Ralf und Pismo

Once in a while, I pretend that I'm really into my German roots, or at least aware of them. For instance, I'll on occasion feel a twinge of pride when happening across (read "discovering") German music that elevates me to commit acts of finger snapping, or even head bobbing (cynics would blame the mug o' beer in my hand, but I sneer at cynics).

Kraftwerk is (I know, deep down) a phenomenon one might wisely avoid like the plague, let alone embrace. But sometimes Kraftwerk just works (e.g. with a mug o' beer). Thusly, today I'm satisfied to dredge up something I heard recently on the ever-krafty KCPR. From the 1973 album Ralf Und Florian, it's "Tanzmusik."

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And in honor of this weekend's beautiful, mellow summer surf, here is my very own California beach.

...and if you look really really hard, you can just barely make out my house in the distance, just behind the....ummmm....sand.

Transpacificism

Ben Gibbard isn't getting old at all. We went to see Death Cab For Cutie tonight at the SB Bowl, and they were so un-disappointing, nay terrific, that I felt a little bad for thinking Narrow Stairs is rather a valley amidst their consistent series of album-release peaks to date.

Secretly, I had feared they would only play the new album front-to-back and exit the stage leaving us sorely unsatisfied, glum, and willing to pathologically re-think all of our relationships since childhood and deem ourselves complete failures. Secretly, I wished Ben would consult me while putting together the set list for tonight, so that I could rescue the band from certain doom. ("Trust me, I know this SB crowd, and they're not going to want to get stoned while contemplating 'pity and fear.' They, like, wanna hear about glove compartments, bro.")

Lucky for me, I had no reason to worry. DCFC, as if reading my sentimental soul, took on all my favorites from the last six releases, plus they rocked out and made us very okay with Narrow Stairs (as if I needed help with that). I couldn't have crafted their set better myself--unless I made them play for another couple of hours. From Ben's acoustic "follow you into the dark" interlude, to the opener for Something About Airplanes, to "Manhattan" to what would have been my pick for the only friggin' way to end the show--the back-to-back encore "Tiny Vessels" bleeding into "Transatlanticism" (which, so you know, has positively nothing to do with the distance between California and Hawaii, and IS NOT even remotely an apt metaphor whatsoever for my impending trans-Pacific lifestyle move)--DCFC delivered the finest performance I could have custom-designed. Dangit, I sound like a fan. Wait, I am a fan. I bought a shirt. Does that mean I'm a fan? I have all their albums. Does that mean I'm a fan? I listen to them all the time. Does that mean....?

Those Nigerians

Came across some crazy 1970's Nigerian jazz tonight from a group called The Funkees. The song I'm listening to is "Akula Owu Onyeara."

...but different.

Conversation at work today:

Me: "Between quitting work and throwing out all kinds of junk at home getting ready to leave California, it's been a very cleansing time for me."

Friend: "Yeah, that must be what dying feels like: yay, I don't have to deal with all this s**t anymore!"

SMD / Napa

Checked out some stuff this evening from rockers-turned-electronicists Simian Mobile Disco. Good solid stuff. I liked "Simple" and "Hustler." Almost makes me want to go buy jeans at A&F. Almost.

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The weekend was very cool.....er, um hot. Record-settingly hot! But luckily we were in Napa to help Cole and Brianna get married at Uncle Bill's vineyard.

Soon to be a bottle of Caymus near you. Crazy!

Garage, I'm yours (for the next 40 days)

The garage is getting emptier (and yet more chaotic) by the minute!

And I think this is officially the first trunk-load to be launched northward for a two-plus-year respite in the parents' garage. (Thanks parents!)

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Enough with the ear-catching, foot-tapping new releases already!!! I wanted very much to hate the new single, "I'm Yours" from Jason Mraz, but I simply cannot. I really need to move to some country where "Top-Forty-ness" doesn't exist, just to get back in touch with my indie-sensors.

(Does Honolulu qualify as a different country? Hmmmmmm...)

Chromatics / Truman Pond

Yet another cool thing about our neighborhood: the [mosquito-infested] duck pond.

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Caught this very good song "I Want Your Love" by Chromatics on my drive home today.

Buhlud! No funnyyyyyyyyyy!

Funniest video ever.

LA sucks.

Lakers.
Up by 24.
At home.

And still lose it?

Sorry guys, you deserve it.

Bringing down the house!

Okay, I totally don't agree with his hair (maybe I'm just jealous??) but Newton Faulkner has that very catchy song "Dream Catch Me" that they play all the time on one of those Santa Barbara top-40 stations that I'm embarrassed to have as a pre-set in my work truck. I usually don't do this, but today I'm a sentimental fool and the blogability meter went off when I heard it for the 147th time.

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Spent a very happy weekend at home with the parents. Got to impress the wifie yet again with my mad hammer-wielding skizzles as Dad and I totally destroyed the front porch of their house -- it's okay, it's a re-build job. Seriously, nobody can't not take down a roof better than me and Dad. Nice work, dude!

El Morro!

And then there was the Spanish fort. Giant cannon balls, clever little stone gun turrets, open-air peeing areas....what's a guy not to like? It turns out this place we were staying (old San Juan) is the oldest city with the US flag flying above it. And nothing says "old" like a 16th-century stone fort. And let me tell you, this wasn't like those little dirt forts I used to make back in the desert in Riverdale growing up. This thing was serious. Like twenty foot thick walls serious.

And ironically just a little over a hundred years ago we tried to bomb this place back to the stone age during the Spanish American War. Now we are proud owners. Hmmmmm.....

Lechonera!

Okay, I know. My "picture-a-day" mission has failed. But I can try to explain.

I've been in Puerto Rico for a week, and due to a slight failure in communication with our vacation-rental landlord, I found out too late that "free internet" didn't mean "free wi-fi." See, I had intended all along to post a few pictures every day from our vacation (it was our 2-year anniversary last week, by the way!) and I took my laptop along and everything. But, as it turns out, there was no wireless interweb-ness, and so I was stuck with just an extra 6.35-pound brick in my carry-on. So back in Cali I'm left to catch up and present something of the magic that was....our week-long vacation in PR.

So tonight, while I don't have much time, let me just say this: a while back, the wifie and I were viewing one of our favorite Travel Channel shows featuring scrumptious and exotic foods from around the world being lovingly, hungrily searched out and summarily consumed, and we watched food-man extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain wolf down chunks of succulent roast pig-on-a-spit in Puerto Rico. We turned to each other and said: "we must go there." And so it was that we found ourselves, 2 years after our wedding day, at Lechonera Los Pinos up above the town of Cayey, watching a large man hack apart our lunchtime feast with a very intimidating knife-sword. And it was everything we hoped it would be.

Mission accomplished.