mth - timshel!

shake itlike a polaroid picture

Mine are...
The Minutemen
Yo La Tengo
Stereolab
Pavement
Neutral Milk Hotel

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Pull My Strings And I'll Go Far

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code: orange
I'm on alert!

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And To Top It All Off, Today Was The Bay To Breakers
Last night, I wanted to look up my site, and typed the URL into the address bar. The address failed to resolve, and kicked me over to Yahoo, my default search page (I never use the default search, but had changed it to Yahoo from whatever came set up.) So, when I type in my address, this page comes up instead.

The third entry immediately made me do a double take (".ru, isn't that Russia? Hey, that's Cyrillic!"), and I clicked through to the link, which appears to be a Russian language medical news site. (My sherlock holmes powers noted the cross, and "novosti" = "the news" in russian according to babelfish).

I saw that they've used a picture I took last year at the Bay to Breakers, and had credited the photo to my website. That's happened before, and I don't typically care when people use/swipe the images I post to the web as long as they credit me. It makes me feel better about all my mp3s... But they'd doctored the photo, and so I was like 'what the fuck?' and looked the site up on Babelfish, because it was kind of an odd shot to begin with.

Last year, after the race was over, H. and I walked through Golden Gate Park, surveying the carnage. We came across this Red Cross emergency truck driving slowly through the park, and behind it was a group of people hanging off the back, pulling a shopping cart with a keg of beer. Then we noticed that one of the guys hanging off of the back was a friend of ours, and that's the picture. This Russian news page had cropped the picture to remove the guys hanging off the back, and photoshopped out the words "American Red Cross Emergency First Aid" and used it for an (April 14) story about a WHO truck gone awry in Iraq, making it appear that this truck towing drunken idiots in rainy San Francisco was a WHO truck heroically trying to make it through the Iraqi desert to Baghdad.

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Take That Ani
Last night, I went with Harper and my mom to go see Dar Williams at the Fillmore. I've seen Dar before. Twice, actually. I always have a good time. I'm not exactly way into folk music, but I've always like Dar a hell of a lot. She's got a great voice, writes spectacular thought-provoking lyrics, and is a hell of a songwriter. She's also quite a storyteller, and typically introduces her songs in grand fashion. (Even better, she doesn't tell the same old stories all the time.) Dar even tends to rock out, and now has a full, straight-up rock and roll band backing her. All of which is to say (fellas) it ain't Lillith Fair. You should check it out.

Anyway.

We're at the show and I'm sort of looking around for Brooke the whole time. We'd seen Brooke at the Dar show at Bimbos (and then there's the Dar interview she did for Mother Jones) and I generally expected she'd be around. Brooke's my old boss and a friend who I haven't seen in a while. She was allegedly going to show up at Jared's birthday, but failed to appear thus disappointing everyone and making us cry and wail and sing dirges and rip out our hair and chew on our veins and all that. You would have thought she would have showed up. Or at least called and said "hey, I can't make it," or "yo, I might not make it," or at the very least "gee, your hair smells terrific."

But no.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So I'm looking around for Brooke anyway. Keeping an eye open, really. So when Dar says something about her friend Brooke, me already having Brooke on the brain, I wonder if perhaps she's talking about the same Brooke I'm looking for. Who knows?

Harper, who looks forward to Dar shows much in the same way I look forward to smashing the state, had gone downstairs to wrestle her way through the scrum and moon at Dar from the front row early in the concert. I stayed upstairs with Mom, who needed to keep a seat (*). Not long after Dar made the Brooke comment, I went downstairs to find Harper. (Which turned out to be remarkably easy. I'll say this for the Dar crowd, they're damn polite. Instead of the usual shoving and pushing and bludgeoning that's required to get to the front, I found that a simple "excuse me" would cause people to apologize and then yield the floor. It was utterly crazy. I had a real Moses moment when I accidentally said "excuse me please" and the crowd opened up all the way to the stage. Several people immediately left to go work in a soup kitchen as penance.) I ask Harper, "do you think Dar was talking about Brooke Biggs?" We wondered.

I headed back upstairs, and had my question answered when Dar again stopped the show to give Brooke another shoutout, and proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes pimping Brooke's new book. She starts carrying on a conversation with Brooke, who's in the audience after all. They got together and did a dramatic reading from the Illiad. They made punch and jam and didn't invite anyone else to join in. They wrote notes to each other and passed them back and forth without letting anyone else see, giggling the whole time and pointing at us. They dipped our braids in inkpots and locked little Laura Ingalls in the root cellar.

So how cool was that!?! I mean, they stop the rock show to talk about your book. Your book? Herve Villachez wept.... I've never. Never. (Although I did hear about the McSweeney's/They Might Be Giants show in Berke-town.)

So here's the deal Dar (because I know you read my site). Brooke's great and everything. A Sojourner for the modern era. A hammer in the cogs of the machinery of man. Or something. Just don't ever make plans to meet her at Lucky 13...

*Mom and I were sitting up in balcony at the Fillmore, but in one of the tables against the wall without a view of the stage. Since this was the first concert my Mom had been to since 1994, I was, you know, kinda hoping she might be able to see. But she's not in the best of health, so I didn't think 3+ hours of standing on the floor was a good idea either. So I go up to one of the users, succinctly explain my situation and (for the first time in my life) offer the user a $20 to let us sit in some of the empty reserve seats. No luck.

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I Feel Much Better Now
I feel much better now, thank you. I'm feeling good. Confidant. Unafraid. Full of hope. I feel like investing in the future. I feel the dawning of a new America, at the helm of a new world.

I'm glad I don't have to worry about the mail anymore. Glad, that the U.S. military strain of Anthrax that once wrought havoc on our great nation's postal system, not to mention the congress, will never threaten us again.

I'm thankful that we smoked Osama Bin Laden out of his hole, and busted up Al Queda. That we punished Mullah Omar. That after winning the war with the Taliban, we have made ourselves safe from terrorism.

I thank God that I no longer have to worry about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. After seeing how a desperate and afraid Saddam used them during wartime to save his own skin, I cannot imagine what he might have done to the civilian population in our own country when we least expected it.

And I'm profoundly comforted to know that after liberating Afghanistan and Iraq (and getting our troops out quickly), the Islamic world will never have cause to again hate us.

I'm relieved that our foreign policy has made the world a better, more stable place. That we will not be drawn into a conflict in the Koreas, Pakistan, India, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Iran or Colombia. That we can form a Coalition of the Willing with new friends like Eritrea, Estonia, El Salvador and ~~The Solomon Islands~~, while never alientaing our traditional allies. It assures me to know we have better relatons with, and are better loved by, all the people of world than ever before. America has always been a beacon of democracy, liberty, justice and the rule of law. It is vital that we stand by these traditions.

For the sake of our children, I'm pleased that we care for the environment, yet ensure that we're sensitive to the needs of industry as well. Opening unused lands for their natural resources just makes sense. If we do not need these assets now, when will we?

I feel upbeat about the economy. I have faith in the our current economic plan, assured that it will address the needs of ordinary people. I believe budget deficits, tax breaks, and military spending will stimulate economic growth and create jobs, just like in the 80s and early 90s.

I feel much better now, thank you.

Vote Bush.

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Some Bands I've Seen
A woefully incomplete list...

Hall & Oates, Billy Idol+, The Oak Ridge Boys+, The Beach Boys+ (minus Brian Wilson), Alabama+, Jane's Addiction (original lineup), Nirvana, Blind Melon*, Pavement*, Widespread Panic*, The Allman Brothers Band*, Government Mule*, REM*, James Brown, Sound Tribe Sector Nine*, Frank Black, Mike Watt*, Bob Mould, Dave Lowry/ Cracker*, J. Mascis* (w/ Ron Asheton & Mike Watt), Metallica*, Follow For Now*, Grateful Dead*, Jerry Garcia Band, Steve Kimock Band, US Maple, Come, The Breeders*, Suicidal Tendencies, Blues Traveller, Dave Matthews Band**, Stereolab, Mission of Burma, Ziggy Marley, Oysterhead, Primus, Butthole Surfers, Beastie Boys*, Incredible Skratch Piklz, George Clinton, Burning Spear, Screaming Trees*, Neil Young* (w/ Crazy Horse, Booker T & the MGs), Sonic Youth*, Cat Power*, The Dirty Three, Barry Manilow, Bob Dylan, Liz Phair, Poe, Sarah McLaughlin, The Chieftans*, Steve Earle, Lenny Kravitz, Stone Temple Pilots, Red Kross, They Might Be Giants, Dread Zeppelin, Billy Pilgram, The Indigo Girls, George Winston, Michael Hedges, Vic Chessnut*, Grandaddy, Of Montreal, Call & Response, The Andy Peters Show, Allgood*, Donkey*, Kevn Kinney/ Drivin & Cryin*, Erase Errata, The Donnas, Peaches, The Shins, Mercury Rev, Cowboy Mouth, Presidents of the USA, Spearhead/Michael Franti*, Flap, Belle & Sebastian, Jonathan Richman, Dar Williams, Col. Bruce Hampton*, Drip, David Lee Roth, Tesla, Built to Spill, Caustic Resin, Eyes Adrift, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones, Steve Malkmus & The Jicks, The Cult*, Peanut Butter Wolf, NWA (circa Straight Outa Compton), LL Cool J, De La Soul, Slick Rick, Ice T, James Taylor, Soundgarden, Cake, Natalie Merchant, David Byrne, Pink Floyd (minus Roger Waters & Syd Barrett), Follow For Now*, Fela Kuti, Nels Cline Trio, The Toasters, Bad Brains (with HR), Fishbone, Felix & The Cats, Derek Trucks*, Five-Eight*, Redneck Grease Deluxe*, Dreams So Real, Sonny Ledford, The Connells*, Athens Grass, The Archers of Loaf, Los Lobos, The Beta Band*, Bloodkin, Morphine, Burning Brides, My Morning Jacket, Barbra Mandrell

My apologies to scores of great Atlanta/Athens bands that I loved and yet still managed to leave off the list, somehow. Very nearly everyone I ever saw at The Masquerade. And too many even here in the Bay Area.

+Indicates half-time style disposable entertainment.
*Seen more than once.
**But the first was a really, really long time ago, I swear! Before his first album came out, even. I have no excuse for the others.

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I Read 24 Books While I Was Gone
Nina pointed out that all my ratings were really high. Yeah. Well. These are just the books I read cover-to-cover. There were plenty of others that I started and never finished. And of course the ratings are obviously totally subjective, in some cases having to do more with my mood or the environment than the particulars of a book. But I do have a new favorite author, Mr. Haruki Murakami

I'll update my booklist soon enough.

2002
Skin Tight -- Carl Hiassen
Them - Jon Ronson
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Burmese Days - George Orwell
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
South of the Border, West of the Sun - Haruki Murakami
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
How to be Good - Nick Hornby

2003
The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien
Glue - Irvine Welch
The Names - Don DeLillo
First They Killed My Father - Lounng Ung
The Salesman - Joseph O'Conner
Dreamcatcher - Stephen King
Fellowship of the RIng - J.R.R. Tolkien
A Fine Balance - Rohin Minstry
Are You Experienced - William Sutcliffe
Norweigan Wood - Haruki Murakami
Hearts In Atlantis - Stephen King
Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut
Spiritual Gifts of Travel - Various
The Bretheren - John Grisham
Mr Nice - Howard Marks
The Tesseract - Alex Garland

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"If the Iraqis did not use them ... to defend an invasion of their own country, when were they ever going to use them, and how were they a threat to the United States?" asked Cato Institute's Pena. "That's the question that has to be asked and is being glossed over."

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Stalking Jonathan Richman
Last Friday, I stalked Jonathan Richman. First, when we were eating at Golden Era, this vegetarian Vietnamese/pan Asian place, in walks JR with his coitere of, like, three other people. One of whom appeared to be his date. I said, "hey, check it out, that's Jonathan Richman." "Who?" We weren't sure about it until one of his dinner companions called him Jonathan. He actually kinda looked more like Bruce Springsteen.

We paid our bill and left, and walked past the Great American Music Hall, where we were going to see Cat Power and The Dirty Three. We walked around for a bit, looking for a bar. But since the doors opened soon, we decided just to wait in line. There, standing in front of us, was Jonathan Richman. Between us stood a group of three hipster type girls. Where did they come from?

We stayed downstairs, on the floor, for a long time. One of the bartenders was sneezing, and joking about SARS. Ha-ha! That's funny, asshole. After Cat Power finished, we went upstairs, looking for a place to sit. Or at least lean. And lean we did. Right behind Jonathan Richman. He got up midway through the set and left. Just before D3's frontman, Warren Ellis, gave him a shoutout. Around this time, the upstairs area filled with the smell of marijuana smoke. Coincidence? I don't have any reason to think that it might have been Jonathan Richman smoking pot upstairs at the Great American Music Hall. But then again, this is San Francisco.

Yesterday, I walked outside and saw my mailman sitting in his truck. Oming. I walked to the market. When I came back, he was still there in his front-seat-on-the-wrong-side. "Ooooooooooooooooommmmmmm."

In any case, when I went outside, there was Jonathan Richman again. He was just standing there talking to somebody. It was too easy. There was a van, an econoliner or something like that, parked in the loading zone in front. It had been there all night, it had to be one of the bands. Inside, there was a copy of Man in Black, by Johnny Cash.

I'm guessing that was Chan Marshall's.

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