New Year, New Look

Presenting this year's winner of the NYE Mustache Contest.

Behold Eric Oldford's luxurious Chevron: timeless lines, with a touch of southwestern flavor-saving.

Merry Christmas

Christmas ruled. Sara's mom and Sasha have a good bond. Almost as good as Deirdre's face in that picture.

Closing In

Gimme Shelter

The dudes have abided. Abode. Whatever.


Shelter Cove 2007 was even better than 2006. Sweeter house, Wii, White Russians, the whole bit.

The surf wasn't great for Shelter Cove. Even so, it was still good to be in an uncrowded lineup catching short, fun, slow waves. The Wii was a hit, Eric brought Ted Papenhagen and Coz Worthington, and the Big Lebowski just gets better with age. Thanks to Zeke and Andy for the video.

Youth Rules

Biology mandates a sort of cuteness-bond from parent to kid. Every parent thinks their kid is cute, if not the absolutely mostest-cutest baby on Earth, in the history of babies. Right?

Keeping that feeling at bay gets tiring, and once in a while, you let your guard down.

Shh...Don't tell Sasha

First post from Sara!

I knitted this up for Sasha's 1st birthday, coming up on December 10. Made of organic cotton, it reminds me of a ballerina wrap sweater. Now to finish the baby pants I started 2 years ago for her Christmas prezzie...by then they're likely be too small!

Holla

Sara's 30th kicked ass. If you give out free banjo lessons, you know where to find her.

Waving

Sasha likes waving. At people, at shadows, at her reflection, at the empty middle-distance in a room (which doesn't mean she sees ghosts, right?). But she'll wave and wave and wave until she gets a wave back.

Walking back to the car in the CostCo parking lot, Sara (on the last day of her 20's) reiterated the point. "She'll wave at anyone. She waves at people who don't usually get waves, people who usually get ignored on the street. Super-old people, bums, whoever. And it makes their day."

___________

Speaking of waves, it was 10 ft. @ 13 sec. this morning at the jetty.

I brought my board, mainly just to humor myself, but didn't go in.

Get your tickets out, we're going to the gun show.

Tender Waveforms.

There's this show "Radiolab" out of a NY public radio station that is fucking brilliant. If you've not heard it, it's an hourlong documentary show, sort of like This American Life's smarter cousin.

It could be pinnacle of modern storytelling. It's edited is unlike any other show, and if you're not used to it, you have to meet it on it's own terms. The sound is stretched and bent, brushed and scrubbed, hammered and sequined. The sound just sparkles.

So, this week's episode. It's too soon to say "Best Radio Show Of All Time Ever", but it's on my personal list. It's about how they paint with sound. It's like they climbed up my brain and explained stuff back to me that I always almost knew.

This weeks' episode is about the nitty-gritty of editing Radiolab. About how to, say, gut a soundbite for all it's interesting sonic bits. Then how to take those bits, invert them against themselves, and rearrange them to restate the point of the soundbite itself.

Like an audio MC Escher. It's achingly good.

Why?

I am suddenly obsessed with the Writer's Strike.

Can't quite put it together. We love TV, almost evangelically.
("What, you don't have a TV? Wait, what? You killed it??" Ungh. You don't go slashing canvases just because Thomas Kincade walks the earth. You go to better museums. But whatever.)

Does it make sense? No. But writers do the heavy lifting in entertainment, and get zero credit. So, if you walk by a striking writer, which is very unlikely, give them a tongue-kiss.

Unrelated: Humboldt County is a difficult place for escalator enthusiasts.

And Sasha's fine and about to be a year old.

I Had A Gizzle Tizzle

Guess who really likes to smoke pot, have sex, and use the word "motherfucker" in lots of different contexts?

I will say that the show was really fun. They blew some speakers within the first 20 seconds of the show, half the mics weren't on, and they were getting high on stage.

Make no mistake: they came to party, and I have never seen a more enthusiastic crowd at the Muni.

Relatives Love Video

Yu Nork

Saturday


So, the Friday flight out of ACV was cancelled.

Woke at 4:00 am Saturday to catch the next flight out, which was Sac->DC->NY.

All went well on the plane, no troubles. Except for one thing.

You know when you're sitting outside at a campfire, and your eyes can't help but be sucked in by the flame? How awesome is that? OK, now, instead of being outside, imagine you're on a dark plane, and switch that campfire out with the guy in front of you's porta-DVD. And, instead of flames, make it a live Eagles concert DVD. Not even old Eagles. Farewell show, Melbourne, 2005. Of all the bands. I hope it's not a sign.


So, I step out of the NYC subway at 42nd street, which happens to be Times-Square. Sirens, traffic, mayhem, noise, and kettle corn all over the street (I guess a snack cart got smashed or something). I LOVE travel. Serious.

I'm pretty wiped from what turned into a 13-hour door-to-door day, so I've been walking around New York in a daze. It is, though, Saturday night and the streets are hopping.


Blinking lights and screens everywhere. At Times Square, a guy ten feet away collapsed in a what looked like an epileptic seizure. Here's the thought process as I watch this happen:

First few seconds: He's faking it
:10 seconds: He's not, where's a cop?
:20 seconds: This is a total test of whether or not people stop to help him (which, by this time, several people were on the ground with him.) Where's a fucking cop?
:25 A lady is on the cell calling an ambulance
:60 FDNY sirens close in and help arrives; I split.


Sunday

Perfect, just perfect.

Ran for 80 minutes out to the Hudson, chilled for a few, made it over to Central Park and ran back to midtown. Radio: WFUV, WMFU, K-Rock (which should be W-Rock), and Hot 97. Beautiful fall weather. Crisp and golden.

I had not really planned on doing anything other than going down to Greenwich Village, reading the Bob Dylan book, and finding that street they shot the photo of "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" on. Jones Street. Steve Earle lives on Jones, too.

Hopped off the subway at Christopher Street. Wandered for hours. Got just lost enough. Read the local edition of the Sunday NY Times.

I found Washington Square Park, which is a landmark if you're into folk music. Read the Dylan book and watched the action: awesome buskers, street comedians (who were funny and racist against everyone, and the mixed crowd was loving it), picnic-ers.

Close the book and walk off the square. 6:30 pm and the light is doing cool things to the trees, so I'm setting up a photo when this guy stops.

Him: "Can you believe it? Right there in the open. Man."
Me: "What are you talking about?"
Him: "That girl. With the glass pipe. Isn't that what you're taking a photo of?"

Turns out I must've looked like the biggest narc ever. I was evidently framing a shot that had a girl smoking crack in it. My bad.

The guy and me talk for a half hour; George was a 40-something bricklayer from Queens. Used to be in the Marines, his baby-mamma lives in NY but he wants to move back to Tulsa, because New York is heading for social collapse. "I gotsta go, man, I gotta buy a new T-Mobile because I dropped mine into a hollow wall. Fuckin' 200 bucks." I never took that photo.

Monday

Murrow Day.

Patrick and me tour WFUV in the Bronx. Holy smokes. Radio wonderland of gear, staff, and perfect, brand-new studios. Rita the music director was hella cool. We come back through Harlem.


The dinner is that night. It's at the Grand Hyatt between Park and Madison avenues. Doesn't that say it all? Tuxedos, TV and radio people everywhere. CNN's, Anderson Cooper, NBC's Brian Willams, NPR's Michelle Norris, but no Fox people.


Getting the award was weird, they shuffled everyone through the podium quickly. A PA came and got me; put me in line. "When you get the award, shake hands with your right, grab the award with your left, pose for the still, and move down to your left." Then they shuffled us off to the green room for more posing, gripping, grinning, etc. They give everyone a bottle of commemorative white wine.

I walked the mile back to the hotel at 10:00 PM.

Strolled through Times Square in my tuxedo, Clem Snide on the iPod, bottle of wine in hand, which totally made up for that Eagles DVD.