Merry Christmas 2015

Halloween '15 Pumpkin

Ein Kleiner Deutsch Biergarten

My wife and I visited München several years ago. I had recently discovered the world of homebrew and had been branching out into new styles. German beer seemed fascinating. I loved the way every major town seemed to have their own style, and servers in each town might get huffy if you ordered a rival town's beer. For example, going to Köln and ordering an Altbier (the style from neighboring Düsseldorf) was supposed to be anathema. While we were in München, I noticed that nearly every restaurant and hotel with enough space had a special garden for the bar patrons. It was usually surrounded by a little fence and had climbing vines over the gates. Very, very gezellig. As the sun went down and we wandered through the cornfields to the only open restaurant in the area, these beer gardens started lighting up in the gathering gloam. The moment was magical. Five years and two children later, I started looking into transforming our little patio into somewhere we could enjoy the gezelligheid of the German beer garden. 

Nothing But 8-Bit Blue Sky From Now On

I'd recently finished a little work on the garage, which included installing some weatherproof speakers on the wall facing the patio. I stood outside to enjoy the stereo, but one thing was distracting me from my water-resistant aural bliss. The exterior of the garage looked terrible. Undefinably blue-grey paint was flaking off the siding. The white trim was all scaly and less white than I would like. I spent the rest of the fall '14 and early spring '15 painting it with Summer Sky blue paint from Metro Paint. It cost maybe $35 for 5 gallons and it looked pretty good when it was finished.  
My friend Nick from Ineptech came over to check out the result and suggested doing a mural on the wall. 

How To Make A Pedalboard From A Suitcase

I was playing with a Stoner Metal unit at the time. I hated setting up pedals and cables every time I went over for practice. All I really wanted was to drink beer and grind out some slow heavy jams. What I wanted was a pedal board. I'd seen some slick consumer grade stuff, but they always seemed a little over-priced. I decided to craft my own. 

Here's where it all starts. The beginning. The letter A. Step 1. Get a suitcase. I got mine for $12 at Rerun in NE Portland. 

Three Things We Love Are Made By Crazy Persons

We go through a lot of different products at home, most of which are pretty boring. Generic graphics, bland packaging, unremarkable copy on the front, nothing to draw a second look. Though on occasion, something will catch my attention. It may be an unusual design or a label covered with type worthy of an Ayn Rand novel (tiny), or even a news article about the founder of that product's parent company. It seems that being compulsive liar, a manic street preacher, or even demolition derby-style driver doesn't preclude one from making a solid product. Here's a few of our favorite products by people with whom we wouldn't want to be caught in an elevator.

3. Bragg's Liquid Aminos

My wife is pretty fond of this stuff. She uses it a lot in Asian recipes as a substitute for soy sauce, especially when we're expecting some of our glutarded friends over for dinner. It claims to be lower in salt than soy sauce, though it actually falls somewhere between regular and low sodium soy options. So what makes this product unusual?

Paul Bragg, founder of the company. Bragg's Wikipedia page is a lengthy list of contradictions between personal claims and public record. He claimed that following his regimen should allow people to live to the age of 120 though Bragg himself died at the stated age of 95, and later geneological research indicates that he was more likely 81 years old. He advocated deep breathing, water fasts, organic foods, distilled water, juicing, and exercise. He was also fond of adding N.D. and PhD. after his name in published articles though census records indicate that he finished one year of high school. Bragg is not exactly the first self-promoter to deal lavishly with his past, even if some of the claims were easily disputed. He was neither the son of a farmer nor the eldest of 16 children. He did not actually participate in the 1908 and 1912 Olympics as a member of the U.S. Wrestling Team. He was a high school PE teacher and life insurance agent before starting a new career in raw food promotion and publications on health. If you want more information on how to live forever, the label of the Liquid Aminos bottle is covered with amazing offers on various mail-ins for health publications.

2. Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps

I like this soap. I haven't tried all the liquid soap available, but I do have a strong distaste for liquid soap that either a) leaves a film all over my skin after desperately trying to scrub it off; b) comes along with that shower puff thing; or c) both.   Dr. Bronner's removes oil from my face without leaving anything behind other than an intense but short-lived peppermint aroma. It's also pretty concentrated so I don't usually use more than a few drops. The soap comes in other varieties, but I've only ever used the Peppermint. If the other variations are as intense as the peppermint, I would love to try them as well. This company believes in Fair Trade. They believe in Ethical Sourcing. But...

Dr Emanuel Bronner was more than a little idiosyncratic. While promoting his Moral A-B-Cs in Illinois in 1947, he was arrested and admitted to a mental hospital. He received a few rounds of electro-convulsive therapy before eventually escaping. Some of his moral teachings and belief system have been immortalized on his soap products. The labels are intense. They feature tiny repetitions of "Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!" and a lot of borrowing and blending from various religious and political works. PDFs of the labels are available on Dr. Bronner's website. He even ascribes some of his nonsense to famous historical features, viz. "We can no longer live half-slave, half free. We unite the Human race in All-One-God-Faith or perish by half-true hate! For we're All-One or None!" - Abraham Lincoln. (quotation marks from the actual bottle)

1. Dave's Killer Bread

This is awesome bread. It's hearty, it's just the right combination of soft and chewy, it comes in a bunch of great varieties, even dessert (the Sin Dawg). It's made locally in deep SE Portland, has all the right adjectives and none of the wrong additives. The company is in the habit of hiring rehabilitated felons. Cool right? But...

Dave Dahl, the company's co-founder, has had some trouble with the law. Wikipedia says he was in and out of prison for 15 years for methamphetamine-related offenses before starting Dave's Killer Bread. More recently, he was arrested after a friend called the police to intervene in a mental health crisis Dave was having. Dave fled the scene, hit a police car and after a chase, rammed another vehicle after being cornered. He was found guilty except for insanity.

Update: Dave's Killer Bread was recently sold to Georgia-based food company Flower Foods for $275 million dollars. They publicly state they will maintain the same business practices as before the buyout.

the dad i know

These may not all be accurate, but they are how I remember them. 

- The dad I know would drink and curse and smoke cigars. He also stood guard in the church parking lot. I imagined the day I could stand guard with him. Derek and I used to drink half frozen lemonade on a hot day and talk about how we couldn't wait to drink beer with Dad.

- The dad I know came home from work to kill a rattlesnake in the doghouse with a shovel. Then he skinned it and put it on his hat. 

- The dad I know played baseball at Palomar. I still have the grey hoodie to prove it. This may be part of the reason I played baseball in high school. Or he may have just gotten the hoodies in exchange for piling a bunch of manure on their field.

- The dad I know had a handful of different jobs while we were growing up. He was a carpenter. He drove a fertilizer truck. He drove a combine in the field across the road. I brought him lunch there once. He milked cows at night. He welded, he painted, he designed, he executed. 

- The dad I know could be hard in his discipline. But he once chased us around the kitchen island until he couldn't keep a straight face and we all got out of being punished. He also once set my brother Derek and me against each other with pool noodles until we beat each other into realizing what a genius he was. Some nights he would come into our room and talk to us after he had handed out some punishment and apologize. 

- When something breaks, the Dad I know would get his hands dirty, swear, worsen whatever he's trying to fix, but he'd figure it out. If I ever buy a motorcycle, it would be because of him. If I ever build a car in my garage, it would be because of him. If I ever own a firearm, it would be because of him. I read stories to my own kids in different voices and accents, incorporating their names as the characters because that's what he did. My music collection is shiny and costly because of him. Because the dad I know would drive us into town to pick up a new album from Stevie Nicks or Tom Petty. I can't listen to Endless Summer or Clapton Unplugged without images of driving in his brown and white Ford truck or the grey and black Suburban. I love to drive, to see new parts of the country because of him. Rachel and I spent our honeymoon doing this. The dad I know is my model for manhood.

- The dad I know had crazy death-defying stories from his childhood. Stories where he screwed things up, where he made mistakes, where he couldn't climb the rope in gym class, where he traded a motorcycle for a stolen car, or a car for a stolen motorcycle. Stories where we felt his humanity. These stories were important to us, even if we held them up to him when we screwed up too.

- The dad I know spoke to us in four languages. Our household was a muddied mess of onderzetters, listo?, and fucha fina. Now I teach my kids words and phrases in English, Spanish, Dutch, Frisian, German, French, Russian, and American Sign. Because of this. 

- The dad I know is tough. His favorite pizza topping is wasp. No amount of physical pain could make him cry. The first time I saw Dad cry was when when his mother no longer recognized him. The second time I saw Dad cry was when we buried his father. This was the first time I realized I wouldn't have him around forever.

- The dad I know is full of advice. Some of it bad, "If it flies, floats, etc", some of it wistful, some of it surprisingly risque, but a lot of it well-intentioned, or even useful, like doing a job right the first time.

- The dad I know likes gadgets, and taught me that money isn't just for saving. It can be for spending on things you enjoy as well.

- The dad I know would drive too fast when Mom wasn't in the car. But Mom does this too when Dad isn't in the car.

Family Photos from early 2015

Christmas Photoshoot III (Retro 12/26/14)

Baby King Diamond (Retro 10/31/14)

Some family photos from 2014

Christmas Photoshoot II (Retro 12/12/13)

Jenneke Rien is released! (Retro 5/30/13)

Some Baby Photos from 2012

(first) Baby's Birth and First Photoshoot (Retro 5/1/11 and 12/20/11)

A Mondrian Umbrella (Retro 3/15/07)

+

=

Some photos back when we were engaged - taken by Sarah Bossheart (Retro 12/15/06)

An old photo I found (Retro 4/6/05)

digging around through the old blog (Retro 10/30/04)

Style stolen shamelessly from Exploding Dog

Hilariously was still using Angelfire

And ran right out of space. Photos of the kids to show to co-workers without logging onto Facebook are to blame.

A collection of Xanga Blog Posts (for posterity) - Part 3

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:44:54

Shows at the Aladdin Theater

July 25, 26 2009

Saturday

Jason Collette

Songs about highways and Lake Superior.

The Weakerthans

Sorry for no pictures: got hassled by security about the camera. John Sampson looks less skinny than 2003. Married life I guess...

Setlist:

Night Windows

Tournament of Hearts

Our Retired Explorer (Dines With Michel Foucault In Paris, 1961)

Benediction

Reconstruction Site

Aside

Relative Surplus Value

One Great City

Sounds Familiar

Bigfoot!

Plea From A Cat Named Virtue

The Reasons

Elegy for Elsabet

Left and Leaving

Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist

Virtue The Cat Explains Her Departure

(Manifest)

encore:

My Favorite Chords

Wellington's Wednesdays

Pamphleteer

Sunday

Ottmar Liebert

and Luna Negra

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:53:55

Saturday Night Show

At the Wonder Ballroom - June 20, 2009

Ages

Here's a theoretical question: What do you get when your seven person band could easily be trimmed down to the useful parts, which might number three or four? Some band I think was called Ages, lots of straggling harmonies and lots and lots, possibly too much auxiliary percussion. Serious, no one needs more than one tambourine per band, ever. 

Cut Off Your Hands

Back in the day when bands like the Killers were burning up the charts, labels were tripping over themselves to find yelpy Brit-pop Franz Ferdinand clones to push on the masses. Thankfully the heyday of skinny man-jeans and fashion hair has seen its full wax. Or so I thought. Enter twitchy New Zealand band Cut Off Your Hands. (no, YOU cut off YOUR hands! no, you!) Frontman Nick Johnston channelled a little Morrissey, surrounded by the Skinny Twins on bass and guitar just long enough to irritate and not enough to infuriate. Interesting PDX note: Cut Off Your Hands was once called The Shaky Hands, but were forced to change to avoid legal action from another band with the same name, hailing from nowhere other than Portland. Excellent. Portland = win.

Viva Voce

I woke up to the sound of stars.

Crashing to the ground like broke guitars.

There are times when husband/wife duo Viva Voce kick so much ass it's just silly. Kevin and Anita Robinson moved to Portland a few years ago, when it was the cool thing to do, and since then have done their best to leave. But their tour van always seems to bring them back to the land of bicycles, beer, and rain. Their newest album Rose City is a sort of homage to this town of ours. It is my impression that these two used to perform their set with just the two of them, but they have recently doubled in size, adding another guitarist and a drummer to fill out their live sound. Multi-tracking in a basement can be hard to duplicate live. Ask any serious but unsigned musician you know. Their set list included tracks from three previous albums, but showcased a majority of songs from the new album. Don't keep it to yourself.

Devotion

Alive With Pleasure

Octavio

Midnight Sun

The Slow Fade

Red Letter Day

Lesson No. 1

Good As Gold

Wrecking Ball

So Many Miles + coda freakout

encore:

Rose City

From the Devil Himself

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:13:28

Friday night show

Paganfest at the Hawthorne - May 15, 2009

Swashbuckle

We showed up somewhat late and only caught the tail-end of this act. Which is kind of shameful. Swashbuckle somehow managed to fit different pirate clichés into every song. There were glowing inflatable palm trees and a 300 pound singer in a puffy Jerry Seinfeld shirt. Yo Ho!

Blackguard

The singer for Blackguard was some sort of irritating micromanaging ex-soundman. Things went on at soundcheck a little longer than usual, a little longer than acceptable. That is, until the band started rolling. I was awestruck. Probably the quietest, most balanced sound I'd ever heard from a band engaging in a five-man synchronized-windmill. There was the occasionally squeaky keyboard and the here-and-there crack about Portland being the most beautiful city the Quebecois band had seen all day, but take note, this band is worth seeing.

Moonsorrow

Moonsorrow indeed. Other than the drumming, the guitar parts were un-hooks, the headbanging was herky-jerky, the keyboards were bad. So bad. I sat down and fell asleep. 

Eluveitie

- no show

Primordial

Black/death metal from "the People's Republic of Ireland". The singer might have said this particular phrase four to five times during the band's set. I would have yelled something witty back, but his facial tattooing intimidated me into silence. Related sidenote: if you don't have tattoos on your face, maybe you just aren't ready for a career playing metal shows. Think about it. Then go get your face and neck tattooed. And I don't mean that permanent makeup business either. Reference: Kerry King.

Korpiklaani

Hooray! We made it through the bands we had very little desire to see to see this band on their sixth album tour/first American tour. It is a beautiful thing to be in a mosh pit whilst an accordion-fiddle duet lulls us into a spin ten men across. This band was as much a visual effect as musical with their bright-eyed grandpa/gnome-ish bass player to the mic stand constructed from deer bones complete with skull and antlers. The set included old favorites like Journeyman, Cottages & Saunas, Hunting Song, Wooden Pints, and newer songs like Vodka and Happy Little Boozer. Beer Beer drove the mostly underage fanpit into a frenzy. At that point I started thinking about a theme that was becoming present in all Korpiklaani tunes. But then I raised my plastic pint and forgot all about it.

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:56:49

Sunday Night Show

At the Hawthorne

Tombs 

This show was preceded by a trip to a brewery down the street, so we sat during the Tombs set. Which I think was okay, because the music was ho-hum, the sound was ho-hum, even the crowd was mouthing to each other "Ho-hum." Some of the riffs were decent, but the singer ruined them. He got better as the set progressed, but man, vocals are an important element in a band are they not? Even if I don't agree with the content of the lyrics, the tone is vital. Hence my new favorite black metal band: (see below) 

Wolves in the Throne Room 

With a minimalist stage setup of candelabras (with real candles!) and fog, WITTR brought the fast-picking wild-shrieking to the party with epic progressions and stormy atmospherics. Hailing from Olympia, WA, this band is rumored to live in a collectivist commune that has been living in a cave, or alternately keeps getting shut down by the police. Either way, they played three songs from their seminal LP Two Hunters and one other new one. We dug it. 

Pelican 

Holy cow, four songs? If they weren't averaging 12 minutes each, I might feel ripped off. Two songs from their early LP Australasia, one new song called Ephemora, and a cover of Earth's (see previous entry) Geometry of Murder filled the entire set list. The brutality of tuning a guitar down to C, playing a Les Paul into a Marshall stack via a TubeScreamer was first seen in the early 90s before the dual rectifiers changed metal into nu-metal forever. Pelican remembers those days. Mmmm. 

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:02:41

February Friday Show

February 27 at Dante's

Sedan

Experimental drums and keyboard duo. Fairly self-explanatory, loud but decent.

James Blackshaw

One man with a 12-string acoustic. Good sound, lots of re-tuning. 

Sir Richard Bishop

Another one man acoustic showpiece, Sir Richard was all acoustic bitterness and soundman-baiting. Not that the crowd was spared his barbs, mind you. It seemed he would have been more comfortable at a concert hall recital, ignoring the unlikelihood of this considering how nominal and identical his songs were. 

Earth

Cobain fans will remember Dylan Carlson forever as the man who bought Kurt the gun with which he blew his life inside out. Stoner/Doom metal fans know another side; frontman in the ultra slow, lightly distorted, monstrously ponderous weight know as Earth. This man/band is single handedly responsible, with his countless imitators (see Sunn O))) for the revival in popularity of the massive physical bass sound of Sunn Amplifiers. 

Sticking mostly to material from the latest album The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull, Earth was realized not only by drums and bass in addition to Carlson's trademark Telecaster, but a cellist as well.

Engine of Ruin

Omens and Portents II: Carrion Crow

Hung From the Moon

The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull

Junkyard Priest (bonus track on Bees vinyl)

Rise to Glory

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:04:49

February Saturday Show (3 of 3)

At the Roseland Theater

Loney Dear

On a whole, there aren't that many bands that employ whistling in nearly every song. Therefore, the odds of hearing two bands in one night that do are fairly slim. Loney Dear, who opened the Feb. 21 show at the Roseland for Andrew Bird will take those odds. Traveling from Sweden can be pretty exhausting. Tempos slow down, crescendos crescend, general lethargy takes hold. As is par for the venue, the bass was extraordinarily loud, which is a shame since it covered up much of the decent singing, but also a blessing as it drowned out a lot of off-key falsetto from the backing band. 

Andrew Bird

Sometimes two distinct rounds of microphone checks aren't enough. Sometimes even three aren't. When enormous victrola-style horn amplifiers dominate your stage setup, you have to be pretty sure, especially if several of them are whirling like a Leslie speaker in front of a single mic. With wild hair and hipster band in tow, Andrew Bird took the stage after exaggerated preparations. Because after all, even the best-laid plans...well you know. Especially when half of the band is a looping setup that allows Bird to play pizzicato and standard violin as well as singing, whistling, and filling in various guitar and glockenspiel parts in any order on any (read: most) songs. The story goes that this used to be his entire stage setup, no drums, no bass, just one man and an army of talent in his magician's fingers. One can't help but be jealous of the members of those 40-person audiences. Regardless, the albums have drums, so the stage will too. The show must go on! Drawing material from four solo albums, two albums with his previous band Bowl of Fire, and a b-side or two to boot, Bird reworked songs, clipping and embellishing until several songs were nearly entirely new pieces with only recognizable lyrics to tie them to old Andrew Bird songs we used to know some time ago. 

Self Torture

Masterswarm

Opposite Day

Natural Disaster

Effigy

Oh No

Plasticities

Fitz & the Dizzyspells

Not a Robot, But a Ghost

Armchairs

Anonanimal

Fake Palindromes

Imitosis

Tables and Chairs

encore:

Why?

Some of These Days

Don't Be Scared

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:26:08

February Saturday Show (2 of 3)

Valentine's Day at the Roseland Theater

Constant Lovers

This band shared a similar method with the nominal late-90's band Slipknot; that is to say, if you play enough drums with enough volume, no one will be able to tell that you aren't any good. Each member of the band had either floor toms or marching snares set up next to them. Granted, it was a cool look, but Arcade Fire does it better. It didn't help the sound that the bass player couldn't hear anything over the drums and was playing a half-step higher than everyone else. 

Past Lives

I don't remember this band at all. I had 2 1/2 hours of sleep, some wine before we went, and two whiskeys during the first band. Promptly fell asleep. Thank you earplugs. Rachel apparently enjoyed them. 

The Murder City Devils

Woke up to this crazy little bearded guy screaming something about people in the balcony yawning "at this very moment." All argyle sweaters and Usher-mic stand tricks, singer Spencer Moody lived up to his name. Swapping choruses for verses and howling all the way, he jumped from the bass drum into our ears. At one point he got down on his knees and declared, "I'm doing the rest of the show from here, on my knees! With no dignity!" Maudlin. Also amazing to wake up to. The Devils covered songs from each of their three full lengths and several from their major EP: Thelema. Say can you point to Murder City on a map? It's here. It's in my heart.

Get Off the Floor

It's In My Heart

Dancin' Shoes

Somebody Else's Baby

Press Gang

I Drink the Wine

Left Hand Right Hand

Dear Hearts

Bear Away

Bride of the Elephant Man

I Want A Lot Now (So Come On)

Idle Hands

One Vision of May

Rum to Whiskey

Johnny Thunders

Dance Hall Music

encore:

Midnight Service at the Mutter Museum

Murder City Riot

18 Wheels

Broken Glass

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:49:56

February Saturday Show (1 of 3)

At the Hawthorne

The Faceless

This band jumped right into their first song. No sound check, no posturing techs, nothing. Highly impressive. Now, granted, they might have done all this in the extra 25 minutes we waited for the doors to open. All progressive metal and chromatic solos, this band was really getting off on the right foot. Rachel was even into it. And she hates opening bands like a Slayer fan. Suddenly, this guy ran out and screamed in his tough-guy amateur metal voice, "SEATTLE!" We looked at each other, who is this guy? It dawned on us simultaneously; up to then, there had been no singer, the band had been doing instrumentals. It took him a whole song to realize his NW faux pas. He apologized several times between staggering around dizzily after a few headbangs and ruining several awesome riff-jams with his silly screams-lyrics. This band has the potential to be great. Get rid of the pre-recorded keyboard parts, and the laughably bad vocals, keep the raging guitar solos. I don't even care if you call your songs black metal titles like Sons of Belial and Legion of the Serpent. Keep on rockin'

Cynic

This band broke up in 1993. I heard about some bizarre combination of death metal and jazz fusion when I was listening to a lot of heavy metal in early 2003 . I tried for years to find a copy of their only CD Focus on eBay for less than $5 (my usual max. on used CDs) and couldn't find one for less than $25. The band re-united for a show or two in Scandinavia in the summer of 2007. I heard about it and briefly considered attending Wacken Open Air. In August of 2008 I learned that a new CD was in the works set for release in late fall. I think I told at least three neighbors. Needless to say, when I saw they were coming to play a show around here I didn't really care where or with whom. Rachel bought me Focus for Christmas. We listened to it for 3 days. Needless to say, the show was awesome. This band can play live. I mean, seriously, the singer/guitarist and the drummer were both in the seminal band Death for awhile. The setlist was pretty balanced, though a little heavier on the excellent new material from Traced In Air. Went kinda like this:

Nunc Fluens

Space For This

Evolutionary Sleeper

Veil of Maya

I'm But A Wave To

Adam's Murmur

How Could I

King of Those Who Know

Integral Birth

Meshuggah

Ever seen a band use 8-string guitars? Now we have. Why even have a bass player? Unless of course he has a 5-string bass and you want an already tricky live sound to get even muddier. Which it was. We might have stayed longer to watch this band but no band should make you wait 30 minutes plus to get onstage and start playing. Final note: if you want to impress me with synchronized headbanging, at least take the time to windmill now and then (see earlier Amon Amarth review).

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:21:58

Death List 2008

Deaths of note this year:

Heath Ledger

Bobby Fischer

Brad Renfro

Sir Edmund Hillary

Carl Karcher

Buddy Miles

Sir Arthur C. Clarke

Charlton Heston

Robert Mondavi

Robert Rauschenberg

Yves Saint Laurent

Bo Diddley

George Carlin

Estelle Getty

Jerry Reed

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Bernie Mac

Isaac Hayes

Henry Steinway

Richard Wright

Paul Newman

Tony Snow

Gidget Gein

Michael Crichton

Mitch Mitchell

Bettie Page

Eartha Kitt

and from the list, the two most curious:

Lung Fong, Hong Kong actor, lung cancer

Al Copeland, founder of Popeyes Chicken, salivary gland cancer

now if we can just keep our celebrities safe for another few hours, this list will be finished. 

Hear that famouses? Be safe. 

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:54:41

Sunday Night Show

Southern Brides (?)

What was this? A teenage talent show? A high-school musical? So spastic and jittery. Not without talent, but they certainly didn't have any to spare. I'm not even sure on the name. Anyways

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head

More teenage energy. Lots of jumping around, 80's hair, Bon-Jovi moves, and instrument switching. And what's with that name? What's with this one-girl minimum and 18 and under band theme?

The Faint

I think I saw 4 people in the audience that weren't there specifically to see the Faint. They left early, the fools. Here we had a band that wasn't about to be outdone by its own intense light show. And they could just leave. Oh well, one row closer to the front. What is this band? Dance-punk? Synth-rock? Euro-midwestern flash-mysticism? There certainly was a lot of bopping about. Singer Todd Fink, all wrapped up in a lab coat and goggles, kept accidently hitting himself in the face with the microphone as he swung it around in his spasmy hurked-jerkiness. Ignoring their first album, Media, completely, the band hit two songs from BlankWaveArcade, four from DanseMacrabre, five from WetFromBirth, and seven from the new album Fasciinatiion as well as throwing in one BWA-era EP song, Take Me to the Hospital. A friend asked me recently, Are encores mandatory now? And really, I think they are, I've only seen one band within recent memory that told the audience that they hated the cat-and-mouse game and were just going to play their encores now. That band was not the Faint. After 3 minutes of chanting and stamping, the band came back out and dropped a three-song bomb on the nearly epileptic audience. Seizure time!

Get Seduced

Glass Danse

Dropkick the Punks

Take Me to the Hospital

Forever Growing Centipedes

Psycho

Call Call

Posed to Death

Desperate Guys

Machine in the Ghost

I Treat You Wrong

I Disappear

The Geeks Were Right

Worked Up So Sexual

Paranoiattack

encore:

Mirror Error

The Conductor

Agenda Suicide

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:55:49

Revolution changes nothing. Voting changes even less.

And to everyone who is voting because some famous person told them to:

You pawn.

Think for yourself

If no one voted, who could possibly win?

Voting for the lesser of two evils is still endorsing evil

If you've done your homework and like what one candidate has to say:

Congratulations

I don't 

The government needs your vote, even if it isn't for one of the bipartisans because your participation legitimates the process

Voter turnout of less than 50% would allow the UN to annul the results

Just think about it before you tell me its my responsibility. 

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:23:16

Show Saturday Nacht

Mimicking Birds

This was a sleepy little band. We spent the first few minutes deciding why they wore hats on stage. Indoors, at night. Balding, I said. Maybe to cover their eyes from the bright stage lights, I thought later. They were two guitars, one acoustic, one electric, and a drummer. With a soft voice and rarely more than textural guitars, this easily became my favorite band of the evening. Something about sleeping 3 hours, drinking some beer, and then going to a show where the drum fills in exactly where it should. Lovely, just lovely.

Jenny Lewis

What a grungy bunch of misfits. If I could offer this band one thing, it would be a hot shave. Anyways, they played a bunch of upbeat stuff that had some good time changes and mood swings to it. My favorite was probably where everyone put down their instruments to come sing backup around a condenser mic behind Jenny Lewis and her acoustic chordlings on Acid Tongue. The setlist (including the song Under The Blacklights from her other band Rilo Kiley) went kind of like this:

Jack Killed Mom

The Charging Sky

Rise Up With Fists!!

Carpetbaggers

Happy

You Are What You Love

Acid Tongue

The Next Messiah

Under the Blacklights

See Fernando

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

The next Bob Dylan? Nope. The next guy you hope mellows out a bit for his next album and does more heartsick songs because that might be what he does best? Yes, probably more likely. Anyways, it was cool to see that his new band includes a guy Derek introduced me to in high school, Nik Freitas, who is handling some of the guitar duties. The set included a new song, a Paul Simon cover, and songs sung by either of the other guitarists, and one sung by the drummer with everyone backing them all up eventually. 

Nicorette (new)

Central City

Sausalito

Get-Well-Cards

Moab

Cape Canaveral

Song for Blake Mills

Danny Callahan

I Gotta Reason #1

I Gotta Reason #2

NYC-Gone, Gone

Souled Out!!!

Milk Thistle

encore:

Ten Women

Kodachrome

I Don't Want to Die (in a hospital)

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:20:33

Update: Found the Amon Amarth setlist. METAL!

Belphegor

Wow, very, very silly.

You've seen a sound check right? Where all the guitar techs and drum techs come out and play some wankery for a few seconds and then go back and let the band take their time to get onstage? Well, this band did it themselves. And all they checked was the mikes. By growling. Each member of the band. With the most perfectly stable part lines I've ever seen in a metal band. When not growling in Latin, Deutsch, and poor English with a voice somewhere between Yoda and Fozzie the Bear, they played such hits as Seyn Tout in Schwartz, Justine Soaked in Blood, and Bondage Goat Zombie. For this last song, the singer (loosely) came back out on stage with a leather mask with spikes on the forehead. I think we laughed the whole song at him and his silliness. 

Ensiferum

This band was the reason all the skinny blonde kids in line had poorly done black lines painted on their faces. All the band members were shirtless except the female keyboard player and the rather overweight drummer. The keyboard had this huge plastic or possibly wooden shield and swords in front of it. Which I might add, was broken somewhere between Tale of Revenge, One More Magic Potion, and Hero in a Dream. That thing must have been expensive!

Amon Amarth

Wow. Amazing. What the other bands lacked in either serious professionalism or talent, this band made up in spades. We were right behind the soundboard so I could copy down the whole set list. Which was good since I had only heard about 3/4's of the songs.

Twilight of the Thunder Gods

Runes to My Memory

Asator

North Sea Storm

Free Will Sacrifice

Valhall Awaits Me

Guardians of Asgard

Where Silent Gods Stand Guard

Death in Fire

Where is Your God?

Victorious March

encore:

Cry of the Blackbirds

Pursuit of Vikings

We were all assured that we were now true Vikings and the best moshpit they'd ever seen. Which I knew was a lie. Since coming to Portland, I've noticed that crowds here tend to wear out of mosh about half way through each song. Like we can't keep up the energy. I'd not seen this happen in Chicago or in central California at high school shows. We ran and ran till the show was over and burst out in the parking lot reeking of other people's sweat. I talked to Tobin about this when we went to to see his band Flatfoot 56 (which was awesome, actually) and he said he'd noticed the same thing in Seattle too. Something about the Northwest. Too laid back? Anyways, Amon Amarth was great, a real maelstrom of hair and whiskey drunk from hunting horns attached to their belts. During Victorious March, each verse section instrumental was a showcase of different kinds of synchronized headbanging. Just amazing. If you've never seen them, watch the video for Cry of the Blackbirds on YouTube. I yelled the first time I saw it. You might too. 

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:51:14

More shows

Amon Amarth

Can't find the setlist right now. Update later after we clean up the piles of paper in this house.

Fall Into Darkness fest

So, our friend Matt owns a record label and gets us into free shows. So I went last night to this festival that he organized downtown at Berbati's Pan, which is some sort of Greek restaurant and bar/venue. Considering the volume of the bands, I don't understand how anyone could possibly eat. So, first band: 

 

Trees

Wow, this band was terrible. The bass player sat the whole time. The guitarist refused to face the audience or he would have seen our reaction. The singer was just screamy and conflicted and ugh. And the drummer. Wow, he uh, hmm. He couldn't play. He probably played maybe 100 strokes in the entire 30 minute set. Which felt like it lasted forever since they played two songs only. Well, anyway, don't go see'em. 

 

The Subarachnoid Space

Total opposite. The band immediately got an infectious space-rock groove going. Half of them were in white clothes exclusively. Did the rest of the band not get the memo? Regardless, they rocked it from the excellent drummer that looked like Kim Thaylil to the girl screaming into her pickups at perfect times, it was nice. Very, very nice.

 

Grails

For a band with a "most interesting album cover of the year" from Decibel, you would expect a little more. They could have been good. They were almost good. There were three guitars out of 6 guys. They could have been Skynyrd! But they were so busy pretending to be a jam band that really only the drumming came through. The drummer was really two guys, or at least some kind of Vishnu-hybrid drummer. Lots of loud flashy playing, lots of world percussion too (?) But they were more interested in how much beer they could drink on stage. Half-assed. But get it together, they could be pretty good too. 

 

Sunn O)))

So. A lot of noise art/drone bands really like this band from the 90s called Earth. As is the standard MO for musicians, they've started a resurgence in the use of Sunn brand amps that people like Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix used. Since they aren't manufactured anymore, it was amazing to see this many in one place. Two guys. six amplifier stacks. 12 cabinets total. After soundcheck, the band waited 30 full minutes to come out on stage. 30 minutes of smoke machines going off intermittently. 30 minutes of sore feet and tired backs. They were really pushing it. Then they came out into this fog bank dressed in robes and hoods. Two guys with Les Pauls and a wall of amps. It looked like a guitar store I've been in. The noise was jarring. The insteps of my feet were vibrating. All of me was vibrating. 

So, maybe go listen to some Earth for at least one or two songs really loud on some large speakers. Headphones will not do. You need the physical punch. It might get boring or obnoxious. But seriously. When its over, you'll feel something like a relaxation spread across your mind. If it's like this show, your neighbors should be able to hear you 2-3 blocks away.

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:38:59

Drum Entry!

I decided I needed more stuff to hit.

History and art will stand up and defend my sanity.

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:11:20

This one's called...

This is bullshit. 

And I quote: 

"Crude oil for October delivery fell $3.08, or 2.9 percent, to $103.26 a barrel at 2:48 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aE2xCjzFk5Xs&refer=worldwide

Is gas near you $2.98?

Cause last time gas closed at $100 a barrel, it was.

Yeah, not here either. 

This is why I'm getting a job in Portland and commuting via bicycle. 

Rachel just laughs that I'm angry. 

We always get f'd. 

She just laughs. 

ed note: all links listed in this entry are dead. Sorry

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:12:50

In an odd turn of events...

Lee has inspired me to post again. 

I hate feeling like I'm the only one I know who posts, 

so I shouldn't really leave him hanging now should I?

I'm about 20 pages from the end of a Norman Mailer book so I was also thinking of him.

What is new?

Back from the beach, sunburn making me look like I'm coming apart at the seams.

Finished our soccer season. 

Un-undefeated. 

Went to Shakespeare in the Park yesterday.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Could have been called Shakespeare in the Rain. 

I don't think summer means as much to me as it does to teachers and students,

but I feel the division as acutely in changes of weather as you all do in changes of schedule. 

My Clint Eastwood movie marathon is going well.

Each movie so far has been better than any John Wayne movie, despite the fact that some of the Eastwood films were pretty flimsy. 

And I have a suggestion for one of Lee's goals for next summer.

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:20:13

'Cause even land-locked lovers yearn for the sea

Tomorrow we leave for the coast of Southern California. I haven't been to the annual family reunion for probably four years. I will miss Derek. He is missing this year though he's made it to the last several. This year I'm bringing my musical saw as well as a guitar. Maybe Marissa will play with me. It will be good to see some family again. Also bringing lots of home-made beer. And booze for slurpees. I fail to see how any of this could go wrong.

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:44:17

What is one even to think?

I am so old.

I arrived home from work mere minutes ago.

On my way home I was behind a white Buick with four young men in it.

It was before 0730. 

What time does summer school start?

They were gesturing along with what I can only assume to be a song.

I thought maybe one of them was waving with a tallboy.

But I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe it was an energy drink.

At the next stoplight, out the window it went.

Coors

Dang. 

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:37:45

Constantines show Monday night at the Doug Fir

The Weather Underground

You know that friend that you have that dresses ever so fashionably? Well, at least shabby-chic? Like a dirty button down and a beat up trilby? Put four of those guys in a band, let them learn to play their instruments for about one year and you have this band. Not impressed. 

Ladyhawk

This band was ok. The instrumental groove sections were getting pretty good until the (rather overweight) singer decided it was "time to get a little sexy". Which involved unbuttoning his shirt and twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom. Weird.

Constantines

We saw this band in October 2003 at the Bottom Lounge in Chicago. They drove a giant blue home-school family van with the city names they had visited inscribed into the back in dust. They were ridiculous, energetic, hungry. This time around they drew almost equally from the last four albums with three from their earliest self titled debut and four from each of the subsequent albums: Shine A Light, Tournament of Hearts, and Kensington Heights. It went like this:

Draw Us Lines

Hot-Line Operator

Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)

Hard Feelings

Insectivora

Time Can Be Overcome

Arizona

Trans Canada

Hyacinth Blues

Credit River

Soon Enough

Lizaveta

Young Lions

Young Offenders

encore:

Shine A Light

Street Fightin' Man

During the final song (yes, a Rolling Stones cover) Ladyhawk came back out and supplied some auxiliary percussion and backup guitar since Steve "Baby Eagle" Lambke has broken his hand and was missing from the line-up. An enjoyable show, though not as impressive as the legendary Chicago show where nothing could stop them from playing the saxophone (including no working knowledge of how to play it) and my ears rang for three days after the show. I thought the ringing might never stop. The saxophone was visible this show in an opened suitcase behind the drummer but much like singer Bryan Webb's "thanks" was held almost entirely in reserve. Allegedly Trans Canada is being offered as the new Hockey Night Theme Song since the CBC lost the rights to play the old one. Happy Canada Day! 

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:13:47

Be kind to your knees,

Yesterday was our first soccer game

Three people on our team were injured

Rachel played the whole game

Not so much for me

Good thing too, 

my ankles still hurt

and I was tired because yesterday went like this:

work till 7am

sleep for 1 hour

get up and go to church

sleep for one hour

get up and go play soccer

drink one beer from the back of a van

go home and plant raspberries and cucumbers

drink one beer

eat dinner

drink one beer

watch a John Wayne movie as part of my homework

go to bed 

fall asleep after midnight

us: 1 point, them: 7 points (maybe more, lost count)

we also scored twice into the extra goals that were on the sidelines of the field

and every time she swore, we would yell "That's our team organizer!"

we won

you'll miss them when they're gone 

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:46:13

sing sang saw

I am teaching myself to play the saw.

Like what parents let children cut off tree limbs when they aren't old enough to use a chainsaw.

I bought an upright bass bow yesterday. 

I can get sounds out of a really old saw and also a brand new saw 

which I understand is some sort of accomplishment.

Nothing resembling pitch control yet,

But I have the basic technique down

Now all it will take is finesse

(sigh, much like the rest of my musical leanings) 

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:35:4

You say you wanna metalution?

So I started jamming with this band yesterday.

They consist of:

drummer - tall, lanky, thin, jazz background, obviously very skilled

bassist - tall, lanky, thin, jazz background, also very skilled

me - tall, lanky, thin, eh..!

singer - tiny, crazy hair, giant voice, tribal background

I think they really liked me, that or the only other person who answered the ad wore a trenchcoat and had some personality problems. 

So now I have a band. 

Pretty noisy too. 

I approve.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:23:13

If you love something let it go, it was once said.

So I have this little 4x6 index card. It is my little sandbag dam against the overwhelming force of panic in the face of overstimulation. Every time I went into a record store, Pow! there were too many racks. All I could do was browse alphabetically. I had a majority of A- and B- bands in my collection for awhile. Every time I went to rent a movie, Augh! what was I looking for again? If only I could remember that review I read in The Reader... So I started a list. Over the course of the last several years (and new lists) it has not only saved me from the head-spinning oblivion of the too much, it has also saved an album or two from the obscurity of the overcrowded M- and T- racks as well as an early morning from the absolute silence of nothing new to listen to. You can only imagine my dismay when last week, I lost it on Alberta St. somewhere between Videorama and home. The panic of having to start over again mixed with something that should have probably felt like freedom, but more closely resembled nausea, swept over me. I called Videorama as soon as we got home, hoping against hope that they could not only locate the list, but would hold it for me without reading it. Imagine it! the naked soul of your worldly desires exposed before a video clerk that was like someone out of High Fidelity, helpful, but eh, a bit over-knowledgeable, detached, intimidating. They hadn't seen it the clerk said, but if they found it, they would put it in the lost and found. Without looking at it? I added silently. I gave it up for lost and began to plot a new list, attempting to mentally recall all the items and reasons I had a written list in the first place. 

We were Concordia Coffee House probably a week later playing speed Scrabble and drinking what tasted like melted chocolate when Rachel dropped the list in my lap. WTF!? It was on the counter next to the coffee station she said. Amazed to see my list again, I wondered that it hadn't yet been submitted to Found Magazine with some ridiculing comment and gazed at the items that had seemed so precious when lost, but now seemed so commonplace and pedestrian once back in my hands. What is the moral? 

Sat, 31 May 2008 17:11:55

Show at the Hawthorne Wednesday

Have you ever heard Bedlam Massacre? Neither have I. I think. Maybe I have. It's just so bassy and sloppy that I can't tell one song from another until the band stops to announce a new song title. And how could you go wrong with such big hits as Bathed in Blood, Let it Be Known, Off Limits, and Idle Disease? At one point the singer from the (now dissolved) band Inflkt shambled out on stage to do some back and forth screaming at the crowd. Rachel hated it. I laughed the whole time. This band was comically everything that amateur garage metal was. No timing, mismatched sense of style, neon green instrument here and there, indiscriminate sound, etc. Classic. The kind of band it would be fun to be in. The kind of band you could easily find in any small city. 

Firewind

This is some band from Greece. They did some awesome songs. I didn't know any prior to this, but lessee, there was Fall to Pieces, Till the End of Time, and some very silly instrumental which I think they called the Firewind theme song. Love theme songs for bands. Except maybe the Unicorns. This singer sounded like Sammy Hagar channeling a rather mischievous Chris Cornell. Rachel gave this one the thumbs up, I felt like this was a lot like what seeing Soundgarden would have been like circa 1989. Um, if Soundgarden had two soloing guitarists and a keyboardist and double bass. nevermind.

Divine Heresy

Wow, is that guy fat. Of course he is, he's Dino Cazares from Fear Factory. He's allowed to be monstrous. Somehow he's put together this bizarre metal super-group including former members of Vital Remains and Nile, with prior involvement from members of Machinehead and Static-X. Does that make it good? No. The singer that could have been some sort of Henry Rollins, if you ever got Rollins really really, really angry, does. They sang some little ditties like Impossible is Nothing (ad slogan from somewhere?), Savior Self, This Threat is Real, and some song they were particularly proud of called Failed Creation; I think there is a video floating around of it somewhere on this inter-web thing. Note: I have never seen a drummer windmill before. Seems kind of dangerous doesn't it?

Dark Tranquillity

By the time this band came out on stage, there were maybe two hundred people left in the venue. Which is both a cool thing and also kind of sad. They probably won't come back with response like that. Singer Mikael Stanne reminded me of a lot of old Zepp shows I've seen films of. At least if Robert Plant screamed death metal at you. Equally intense and involving was bassist Michael Nicklasson, who seemed to know all the words and dared anyone in the audience implicitly not to know them as well and scream along. It was cool to know most of the songs, as they tended to come from the last two albums with a few of their elders thrown in to keep it interesting. The band played Terminus, The Lesser Faith, Inside the Particle Storm, Focus Shift, Icipher, and Misery's Crown from 2007's Fiction as well as Lost to Apathy, My Negation, and the ridiculous thrash closer The New Build from 2005's Character. Stanne was excited to find that quite a bit of the audience remembered "some of our older stuff" such as Damage Done and The Treason Wall, though the songs were released on 2002's Damage Done. I think Rachel really enjoyed this set. It was the high point of the evening for me. Now I want something to explode!

Tue, 20 May 2008 16:28:33

Worst Sound Ever

High on Fire

Totally missed this set due to the 0.75 mile long line in the parking lot. Seriously, longest line I've ever stood in (ever).

Job for a Cowboy

Job for a cookie monster growl + shriek does not equal dynamic shift. All double bass is a major problem in an auditorium made of unbaffled concrete. Enough said.

Children of Bodom

The sound guys from this point on seemed to be pretty impressed with themselves. They would come out and pretend not to notice the audience while playing some tired palm-mute riff on someone else's guitar. Tired of guitar techs doing this. Just do your job, quit posturing. Quit it.

Children of Bodom had the best showing of all the bands in the line-up. Their set was short but not without time for a little humor from singer Alexi Laiho. Starting the set off with Sixpounder, immediately had the crowd circling in the pit and squeeze tight in the crush. Other favorites from the set included Bodom After Midnight, Angels Don't Kill and a bizarre sing-along to Journey's Don't Stop Believin'. 

In Flames

Upstaged by their own gigantic stage lighting, In Flames put on a well-intentioned set of mid-range to new music from their extensive catalogue. Opening with the MTV-hit Cloud Connected, the band continued its bass-heavy thrashing about through several new and newer songs including The Quiet Place, Disconnected, and Take This Life. During this set, I had the unfortunate experience of being caught between two separate pits. Since momentum often carried people from one straight through me to the other, it would be more realistic to imagine a figure-8 shaped pit. Or maybe a Venn diagram. (perhaps Lee can tell me what the point between the two would be called, the overlap maybe?) I love In Flames, but I guess I really only love old In Flames from Lunar Strain through Jester Race to Whoracle and the only track featured from this era was JR's Graveland. Couple this disappointment with some sort of ballad near the end of the show, and you'd have my impression of the band's set as a whole.

Megadeth

Wow, the sound was so bad during this set, I couldn't tell where one song left off and another started. This could also be due to sound guys with zero skill. Turn the drums down! Shit! The double bass was reverberating all over the walls. Keep in mind, the Salem Armory is an old basketball gym. Large and irregularly shaped and walled with concrete. I would disadvise anyone from seeing a show there that is expected to be louder than, say, Ottmar Liebert. Megadeth played a set of what could have been twelve, or could have been fourteen songs I didn't know including Washington is Next! and Burnt Ice, showcasing the dueling guitar skills of Chris Broderick and frontman and staple member Dave Mustaine before delving into more familiar and popular territory with Sweating Bullets, Symphony of Destruction, Trust, Peace Sells (But Who's Buying?), and the standard Megadeth closer/encore Holy Wars. Through the first two-thirds of the set, I was feeling pretty low, like this band I thought I knew some stuff from was going to play an epic set that I had never heard before with all this guitar wankery from this new guy that can only channel some soul to his playing when he's playing an old Marty Friedman solo. Fortunately, they covered some 90's radio fodder, which if you know me, you probably already know my feelings about.

Addendum

Last night we went to a show at the Roseland downtown and saw this new band,  Baroness. Very impressed. Lots of long instrumental passages heavy on delay interspersed with some sweet hollering and enough heavy parts to keep me from shaking a stick. We stayed long enough to buy shirts and run into some guy I know from work before walking out on Coheed and Cambria, a band I've disliked for some time, possibly because the singer sounds like Dream Theater's James LaBrie, possibly for other reasons. 

What I'm trying to say is, man, I paid $9.50 for this show, drove there in 20 minutes, saw one unknown band and had a heck of a better time than at a show where I paid $45, drove for an hour and a half, and knew at least half the songs from the bands. Live and learn. Or don't.

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:41:13

Tomorrow is Gigantour

Strange,

I'm going to see several bands I really like old stuff from,

Children of Bodom,

In Flames,

Megadeth,

High on Fire

We'll see how it goes. 

Doubt I'll have a set list for anyone since I haven't even heard the newest albums by any of these bands. 

Mon, 05 May 2008 16:05:04

Opeth show last night

negligible opening band

This was a pretty metal looking band except for the auxiliary percussionist who was muscular, bald, and wearing a polo shirt. He was very into hitting tiny cymbals though. The band only showcased about 20 seconds of good-times headbanging while the rest sounded like some heavy Craig Chaquico (seriously just google him a minute for this to make sense). This is fine, but seriously, at a metal show!?

Between the Buried and Me

This band was proud to showcase lots of prog and they seemed to be big fans of "no-no" headbanging. The vocals were too quiet though and you could only hear yelling. Or maybe there was only yelling. I don't know. It was during this show that we were immediately behind the mosh pit, which is an extremely dangerous place to headbang, often leading to a succinct chiropractic adjustment, nearly free of charge if you didn't pay for your ticket.

Opeth

Amazing of course, Mikael Åkerfeldt is a funny guy. But pretty metal. The set list included songs from 6 different albums, with song lengths being such that only song made it from each (excluding the Damnation album). The set list follows:

Demon of the Fall from My Arms Your Hearse

unknown song - could be really old, but possibly just noise and being squished in the mosh pit kept me from recognizing it. By the time Opeth started, we had worked our way up to about 3 people from the front, which is to say about 2 feet. It was seriously like sardines. I haven't been in a crowd that tightly packed since high school punk shows in little gyms.

The Baying of the Hounds from Ghost Reveries

In My Time of Need from Damnation

Serenity Painted Death from Still Life

Wreath from Deliverance

To Rid the Disease from Damnation

Heir Apparent from Watershed (coming out in June)

The Drapery Falls from Blackwater Park

PS wear earplugs to shows, best 29 cents I have ever spent.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:18:23

9 hours of beer

make my head ACHE!

Yesterday I think I was discussing what amounts to euthanasia with the dentist. 

Which made me think I must have had some serious cavities.

Also discussed the variations of metal with at least three people at a party. 

Only one of whom actually wanted to have the discussion.

No more,

tough to type,

tougher to think.

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:13:33

Eels show last night

Set list:

Roughly one hour presentation on Quantum Mechanics/Alternate Universes

 - from BBC4 "Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives"

Grace Kelly Blues

Ugly Love

Strawberry Blonde

Packing Blankets

F*cker

Souljacker, Part I

Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor

Dog's Life

My Beloved Monster

I Like Birds

I Need Some Sleep

The Sound of Fear

Last Stop: This Town

I Want to Protect You

Flyswatter (+)

Bus Stop Boxer

Novocaine For the Soul

Good Times, Bad Times

Somebody Loves You

Souljacker, Part II

 -- Encore --

I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart

 -- Encore #2 --

Blinking Lights (For Me)

This set list covered all 6 Eels releases as well as a soundtrack release, two rarity tracks and two tracks released only on singles, one before the band's inception. Which is of course a moot point since musicians on stage were vastly outnumbered by their instruments. Mark Oliver Everett or "E" moved from piano to guitar and occasionally to drums as on an extended jam at the end of Flyswatter and also on the only cover in the set, Led Zeppelin's Good Times, Bad Times. The only other musician on stage was jack-of-all-trades "The Chet" supposedly hailing from our very own Portland, OR. The Chet covered musical duties from drums to harmonium to lead guitar to mandolin to musical saw to piano to reading excerpts from E's autobiography. The show wouldn't have been complete without disembodied voices from the speakers, reading fan mail and concert reviews onstage, and the crowd wasn't disappointed. The show had been rumored to be acoustic only, but E's cycle of three Danelectro guitars quickly dispelled this thought. Early reports indicate a good time had by all (though for some reason, the only real crowd sing-along was I Like Birds)

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:54:19

Going to california with an aching in my heart.

The sea was red and the sky was grey,

Wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today.

The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake

As the children of the sun began to awake.

Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn

Tryin to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams,

Telling myself its not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:53:39

The answer is rock!

listening to songs with "stars" in the title or the band name or the album at high velocities

tomorrow we move into the new house

real excited

also fit about 2 miles of audio cables into 2 boxes.

awesome

gonna have a music room

separate from the drum room

separate from the guest room

what will we do with all the space?

PS sorry about all the house entries, looking back, you sound a lot more boring than you feel when you start domesticating 

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:12:17

So what is a contract?

It is essentially a legal document put forth by a stronger party upon a weaker party to bind them into doing what the stronger party says they will do. 

That said, I signed my name yesterday to 40 contracts. This doesn't include initialing, this is 40 separate documents. Rachel signed 44. 

We discussed that for the next 30 years, we will be paying the bank for the favor they are granting us by allowing us to live in this house. And after that, we continue to pay the government for the same favor. Though we are paying them for the next 30 years as well. 

And how you never really own a house. 

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:20:37

Today I am writing the biggest check I have ever written. 

It is the down payment on a house. 

It is for more money than I make in an entire year. 

And I will be carrying it around this afternoon. 

If anyone wants to come out to Portland and knock me down.

I just hope I can get up the courage to go get some lunch after. 

Think you've had buyer's remorse?

Buy a house and look at the amount of money you actually spend on it after 30 years of interest. 

Enough to disinterest anyone. 

Pun intended.

And work decided to not award me a merit raise of 2% after all. 

Funny how that hurt. 

Well, almost funny.

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:51:15

British currency:

pound (also: quid, pound sterling, GBP) - £ currently valued at $1.96 USD, 

pence - plural of penny, one one-hundredth of a pound

crown - worth 5 shillings, 1526-current

sovereign (also: gold sovereign) - nominal value of one pound sterling or 20 shillings

Britannia - first issued in 1987, face value of 100 pounds

- the sovereign and the britannia are considered commemorative and/or purely bullion (as is maundy money), not necessarily in wide circulation

outmoded British currency:

pound(old) (d) - 20 shillings, or 240 pence

shilling (s) - used up until the decimalisation in 1971, one-twentieth of a pound, also 12 pence

guinea - used from 1663 until The Great Recoinage of 1816 when it was replaced by the sovereign, originally worth one pound, still used occasionally, though primarily in horse racing and the sale of rams, with a value of one pound, five pence, also equivalent to 21 shillings

farthing - worth one quarter of a penny and 1/960 of a pound sterling, minted from the 13th century until 1960

additional multiple and fractional currency

(in circulation)

two pence

five pence

ten pence

twenty pence

two pounds

half sovereign

(withdrawn)

half penny

threepence

sixpence

two shillings 

half crown

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:36:08

Rodrigo y Gabriela

Last night was the show we've been trying to go to for almost a year now. In Chicago it sold out too quickly. The last time they came to Portland, it was cancelled due to exhaustion. So when we saw that Rodrigo y Gabriela were coming to town for a two-night stint, we snapped us up some tickets. Endlessly inventive and surprisingly still possessing fingernails, the duo, often abbreviated simply to "rodgab", put on a show that was surprisingly physical for two classical guitars. With small fiber-optic cameras placed before each chair and projected on a large screen behind the pair, the intimate show at Portland's Crystal Ballroom felt ready for the arena. Starting off the show with two huge medleys, the pair invoked thrashing flamenco tributes to melodicists from Metallica to Dave Brubeck to Deep Purple with a few new melodies of their own intertwined. The pair's dichotomy involves lead player Rodrigo employing classical sound and speed in an more rock'n'roll grip and posture while rhythm guitar and literal rhythm sections are covered by the spry-fingered Gabriela who flings herself into the music not sparing any part of her versatile hands. After an instrumental mash-up of metal classics "One" and "Fade to Black", Gabriela showcased a four-minute tutorial on how to abuse new sounds out of the nylon-strung guitar as Rodrigo stepped off-stage. When he returned, he led the crowd in what could have been a sing-along of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" if the musicians on stage had been inclined to sing. Theirs is an instrumental sound, after all. If the musicians felt no urge to sing, clearly the crowd showed no disinclination, singing out the beginning of the main melody to "Vikingman" before being joined by the two guitars on stage. With later musical nods to Jimi Hendrix, Jack White, and more early Metallica, the savaging of the seventies and eighties would not have been complete without the pair's rendition of the classic-rock radio staple "Stairway to Heaven" which guitarist Rodrigo had started earlier in the show after being prompted by the crowd, though he stopped short and told the crowd in a thick accent that it was too early for that. 

If these two are coming to play anywhere near you, I would suggest you get off your chair and go buy some tickets. Because both shows sold out in Portland. 

And for good reason.

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:36:24

February

They say that February is the shortest month, but you know they could be wrong.

Compared, calendar page against calendar page, it looks to be the shortest, all right. Spread between January and March like lard on bread, it fails to reach the crust on either slice. In its galoshes - and you'll never catch February in stocking feet - it's a full head shorter than December, although in leap years, when it has growth spurts, it comes up to April's nose.

However more abbreviated than it's cousins it may look, February feels longer than any of them. It is the meanest moon of winter, all the more cruel because it will masquerade as spring, occasionally for hours at a time, only to rip off its mask with a sadistic laugh and spit icicles into every gullible face, behavior that grows quickly old. 

February is pitiless, and it is boring. The parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those? The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine's Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine's Day on February's shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed.

Except to the extent that it "tints the leaves and swells the leaves within," February is as useless as the extra r in its name. It behaves like an obstacle, a wedge of slush and mud and ennui, holding both progress and contentment at bay. 

James Joyce was born in February, as was Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, which goes to show that writers are poor at beginnings, although worse at knowing when to stop. 

If February is the color of lard on rye, its aroma is that of wet wool trousers. As for the sound, it is an abstract melody played on a squeaky violin, the petty whine of a shrew with cabin fever. O February, you may be little but you're small! Were you twice your tiresome length, few of us would survive to greet the merry month of May. 

 - Tom Robbins

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:33:13

Now I wouldn't say I'm being groomed for Management, but...

Today has been pretty good so far. I may have a cold, but:

1) National Geographic has grown tired of pestering me to re-subscribe with ever-lower price offers and is now just sending it to me for free. 

2) Today I got to interview some applicants for the floor where I work. They got dressed up. I wore my favorite Hendrix t-shirt. One of them asked me if I had any outside interests. I said "Nope, just nursing." She laughed. She'll get the job.

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:54:10

Want One?

You thought the BMW MiniCooper was cool? Small? Certainly no one made the mistake of thinking it would be cheap. And it certainly isn't built for the average Dutch male. Regardless, it is now old hat. Compare the new Tata Nano which was just released in India. Sure it has a 2-cylinder engine. Sure it only gets up to 65 mph. But it gets 50 mpg and the average speed in India's urban areas is only about 7mph anyways. And it can be YOURS! for the low-low price of 2,587.91 USD (plus plane fare to India, plus transport back to the US with all the associated permit fees, or for pete's sake you can just stay there and drive it if you want it so bad)

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:51:10

Jon's Death List 2007

With only a few hours left to die, I give you this year's losses:

Momofuku Ando - inventor of ramen noodles

Anna Nicole Smith

Ernest Gallo

John Inman - Mr. Humphries from Are You Being Served?

Brad Delp - lead singer from Boston

Johnny Hart

Kurt Vonnegut

Don Ho - Hawaiian entertainer

Boris Yeltsin

Jerry Falwell

Les Schwab - American tire tycoon

Liz Claiborne

Lady Bird Johnson

Ingmar Bergman

Merv Griffin

Luciano Pavarotti

Marcel Marceau

Norman Mailer

Robert "Evel" Knievel Jr. 

Ike Turner

Dan Fogelberg 

Benazir Bhutto - former PM of Pakistan

These were all people I knew personally and who will be severely missed.

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:40:42

It just snowed Christmas in Portland

Baby Jesus: born to rock!

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 14:46:18 

and Cat just gets the short shrift

Good news! 

and I quote:

"Rabid fans might be disappointed to know that Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh are on board solely as exec producers at this point. But if Jackson doesn’t ultimately direct, the resolution clears the way for Spider-Man helmer Sam Raimi to direct the film. While [New Line co-chairman/co-CEO Bob] Shaye said that no creative decisions have yet been made, Raimi has long been interested but only if Jackson was involved."

If you know me at all, you know what this is about. Sweet sweet sweet. Somewhere between Dead-Alive (or Braindead) and Evil Dead. 

Addendum: Sorry John, I'm talking about Peter Jackson agreeing to be involved in making the Hobbit into a movie (or in this case two movies). He directed all those Lord of the Rings movies a few years ago and probably is the only reasonable choice as far as the fans are concerned. Lisa might know the books if you ask her. The title of this note refers to Cat (the cat) in Breakfast at Tiffany's who is mistreated almost the entire film. Poor Cat.

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:37:19 

yes, that's what I mean

Today's hypothetical question:

You are in a car

It's your car

It's running

In a garage

Your garage

The garage is sealed up.

What album are you listening to?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 16:12:52

Loan officer

We are looking for a house. That's right. We're staying.

But so, we have good credit. Good enough that the bank is willing to loan us enough money to buy the above house. Which makes Rachel angry. And makes Jon speculative. Keep in mind, that house is on a big hill overlooking the city.

Hmm.

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:30:46

Lottery Tidbits

Eschewing my video project for today, I finished my state lottery project which can be viewed at my other website http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/dehaan/understatement.html.

Did you know:

- Eight of the fifty states don't carry on state lotteries. Or perhaps the mobs there just aren't as strong in affecting state government policies.

- Several of our protectorates such as Guam and the Virgin Islands do have lotteries.

- Both North and South Carolina call their lotteries the Education Lottery

- Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island's logos don't explicitly reference their state or origin often relying on nicknames or state silhouettes to help remind you where exactly you're throwing your money. Rhode Island calls theirs simply "The Lot".

Favorites include the very classy hand-drawn Minnesota and the very 90s bubble look of Wisconsin.

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:13:42

That's TED protocol

Wow, so we're back from a whirlwind tour of central Arizona. I'll post some video maybe once I have it edited. But here's the breakdown:

Tuesday: flew there, made it safe, luggage didn't

Wednesday: spent all day waiting for luggage

Thursday: climbed up Lookout Mountain with Jessie, Ryon, and Rachel. Ran down (v).

Friday: drove north to Montezuma Castle (v). Smaller than I remember. Visited Jerome (v?). Still no double-neck ice cream cones. Disappointing.

Saturday: out in the desert again, riding quad and dirt bike-style (v). Minor wipe-outs all.

Sunday: Mega-church. Then out to the desert again Glock-40 and AR-15 style (v). Killers all.

Monday: drove south, saw Joep Rylaarsdam's old place (v). Saw my old house surrounded by new construction (v). Dismal. Saw Arie Helmut's new place and house (v). Or convention center as Rachel calls it.

Tuesday: climbed another mountain and meandered down several peaks. Flew home. Asked for a can of GingerAle. "Can't give you a whole can, but I can give you two cups. That's TED policy. Sorry." Asked to pour it myself. (see much earlier entry for why) "Can't. That's TED protocol." Irritated. Luggage arrived safely. 

(v) = video clip eventually

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:57:00

almost got shot at work

- stupid druggies

- and what's worse, self-audits daily for the next three months

- blood pressure so high right now

- need a new job where I can make a shit-ton of money and not have to help people who are too dumb to help themselves, oh I feel like the mother of the world

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:21:1

Various thoughts, some acquired, some original

- Saying "Thank God!" is not the same as thanking God

- McDonalds food is the 21st century equivalent of smallpox in the blankets

- I love metal. My favorite part in a song that's playing right now starts at nine minutes and 38 seconds into a song.

- Since I moved out of Chicago, my car insurance has decreased $77. Chicago, I know where you live.

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:50:20

 

I wrote an ode to my dairy jacket and recorded it in the car

Please tell my brother I love him still

Over the mountain on his phone bill

I should call more often

He knows I never will

Please tell my brother I love him still

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:19:23

Anybody with a Ti-12 knows that's false.

A short treatise on breaking rules

 When we were quite young, we might occasionally have been treated to the cinema by our parents. Though tickets weren't yet so pricey, it was nearly always a memorable event. I remember seeing An American Tale, Honey I Shrunk the Kids with its original Roger Rabbit prelude, and several others in actual first-run theatres. Now, movie theatres had not yet begun to gouge on ticket prices, so the difference between a blockbuster then and a blockbuster now was actual tickets sold regardless of take. Money had to be made. So popcorn prices were inflated. Appropriate, since the snack is predominantly air second only to the marsh-mallow. Movie candy was expensive as well, but the boxes. Oh, how they glistened in their gi-norm-i-tude. Beckoning with their sno-capped teeth and good & plenty fashion sense. We would beg the entire 30 feet of glass candy-prison that comprised the impulse snackcounter on the way into Theatre 4. Eventually, these trips to the movies would involve a prelude to a nearby grocer who could satisfy our sugar-lust in reasonably small, easily concealed portions. Which brings me to my point:

We were sneaking candy into theatres.

So what? Well, there were rules posted, "No outside food" etc. for one thing. This could easily have spun into a moral web had we stopped probing our sticky fingers into our dirty pockets, reassuring ourselves our prize was still hidden, long enough to consider. Well, we were saving money, you might think. Because I know, yes, you have done this too. You were probably taught to do it by your parents. Is this wrong? It is a small thing. But could it lead to something more? Is there a dollar amount where it becomes wrong? Not returning the extra change you got back at the store? Fudging a little on your taxes? Hey, it's your money! Love it!

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:25:06

So I've owned this Honda for two years. 

And I've figured out over the course of this second year through meticulous bookkeeping,

Exactly what each mile costs me. 

Why is it only truckers don't look askance at me when I do this?

24 cents/mile.

My greatest expense is of course, gasoline.

But right behind that is insurance.

There were days in May where I would fill up every day, often for days on end.

If we remove everything but gas, tires, and maintenance, the total comes down to

12 cents/mile

Let's see Lee out-math this.

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:25:15

RPD-OPH

Finally got down to the DMV again for those new plates. DE HAAN is taken. Can you believe that crap? I, Jonathan the Haan, had an unoriginal idea? Do they have any idea who I am!? (Yes, irritated enough to use an interrobang) So I went with standard plates instead and kicked myself all the way home as new and interesting ideas popped in for a short stay like out-of-town relatives. I almost offered the employee a bribe to re-neg the other person's plates so I could have them. "I don't know, tell them, it's a governmental emergency and what could you do? Your hands were tied." So, their plates expire in 2009. I'll try again then I suppose. Or maybe kill them. Though they could be long lost family. Something of which I have very little in this state. If any at all, could have something to do with those death threats...

Addendum:

And holy crap! Google Street View has blanketed Portland! You can now see where we live if you want. It won't let me post a picture, but crap is it sweet anyways. Go to GoogleMaps, type in 25th and Killingsworth, then click the streetview button. Put the little pop-up guy on 25th and Killingsworth where 25th goes south from killingsworth. Rotate the viewer till you see a red brick building with white windows. Yah, privacy invasion! Yay, finding shit way easier! Yeah, Portland!

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:56:19

Am I being investigated?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/610898,CST-NWS-sweep19.article

Streetsweepers get cameras so Chicago (or rather, an independent contractor) can start proving you were impeding their streetsweeping. This is happening because Rachel (that's right) wouldn't pay her tickets for this because there were no signs warning of streetsweeping and no proof, therefore, no case. That city will spend millions to make you pay your $50 parking ticket. 

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/bottled.water.tax.2.339091.html

Chicago will soon be taxing bottled water. "Why won't anyone drink our water? It won awards! For the love of God, people, come on!"

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=5664018

Chicago taxes go to 11? Cook County taxes will soon be at 11%. Good luck kids. HA HA HA.

ed note: all links listed in this entry are dead. Sorry

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:45:17

. .. . .. .

what was wrong was not

understood

and what was right didn't

last.

. .. . .. .

but it's curious

what 

appeals to some people.

it could be that

what we think is

correct often

is

not very interesting.

. .. . .. .

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:44:10

On our way back from Transformers Sunday night

I wanted fast food.

The urge has been growing on me lately

The last time I ate fast food was last October while I was in chemotherapy class.

Rachel and I discussed it

The last she and I ate fast food

was the night before Patrick got married in June 2006.

We were staying overnight at Lee's house, though no Lee.

We had a munchie attack

Luckily, they were open very late.

It wasn't an intentional thing

These things just happen.

Looking to go international now.

I was telling Jill a long time ago

That we haven't eaten at chains in months, years maybe.

(We can't even manage to hit an IHOP 

In time for breakfast)

Except maybe Round Table Pizza, and does that

Really count?

She said it doesn't count

Because the pizza's really good. 

... 

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 13:40:01

Shoes over a telephone line

A car blows through a stop sign

As I'm walking home from the Post Office

Doing my business through the mail

The driver was on a cell phone

A couple blocks later

I see him again

He's pulled up even

With another car

Window to window 

Like cops in a parking lot

Bundles being passed hand 

To hand

I think I just witnessed a drug deal.

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:21:34

"Studies have shown people fall asleep."

Sometimes I feel like this page is turning into my own personal vendetta bulletin board.

Big Brother (not the show) in Chicago:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8RTSNE84&show_article=1

I like the part where someone is questioning whether or not it's an invasion of privacy.

Is there even a question? (insert interrobang here)

For comic relief try:

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6068.html

This is on Archer Ave. in Lemont which I believe is actually DuPage county. So while not technically Chicago, this is the kind of quality work being done all over that fine city.

Gah, I am so letter to the editor right now.

PostScript: 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070930/ap_on_re_us/police_scandals_1

A few bad apples?

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_271104049.html

(T)he state is now investigating this issue and there's a meeting with the superintendent next week.(Hopefully, they'll form a, gasp.. committee) 

ed note: all links listed in this entry are dead. Sorry

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:24:01

Pretty sure

So I have these two visitors that seem to check this page every day. 

Thanks.

One is John from SD.

The other one is from NY.

Only a vague inkling of who it could be.

A mystery.

Postscript:

I was just listening to Pantera's By Demons Be Driven

and I was trying to figure out where the children singing was coming from

Rachel was downstairs listening to Another Brick in the Wall: Part II

Thought I'd never heard that part in the song before

Was blaming my new speakers

Still giddy about sound.

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 22:11:14

I Like Killin'

Entry part the first:

My dad is back from Africa. He killed (in no certain order) and is having mounted, stuffed, rugged (rugged?):

eland

waterbuck

impala

blesbok

kudu

gemsbok

zebra

Entry part the second:

The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the fly of God Almighty.

 - That sentence was enough to convince certain areas of the country to ban Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I thought it was kind of indicative of a sort of sense of awesome volume. Come to your own conclusion. 

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 11:47:24

And these ones are for me

Good grief. 

These things. 

That I just bought.

Are bigger than the computer monitor.

And sound.

Now I can hear all the mistakes in my former favorite songs.

Well it really almost wounds me to say this.

They may be too big.

I even tried stacking the usual accumulating crap on them in hopes they would kind of

Disappear.

Or blend in. 

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:02:15

Happy Birthday

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside your own house

4. Be in love with your life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yrself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You're a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 20:06:12

After perusing a short list of known CIA-operatives on cryptome.org , I have concluded:

The CIA is not interested in Oregon.

Another great reason to live here.

P.S. find anyone you know?

http://cryptome.org/cia-2619.htm

http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:38:53

old tomnoddy, all big body

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/MNOORSAK7.DTL&feed=rss.news

News article here

Social spiders

Fetid aroma

thick enough in places to block sunlight

It's almost as though it were something out of The Hobbit. 

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:02:24

Was I asleep? Had I slept?

I have returned to a high-school mindset.

Watch out Derek.

Everything is a trial and a tribulation.

Everyone is against me

And again I'm getting more and more into 

metal.

I hear it when I'm at work

I hear it when I listen to other music

I hear it when I try to go to bed

It's just all so cliche`

I get pissed.

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:11:58

I shoulda known

So today, we tried to go back to Chicago

I guess they had to evacuate the air traffic control tower at O'Hare

because of a tornado

so we got delayed for an hour and a half

sitting on the plane at the gate

then two hours

then four hours because of a staffing problem

I fell asleep

Rachel finished her book

then our flight was cancelled

the nearest we could reschedule was Saturday at 2pm

which is not really anywhere near Thursday at noon-thirty

Derek and Patrick have another thing in common now:

"That's shit!"

and it is.

No Mark & Gloria

No Dr. Dan

No Derek

No Jill

No Scott

No Curt & Heather's wedding

No Jason & Mandy

No Hope CRC

No Sarah & Rich

No Patrick & Kutu

This will not be forgotten or forgiven any time soon.

F U Chicago

F U

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:06:29

Unite and Take Over!

I was singing pigeon kicker at work,

but no one believed it was a real song

and though I tried the rest of the night,

no one else would admit that they have ever tried

to kick a pigeon

they were even offended when I called them:

rats with wings

flying bags of disease

but again, these are people that you have to trick into admitting

that they've squished a spider

P.S. I decided not to bring up 

Shoplifters of the world

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:03:36

I finished Ulysses

and Lee you were misled,

there is a section at the end that is about 40 pages sans punctuation,

but it is one of the more readable sections of the book. 

tough book

undoubtedly genius

but not necessarily my kind of genius

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:11:11

New favorite show!

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/metal/

Sorry, I know I've been doing a lot of picture posts lately, 

Rachel is in LA

but this show, man.

amazing

fantastic

silly?

ed. note: the link no longer goes to clips of metalocalypse like it originally did, but to a strange vignette, that I like, so I'm leaving it here, in case it disappears in the future:

LIVING WITH THE ECHO

The echo – as I call it – can be felt at any time, and is often so profound, I look into the eyes of whoever’s around, expecting them to share in its wonder. At best I’m met with polite, confused smiles. Undaunted I ride out this secret frequency until it ebbs, leaving me with an aching nostalgia for mere seconds ago.

So what is this sensation? Let’s start here: I’m eleven pedaling my dirtbike through the soon-to-be-developed wooded area near my house. The path is slick with mud and fallen leaves. I race both against the clock (dinner is soon) and a shallow stream that runs parallel, about six-feet below to my right.

This is before digital. My playlist is clouds, trees, and water. I am attuned to nature – with the exception of a fallen, gnarled branch that demolishes my front rim and sends me screaming headfirst over the side.

IMPACT. Everything goes gray.

Colors resume as I reorient on a bed of grit and stone, shallow water coursing over my sweater and jeans. Nothing feels broken and I’m not alarmed. I remain still, oddly at peace. The stream feels otherworldly, beyond water, a place of belonging. I gaze at the dense blue sky, framed by a canopy of thrashing branches. Rainwater gushes by my ears, roaring like applause. Inexplicably this dirty, wet place offers a sort of warmth and protection. I’m a clumsy kid who found a womb in the woods.

It’s later I learn that I fractured the base of my skull and lost a lot of blood. That I remained in the stream for two hours, which contracted (in my mind) to five ecstatic minutes. The doctors say I was in shock with a mild brain injury. Months of physical rehab and cognitive tests got me back on my bike, though I wouldn’t experience the world as I briefly had, alone and bleeding to death – until the echo, which began a year ago.

The echo comes on like a vibration of pure bliss, and I suddenly remember how free and alive I felt in the stream. Colors dance. Sound takes on added dimension. Imagine a seizure that heightens your senses and drops the veil of the ordinary world to reveal iridescence and pure harmony everywhere. It. Is. Beautiful.

Then it goes away and you feel haunted by a fantastic party that ended too early.

Friends worry when the echo causes me to adopt the look of a grinning madman, my eyes alive. Sometimes I drool, but what’s a funny face when you’ve entered the divine?

I don’t want anyone to worry so I joke that my brain just experienced a sort of 404/error. My code is messed up ha ha. I’m ok. I’m ok. I’m ok.

I’m not ok. Because I live for that interruption.

I only exist in 404/error. I am no one any other time.

I don’t dream anymore. Sleep is now a pitch-black advertisement for death. Guess my brain has plenty to do, staging short plays of the impossible, during waking hours.

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 05:44:24

this is for real

this is not a fake campaign. 

Now I wanna hear the Glenn Miller Orchestra

and I wanna see cops beatin' up hippies!

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:15:14

it's called speed stick

It's not expensive.

Wow, check this out

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rN2VqFPNS8w

and BET backs it up too

"This video is a great example of how the best animation can convey complex messages with great clarity and humor. It's a brilliantly done satire and we certainly trust that our audience will find the humor and the message in the piece." 

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:57:52

Sorry I haven't been posting.

Lots of work

Occasional time for comics

New phone too

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:24:17

tyra banks hates hindus

Ok.

Quick quiz:

If a human being that you don't know was about to die, and with a little bit of action you could save that person, would you:

a) save that person

or

b) ignore that person and direct that action towards saving a goose or a baby calf

If you chose B, congratulations, you are an animal lover.

Most animal lovers are white, so by near-default, you are white too.

Most of the people of the world that could be saved from death are not white.

Therefore you are a racist. 

Dammit, I am tired of vegans and people who imagine they have such giving hearts because they give money to PETA or the SPCA or something similarly short-sighted. Sorry about the preaching. But still pissed.

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 11:30:47

ron dies, but harry doesn't

ha ha hmmm<br />not that you care

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:17:25

So my dad says he recognizes this guy. 

He used to ride dirt bikes too,

He says he saw him in SoCal at a motocross.

Before I was born.

Hmm.

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 12:40:45

Harold Ramus!

I was told last night at work that I look just like this guy.

He was called "the Flying Finn"

Anyone else see the resemblance?

I also kept accusing this one woman of being obsessed with Harold Ramus, though she will continue to claim she has no idea who that is. 

Which has not kept her from stalking him.

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:43:28

Free Slurpee Day

so go get some

7.11 oz. Slurpees are free today to celebrate the anniversary (80th)

My uncle Peter once told his son (also Peter) that he paid 7-11 to do that since his wife had just given birth that day.

They went in and got free Slurpees.

Today's high point: driving through Vancouver and seeing a sign "Chiropractic" on a marquee right below the sign for the "Back Alley" clothing store.

At least I assume it's a clothing store...

P.S. And another thing!:

now that I moved out of Chicago

the 7-11 at

6754 W. 63rd Street

Chicago, IL 60638 

is converting to Kwik-e-Mart.

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:48:32

this can't be happening to me this can't be happening to me

Let more yourself

Do you plan the purchase?

Do you dream of the new flat?

Do you want to buy the new car?

Do you want to live comfortable?

Do you need money?

You know that to refuse not late never.

You choose a suitable loan.

Do you begin to link about it?

But you don't decide yet?

You must to fill in the from in our web site by yourself

reliable informations.

Only then our specialists will commuicate with you for more

full information. 

(The high point of work today was checking email on break and finding this little gem waiting for me)

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:05:55

Absolute low point of today: spending 4 hours trying to learn three bizarrely complicated and unrelated computer programs (unrelated because I can't use the same password or user name for any of them) from two very impatient staffers while trying not to choke on the overwhelming smell of unidentified vomit.

Absolute high point of today: Filling out the evaluation by saying exactly that.

P.S. This is for Lee. If you feel like a tool, you are probably displaying sound judgement. If not, you're one of the following:

a) a samurai

b) Ill Mitch

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:25:38

New Toy

Happy Fourth of July! 

New Noisemakers for all! 

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:51:34

And another thing!

Quit telling me what my hands should smell like

You freakin' scent NAZI's

Give me choice or give me scentless!

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:02:01

I forgot to mention. 

We watched a video.

A rap video.

In my nursing orientation.

It was about methicillin resistant staphlococcus aureus.

By Dizzy Dave.

The MRSA Verses.

But when I look it up now, 

all I get is some serial killer/key-tar player.

Win some; lose some

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:57:32

Sticker shock

Holy crap 

A 32 oz. beer

A double cheeseburger with a slice of ham

And bacon

And a fried egg.

A well-balanced meal.

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:16:29

So.

Here is my recording equipment.

That I can't figure out.

And I have no microphone.

But,

Three days of not giving up

I figured out how to use it 

Even without a microphone.

I recorded some 1984.

It doesn't have any drums

But you can just say utz utz utz in time

To get a pretty good idea.

And when Lars dies, Metallica will contact you 

To replace him. 

I hope you don't swear as much while listening

As I did while recording

Unless it happens to be:

"shit, that's cool"

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:25:54

In a battle where there can be no winners!@?

My new toys are here!

We are spending so much money, we are too poor now to ever move again. 

Come visit.

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 12:02:15

Ruger T-shirt

Eagle brand honey roasted peanuts

Rolls-Royce towel

baby blue tuxedo

knobby tires

bull mastiff

the Scorpions

Ford F-250

the road to Phoenix

pickled herring

Lowenbrau

Miller High Life

McDonalds in a styrofoam package

Pizza Hut

stereo equalizer

eucalyptus

throwing tools

my father equals all these things

but they don't equal him

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:52:15

the moon is a light bulb breaking

and I won't come down for anyone

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:20:59

the month of May

Illinois

Indiana

Michigan (by accident)

Ohio 

Pennsylvania

New York

Massachusetts

Vermont

New Hampshire

Maine

Rhode Island

Connecticut

New Jersey

Delaware

Maryland

West Virginia

Iowa

South Dakota

Wyoming

Montana

Idaho

Oregon

Washington

California

Portland Maine

Portland Oregon

Atlantic Ocean

Pacific Ocean

leg one: 2616 miles

leg two: 2470 miles

"Hey, we're on the Oregon Trail!"

"Yeah, looking back I think we've always been."

'Prior to the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the Oregon Territory was a rugged land, dangerously overrun with beavers and British settlers, and stretching from the tip of present-day California to the North Pole. Seriously, it was simply gigantic. Parts of Oregon were regularly found in parking lots and basements as far east as Illinois. When Oregon was discovered hanging around the outskirts of Baltimore, President Polk cried out, "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" His council of numerologists immediately scryed the meaning: Oregon was to be stopped. After two years of concerted spellweaving and secret bloody battles, the president's geographimancers at last fixed Oregon's northward boundary to the 49th parallel. With Oregon's back to the sea, the government would continue long after Polk's death to push Oregon south from Canada and west from the Rockies to its current boundaries, where it seethes now, perpetually covered in a dark cloud of marijuana smoke, ever dreaming of conquest.

Motto: "In Oregon, Where the Shadows Lie."'

Mon, 28 May 2007 00:47:53

Safe on the west coast. 

Stay tuned for the list update.

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 18:07:46

I guess it's no secret anymore. I love Corvettes. 

Thu, 17 May 2007 00:13:09

List #4 (home)

Maryland

Pennsylvania (by accident)

West Virginia

Pennsylvania (on purpose)

Ohio

Indiana

Illinois

Elliott Smith - New Moon (2disc)

Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate

Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister

Breaking Benjamin - Saturate

Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene

Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning

Nick Cave - Let Love In

Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album

The Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts

The Elected - Me First

ee - For 100 We Try Harder

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Jets to Brazil - Perfecting Loneliness

lighting firecrackers and bottle rockets off the patio now that we're home

neck beard is in full bloom

2,616 total miles

$109.10 total for tolls and ferries

Mon, 14 May 2007 22:48:57

List #3 (Baltimore)

New York

New Jersey

Delaware

Maryland

Biffy Clyro - The Vertigo of Bliss

Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

Brand New - Deja Entendu

ee - For 100 We Try Harder

The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America

Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Rodrigo y Gabriela

A few more days on the road. Set-up camp, then home.

Mon, 14 May 2007 22:46:13

List #2 (Bridgehampton)

Massachusetts

Vermont

New Hampshire

Maine

Rhode Island

Connecticut

New York (again, via 3 ferries)

CD's

Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast

Beck - Mutations

Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk

Death Cab for Cutie - You Can Play These Songs with Chords

Mogwai - Come On Die Young

Mogwai - Rock Action

Pelican - The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw

Pixies - Doolittle

Radiohead - Kid A

Radiohead - Amnesiac

The Tea Party - Triptych

Curt's mix has out-distinguished Lee's by having not only 2 songs Kelli put on mixes for me, but also by having 4 songs I put on mixes for Rachel. Better, Lee?

Mon, 14 May 2007 22:46:39

Lists from the road (Pittsfield)

Illinois,

Indiana,

Michigan (accident),

Ohio,

Pennsylvania,

New York,

Massachusetts

Ryan Adams - Heartbreake

Aereogramme - Sleep and Release

Air - Premiers Symptomes

Air - Talkie Walkie

Air - Pocket Symphony

Anniversary - Designing a Nervous Breakdown

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Beck - Sea Change

Nick Cave - Let Love In

Clinic - Walking With Thee

Interpol - Antics

Shins - Oh, Inverted World

Shins - Chutes Too Narrow

Plus some wedding mixes as follows:

Derek : awesome, screamin' jay was the high point

Rich: crazy, all over the map, who puts fire water burn on a honeymoon mix? and why? and why not?

Lee: definitely gets the award for most songs I put on a CD for Kelli or vice versa at 6. Nice dual disc chronography though

Curt: haven't got to yet, will work towards it today

Seriously though, camping was good, convincing Darren that Nick Cave was a singer before he was an author, also good, rock'n'roll hall'o'fame was decent, if I am at a computer later, maybe more notes, otherwise, see you all when I get home. 

Sun, 06 May 2007 02:24:44

alright, 

it's 1:21 am. 

i'm not nervous

i'm just tired of being stressed

someone asked

if i was excited

they weren't impressed with my response

which was yes

can i just turn it on?

here i go

Wed, 02 May 2007 18:10:40

Just passin' on some love. Why? I likes to...

1. Father Jonathan likes it hard, good

2. Jonathan likes to blow up things in microwaves

3. Jonathan likes 'em young

4. Jonathan likes being five pounds thinner

5. Jonathan likes to make us all jealous by ordering the avo, feta and rocket pizza

6. Jonathan likes to get comfortable when he reads!

7. We've discovered that Jonathan likes to flirt with the nurses!

8. Jonathan likes to stick up his leg

9. Unfortunately, I don't think that Jonathan likes the flavor that it's given the system

10. Jonathan likes to say “do it.”

11. Jonathan likes Deborah, but she's a bit fat - what will his mates say?

12. Jonathan likes to watch you getting things from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet

13. In his spare time Jonathan likes to sample his wife’s cooking (she is a chef)

14. Jonathan likes to stir things up

15. Jonathan likes to play all the parts himself

Maybe not the first 15, but probably my 15 favorite of 20 or so.

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:02:10

I've been stalling on posting this for a few reasons. I wanted to round it out into a concert review, but my dreams of becoming a paid concert-attender/journalist were short lived. Also, I wanted to crank this out on Rachel's new iMac, but its out of the house right now getting MS Office installed on it. There is some weird stand-offish action going on between microsoft and apple. But we'll cope. The AIR (french band) show on the 23rd was pretty awesome. Sound, not too loud until I accidently bumped one of my ear plugs out in the middle of Sexy Boy. Crowd, not too bad except for the guy behind us that kept shouting out "Oh yeah! This song f***in' rocks!" Note that this band is mostly ambient/electronic. Granted, a few songs did in fact rock, such as Don't Be Light (a live favorite) and the extended outro jam on La Femme d'Argent, but let's be realistic, hmm? Without much further ado, here's the set list, so you too can reconstruct it in a new iTunes Playlist, you trendy thing, you.

Setlist

Space Maker

Venus

Once Upon a Time

Napalm Love

Talisman

Run

Cherry Blossom Girl

Remember

People in the City

Mer du Japon

Left Bank

Don't Be Light

Kelly Watch the Stars

Encore:

High School Lover

Sexy Boy

La Femme d'Argent

Spanning the course of 5 albums including Pocket Symphony, Talkie Walkie, Moon Safari, 10,000Hz Legend, and The Virgin Suicides Soundtrack. If you don't know AIR (french band), perhaps illegally download Moon Safari until you can go buy it. Nice. This all started in a record store in Portland 2 days before the show. I got a free mini-poster when I asked the store owner about the show and he said, it was like 5 minutes walk to the box office. Ha! Try 4 minutes, dude! We figured they would be sold out, but nix. And before the show, we were in another (gigantic, independent, and within spitting distance of the other, god I love this town) record store when Rachel spotted J.B. Dunckel (singer) so I got him to sign the tickets. (Rachel, where did you put those tickets?) he was browsing the electronica selection before the show. Fortunately I was buying something odd and European (Clinic) and not my usual silliness (AIR). Things took an odd turn when he, after signing the tickets, asked if we were coming to the show that night. Which of course we did, after standing in line for like 5 minutes at the door (love love love). The opening act was this Norwegian woman who only had a clarinet/accordian/bugle player along with her. Apparently, the other bus broke down on the way from Norwegia or something. What a crazy town.

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 15:07:35

I mean, goddamn Chicago, get on it

So yesterday, I

- got a job

- found an apartment

- hit Powell's City of Books

- found 2 albums I've been looking for

- got tickets for AIR for Sunday night

- found the highest point on the mountains around Portland in a mustang convertible

Chicago has some work to do before it even starts to catch up.