They just don't make water-dispensing firearms like they used to

The garden is growing like mad! Mad I tell you!

A while back Matt gave me some Peter Bjorn and John to listen to (Writer's Block), and on my drive to work I've gotten stuck on "Young Folks."

The new Puerto Rico book is here!

And it's a beauty.

Now I just have to learn how to say "Vieques" without sounding like a fool.

And today's song is "Motorcrash" from Life's Too Good by The Sugarcubes. So good!



And yes, I know I AM A SLACKER.

With apologies to B. Kays

At the end of episode 7 of Breaking Bad there's a very groovy track that starts to play just as credits roll, and I was thinking "That's very good, one of those Nina Simone remixes, right?" Wrong. Not even waiting for it to play out, I consulted the Google, and was instantly filled with a deep self-loathing: Gnarls Barkley. How could I have fallen for that? To acknowledge the hypnotic coolness of something coming from an outfit who have so recently been atop the singles charts all over the entire world....what would my old Stenner roommates say? Have I really let my morals slip, compromised my musical soul?

Well yes, yes I have. I've just been listening to it again (and again) and gosh it's good. With a Thievery Corporation kind of goodness. Or like one of those Nick Drake tunes they'll still be using in soundtracks a generation from now.

Anyway, that (*ahem*) amazing song is called "Who's gonna save my soul" and it's on last month's album The Odd Couple.

Great, now I've got to go bury all my Radiohead stuff in the backyard.

Props to the local boys

Today's feature: a SLO band! Oh, but to be fair, they've since moved to San Francisco, where music is for real. Nevertheless, Scissors for Lefty's song "Next to Argyle" is nothing if not catchy, held up by a tastefully minimal post-punk sensibility. Just a hint of The Cure there on that track?? Anyone? Anyone? And that sweet guitar solo 3 minutes in is totally Dean Wareham-ish. Just thought I'd point it out. Makes me happy.

So it's been freakishly cold here this week, but, thanks mostly (I think) to my nifty greenhouse invention on the back porch these seedlings have decided to make an appearance anyway. Cantaloupes, cucumbers, and in the foreground, lettuce.

earth day

It ain't boring cuz it's my backyard

From the bedroom window this morning. Frank Lloyd Wright's got nothin'!

Listen to Frightened Rabbit doin' "The Twist."

Oysters / Tapes 'n Tapes

Check out Tapes 'n Tapes....



....and this impressive collection of oyster shells under the little oak tree just off our back porch. I swear every weekend there are more.

Carrizo! / Fleet Foxes

they're the coolest!

Well I was admittedly very ambitious when I said I would post a picture a day. I have slacked, but for good reason: this weekend spent on the Carrizo Plain with Anna and Matt. There was much merriment, including but not limited to beers and steaks, baby owls in the tree above where we slept, Indian rock paintings, and the salt flats of Soda Lake. Oh, and I regret to inform that we were unable to jump up and down with enough vigor to cause an earthquake on the San Andreas fault. Sorry, we tried.

And music today comes from Fleet Foxes. I'm just going to go ahead and recommend the entire EP Sun Giant because it rules! I haven't come across a band this exciting in a while. If you took a tight bunch of hippies, stuck them in a cathedral to sing hymns and folk songs directed by a Gregorian monk, gave them little more than a drum set and a mandolin, this is exactly how good it would sound. Four stars!

El Perro del Mar

Sure, it's simple, but how can you go wrong with airy vocals and lyrics like "oh what a feeling for a dog" El Perro del Mar. The song is "Dog."

You'll just have to wait for the photo post, cuz the crew are headed out to Carrizo for the night.

April 10, 2008

My co-worker Matt assures me that stopping on the way home from work to take a picture of this field of lupines is "so gay." Nonetheless:

Hey, this didn't turn out anything like I wanted it to!

But shortly afterward, I heard the old "At This Moment" by Billy Vera & the Beaters, and forgot all about that. Sappy and undeniably catchy!

Let the ho-hum photography begin!

So, in a shameless identity crisis of sorts, I realized just the other day that I have approximately one hundred days left to live.....on the Central Coast of California. Before I move to Hawaii. Yeah, cue the pity party. But really, I think of all the happy times here, from Cal Poly days onward, and think "okay, I'm justified in feeling nostalgic and maybe a bit messed up right now."

And to chronicle these last hundred or so days and capture alternately those happy times and these nostalgic bursts of confusing pain, I decided the best way I know to document this pre-Hawaiian crisis is with two of my favorite things: photos and songs.

It's about as artsy as I get. Yep, over the next few (sometimes uncontrollable-sobbing-fit-inducing) days I intend to take a pic a day, and find a new song every day that makes me perk my ears up, or at least not want to hurt myself.

WARNING: the pics will be VERY ORDINARY. The songs will be....well....given my unflagging taste for anything indie....everything from very un-memorable to pretty darn good to mind-blowing. And I'm a sucker for covers and most anything Stevie Nicks sang in the old days, so unexplainable choices might creep in now and then. Just go with it, future me.

So to begin with: today's song is from Arcadio and is called "Birds in the Belly".


And this is my backyard this evening. So ugly, but I've spent so many happy hours here!!!