Now that Notre Dame has lost, the center of the detached-from-reality universe shifts to my home state [Alabama]

                                    - Ivan Maisel,  Espn.com

San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded entirely by reality

-Paul Kantner, Jefferson Starship ??

I went to Cal game on Saturday, it was my second time in Berkeley and I still havn't seen anyone playing frisbee.  I asked one of the crew if there were any ‘free speech zones’ around and he pointed out a few feet of space in the campus’s main square wherin no laws of any land apply.  The engravings on the concrete say as much.  

In Athens we had the ‘Son of the Tree that Owns Itself’.    Both the SOTTTOI and Berkeley’s  little slice of Anarchy encourage some interesting hypotheticals.   But I can’t be bothered.

Saturday was a street food bonanza for me.  I ate a Mexican Chicken Sausage and a Beef-Tamale made with Polenta  at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market.  I had a Chi-Chi Rodrigues and a cup of Blue Bottle to wash them down.

At the Game I had a beef ka-bob, two corndogs, and some Brie and grapes.   Brie and Grapes,  this is what they eat at football games in Berkeley.  All your suspicions are confirmed.

After the game we had Naan-and-Curry.  I picked up the first Hold Steady and Constantines albums at Raspmutin records and we headed back to the city.

Oh, the game.  Cal played some fine defense in the second half against Zook’s Illinois team.  The stadium noise only reached what I would consider sufficient decibels on one occasion, late in the 3^rd.   The cheer leader for the students section was pathetic.  One of the structured cheers involves doing the Gator Chomp (Imagine legions of elbowless fans, clapping).     So yeah, it’s a brie eating, wine sipping, gator chomping,  free-loving kind of football out here. But its still football:  The guy next to me had a flask of Seagram’s 7.

On Sunday I went to  Baker beach. Played frisbee,  Drank a dry Muscat, ate Caviar, soprasetta and Parmesan, and dried mangos.     I didn't touch the brie though.

*I can use the word ‘Bonanza’ without a second though, but ‘Galore’ drives me crazy. Is that odd?

** Chi-Chi is like an Arnold Palmer except a bit of Ginger-Peach flavor.

Maybe I have lost the nerve to write about stuff like this.  Lets see.

Last Night Dave came to town. I took him to Frascati for dinner where we ran into Borys and his  girlfriend, whom I had often heard him speak of, but  had never met. They were ending a long day of eating and drinking their way through S.F. 

I had never seen Borys except standing behind a bar.  Come to find out that he does in fact have feet, not some Rosie-esque manner of conveyance.  Remember Irona?  Who would win in a battle of the Robotic Maids?    I have serious problems with Richie Rich: As I remember it, in every episode the villain would contrive some plot to take over the world, or whatever, only to be foiled by some bit of random slapstick dumb luck on the part of Richie’s Dog. Come next episode, the villain would invent some new contraption.   Why not just rebuild the old one?  Your plot only failed because that stupid dog happened to accidentally drop a bone into your flaxion-compressionator. What are the odds of that happening again?   This is oversight on par with Voltron’s refusal to START with the blazing sword.

So I would have to bet on Rosie. 

After dinner Dave and I went to Impala, where the girls of Mas Sake were guest bartending in hopes of learning the trade by the time Mas Sake reopens its doors, this time with a full bar.  There is something about a bunch of attractive young women wearing corsets and confused expressions watching each other try  to make a martini.

Moving right along.

How do you beat synonyms when decrypting a message.  Its been driving me crazy for weeks, and came up again last night.  Phoenix, you know this.   You could mail me my book with my Cds.

There’s an Idea.

Saw M. Ward at Bimbo’s 365 on Saturday.  He came onto stage wearing a Texas hat, prompting a “Get  A New Hat!” heckle from the back. He immediately launched into a 10 minutes guitar solo, which silenced the crowd and dissuaded me from furthering my thesis that Texas songwriters allways respect requests for Townes.  He then eased into Paul’s Song.  The cat can play guitar.   He did, eventually cover Texas Songwriter Dan Johnston, but he didn't take any requests.

I remember that John Mayer knows his way around a fret board too, but if I were going to continue the bad habit of  comparing singer-songwriters (Bob Schneider is Jack Johnson minus a lobotomy, for instance),  I would have to say that Ward is a three dimensional  David Grey. Unfortunately some of Ward’s dynamism was lost in this show, since he played tons of pared-down ballads.  I wanted to hear Big Boat, O’brien, and Helicopter.  He didn’t play any of those.  

He ended with Undertaker, walking off the stage saying goodbye by way of two handed over the head point to his guitar, which he had set to loop through the last few bars of the song, serving as exit music.    

The two-handed overhead-point is good one. It reminds me, sorry for this, of Rowan Atkinson playing the King’s messenger and bearer-or-bad-news, who rather than stick around and wait for the King to read the message, tosses it down and retreats, pointing to the letter apologetically as he hastily exits.   Ok, now that I have lost everyone…

Hey, it also reminds me of Jimmy The Saint’s trademark  two handed blessing entrance and exit, which is an indispensable substitute for a goodbye or hello wave.   At least in crowded places.

In other news, The Bus Stop on Union must be the Bulldog Nations most westerly outpost.  The Back Room looked like a UGA Frathouse on Saturday.   Everyone looked warily upon my LSU-esque purple t-shirt until they realized it to be a RoadHouse shirt  ('Hangovers Served and Serviced', I have misplaced my 'The Cause and Solution to all of lifes Problems').   So Olga, Tom, Heather and I watched the game drinking Buckets of Miller Light, which is, as the old joke goes , like 'having sex in a sail boat' because its  'Fucking too close to water'.   (It may not be that old of  a joke, I heard it from an old bartender in a Dennis Lehane Book).  

Quick book note:  Ken Follet has returned to form, I think.   Hornet's Flight has got me hooked and I read good things about Jackdaws

I donated to Operation AC yesterday. Credit Alex for setting a good example, and Sgt Ken Weichert  and his GXFund for finally pushing me over the edge.  

Hooah!

Another donation is forthcoming at EOM, depending on the result of a fitness fundraiser I instituted. 

The Hold Steady are really really good. The pitchfork review was spot on:

Craig Finn isn't a singer. His voice is a harsh, nasal, confused, emphatic bleat, clamping down on certain words and rolling tricky internal rhymes around in his mouth until they come out all broken. He sounds more like the sketchy drunk guy yelling in your ear at a show, asking if you know where to buy drugs, than like the frontman of the band onstage. Finn's voice may be difficult, but don't let it be a deal-breaker.

Yep.

None of this would work if Finn didn't have an expert rock band backing him up. Finn's songs wheel precariously from one unhinged lyrical idea to the next, almost never stopping for choruses or going out of their way to fit into any sort of structure, but the band plays these songs like long-lost fist-in-the-air classic rock anthems. It's well-schooled in every bar-rock cliché, and executes these moves with joy and conviction: the pick-slide before the climax, the weeping Hammond organ on the bridge, the pregnant pause before the big riff kicks back in. Since ...Almost Killed Me, the band has beefed up its sound with the help of Rocket From the Crypt producer Dave Gardner and keyboard player Franz Nickolay, and its Meat Loaf pianos, greasy George Thorogood blooz choogle, and wheedling Journey guitar carry more heft and authority than they had on the last album. This stuff would sound great behind just about any garage-rock hack, but it turns Finn's dirtbag chronicles into something epic and huge and molten and beautiful.

Yep

I finally figured out the name of a band that I meant to check out: The Hold Steady.

The dude at the Indy music store was no help when I asked him:  "Do you know the name of the band that the guys at Pitchfork Media like.  Its a long name. They were reviewed a few months ago.  A rock band. The lead singers sounds a bit unhinged"

He said, "What is Pitchfork Media?". I directed him to the site on his desktop. As he typed in the URL he  said "Well someone around here knows the site", when the IE auto complete took over.  Then he said "Hey, this guy used to work here", referring to the review of Six Organs of Admittance on the Pitchfork Homepage. "He's psychedelic folk", the goth-clerk tells me.

I didn't know what that means, so I offered "Like Neutral Milk?"

"No.  More psychedelic"

"Ahhh... Tim Buckley then?"

"Never heard of him".

I made a mental note to looking into that band, while I scanned the Pitchfork site for  a longish band name that struck a chord.  No dice, so I picked up M. Ward's second CD, which doesn't have O'Brien on it.  It does have Helicopter, which is another track you can't help but love.    Later that week I bought O'Brien on iTunes, and tickets to an M. Ward show this Saturday.  M. Ward , in general, is a likable dude. I can't wait for Saturday now:  UGA vs. Spurrier in the afternoon, M. Ward in the evening.  

This morning I figured out that the band with the longish name was "The Hold Steady" and downloaded two songs from their website.  Well I am inclined to say that The Hold Steady sound like the lead singer of Low and Sweet Orchestra  backed up by the  Ass Ponies.     To put it in more familiar terms, its something I would like, but I am surprised anyone else is paying attention to it.  The only thing hip about them is their name.    

Well, I'll probably buy their first CD, and add it to my "Loud stuff I can't play around anybody unless I am throwing a house party, which is very unlikely since I am somewhat homeless" play list.

Before I write about Vegas I want to say a word about Sea Otters.    I don’t trust them.     For one, they are too big for they’re size and workrate. Its incongruous, very much like the little blue aliens in Galaxy quest:

Guy Fleegman: Sure, they're cute now, but in a second they're gonna get mean, and they're gonna get ugly somehow, and there's gonna be a million more of them.

In other news, I escaped Vegas without hearing “You can see it from space” once! 

 I was even  foolish enough to mention the light from the Luxor, saying “We can get back to the strip by following the light …”

-At this point I felt like you feel in that split second when you realize you are about to lock your keys in your car, but you do it anyway-“..from the Luxor”.

Here’s the interesting thing: Yes, someone chimed in immediately, but they threw one heck of a  curveball saying, “Yeah, I hear you can see it from Los Angeles”.

 “Are you fucking with me!” I yelled, grabbing the gentleman by his bow tie.

            “Nah man, that’s just what I heard”

“That’s friggin ridiculous! Do you know the kind of smog they have in LA!”

            “Yeah, you’re right, I don't know what I was thinking”

Note: The Florida Gator’s fan sitting in front of me right now has Vanilla Ice in her CD case. ‘Nuff Said.

So I walk into the restaurant Mesa at Caesars and sit at my spot. They all recognized me. The reader’s digest of the conversation went like this:

“Hey, I recognize you, you come in here a lot”

            “You talk about shoes a lot.”  I reply

“Jacob thinks your cute”, she zings, springing the trap.

“Funny”

“Seriously though, would you date him if you were gay”

            “No”

“Why not?”

            I point to my chin.  Jacob has a big nut duster.    “When I see that I immediately think, ‘surfer’ or  ‘the X-games are in town’, and since where in the middle of the desert, I have to assume he likes to ride bikes.  I would like to think that if I were  gay, I wouldn’t date a guy who rides BMX”

“Oh.”      Pause.   Then to the bartender "Somebody just returned this Martini because it doesn't taste like Grey Goose"

NOTE:  Note to self, eat more  huitlacoche .  

3 Quarks links to Syndney Bluementhal's pathetic Anti-Bush screed right after a link to Scientific American.     Sid was last seen getting caught shoving classified document down his pants to protect Clinton's record on Terrorism  [Wait, That was Clinton Friend Sandy Berger.   Sid was last seen calling all of Clinton's lover's Lying Whores.  I quote from memory]   There is just no excuse for linking to political operative like Sid at a time like this, esecially right after a Legitimate piece by the Scientific American.

They are De-linked for the time being. Not that that will make a difference. Speaking of making a difference, Alex, has made a generous donation to the Red Cross, and is bullying me to do the same.  And I will, once the initial rush of cash subsides a little, or some small charity strikes my fancy.  There is a list of them on Instapundit. 

I still need to write about Montery Bay Aquarium, but right now I'm off to vegas for Ed's wedding.