Last weekend’s trip to Oklahoma City was the first of many such weekend trips.  This weekend I am flying to Atlanta to see the Hold Steady at the Earl.  On the 10^th I am driving to Santa Cruz to attend a Crossfit certification. On the 17^th I am skiing at Lake Tahoe.  The weekend after that I have been invited to Breckenridge Colorado for a ski trip, though I doubt I will make that one.     Who knows.   Mosley and Cargas fight that weekend, but the big weekend, for boxing, is the next one, with Calzaghe V. Lacy and Miguel Cotto against Gianluca Blanca.   How can you not root for a guy name Gianluca  Blanca?    If this were the 40's he would be unstoppable.

 

Oklahoma City was nice. This was a business trip  so I stayed in the suburbs the whole time, but had  a good dinner at Red Rock Canyon and played a little volleyball too.

 

I don’t have any pictures to speak of, sorry.  And I can’t explain a muscle pass: Passes, palms and counts are the magic behind magic. They are the core secrets whose unauthorized distribution is punishable by excommunication from the guild.   But you could probably google it.

 

Sorry I don't have any recent pictures.  I don't take pictures and I don't send letters.    I'll ask some of my travel companions though.

 

 

I reserve the right to change these selections.  And I will not entertain any "I am a bigger cracker fan than you" taunts simply because I haven't included any of their albums. Yet.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco.   Brilliant.  The best album by the best American Band since the Stones!  I know, I know, the Stones are English. But Still! 

Pale Sun Crescent Moon by Cowboy Junkies.  As good as Lay It Down, but a good bit denser musically.  This is the most poetic album I own.  Michael Timmons is the most underrated songwriter/musician I can think of. By some margin. Its not even close.

 

Pneumonia by Whiskeytown.     Ryan’s Best Album?    It ends with Bar Lights, which has inspired my imagination for years.

 

 

Gish by Smashing Pumpkins.     You know how unknown lead actors make movies better?   This album  continues  to have that quality.  Its like a one-off, utterly unique bit of arena grunge.   I don’t hear the smashing pumpkins, just the music.    

 

Trompe le Monde by Pixies.  This album got some bad press since it was a pre-break-up near solo-effort of Frank Black.  But its just the right mixture of the Pixies you love minus the stuff that has became too familiar.

 

Nil Lara by Nil Nara.  Reminds me  an unaffected, refugee version of  Seal, Phil Collins and Sting.   I bet all three of those guys name drop Nil when they are tying to sound worldly.

 

 

Riviera by Big Head Todd.   Sucks that this, his best album, is something of a departure from what made him a household name.  But this and Strategem are the only Big Head Todd CD  have even wanted to sit and listen to. This one, unlike Strategem,  has the added benefit of having hooks.

 

August and Everything After by Counting Crows.  Guilty Pleasure  Again.  Alex still holds a grudge since Mr. Jones sold out our Cracker concert.   Its so easy to hate this album, but its nearly impossible to genuinely not like it.   Mr. Jones is the Brown Eyed Girl of our Generation, which illustrates my point perfectly.

 

Some Stupid With  a Flare Gun by Ass Ponies.  If these guys ever became popular, perhaps in some alter-universe, this band would be a guilty pleasure.    Its just a rock solid album that I fully accept that  none I know will ever like.

 

Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse.   I liked these guys before they got popular.

 

 

On Monday’s I use  my landlords shower as an alarm clock. The sound of it finishing is my cue to get out of bed, dress, and pack for the day. If I am too slow she leaves without me, as we have no arrangement save that if I meet her in the garage she drives me down the hill.  If I am ready ahead of her I either walk, or I spend the time closing drawers and folding clothes while I wait for the sound her walking down the steps.   I have forgotten my point.

 

When I get to the office before 8:30 I have to endure the security woman who assaults each elevator load of people with hearty a “Good Morning” and “Have a wonderful, marvelous day!”.  On Wednesday’s she says “Half way there!” before continuing with the wonderful, marvelous, terrific day shtick.  The crowd mumbles back tepid responses, unsure of its requirements in this situation. I wear headphones and avoid eye contact.

 

Today the internet is  down on our floor.     So I thought I would catch up on some stories.

 

I never wrote about a street magician I ran into the other weekend.  He gave me directions to a bar and then I asked him what was new in the industry. He showed me the Muscle Pass, which was the last flourish I ever deigned to learn before quitting, 12 years ago. This doesn’t bode well for the art of  magic, this lack of innovation.

 

I said that I  know of  it, but failed to demonstrate it to him with the offered half-dollar. I asked for a quarter, but he said that it was impossible to do the muscle pass with a quarter.    When I showed him the muscle pass with a quarter, he said “Well that must be something else”.

 

Heh.

 

 

The other day I was getting coffee at Blue Bottle and this six-year-old girl was asking her father how “He came back to life”.  I presume she was talking about Aslan,  C.S. Lewis’s Christ figure in the Chronicles of Narnia.   “Magic” her long haired beatnik father replied.

The girl wasn’t buying it though, and expressed her doubt.

The father said “but that’s the best use for magic, coming back to life when someone stabs you in the heart.”  

The girl was obviously looking for the real answer,  the one her father can’t figure out how she wizened to.     Cool.  I had to resist the urge to offer her  encouragement, though I am still rooting for her.

 

 

·         A few weeks ago, in Park City, two guys whose table Dave and I were sharing asked rhetorically, “Well who actually supports the war anymore?”.   I wish I had said “We do”, but I  was trying to play nice.  Well, support it or not, we’re obviously winning.  Yeah, you have to first accept the premise that someone can win a war, but once you do that, the fact that Al Qaida had  their best Bin Laden Impersonator making truce videos bodes well for Western Civilization.   Granted, we have Kennedy, our greatest Senator Impersonator, making surrender videos on our side.

 

·         I was always willing to entertain the ‘Bush is doing more harm that good’ arguments on the strict grounds that the WMD miscalculation may cost us crucial willpower when it came time to trounce Iran.    Things look to be coming to head there now.  France is making some moves to legalize fighting back, which is a good sign.

 

The Germans seem to be a bit conflicted though. Here is a hilarious interview of Rumsfeld in the German magazine Spiegel.   The Germans bring up the Nuclear Ambitions of Iran, something the Atomic Energy Commission  headed by France, Germany, and UK, are supposed to be taking care of.  It the U.N. though, which means its useless except as a pretense. Occasionally Euro-Weenies forget even the pretense:

 

SPIEGEL: The US is trying to make the case in the United Nations Security Council.

Rumsfeld: I would not say that. I thought France, Germany and the UK were working on that problem.

SPIEGEL: What kind of sanctions are we talking about?

Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. I thought you, and the U.K. and France were.

SPIEGEL: You aren't?

Rumsfeld: I'm not talking about sanctions. You've got the lead. Well, lead!

SPIEGEL: You mean the Europeans.

Rumsfeld: Sure. My Goodness, Iran is your neighbour. We don't have to do everything!

SPIEGEL: We are in the middle of regime change in Germany...

Rumsfeld: ... that's hardly the phrase I would have selected.

 

Heh.

 

·    Speaking of Ski trips, I had another great one last weekend, in Tahoe, with a bunch of Georgia Tech Alumni. I made a bunch of friends, and pissed a few people off too.  The University of Florida women too  my Florida Bashing seriously.   The Jack Johnson Jokes hit a nerve I think.

 

I have another trip coming up, with the work crew:  Susun S, Masha B , Justin C, Gina F., and Hugues H. 

 

 

Should be fun.

 

Bug by Dinosaur Jr..    Environmentalists paint a dire picture of what those loose Freon particles do to the ozone in our upper atmosphere. Small doses of pop do the same thing to the thick fog of noise that is this album. But in a good way, like ear wax in beer foam.

 

Lay It Down by Cowboy Junkies .  What is the word for Lugubrious  without the negative connotation?  This is the perfect Coffee CD.  In fact my love of Mornings, Cowjoy Junkies, and Coffee   are all owed to this album.

 

Exile in Guyville by Liz Phair.   What no one gets is that as groundbreaking and sexually charged as this album is, it owes its timelessness to genuine gender-free rock’n’roll swagger.  I cite the balsy guitar intros,  unaffected vocals, and tits-out album cover as evidence.

 

Live at the Old Quarter by Townes Van Zandt.     Townes at the top of his game.   Rhyme schemes so complex you need CAD to chart them.  Imagery unmatched in literature.  Townes used words like great painters used colors, yet effortlessly  maintained melody and narrative.

 

Separation Sunday by The Hold Steady.    I realize that if at any moment you can write about sex, drugs, rock and roll, or religion, its not too hard to come up with clever rhymes. But I’m still impressed.   And so what if every bridge steals rocks clichés that Meat Loaf, Chicago, and Bruce Springsteen made famous, I never listened to those guys anyway.

 

Aeroplane of The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.  The timber of the lead singer’s voice  seems to be the only thing keeping the whole experiment  from flying apart.  A fleshly coming of age story urgently told by a man with an acoustic guitar who is unsuccessfully trying to channel the energy of his chaotic-circus-like band members, who are in fact the  hallucinogenic ghost-avatars of his own childhood confusion and wonderment.  That’s what it sounds like to me , anyway.

 

Grace by Jeff Buckley.  Combine  his ethereal voice with the steadfastly unpredictable song structure and you get a musically unassailable album. Sure, you can call him a  morose suicidal diva, who was a show-off to boot, but you’ll only end up reminding yourself of the wasted potential of  this great Rock Star.

 

 

Being there by Wilco.  Even though it may not hold up as well as their later albums, it was perfect the first 1000  times I listened to it.     The A side could have consisted entirely of Tweedy yelling “I want to thank you all for nothing” and I’d still put it on the list.  

 

 

Martin and Me.   On those days I am  are looking for something fresh in your CD collection to listen too, my finger inevitably stops on this CD.   His wanting vocals and crummy acoustic stylings  seem like a bad joke to casual music listeners.  Somehow Mascis made an album that isn’t made to be listened too, its meant to be listened too AGAIN.

 

O.K. Computer by Radiohead.    The album makes the list on technical and artistic merit alone, since  I have no personal connection to the album ever since Andy told me the line is “Ambition makes you look pretty ugly” as opposed to “That Shirt makes you look pretty ugly”. This CD, which stayed in my CD player for  an entire year,  was so thoroughly burned into my head that I had to go searching for a sonic brillo-pad to scrape it off. That’s how I fell in love with Dinosaur Jr. (See #1)

So the Patriots have to go to Denver to play the Broncos.  Lets check in with our resident New England Fan, Dolorous Ed Dordea.

 

sean: nervous about the rematch?

epd00: after saturday's game..i have confidence oozing

sean: MMMmmmm oooooze

epd00: dude what is up with republican house leaders...the guy who took over after delay resigned last night to deal with his own criminal charges

sean: huh?

sean: its not in the drudgereport, it must not have happened.  You, my friend, are mistaken

epd00: d'oh never mind, misread that story...thanks a lot brain

sean: wow

epd00: it was talking about Delay's indictment, i misread it as Roy Blunt's...never mind

sean: there is a picute of a cyclops kitten on Drudgereport

epd00: eeewww

epd00: his name is cy....could it have been anything else?

sean: no

epd00: did you see the story under it...Belafonte calls Bush greatest terrorist? and hollywood wonders why nobody's going to the movies

sean: if you have a three legged dog, you name him tripod.  If you have a one eyed cat you call him Belafonte....

 

 

Zab Judah lost again.  This would seem to put more pressure on Mayweather to fight Hatton, or maybe Margarito.   But it also sets up a nice loser’s bracket it Judah were to fight Vivian Harris.     I’d love to watch those two loons fight on the under card of Hatton-Mayweather, a fight I will go see in person.

 

I’ve got a couple ski trips planned, a Crossfit seminar, a Hold Steady concert in Atlanta, and three Broncos Games to watch , all by February 12^th.  This should be fun.

 

So I hooked my grandma up with NetFlix.   I never considered how foreign a DVD menu would be to someone with no computer experience. Thankfully, most movies will play if you mash that button long enough.    I have to maintain her queue, so I would appreciate any recommendations.   

 

She loved  The Notebook, liked Sea Bisquick but was unimpressed with Notting Hill, which was too formulaic for her. She didn’t like the fast-talking Betty Davis in “All About Eve” either. In fact, she complained that both Julia Roberts and Betty Davis always play the same character. She has always liked Pretty Woman and From here to Eternity, two movies I got her years ago.

 Its seems that Grandma has more sophisticated tastes than the rest of the county

Here is what is in her queue right now.

 

  Jazz Singer

  My Big Fat Greek Wedding

  Breakfast at Tiffany's  

  How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days  

  To Kill a Mockingbird  

  The Legend of Bagger Vance

  Pay It Forward  

  Fried Green Tomatoes  

  The Best Years of Our Lives  

  My Fair Lady: Special Edition

  His Girl Friday / Cary Grant on Film

  It Happened One Night  

  The Patriot  

  Meet the Parents

  Meet the Fockers

  Titanic  

  Big Fish

  The 40-Year-Old Virgin   ßI plan on burying this one, which she requested,  at the bottom of the queue.

 

 

In Music news.      I got to thinking about all the poems and songs I have memorzed when I heard the introduction to Pete Yorn's second album.  

 

   I've Seen the Silence Grow Between us

   And not to make this seem so hard

   But All my troubles and my justice fades

   on such cold steel

   I made up this story to change your mind

   I could have been somebody else

   but now I'm me this time.

 

That Album, terrific opening not withstanding, was a big disapointement. But it does serve to highlight just how great "Music for the Morning After" was. Wow, was that a good album.

 

Anyhow, this got me thinking about all the songs and poems I have memorized.  Instantly all the words to Blue Traveller's Hook sprang into my head.  There's some brain cells I could have put to better use.

This is an interesting study on the role of Talent in an organization.   I don't think they make the point that organization structure is more important than talent, only that it is in fact important.   Enron had run amok, crashing in spectacular fashion, but death by the other means, bureaucratic or  organizational suffocation is far more frequent, I would think.

Here is the text of a Steyn speech on his favorite subject, West Civilization Death Cults.

And here it PitchFork's top 50 Albums of the 2005 I have heard far less of these musicians than in any other year.  Is this a turning thirty thing? 

And here is a roundup on how the world faired this year.  Its not comprehensive, focusing on the gulf, and the advance of freedom,  afforded by both politics or weather.

Ok. 'nuff linking.

 

 

Ok, everyone is sick of hearing about my Silver Medal.  Now that I have successfully lobbied Sushi Groove to put a roll on their menu called “Sean’s Silver Medal”  I can let it rest. 

 

The roll is going to contain Sanma, which is a Japanese Mackerel. People in the states don’t like Mackerel because it ‘smells like fish’.   This has always struck me as preposterous.  Would these people rather their fish smelled like taffy? 

 

I am suggesting that they mix some mint with the sushi rice, and then   lay seared sanma atop it.  Sanma is silvery and sweet, like my medal, and the mint adds a refreshing, mountain air to the experience.   

 

I can’t see it being a big seller, but those who like my roll will be recognized as having discernable taste.

 

Meanwhile, my toes are still numb.   I keep waiting for them to start turning black.  I am dreading the conversation with the Ski Store Reps, who promised that they would get the boots to work, or give me a comparable pair.   The boots definitely look used now, which might negate their promise, but if my toes fall off, I think they will fit quite comfortably.

 

They are Lange CRL90’s if you are wondering. They are a bit  flexy, but I think it helps me stay forward, which has always been a problem of mine. Plus, with these skis (2004 Volkl  6 Stars) leaning forward is a must.    So I have read.   

 

Quite Frankly I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  Everything on the web says that  the 182cm version of these skis is too much ski unless you are a 6’5’’ 300 pound Slalom racer with perfect technique,   but I didn’t notice anything except that they went where I pointed them, and refused to slip on ice.  This puts me in the strange position of wanting to take a lesson just so some expert can tell me all the things I don’t know  I am doing it all wrong.

 

Speaking of lessons, I have a Total Immersion Swimming lesson today.  I figured it would be nice to be able to swim with a bit of efficiency.  And, if I ever bump  into Estella Warren at a pool party, this way I’ll have a chance.

TIS is  the yoga of swimming I think. Or maybe the Aikido of swimming.    I have to become one with the water, think like a fish, you know the drill.   

 

Hey what happend to Ms. Warren anyway?

Happy New Year.

 

This years Ski trip was, by all accounts, as success.

 

The weather was fine, the Condos were great, Dear Valley was exceptional, the hot tub was hot, the scotch was warming, the travel easy and conversation easier. Oh, I took home a silver medal in the Slalom.

 

We thought we over bought the liquor, but Dave and I finished strong, leaving only a half bottles of Gin and Construe, and a six pack of beer.   Only two bottles of port were consumed, almost exclusively by Alex and I.

 

Oh, you want to know about the medal?   

Well its not as great as it sounds.  There were age groups, so I only was competing against  the 30 to 39 age group.  Old fogies, them.     There may have been more than one silver medal handed out too. There may not have been, too.  Who knows.  I suspect there was more than one.      Rich pooh-poohed my achievement by noting that the medal had no ribbon attached.    Envy is an ugly thing.

 

The Volkl SusperSports were amazing.  It was on the course, and on the steep groomed runs that they excelled, but I found them responsive through the moguls too.   I never got the impression that 182 cm was too long for me.

 

The boots, on the other hand, were too small.  Me three rightmost toes are still numb.  

 

Walking down sidewinder to the day spa on the fourth day grounded-up the heal too, so I may not be able to get a refund. If they don’t give me one, I will eviscerate them on these pages. The dent in their revenue will learn them good.

 

 

I’ve said it before, but its worth saying again, Happy New Year.