish into something fabulous, but I wont get ahead of myself.

-Evil I

all the kiddies sing for you.

I did. Just to remind you of why you need to buy some too:

Every fall, I take a vacation. This vacation takes place at a nice, open park in Austin, Texas while listening to really good music. This vacation makes me very happy. As of today, I am nine days away from ACL Fest 2007. I am very excited and I wanted to share my Day One (Friday) schedule:

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Peter Bjorn and John
Joss Stone/Big Sam's Funky Nation
Spoon
Gotan Project (Woo!)
The Killers (I know they are Top 40, but I like them)
Bjork

Stay tuned for Day Two and Three schedules. I would love to hear anyone's (does anyone read this blog anyway?) feedback.

-Pajama Grrl

I have a confession. I joined a band. It may or may not be a cover band, that may or may not be a Beatles cover band, that may or may not be fronted by a female vocalist who plays the flute and has a wonderful voice, and we may or may not be twisting the songs into our own interpretations of rock, jazz, funk, blues-rock, and folk numbers. We also may or may not have a name yet, and we may or may not still be in the formative stages of our existence.

However, no other details are available.

I have perfected my ACL Day Two and Day Three Schedule:

Day Two
Raul Malo
Paulo Nutini (this kid can PAR-TAY)
Cold War Kids
Blue October and Damien Rice - its a toss up, I have seen Damien and he is great but I haven't ever seen BO and although some people hate them, I like a couple of their songs. hmmm...
Andrew Bird
Muse
Indigo Girls
White Stripes

*I am really disappointed that Amy Wino has to be such a crackhead and had to cancel her ACL Day Two appearance. At least she is sticking to her guns and staying out of rehab.

Day Three
Sound Tribe Sector 9
Ben Kweller
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Bloc Party
REGINA SPEKTOR
Wilco
Ghostland Observatory
The Bob

So there it is folks. My Fall Vacation Schedule. I will likely return to Dallas with tacky tan lines and less brain cells. When I return, perhaps I will discuss my thoughts and opinions of the bands and festival. Or I could discuss an even more boring subject, my love life.

-Pajama Grrl

I am back and feeling crispy. ACL 2007 was a great success. Although I was disappointed that Rodrigo Y Gabriella cancelled, Common was their replacement and the guy rocked. He was engaging, interactive and entertaining. I will start with my Top 3 Favorite Shows:

1. Common
2. Ghostland Observatory (breath taking, awesome light show)
3. The Killers (Brandon Flowers rocked out)

Other Top Contenders: STS9, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Gotan Project, Andrew Bird

Top 3 Disappointments:
1. Regina Spektor (Was she nervous? she was definitely boring)
2. Blue October (nothing too exciting, but perhaps I should see them at a smaller venue)
3. Bob Dylan (I could have grumbled and moaned and made better music)

Overall, I had a great time in a beautiful city surrounded by beautiful people. I love the Festival Culture that thrives in these types on environments.

I would also like to give a shout out to all the hot, sweaty, shirtless men that graced me with their hot presence. How I love thee. I would love to take one of you home to Mom someday.

-Pajama Grrl

I'm still working on my official ACL recap. Until I'm done with it, here is something to hold you over. Can you guess what it is, besides a worn out Batman symbol?

Ah, ACL. Three days of music, sun, and walking. My story of ACL will sound kind of like Pajama Grrl's, but different, and longer, and more guy-oriented. Would you expect anything less?

First of all, I have to thank all of the beautiful women prancing around in minimal clothing. Thank you. You totally made the weekend. The music was great and all, but the scenery was what kept me going when I thought I just couldn't stand in a hot, sweaty crowd for one more minute. Because at that exact moment, some bikini-top wearing hottie would show up next to me and make everything ok.

Second of all, I must disagree with what Pajama Grrl said about Regina. She was very entertaining and certainly not boring. Though PG is entitled to her opinion (as misinformed as it may be), I think PG is forgetting that Regina is a solo pianist. There is no band. And she's not Ben Folds - ie, she will not pound on the piano (too much) and scream. I'm not sure if PG has seen performances like those of Tori Amos, but a solo-piano performance isn't necessarily designed to be exciting in the same way as a rock band. I thought Regina was great. Granted, I like her anyway. But I was excited to see her reproducing the songs, the vocal inflections, the emotion, and the vibe that she transmits on her records. She drew the audience into her world, and that is what makes a good performance. She also played some lesser-known songs, so I was glad to see her avoiding a set that consisted of only her pop singles.

One last thing about Regina. She held a one-hour autograph session that I got to 45 minutes early just to make sure I didn't have to wait in line forever. It was a good plan. The line was HUGE. It had to have been two hundred people. All I wanted was a picture with her, but since there were too many people, we were only allowed to give her one item to sign and then we had to move along. No posing for pictures with her, no conversations, no holding up the line. Because all i wanted was a picture, I did not have my album covers with me, and thus had nothing for her to sign. So I did what any self-respecting male would do. I took my clothes off. Before I got to the signing table, I took my shirt off for Regina to sign. It was my favorite shirt, and now it is now my extra-favorite shirt. You can check out the pic below. Thank you, Regina, for signing my sweaty Batman shirt. I guess I can't wash it ever again. And since I will be seeing Regina in Dallas in November, maybe I can get her to sign my chest too. But I'd have to shave a spot for her first. (Sorry, TMI).

The other highlights of the weekend included Muse, Ghostland Observatory, and Common. Muse, as usual, was jaw-droppingly awesome. They are so awesome that any effort at describing their awesomeness is utterly useless. I thought they were good ACL last year, but since the White Stripes canceled, Muse took over the top spot on Saturday night. Their show was intense and flawless. They gave it everything. I can't believe that the singer, who is not a big guy at all, can produce a voice like that. I don't know where it comes from.

The singer also switched between guitar and piano mid-song, showing us his mad piano skills. Their set spanned all of their records and each song was performed as if they had just written it and it was fresh on their minds. I really can't recall the last band that performed with such fury. Muse rocks. Comparisons to Radiohead are totally inaccurate. If any comparisons must be made, make one to Nirvana. This band rocks like no other band I've seen in a long time, and it's not a punk-rock rock or metal rock - there is no punk-rock frustration or metal negativity. It's the perfect kind of rock.

Ghostland Observatory was a total surprise. I didn't know what to expect. I still don't know what to expect. I'm speechless. It's a crazy mix of dance, electronica, disco, and hip hop. You have to hear to believe it. Better yet, you have to SEE it to believe. Their light show was ridiculous. Check out the vids below.

Common was a last minute sub for Rodrigo y Gabriela. They owned their time slot. The crowd went wild for them. They took a volunteer woman from the audience and basically serenaded her. She melted on stage. Literally, we saw her quiver in her sandals when the singer held her and sang to her. It was great.

On the not-so-cool side, The Killers were a total let down. I opted to see them instead of Bjork, and what a mistake that was. The Killers were all flash and no substance. The songs sounded mechanical and the musicians stood around and didn't move. I think the bass player might have been sleeping. Only the drummer showed signs of life, but that comes with the territory. And I reconfirmed my dislike of the new album. Verdict: if you're thinking of shelling out $30-40 for a Killers show, go see Muse instead. The Muse show (lighting, video screen, etc) was just as cool, and they rock so much more and the music is so much more intricate.

The National were also not impressive. The songs sounded the same, and the singer didn't sing so much as moan. But I can see where they found their niche, and I'm happy they found it. It's just not my niche.

And no, I did not see Bob Dylan. I know he changed the face of music and that skipping his show might be seen as sacrilegious by many musicians and music fans. But I don't like him. Never have, even though he influenced almost all of the bands I like from that era. I was tired, my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my head hurt. I had just come from an awesome Ghostland Observatory show, and I still had to make the three-hour drive back to Dallas. I decided to end the weekend on high note and skip out a little early. So off I drove, still shirtless from my Regina encounter, and covered in a lawyer of dirt and sweat. But happy. Very, very happy.

Pics are here. I only took my camera on the last day because I'm too lazy to take pictures, which means the only pics I got are of Regina Spektor and Ghostland Observatory.

Ghostland Observatory - video 1 (3.8 MB)
Ghostland Observatory - video 2 (5.4 MB)
Ghostland Observatory - video 3 (3.0 MB)

It's pretty good. I thought and thought and thought about the best way to describe it. Instead of writing some long, drawn-out album review like I usually do, I will say only this:

The new Interpol album sounds like Joy Division, The Cure, and Radiohead packed into one band, and then doused with a bucket of music comprised of The Doors’ The End and The Crystal Ship.

Whether that does anything for you is beyond me, but that's how I felt. I could say more from a technical standpoint (like "these guys are still addicted to reverb" and "all of the songs are in minor keys"), but I won't. And lucky me, I get to see Interpol tomorrow night. Report to follow...

Apologies for the dearth of posts lately. I have been a busy particle. But before I write my post on the Interpol and Bad Religion shows (yes, I saw Bad Religion. I can die happy now), I need to tell you about this: Radiohead is giving away their new album. They are letting the buyer decide how much to pay. I think all you have to pay is the credit card processing fee of 90 cents.

Yes, other bands have done this kind of thing before, but never a band as popular as Radiohead. And that part is important. Their popularity means they have a lot to lose. A band that is not so popular has less to lose since the fan base is smaller and fewer people would be buying the album and the forgone revenue would not exist. For Radiohead, they stand to lose, or gain, a lot. If it works, they will have proved a point that has been a long time in the making: music does not need record labels. The record label is no longer a necessary part of the music distribution and marketing process. They weren't necessary to begin with. After all, they didn't always exist. The only purpose I see labels serving now is as more of a "music club." Bands can join together and help fans find new bands, thus helping to give smaller bands more exposure by associating with similar bands.

Bands can rent their own studio time, hire their own engineers, pay for their own mixing and disc pressing, do their own marketing via a website, and open an online shop. No need for the label. All you need is money and some organizational skills. If a band has those two things, there is no need for a record contract. The label is an unnecessary middle man.

What's also interesting about the Radiohead deal is the lack of an iTunes affiliation. None of the articles I've read mention iTunes. Did Radiohead ignore iTunes altogether? If so, it could be proof that even iTunes should examine its role in music distribution, or perhaps lower its prices.

Either way, I'm very happy Radiohead took this risk. It's one step towards taking music out of the hands of record labels and putting it back into the hands of artists. Record contracts and record company desires are not conducive to the creation of good music. Good music is what we want. Musicians who own the rights to their art is what we want. Contractual obligations and creative restrictions do not help either of those goals. The issue is that record companies, unlike bands, are not artistic endeavors. They are business enterprises. Art and business, by their nature, do not always mix well. Free one from the other and both would probably prosper more.

For reference, you can check out this guide to recording contracts. It makes me want to buy an Entertainment Law textbook and read up on music industry contract basics.

It's been a long time since I've been to San Antonio. I promised my friends there many times I would come visit, but alas, law school and work continually got in the way. Well, last weekend, I finally made good on my promise. I caught a flight down to San Antonio (aka SA aka Saytown) on Friday and hung out with all my old friends.

Friday found us at Blue Star Brewery for First Friday, which is a monthly art, music, and food extravaganza held in South Town, an area of San Antonio south of Downtown. After beer and dinner at Blue Star, we stumbled over to Beethoven's for Oktoberfest, where my friend consumed yet more beer and I got to play DD, which was fine by me because I wanted to see her have a good time (read: get drunk... friends are always funnier when drunk). Her friends also met us at Blue Star and were thoroughly entertaining. They tried to use my lawyering skills to sue each other. I got to explain the difference between assault and battery. I hope I got it right.

On Saturday, we had lunch with the infamous Skorloff and his Girl at Liberty Bar, which is really half-bar, half-restaurant. We got to learn about British toast soldiers and humpty dumpty, and Skorloff and I had Guinness for lunch. Good times. After that, we visited the Skorloff-Girl residence and I marveled at all the progress he's made on the house in the last three years. I think it mostly has to do with the addition of Girl, and the contractor Skorloff hired.

Then we went to a football party to watch the Texas Longhorns lose a great football game. Good job guys! I forgot that the object of football is turn the ball over to the other team as many times as possible. I'm glad you cleared that up for us.

After loafing around for a while, we got off our collective asses and went bowling with some other folks I hadn't seen since I left SA in 2004. They reassured me nothing had changed since I left. That was good to know. So, when are you moving???

I discovered two important and profound things while bowling that night. First: bowling with a beer in one hand will improve your performance. Second: bowling with your non-dominant hand will also improve your performance. Net result? If you're right-handed, hold a beer in your right hand and bowl with your left. I promise your score will go up.

Everyone slept in Sunday morning and we ate lunch at Twin Sister's, which is kind of like Liberty Bar, except with less alcohol and more breakfast. I caught a three o'clock flight and was sped off back to Dallas just in time to chill out at home for a little while and head to band practice at six.

It was a fun and crazy weekend and I had a great time. Thanks again to the coolest girls in San Antonio for driving me around and playing host for a weekend. You are both welcome in Dallas any time.

Consistent with my new role as bass player in a Beatles band, I ordered this bass. It should be coming in the mail today. It's a replica of 1962 Fender Jazz Bass, and even though it's neither a 1962 nor a Fender, it looks the part and was way cheaper than a Fender!

Ever seen a 6'2" mustachioed guy in tight, rolled up jeans and no shirt don a red wig and red heels? Well, then you need to go see Gogol Bordello. I can say with confidence that you will never see anything else like it. The music, the show, the energy, the atmosphere. Every bit of that show was unique and special and completely insane.

I had some stomach issues this weekend but I went out anyway on Sunday to see the show with my old friend and fellow bike geek El Raymundo. My stomach felt a little queasy but it held up for the duration of the show. Thankfully The Granada has an upstairs balcony area that was significantly less crowded and free from the mass of pogoing hipsters. I would have gladly joined those bouncing masses, but my stomach would not allow it. It looked like a party down there.

I saw Interpol with a coworker the other week and it was everything I expected. They were good, really good. Maybe too good? They didn't miss a note and the sound was fantastic. Those guys can write some interesting songs. I notice that as they move through their career, their songs take on a more dynamic quality - more stops/starts, breakdowns, melodic layerings, vocal solos, and drum riffs that depart from the usual rock beats.

The only weird thing was that they hardly moved during the show, and neither did the people in the audience. I realize an Interpol show isn't exactly a punk show, but it does qualify as rock, and rock music generally makes people move. I suppose Interpol fans are too cool for school to rock out at a live show. But when Interpol played their harder songs and the only "rocking out" I saw consisted of some head-bobbing, I starter to wonder if Interpol fans might need to loosen up a little. Regardless, it was a good show.

Oh, and as for their opener, The Liars, I hesitate to call them an "opener." I also hesitate to call them a "band." Bloc Party once sarcastically described their band in the third-person by saying, "They do everything that's required to conform to the currently received ideas of what a band is: ostensibly to play instruments at the same time, but also have a title for the work created." While this is funny for Bloc Party, it is not funny for The Liars, because The Liars did not really play their instruments at the same time. At least the melodies did not seem to go together at the same time. Maybe they did in some alternate universe. I'm actually not sure there were melodies. I do know that air molecules were moving in wave formation, because I heard their terrible noise and felt it in my chest. Other than that, I was not able to discern any patterns, ideas, or musical structures.

In other news, I downloaded the new Radiohead album. I gave them $10, or $1 per song. I think that's fair. It's what iTunes would have charged. Did anyone else out there buy it?

Thank you, Evil I. Yes, I did pass my silly lawyer test. And thank goodness. It was kind of important, and yes, I was drunk most of the weekend.

In other news, I turned 28 last week. Almost forgot to tell you. The past couple weeks have been a little nuts whatwith my birthday and the whole silly lawyer test results things.

And guess who's going to see Regina Spektor on Thursday? Me and Girl, who we will call G, because her name happens to start with G, which is convenient. I wanted to propose to Regina at the concert, but that might not be the best idea since G will be there and all. She would probably put the kaibosh* on that. Either way, I'm really excited. I'm hoping Regina plays Dusseldorf. It's become my favorite song of hers. I also managed to hook some people at work on Regina and they are going to the show as well. I think Regina should move to Dallas so we can start a band. A punk band. Can you see it? I can. I bet she'd be all about a punk band.

* More info here.

We're three, we're three were three in the dark tonight
And baby my snake is a shark tonight

-Kiss Kiss by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The best part is how she says "shark." It's part sung, part whispered.

I almost forgot to wish you all a Happy Happy Chanukkah. Tonight is the sixth night, so don't forget to light your candles (if you are so inclined).

In other news, I have been the sad victim of yet another one of my infamous neck strains. I seem to have a habit of pulling the muscles that connect my neck, shoulders, and back together all at once. It normally happens when I get stressed out over something and crane my neck in the shower because the shower head is too low. It happened during finals last semester. It happened while I was studying for the bar too. Just ask my classmates. I walked around like I was wearing an imaginary neck brace. The strain makes it painful for my to tilt my head upwards. Most of the pain is in my right shoulder and the right side of my neck. Just lifting up a drink with my right hand causes pain. Thankfully, I also have a left hand, so I can still drink.

Tonight I am very excited to lie down on my heating pad. My parents have had it since the 70s (and you can tell). It's awesome. I lay it on the pillow and rest the sore part of my neck on the heating pad. It's almost as good as a massage.

That I am posting about neck pains and heating pads is testament to how lame my life has become. For those of you wondering how Particleman is fairing in his newly adopted city, you now have the scoop. Neck pain, heating pads, and drinking. And Chanukkah.

Oh wait - one more thing. Remember that Beatles band I talked about a few months ago? We finally recruited a lead guitarist and drummer. Our first show is January 14th at a comedy club. We're an opening act. We're playing some old stuff and newer stuff.

Does blogging from a blackberry on public transportation in Guanajuato make me a douche?

This space used to have a You Tube video of Regina Spektor playing John Lennon's "Real Love." It has somehow disappeared. So here's what we're going to have to do. Click this link to reach a Google list of You Tube videos and please watch one.

I had a crazy weekend. Maybe not crazy according to Evil I's standards though, because he brushes his teeth with Mexican tap water and goes out with 22 year old girls. That's what I call crazy!

I hauled ass to Houston right after work on Friday and got in around 10 and went to straight to a bar, where I met up with some law school friends and John (he gets special mention becasue he's not "law school"). I then proceeded to get drunk. It's amazing what four pints of Harp will do when you have an empty stomach and you just sat in a car for four hours. Good times. After the hangover wore off Saturday morning, I realized I was completely congested and couldn't breathe. It seems I'm allergic to Houston.

After stopping by my parents' house to pick up a few things, my friend Megan and I went to a Jewish dining staple in Houston - the New York Hot Bagels Coffee Shop. I had bagels and lox (what else could I order?) and she had some kind of tuna salad thing. Megan is Catholic and loves learning about my Jewish-ness, so I had to show her a little bit of Jewish Houston. After that, we ran some thrilling errands - Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Target. I bought a new shower head and new towels. They rock. I had no idea towel-buying was so intense. Racks and racks of towels with varying degrees of softness. I'm happy with my purchase. My towels are amply soft, yet stylish.

I had dinner with a couple law school buddies at Barnaby's, which was fun. Then I went to another law school friend's party and schmoozed till 1 am - a truly late night indeed. I woke up this morning with that funny feeling you get when you're getting sick. I think I may be coming down with a sinus infection. Lucky me! Just in time for New Years Eve! With any luck I'll be hacking up gobs of gooeyiness in no time. Sorry for the unnecessary detail. I guess it's too late now though.

Getting back to the title of this post, I am about to leave town and head back to Dallas so i can catch the Ghostland Observatory show tonight with one of my workmates. I'm totally psyched. I saw this band at ACL and they were awesome. Totally unexpectedly good.

However, if I find any 22-year olds at the show, I may ask them out so I can live on the edge like Evil I. Details to come.

I played an acoustic set with my singer on Saturday at a venue in Dallas called The Hub Theater. We were the first act in a variety show featuring poetry readings, skits, and comedians. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to gigs with the whole band. Our first show is on January 22nd at a comedy club in Dallas. We're the opening act.

Our set on Saturday consisted of:

Help
Norwegian Wood
Mother Nature's Son
Yesterday
Real Love
Don't Let Me Down

In case you forgot, yes, we are a Beatles cover band. Our set on the 22nd will consist of:

Come Together
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Norwegian Wood
Mother Nature's Son
Yesterday
Julia
Don't Let Me Down
Eight Days A Week
Help (maybe)
Real Love (maybe)

In case you were curious, G and i got a hold of the setlist from the Flogging Molly concert last Sunday. If you want to check it out, here is the pdf.

In comparison to the last time I saw Flogging Molly, this show wasn't quite as good. The band seemed unnecessarily loud and their new songs sounded more mainstream then the old songs. There was more a pop vibe - a more friendly sound. I'm not surprised. Mainstream songs will allow them to appeal to wider audience. Hopefully, though, they won't lose sight of what made them unique.

Dirty Maggie Mae played its first show at The Improv in Addison (north of Dallas) on January 22, 2008. We opened for a comedy show. It was a lot of fun and we did pretty well. More shows and open mics are on the way. I posted pictures on flickr.

Happy St. Patrick's day. My blog automatically qualifies as St. Paddy's day-friendly because it has green on it. All of the time. Every day. This was not planned.

I spent yesterday at the Greenville (no pun intended) Parade. Greenville is a street that runs north-south through Dallas. The city closes off a mile or so of Greenville every St. Patrick's day Saturday and holds a parade. There is also a concert. This year, Ghostland Observatory was the main act. I bought two tickets a few weeks but thereafter decided not to go. I just didn't feel like it. But my band's guitar player had also bought a ticket, and I really needed the fresh air, so I invited my singer and the three of us had band-bonding-day out in the sun.

Off we went traipsing through a sea of drunk green-clad partiers. The three of us were completely sober the whole time, so we got to laugh at all the drunkies falling all over the place. For some reason, there is something about me that compels strangers to ask me for directions, or advice, or guidance, on what the hell they should do and where they should be going. I'm certainly happy to oblige, but I get the feeling I'm always the guy people ask, "Hey, is this the right way to __________?"

The concert was good and we were all sufficiently sunburned. Especially me. It's mostly my face. When I wrinkle my forehead, it hurts. When I smile, it hurts. It's not pleasant.

I ended the night drinking Guinness with Evil I. I couldn't go through St. Paddy's day without having at least one pint of Guinness, so I figured three was a nice round number. Evil I and I talked about tables, music, engineering, lawyering, paint, traveling, sinks, and home-ownership. You shoulda been there.

Now that St. Paddy's is over, I don't want to see another green shirt for the rest of my life. Please. No more green. Anything that is green kind of annoys me now. The little Skype icon in my computer's tray is green. It annoys me. The forward and back buttons in Firefox are green. They annoy me. My website is kinda green. It annoys me. I think I just OD'd on green. Give me some time. I'll get over it.

I've been on an 80's music binge lately. Tears For Fears, The Smithereens, and XTC. I've decided that Mad World, Blood and Roses, and Making Plans For Nigel are each pop perfections in their own way. One spooky, one rocking, one goofy. Blood and Roses seems like three and a half minutes of songwriting perfection. The pieces of that song fit together so well.

My sister and her family moved into a new house this past weekend. Being the dutiful brother, I drove to Austin to help with the move. Thankfully, they hired movers to do most of the heavy lifting, allowing me to avoid permanently injuring myself trying to move things that require actual strength. The cool part is that one of the movers' names was Devo. As in, the band. How cool is that? Way cool.

Less cool is having to be asked, "Like, the band?" for your entire life.

One of my friends had two extra tickets to a Jimmy Buffet concert last night so I called Evil I and drove out to Frisco, TX to meet up with her and her boyfriend. Just so you know, Frisco is the closest I have ever been to Oklahoma without flying over it. I found that rather fascinating for some reason.

She mentioned to me that they were hanging out in their friend's RV in a huge parking lot full of other RVs. I didn't know what to expect. It was a little bit like a Grateful Dead concert experience, or at least what I imagine what one would have been like. And it was also a little bit like your average concert experience, except the fans were a lot older and wearing goofy Hawaiian shirts. Such is apparently the dress code at a Jimmy Buffet concert.

Evil I and I made the trek from our parking space to the stadium and along the way passed through a grassy field temporarily modified into a RV/SUV/whatever you're driving party extravaganza. We passed one guy who said, with a very thick Texas accent, "I pulled that sucker right off and painted it myself," referring to the silver Chevy emblem on the grill of his Chevy truck. At that moment, I could have gone home happy and content. Mission accomplished. I had experienced something unique and entertaining. Regardless, we pressed on for the stadium, which was actually a soccer field for Dallas' soccer team.

Once in line, Evil I and I were treated with more walking comedy: a roaming bachelor party. Who knows where these guys had started their weekend, but as for now, they were all wearing custom-made yellow shirts with various lewd and quirky proclamations. Each guy apparently had his nickname emblazoned on the back of his shirt. One guy called himself "The Canadian Schlonghorn." Again, I could have gone home happy at that point. But we pressed on.

We finally met up with my friend and her boyfriend and entered the stadium. We were greeted with a massive throng of aging hippies and bored executives trying to let loose. It was quite a sight. While walking to our seats, a mid-40s woman and her friend (both drunk) offered Evil I and I a piece of their pink cotton candy. This is not a euphemism. They asserted that pink cotton candy was the better kind. I'm sure.

Once in our seats, we were able to enjoy the Jimmy Buffet concert experience. Basically, imagine sitting on a beach and listening to lazy songs about drinking, sitting, and screwing. Except that we were sitting in plastic seats with 20,000 other people, and there was no beach, which really made me want to take a vacation to a beach. So at that moment, my friend said we should pick a weekend in June and all go to Cancun or something. Sounds good to me. I need a vacation.

My favorite part of the show is that Jimmy Buffet has managed to find what may be the perfect career. He flies around the world filming himself having a good time in various far-off places. He spends a few months out of the year touring and showing videos of these vacations on massive screens at concerts while he stands around and sings a few songs to a bunch of drunk and/or stoned suburbanites. I obviously need to reevaluate my career choice.

After the concert, the four of us went to my friend's friend's RV and hung out and walked around the parking lot. People have apparently driven from all over the Southern US to Frisco for this concert. We saw a Tennessee license plate. People set up party pads next to their RV complete with imported sand to simulate a beach, beach chairs, kiddie pool, PA system playing laid-back tunes, a makeshift bar, mannequin pirate things, so on and so forth. One person built an actual pirate ship on a full length trailer. I'll wait for Evil I to upload the picture. It was impressive.

All in all, it was an unforgettable experience. And fun. I can check off that line item now. I've seen Jimmy Buffet and experienced the Jimmy Buffet concert experience. Even if you don't want to go to a Jimmy Buffet concert, you should take a trip the nearest parking lot or four adjacent to the stadium where Jimmy is platying. It's a free show of drunken hilarity. And you might see a pirate ship on wheels.

I saw The Breeders last week. And they weren't drunk and/or high on something this time. I saw The Breeders in college (2000?) and I'm pretty sure Kim and/or Kelley had engaged in illicit substances prior to the show. But this time, the Deal sisters were sober and witty. They played some of my old favorites - Iris, I Just Wanna Get Along, Shocker In Gloomtown, Divine Hammer, and a song I did not expect to hear, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, which may have been the best song of the night.

The opening band, Colour Revolt, really wants to be an experimental indie band. They have a ways to go. "A" for effort. I'll reserve judgment on the rest.

Who knows how long the Deal sisters will keep touring. Go see them while you can. It's a nice taste of off-camber mid-90s indie-pop. Which, of course, will never go out of style.

This song has been stuck in my head for weeks. I wish I could write songs half as good as this one. With only four chords, she manages to create a catchy and powerful melody.

Not to mention PJ Harvey is totally hot.

If you don't play an instrument, or you don't care about key changes and music composition, you may want to skip this one...

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs released a song called Kiss Kiss that I immediately liked. I couldn't figure out exactly why, but the progression in the verse section sounded like something else I knew, but I couldn't place where it came from.

I had Nirvana's Nevermind playing in the car for a couple of days. I'll sometimes listen to a song four or five times in a row because I focus on different parts of the song. On the way home from a friend's house last night, I listened to Drain You for the entire duration of a 20 minute drive.

Then this morning, something occurred to me. The reason Kiss Kiss sounded familiar and the reason I couldn't figure out where it came from is because the verse progression is a carbon copy of the verse section of Drain You, but in a different key. I recognized the intervals, but because the key was different, I didn't immediately pick up that it was essentially the same riff.

I verified this by checking the Kiss Kiss tab. There it was. Drain You is in A. Kiss Kiss is in D. But the progression is the same.

The Drain You verse section isn't exactly the most unique or ingenuitive progression, but it's strange to see it show up again.

See? This post is really not that interesting for people who aren't music nerds.

I went to New York for the July 4th weekend to hang out with one of my friends. It was a great time. I'm trying to recall everything we did but it's only coming back in pieces (as usual), so here is a jumbled list of what we did:

1. Saw Sonic Youth at a free outdoor concert at Battery Park
2. Waited in line to see Sonic Youth only to get turned away, but found a way to watch the show anyway with a bunch of people that were also turned away
3. Drank too much beer at a pub in Brooklyn, a bar in Brooklyn, and a Belgian bar in the West Village. The Belgian bar only served Belgian beer.
4. Ate street pizza in Brooklyn, and the West Village.
5. Convinced my friend's friend to propose to a girl in the subway with a quarter and a ring box I found attached to fake plastic Christmas tree branches wrapped around a light pole in Brooklyn. (she said no)
6. Went to the New Museum.
7. Went to Chelsea Pier and slept on the grass.
8. Went to Brooklyn Bridge.
9. Walked a lot.
10. Ate a lot of good food.
11. Watched a bartender spank a customer with a belt. He asked for it. So did a lot of other guys. They took pictures. She liked it too.

Thank you Jess for an awesome weekend.

A long, long time ago, I mentioned to my boss, a huge Nine Inch Nail fan, that we should make a work event of the upcoming Nine Inch Nails concert. You see, Nine Inch Nails have a special meaning for my boss and me. My very first day as an intern in the summer of 2006 involved Nine Inch Nails. I sat in her office, eager for my first day, and she told me that she spent the previous night rocking out at the Nine Inch Nails concert. I was jealous. Then she mentioned she was surprised that Nine Inch Nails played "Hurt, you know, that Johnny Cash song."

Huh? She must mean "Hurt, the Nine Inch Nails song that Johnny Cash covered, not the other way around." She was doubtful, so I insisted she ask Google and see what it said. Lo and behold, Google told her Hurt was indeed a NIN song. So, my working relationship with my boss started with Nine Inch Nails. Granted, she was rocking out to Nine Inch Nails before I knew they existed, and before I had finished Junior High, actually.

I mentioned to her that we should make a work event out of this summer's NIN show because both of us are fans, and the other lawyer in my department and our managing partner are also fans. She said it sounded like a good idea. And we went back to work and completely forgot about it.

Fast forward to this summer. Last month, I get an email with the following subject: "FW: Thank You for your purchase of four Nine Inch Nails tickets for Dallas, TX." The managing partner got us four seats.

The show was last Monday. It was awesome. Besides playing a great set of both old and new songs, the light show was fantastic. It was the best light show I've seen at any rock concert. Better than Muse and better than Massive Attack. This light show was something else. I can't even describe it because I don't really know what they did, but all I can say is they had three gigantic LCD screens, a translucent light screen, and hanging light sticks that hung down to stage level blinking in rhythm.

As for the music, I am not crazy about the new stuff, but the old stuff was great, of course. What I've noticed about the new stuff is that the music is more 'open.' That is, there seems to be less going on musically. It's been stripped down. There is more open air in the drum tracks, providing more space for other instruments and 'thicker' vocals. Or sometimes, the new open space is left open, so the tracks sound less busy, which I think is a good thing.

A lot of the older NIN songs sounded very busy - lots going on, and not much empty air to build with. I think learning to use open space effectively is something that comes to a songwriter with experience. Trent is probably at the point where he wants to leave the songs with more open space. I think it's a good dynamic. I still crave the crazy, seething energy of the older songs, but the new songs do break up the set. Instead of noise-fest after noise-fest, the new songs demonstrate a very different style of songwriting and give the listener some time to process all of the music. Not to say all older songs lacked open space entirely - Piggy, Hurt, and Closer all make use of open space - but the new songs are much more stripped-down. I just hope he doesn't lose that edge. It's hard to maintain the same high energy level in songwriting when you're not young and angry anymore, and you don't have as much to prove. The music has to change, but hopefully it doesn't lose its impact.

My parents and friends are without power. I spent most of my life in Houston and I don't remember any hurricane causing this much damage, and Ike wasn't even that severe of a hurricane. If all goes according to plan, I will be in Houston this weekend helping my parents clean up and get things back in order. Thankfully, their house wasn't damaged.

In other news, um, I have no real other news. Except for that the summer is over and it's officially been one year since I started working full-time as a lawyer. It's been a great year. Challenging, but great, and I'm looking forward to the next year. A lot of interesting stuff is happening with copyright law and music law, stuff that no one except copyright law geeks like me care about, but here's one thing that you guys might appreciate: Lars Ulrich Fine with Metallica Album Leak.

The last update was 10/12/07, so a lot of new shows have been added.

I heard about this acoustic rock duo from Mexico called Rodrigo y Gabriela last week and I have totally lost it for this band. What happens when you combine old school thrash metal with classical Spanish guitar? Some damn good music, and some damn good musicianship.

Rodrigo and Gabriela were apparently in a thrash metal band in Mexico and gave it up to start their own duo in Dublin. The result can be seen here.

I remember reading something about this group on V's website, but of course I can't find the link now. I wish I had checked them out then. Rodrigo y Gabriela's music blows me away. I love it. Gabriela's thumps, bangs, strums, plucks, and smacks her guitar to keep the beat and the melody while Rodrigo adds a layer of solos and occasional strumming and banging as well. In basic terms, she's the rhythm section, and he's lead guitar. It's a fantastic idea and they pull it off perfectly.

They also cover an old Metallica song. I was a Metallica fan in my junior high days, and Rodrigo y Gabriela's song Orion sounded vaguely like it was laced with Kirk Hammett guitar lines and classic metal riffing. Lo and behold, Orion is a 1986 Metallica song from Master of Puppets. The rest of Rodrigo y Gabriela's music borrows from metal guitar here and there in melody and sometimes style.

Mostly, what I like about Rodrigo y Gabriela's music is the rhythm. It feels like traditional Spanish guitar music, but with a beat that moves you. I can't wait for them to come to Texas. If they don't come to Dallas, I will do my best to get to wherever they are playing. And you should too.

One of my friends called me with a strange legal question the other day. He's the sales rep for a new flip-flop company. As you know, flip-flops often contain rubber. The question went like this:

Do you know of any tort where someone can sue if a flip-flop melts and gets stuck to the bottom of your foot? You know, like if you're sitting by a fireplace or something and the rubber catches fire and melts? Can they sue for that?

Feel free to post your responses.

Winter showed up a while ago. I went into hiding. I've been working a lot. Working at work and working on my band. We played a show at a local Irish pub. Good times. I've also been doing a lot of traveling -all within Texas. Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. All of this is basically my attempt at making an excuse for not posting for two months. Oops. At either rate, I'm here, I'm back, and I'm ready to write. Run and hide.

I saw the Polyphonic Spree Holiday Extravaganza a couple weeks ago at the Granada Theater here in Dallas. In case you have no idea what any of that means, The Polyphonic Spree is an odd orchestral rock band with a varying lineup of musicians depending on the size of the venue. It's a little difficult to describe. The Polyphonic Spree creates positive music. It rocks. It's huge. It's complicated. It's a firehose of instrumentation. It's a wall of sound. Imagine a scaled-down orchestra complete with strings, horns, harp, flute, and percussion, combined with a six-piece choir, a rock band, a keyboard player, another keyboard player with sampling devices, and singer/conductor who sporadically jumps onto a podium to sing.

Some of the instruments get lost in the mix. The harp, flute, and strings were completely drowned out by the horns, choir, and rock band. There's a reason why orchestras don't have that many different types of instruments. Strings only work well when accompanied by other instruments when there are lots of strings to boost the sound. Horns, on the other hand, naturally push more air and need less amplification and can easily cut through the mix. The Polyphonic Spree ignores all of these usual constraints and throws together a patchwork quilt of instruments. I've been told that getting the sound mix right at live shows is a tricky task, and that if the sound is not mixed just right, the show is unlistenable.

The show itself was phenomenal. They played moving images on two gigantic movie projectors on either side of the venue hall throughout the entirety of the show. The first part of the show was the Christmas set. They covered Christmas songs of all types, some of which i knew, most of which i didn't. They also played a song from The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack which prompted me to watch the move twice the following week. I hadn't seen it since its release in the 90s.

The second half of the show, which went till after 2 am, was the "normal," non-Christmas set. Interspersed throughout the evening were other side-acts that helped distract us from the length of the show (it started at 8 and ended at 2:something). I was late to the show so I only caught two of the side acts. One was a subset of musicians from the main band that donned baroque wigs and played original and cover songs, one of which was Because by The Beatles. The other side act I saw was Morgan Taylor, a guy who created an entire world of music, images, and other media about a character he created named Gustafer Yellowgold. It seemed to be geared towards kids, but i found it catchy and kind of refreshing and innocent.

The Polyphonic Spree also liberally blasted the space above the audience with confetti and dumped balloons on our heads. The guy next to me lost his glasses to a stray balloon, only to recover them thanks to someone 10 feet away who found them on the floor.

A photographer also took pictures of the band and audience. I made it into several of the pictures. Here's one of them.

Where's Particleman?

Blog posts to come: New Toadies album, new Breeders album, re-discovering old music, finding the funk, and trying to stay in shape.

My Beatles band practices at a practice space called Universal Rehearsal. Down the hall from our little 11x11 room are two large padlocked double doors with a sign that reads, "Smile, you're on candid camera, stupid!" to deter would-be thieves from attempting any foolishness. I originally thought it was a storage room for the owners of the building.

Last week i went to practice and noticed that the doors were open. This was the first time in a year that I had ever seen the doors open. The room dwarfed my band's practice room. To my surprise, it was not a storage room. Well, it may very well be a storage room for the time being, but not for the building owners. In the room I saw stacks of speakers and music equipment cases with "TOADIES" spray painted on the cases. A large drum riser sat against one wall. The room is the practice space for the band The Toadies. I knew they practiced in the building, but I didn't exactly know they were down the hall. Cool.

Here at particleman.org, we never make excuses for not posting regularly. Even when "not posting regularly" means not posting for three months. Oops.

Quite a few notable things have happened since we last spoke. My Beatles band finished a recording a demo, which was a lengthy and challenging experience, mostly because I was the one that did the recording. Let me tell you folks, recording a band is no simple feat, especially when recording with limited equipment and recording knowledge. We succeeded, however, and the demo is complete.

I decided to buy a house. I guess that makes me "responsible" and "adult" and "fucking broke." I had no idea buying a house was such massively costly ordeal. I'm not complaining, though, because the market is so favorable for buyers right now that my interest rate is ridiculously low, the gentlemen who owned the house sold it to me for less than market value because he was older and "wanted to help a young fella out," and Obama is going to give me $8,000, or so he says. I'll believe it when i see it.

Where is the house, you ask? In the cool part of town, of course. But not the cool part of town where everything is new and Europe-esque and completely overcrowded and overpriced (not that there's anything wrong with that - if that's what you like, hey, more power to you). My house is in the cool part of town where the houses were built in the 1950s, where someone's grandma and grandpa likely still live in their first house, where not three minutes away is a funky street lined with bars, cool restaurants, and a kick ass music venue, where literally across the street is a lake with a 10-mile bike path, and most importantly, where the land value will create a long-term investment for me.

Now, let's be realistic. A 1950s home? Wouldn't an older home be a slightly different owning experience than, say, a new home? Yes. Resoundingly yes. This house needs work. Quite a bit of work. But I'm determined to bring this house from 1955 to, at least, 1995. Maybe one day I can bring it to 2005. That shit gets expensive though, so I may hang out at 1995 for a while. Anyone have some nice used appliances they can sell me? I kid. Not really.

Consistent with that authentic particleman flavor of posting pictures of dishwashers, I will take a picture of the dishwasher in this house and post it for your amusement. It's a piece of American history. It should be in the Smithsonian. Or National Geographic. It will probably end up on Craigslist.

Other cool things that happened recently: As the previous post indicates, I went to Vegas, again, but this time with my special someone. We saw Billy Joel and the Beatles Love show and lost money at the craps table. Yay! I went to my girlfriend's parents' birthday party in San Antonio and spotted an older gentlemen reminiscing about the old days walking around with an oregano joint. I managed to not ride my bikes for two months (lame). I accidentally got really drunk last night at my friend's wedding rehearsal dinner after-party, and I woke up and wrote this blog post. My head still hurts. I'm going back to bed.

If not, let me refresh your recollection. Turns out she responded to heather's post about her. Cool. And she's writing new songs. Cooler.

I'm pretty sure I still spend more time there than I do at the house. At least I know I'm making progress on the house, that is, in between trips back here from home depot.

Something funny happened to me a couple weeks ago. I decided i wanted to turn this house into more than a never-ending project. I wanted to make it something that I liked looking at. Something that resembled a "home." So I started working on my lawn and my garden. I am proud to say that I now have "flowers" and "plants" in the flower beds in front of my house. Only time will tell if these things survive the harsh environment that is the place where I reside (I tend to kill plants) or if they become brown and crackly and dry excuses for something that was once alive and beautiful. I know that all I need to do is water them and make sure they get sun, but even that isn't always easy. I'm not sure they'll get the right amount of sun, or the right kind of sun.

Another thing I've noticed - I talk about my house way too much. And flowers. And sprinkler systems. And kitchen tile. And faucets. It's fucking lame. Thankfully though, I do have something else to talk about.

Music. My band has been very active lately. We've had several gigs this month and we've been working hard to build up our set and hone our sound. We've been choosing some lesser-known Beatles songs such as I Want You (She's So Heavy), If I Fell, and Fixing a Hole. It's great to see audience members react to our renditions of the Beatles classics - whether #1 hit or oddity. Who can't love a reggae version of I Want To Hold Your Hand or an instrumental version of Blackbird with flute instead of vocals? No one. No one, I tell you.

Oh yeah. I bought my first real leather sofa. Just had to get that in there. No more futon for me. I'm slowly whittling away at my college and post-college furniture. Which will then become guest room furniture...

Turns out I'm turning 30 this October. I know. It's as much a shock to me as it is to you. I really don't deserve having a 3 in the first spot in my age. I appear to possess all of the basic attributes of adulthood, but it's really a facade: house, car, job, bills, general late 20s disillusionment and the requisite pre-mid-life existential crisis. All meaningless. All hollow. My favorite lyrics are still the lyrics to Beck's Cyanide Breathmint and Bogusflow (those are two different songs). I still watch The Big Lebowski once per month. I still write bad songs on the guitar and attempt to cross Nirvana with The Dead Milkmen with Nick Drake. It doesn't work.

I need a birthday bash idea to blow away all other possible birthday bashes. I'll put down my first idea here. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I don't know how much it costs, but I'm pretty sure I'd have to take out another mortgage to afford it, and it just might be worth it. Here it is:

1. Hire the Foo Fighters to play at my party. I really just want to jam out on bass with the Foos and get stupid drunk with them afterwards. Or before. Both, probably. We'd have to play a bunch of covers, naturally. Goofy ones. Or at least make fun of some classics. I'm thinking Elton John. Fleetwood Mac. Maybe throw some Danzig in there for good measure.

2. ??? This is where you come in. Feel free to suggest other ideas.

Hey Dallas readers-

If you have a Citibank credit card (or know someone who does), Sonic Youth tickets for tonight's show at House of Blues can be had for $5 plus an assortment of fees, for a total price of around $15 if you pay by credit card and choose to get your ticket by email. If you pay by credit card, you don't need to use the Citibank card to get the discount. You only need the last few numbers of the Citi card to activate the discount. After that, you can pay however you want.

Go here for Sonic Youth tickets.

You can also go here for other Live Nation tickets without paying any service fees, for today (July 15) only. If you want to see Aerosmith this Sunday, for example, you can get lawn seats for $30, with no service fees. I saw Aerosmith in high school and enjoyed the show.

This makes my fourth Sonic Youth show. The sound at this show was probably the best among any of the other shows I've seen. I've somehow managed to never own any Sonic Youth albums, except when I think I might have had the Dirty cd for a while, though it managed to disappear at some point. Whenever I see Sonic Youth, I only vaguely remember any of the songs but I tend to like all or almost all of them.

I think knowing the Sonic Youth songs is kind of optional when seeing them live. In fact, I think the shows are more fun not knowing what will come next when they start a song. Their songs are so diverse and dynamic that most of the fun for me comes from watching them navigate their way through the song. On the other hand, one of the last songs of the set was an "old song," and I really like it, and now I have no idea what song it is or where I can find it. I suppose I may cave in and acquaint myself with some of their older albums so I can better track how they progressed from noise-punk outfit to their current schtick of avant-garde borderline experimental indie rock.

My only complaint at this show was the lack of inter-song banter. Kim hardly said a word. Thurston joked around a little, and Lee chimed in, but there was no other audience communication. I don't remember very many Thank Yous, either, which I think is pretty easy to do.

Otherwise, they seemed like they were in good form and it was a fun show. If you get a chance, you should try to catch one of their shows.

PS - if you're curious, the other SY shows were:

8/02/02 – Stubb’s, Austin, TX
8/30/02 – Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR (happened to be at the right place at the right time)
7/04/08 – Battery Park - New York, NY (happened to be at the right place at the right time)

I recently saw the documentary