Video fun

Somehow the time has slipped away from me again, and I find myself rather tired and feeling a little less than creative. I have a feeling that perhaps an hour ago I could have cranked out an interesting and entertaining post for tonight, but instead I will draw on the strength of others and give you folks a few videos to help you through the day.

A compelling look at the human race:


The Raveonettes playing "Aly Walk with Me" on Letterman:


I won't say anything more than "watch the drummer":


For some reason, I not only like this song, I love the video:


A little Family Guy/Jackass fun:


And finally, a little cutural heritage:

Working it.

Sorry, dear readers. I know you seldom expect a Saturday night/Sunday morning blog, but seeing how this is the first Saturday night I've spent in for months, I figured I could at least blog about that. I am apologizing, however, because my blog will be brief. For the third time in the past week, I offered my moving services to good friends, and spent a great deal of the day schlepping boxes. Pete, Sara - don't go thinking I'm complaining, just stating the fact that my body is weary.

Anyhow, the day's work certainly put a bit of a damper on my usually gung-ho bargoing energy on Saturday nights. Rather, I spent the evening poking away at my computer, doing some reading, and catching up with some friends. And I guess I have to admit: it was kind of nice. Not to mention easy on the wallet. So if you're like me, and find yourselves out most every weekend mixing it up at the bars, take a week off and experience how fun it can be. If you're the opposite, and spend most weekends in, splurge a little and go tie one on (always within reason, of course). It's a fascinating little experiment to alter what can become routine for some of us.

I'll be back tomorrow evening with some recommendations of some new (and some not-so-new) music that has caught my ear in recent weeks. Until then, I'm going to take a nice hot relaxing shower.

At long last.

I finally bought a new bike. I wound up with a hybrid - a Raleigh Passage 4.5, and it's sweet as all hell. I couldn't be more pleased with it.

I will also say this: I am wildly impressed with the staff at Valencia Cyclery. Everyone I talked to was really knowledgeable, friendly, patient, and most importantly, helpful. Unless you already swear your allegiance to another shop - help these folks out. They are still independently owned, which is great to know as well.

I've got plenty of other musings about life as well as more recommendations about all sorts of stuff, but I have a very early morning ahead of me, and I need to get some shut-eye.

Until tomorrow.

That's just gross.

Folks, you know me. At least most of you do. I'd be fascinated if people reading this didn't at least have a general concept of who I am. Anyhow... you all know that I am far from "easily offended" and I sure as hell am far from a prude. Now, with that in mind, I will say this: I find it very off-putting when dirty old men make remarks about younger women, be they on the street or just celebrities. I take even more of an issue when the comments are made to either a) me or b) a casual acquaintance.

"So Bill," you ask, "what brings this on?" I'm glad you asked. So I am, as I tend to be, sitting at the coffee shop. I am, as I tend to be, reading a book with my headphones on. Unfortunately, I am sitting on the couches again. I am sitting next to an asian female who is probably about my age, who is poking away on her laptop. Another gent, who is kind of a blowhard from all that I have observed in our encounters at the coffee shop, comes in and sits by her. I can pretty much ignore much of their small talk, until she shows the older gent a video on her laptop. It's some Asian (Chinese, I believe) girlpop trio, and she is literally beside herself at how attracted she is to one of the members. She immediately asks him if he is as attracted to the girl as she is. I find this odd, as there has to be at LEAST a twenty year gap in their ages. They continue this discussion of attractive female celebs for no less than ten minutes. They are each on their laptops, frantically seeking out pictures of attractive women, all of whom seem to be in the twenty-something age range.

As I said, I have no issue sharing my thoughts on the finer points of the female sex. I will droll over ladies as much as most of the next guys. What I will not do is sit about with a casual acquaintance and obsess over female celebrities in a room somewhat full of people. Yes, I may blog about all the hot female musicians, but if anyone doesn't really give a damn, they can navigate away from my page. Plus, I will add that, generally speaking, society would not consider it "gross" for me to state my attraction to many of those fine female musicians, as we are within a moderate age range of each other. Even still, I also have the tact to refrain from making lewd comments about the finer points of said ladies.

I guess what I'm getting at in a very roundabout way, especially when added to my fat guy experience the other night is that people need to remember the importance of tact. Yes, in our society where everyone can hide behind a computer screen and live their lives via broadband connections, there are still human connections that occur on a daily basis whether you plan them to or not. I realize that much of the time I am ridiculously self-conscious, but I am beginning to fear that I need to be that way in order to balance out the handfuls of people I run into on a day-to-day basis who just have no clue. But maybe that's just me.

Yet another "stuff" discussion.

I've spent two of the last four days helping my buddy Sean Peezy and his special lady friend move into their new apartment. I am always available to my friends to help them move, but this time it was a little different as they are moving into a fourth-floor walk up.

All those trips up and down all those steps got me thinking: god help me when I move out. More than anything else, I have to figure out what the hell will happen with all the music gear that is currently choking my basement. I literally have enough to backline for the Eagles. I'll leave it at that because I don't know who may stumble across this posting... But still, seeing Sean, who is very similar to me in that we both play music, have fathers who are techie pack-rats, and are in school FOREVER (hence lots of books) struggling with all of his belongings and how to properly confine them now that he's not in a four-bedroom house has made me realize: I will be sorting though stuff for like a year when I'm getting ready to move. Oh well.

But I'm curious: what is it about our culture that brings us to hoard things? Is it our culture? The economy? I mean, we're all about disposable everything, but people in our day and age are consumers like the world has never seen before. What used to happen before everyone had a laptop, cell phone, a TV in every room, video game systems, and a remote to run everything in your house? Yes, I realize the irony of the fact that I stand here listening to music on my iPod, which is plugged into the extension speakers I usually have connected to my laptop while I type away on an external keyboard with a wireless USB mouse. I'm not immune to the scrutiny, but that doesn't stop my curiosity. Hell, in an attempt to be more ecologically sound, I still have all six cell phones that my clumsy ass has run through in the past five years. I have the speakers they took out of my car when I got the new stereo installed some four years back. Still, I fall back to the "out of sight, out of mind" thing -- those things aren't down in my hermitage, so I don't really care that they're still floating about me somewhere.

I guess what I'm saying is: look at things a bit more objectively. Do you really need that other book? Don't they have it at the library? Will you really use that CD much after you've imported it into your computer, or does it make sense to get half of your money back if it's going to sit on a rack gathering dust for years? Again, I know I obsessively horde music, but hey, cut a guy some slack.

Okay, I am tired, my back is a little sore and it's far later than I'd like to admit. Sleep well, kiddies.

Fat guys.

Okay, before I even begin to get into all this, I will calm your confused minds. This will not be a self-pitying entry on the sad state of my waistline, nor will it be me decrying anyone overweight, as I know I am, technically, among those ranks. Rather, tonight I look at what I consider to be a rather uniquely American phenomenon: the fat guy.

Now, I am not saying that one's weight immediately lumps them into this category. I will not claim that the behaviours I will be discussing are completely foreign to thin people. But as I was sitting at the coffee shop tonight, I had a rather unsavory encounter with a gastronomical giant.

Allow me to set the scene: it's about 8:45, and not too long ago I got my cup of coffee and had settled in on the couch at my coffee shop. I generally do not like sitting on the couch because not only is it a deeeeep couch that requires some effort to stand from, it also invites people to sit RIGHT next to you, and those of you who really know me know that I'm all about personal space. However, on this particular evening the couch was the only option afforded to me. After a brief period of uninterrupted reading, I notice an especially large figure literally waddle into the doorway. I subtly glance around and realize that the two couch seats to my right are the only seats available. The large man (I even hesitate to use gentleman for this particular person) moves towards me, and plops (not places, plops his tote bag full of belongings down RIGHT next to me on the couch. Unfazed, I keep reading. Then, I start to get annoyed -- he stands and hunches over so that he may remove his jacket and hat, sticking his big ass roughly eight to ten inches from my face. I understand the cramped quarters that can at times be brought about in the coffee shop, but this is a bit uncalled for. He then turns around and I see it: the hanging stomach. Now, there is one glaring warning sign that accompanies all "fat guys" and that is the stomach that hangs out from underneath your clothing. This guy had it. He had it bad. There was probably a solid three inches of hanging flab that was seeing daylight, and it was seeing daylight less than a foot from my face.

Still, unperturbed I return to my book as biggie moves over to the counter to order. Here he makes his second glaring mistake. He used the ATM, and had some issue that was preventing him from getting his money out. Despite the fact that there was an empty counter with incredibly friendly (I speak from experience here) employees maybe five feet behind him, he won't budge. Rather, he bellows out some question to the staff over his shoulder. I have my headphones in, and boy did I appreciate them tonight. This is one of a few instances where this man moves from "overweight person" to "fat guy". Rather than walking a few steps to ask a question politely, he stands stock still and hollers until assistance comes to him.

He also made what I perceive to be another fatal "fat guy" decision: he orders a sandwich, a chocolate chip cookie, a brownie, and a cup of coffee. He fills up his cup with coffee, and spills a goodly amount of coffee on his way to the couch. To the point where I heard the splashing and had to quickly pull my feet back so as not to have brown stains on my black Vans. Then, he sits on the couch. He doesn't apologize to me, he doesn't apologize to the staff. He doesn't hesitate. He won't clean it up, nor will he bring the spill to the staff's attention so they can attend to the puddle of coffee on the ground. As soon as he sits down, he polishes off the brownie. It was there, then it was gone. He licks his fingers, a move which is okay in the comfort of your own home, but something I personally find revolting to do in public. He waits a moment, pulls out the cookie, eats a quarter of it, and tosses it aside because his sandwich shows up. While he eats, I can't help but overhear, sneaking in around the music I'm listening to, that he makes little puffing noises from time to time while eating and chewing. So I now have auditory stimuli to accompany my visuals. He then turns to the sandwich. He took his time, however every time I glanced over, not only did he have mayonnaise and dressing running down his face, he had a small garden of lettuce and other fixings that had accumulated on his man-teats and belly. He gets roughly halfway through the sandwich, then makes a worse mistake: he falls asleep.

Now, he is asleep, dressing on the chin, lettuce on the belly, sandwich still in hand as a matter of fact. He just leans his head back on the couch and nods right off. Thank heavens that soon enough, one of the baristas comes around and wakes him up because his snoring was becoming a tad too loud for concentration. He says something quickly in reply and turns back to the sandwich. He polishes it off, retrieves his cookie, knocks that out lickity-split, and is all but ready to leave. However, he realizes that he doesn't have a napkin. Rather than getting up from the couch and walking seven feet to the napkins on the counter, he grabs his discarded sandwich receipt and wipes his mouth on it. It's at this point where I'm about to lose my dinner. Worse still, when finished with the now-soiled receipt, he drops it on the floor. And what happens to be a few inches from its landing spot? That's right: my feet. Fortunately, his wiping of the mouth, regardless of the paper that was doing the wiping, at least marked his departure from the coffee shop.

Now, I must make a brief side-note here... he also ate all of this food doing one thing that I despise whether the eater be fat, thin, male, female, or other: he spent the whole time chewing with his mouth open. I don't know if you people have a distaste for this act like I do, but it sends shivers up my spine. The hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Nothing ruins whatever state I happen to be in like the sound of someone smacking their gums as they masticate some food. It's like listening to a fucking cow chew it's cud, and it is flat-out disgusting.

So I think: what is it with people like this? I know I'm big, my dad is bigger than me, and I have more friends over 225 than I can count on my fingers. But what happens, how does this transformation occur, when you go from "festively plump" to "fat guy"? Is it somehow written in a lost book of the law that there is a certain code of conduct that these people have to obey? I try my best to be tolerant of everyone. I know that everyone has their reasons for what they do, but when someone so deeply impedes on my ability to enjoy a quiet evening of reading at the local coffee shop, I get a little testy. So now I ask you for your ideas: are you a "fat guy" before you put on the weight, or does the behaviour come hand-in-hand with the pounds?

I leave you with this: if you haven't read it, see if you can track down the story "Fat" by Raymond Carver. The physical description is rather similar, but deportment of the large man in his story couldn't have been any different than the man I had the displeasure of sharing a couch with on a cold Monday night. Secondly, I leave you with a piece of advice: whenever you go to a coffee shop, never, and I repeat never fall asleep. You have no idea how awkward it is. I can speak from personal experience from my days back at the 'Bucks, you automatically become the elephant in the room. Pun intended.

Sunday night thoughts.

Yes yes, you folks who hang their hat on technicality, I know these are really Monday morning thoughts, but as I have not seen the comfort of my bed yet this fine evening, it's Sunday night to me. So here goes...

Does anyone out there actually like Amy Winehouse? Yeah, she won a few Grammys, but from what I hear, the consensus is that she won because no one knows if she'll live to see another Grammy ceremony. I know that the paparazzi vultures are picking at her dead and decomposing status as "celebrity" (not to mention her de-composing face!) but really, folks like you and I.... do you know people who like her and listen to her music? Or has she been another victim of popularity where she had one success that put her on the map, only to have her physical and mental deterioration covered from every angle, like a hideous slow-motion train wreck? I think it's sad. I think it's also sad that she can't really sing to save her life.

Moving on... I dined at Little Star Pizza on Valencia this past Friday with Courtney. I've been to the restaurant once before, and I had a great time while being blown away by their amazing deep dish pizza. Friday night was a little different story. The pizza was still amazing. The immediate company was good. However, I thought I was in the "sanitary products" aisle, since everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by douches. Let me set the scene. For those of you who haven't been, it's a small restaurant with an equally small waiting area. I spent half the night blocking out the sound of maniacal cackling which seemed to follow me everywhere I went. I don't care how drunk you are, shit just isn't that funny. Yes, I was already in a somewhat antisocial mindset, but to be constantly jostled by half-drunk halfwits who think they're prince or princess fucking charming, it was just a bit more than this guy can take. So here's my advice: go to Little Star Pizza, just don't go on a Friday night around seven. I can handle crowds, but I can also shove my Chuck Taylor so far up your ass you can floss with my shoelaces. Fortunately you, dear readers, are all far too cool and civilized to be the butt of such a situation. Your choice of reading this blog alone has already elevated you over the miscreants I had to tolerate just to get a tasty slice.

Well, I'm off to go get some sleep so I can enjoy all the hijinx and shenanigans that your typical 27 year old graduate student can get into. That's right folks, I might just read in my house in the afternoon and read at the cafe at night OR I could get tricky, and hit the cafe in the afternoon while staying home at night. Ooooh, look out Cabo, the B-man is going crazy this year! I might even get really crazy and toss a shot of espresso in my coffee! San Francisco will never be the same after that....

An easter basket full of randomness.

Hey folks,
Sorry I've been away for a bit, but things have been hectic, I've been out late drinking more, and I've been reading a bit more from day to day. Now I have a whole little notepad page littered with things to write about, and if I had a tad more energy, I'd attempt to rip through all of them. The hour being what it is, and keeping in mind that I helped move a bunch of shit up four flights of stairs this afternoon, I am going to make a somewhat more concerted effort to get to sleep with a quickness tonight. So tonight you get three little things that are all generally in one way or another related to Easter.

First, while driving home tonight I passed Mt. Davidson, and Easter weekend is the only time of the year they turn on the floodlights. It was pretty amazing. Earlier in the night when it was clearer, it was just an impressive monolithic cross, on the way home it was eerily shrouded in fog. It seemed like the intro to a fantastic new religious-based psychological thriller. Alas, Hollywood is too lame to do anything like that these days.
* Side note for you folks who don't know SF like some of us do: Mt. Davidson is this hill in the city with a one hundred and three foot tall cross on it. It was protested by all the heathens in SF, but some church ponied up the cash to save it by making it no longer city-owned. If you need more help, it's the giant cross where Scorpio sets up the meeting in Dirty Harry. Yeah, that cross. It was a pretty crazy sight, and a hell of a way to ring in Easter.

Second, I think this might be the first Easter where I won't be attending any religious ceremonies. No Good Friday Service, no Easter service. Not even the sunrise service on the aforementioned Mt. Davidson. I have to admit, even though I haven't been especially religious in the past while, it still seems funny to not go on Easter. It tends to be one of the two holidays (Christmas Eve being the other one) when unaffiliated churchgoers like myself actually show up. Yes, I know I can go to any church on my own, but that would be almost as awkward to me.

I guess those are the two big thoughts/ideas I have at the moment. I hope everyone out there has a good Easter, whether you're religious or not. Hunt for eggs, eat some ham, or celebrate in whatever way is customary for you. But whatever you do, look out for the Easter Bunny.... he's always just around the corner....

Cranking away.

Hello again, dear readers. I must apologize for the past couple of days -- I have a handful of writing projects for school that have been taking my attention and time. I know it's crazy, but I still fall into the trap of giving priority to schoolwork over my blog. Go fig.

It's after four in the morning, and I'm really really close to calling it a night, but I just wanted to bring it to everyone's attention if you like indie-ish music, the last couple days of April at The Fillmore will be like heaven on earth for you. Get this three day span:

Monday, April 28th - DeVotchKa
Tuesday, April 29th - Mike Doughty
Wednesday, April 30th - Colin Meloy

That's right kiddies, for three days you can be in hipster heaven. Alas, I'll spend two of those three nights in class. I tell you, I should just go to shows and write blogs for a living. Screw this school stuff. Though I guess it would be nice to make money so that I can afford to go to said shows. Alas, there's the rub.

Sleep tight, and I'll be back tomorrow with more exciting insights from funk-ridden Bill. At least I'll officially be on Spring Break by then...

Sorry.

Not tonight. I'm just not feeling especially creative or expressive tonight. I had kicked around a few possible topics, but as soon as I'd start writing, I'd get frustrated and delete the whole mess.

I could re-hash some of the highs and lows of my day, but no one (myself included) would be especially interested in that. Plus, it might be worth my while to get to sleep a little earlier. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be rearing to go with new and exciting musings on this funny little trek we call life, but tonight I've got nothing.

Follow up.

So yeah, turns out it was a gunshot. Turns out that "bleeding guy" had actually been shot in the face, and that he's a local drug dealer.

Good times.

So then there's this.

Yeah, turns out I may or may not have been witness to a shooting on my block this afternoon. Before I get down to brass tacks, let me preface this story by saying this: I live in a ridiculously safe neighborhood. I am across the street from a public park and a public school. Generally speaking, the grade school children are the biggest threat one faces on a day-to-day basis around my house.

Now, allow me to set the scene: it's shortly after three this afternoon, it's chilly but clear, and my street is more or less choked with minivans of families taking advantage of the sunshine. I walk down my front steps and out to my car. As I am passing the front of the car I hear a crack, but don't think a lot of it. It sounded more or less like someone was snapping a large piece of wood, or (as I thought) some piece of something off of a car. As I'm unlocking my door and throwing my bag into the back seat of the car, I see a couple of guys "tussling" up the street, and notice one guy bleeding pretty fiercely out of his nose/face. No one seems terribly panicked, save a middle-aged guy who has run across the street with his kid and taken to hiding.

Still thrown off, I see the bleeding guy walking down the street in my general direction, and as I start my motor, I see him getting into a car and starting to pull out. I was kind of shaken, because regardless of what happened, I don't usually see bleeding people walking down my street. Eventually, upon my return home a few hours later, my mom tells me about "some commotion" up the street, and said she'd heard that there might have been shots fired.

Now, here are my theories as to why it was NOT a gunshot, beyond the obvious fact that I would be rather disturbed to think that I was witness to a shooting.
Number one: it just didn't sound like a gunshot. It sounded like something cracking - like something snapping off a car or even a piece of wood cracking. It wasn't powerful enough to really make me jump, and as someone who's been to a gun range, I can say if I walked within fifty feet of a gunshot, even from like a .22, I'd probably realize it.
Number two: Everyone moved too casually after the fact. Maybe I've watched too much TV, but it seems to me, if you're "college aged" and you or one of your friends shot someone, you'd be hauling ASS to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. After I heard the crack, I saw the guys wrestling around a little more, in an almost playful way, before dispersing in a none-too-hurried way. Even bleeding guy was at a quick walk at best - and I'd think if he'd been shot, he'd be running his ass off to get away.
Number three: Good ol' Officer P, assuming if he's working tonight and assuming he might have heard about it, would have called me with a QUICKNESS if there had been a shooting on my block. As of right now, it's roughly two thirty in the morning, and I haven't heard peep.

Either way, whether or not anything major happened, it was enough to at least slightly diminish my sense of well-being in and around my home. I know that regardless of what happened this afternoon, I live in a safe neighborhood. I know that the chances are much higher of me being injured in a car accident or even a natural disaster than me getting shot in my neighborhood, but still. I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow and things will be pretty much back to normal. I just don't like this feeling of being so... jumpy? Unsettled? I don't know... I guess all I can say is, on the bright side, it'd take a hell of a lot for tomorrow to be worse than today.

Cynicism.

Don't worry, I'm not going to rant about how much I hate everything. I'm not even going to bring up clever little gripes that I've seen over the course of my day. There's a big part of me that wants to write some self-pitying "I'm going to wind up dead and alone" kind of posting, because I spent a decent amount of the night dwelling on how little I can relate with a vast amount of society - especially those closest to my age.

Tell you the truth, I don't know what I really want to write about. I'm here, it's 2:30 in the morning, and I'm wide awake. I feel creative enough. I've been out and about a lot of the day and some of last night, so I should have plenty of inspiration, but alas, I am drawing a blank. I guess more than anything else at the moment, I feel I'm in a holding pattern. It's like so much of my life and expectations hinges on finishing this Master's degree and getting a decent job. I know that I'm making progress, working towards an attainable goal, and all that jazz, but when I look around right now, it feels like little has changed since I came back to SF after my first year of college -- I'm holding on financially while living in a basement room, eager to finish school, surrounded by books and music. Yes, I also realize that this whole lifestyle at the moment isn't really conducive to a normal social life, either. "Hey, wanna come back to my shoddy little basement room, sit on my little twin bed and watch a DVD on my computer?" Granted, I've actually heard of people who think that might qualify as a "date", but I guess I have slightly higher standards of myself.

Granted, I could still be at Wallenberg and be as miserable as I was two years ago, just with more cash in the bank. Hell, teachers all across the bay are getting pink slips this weekend, and I know a couple of friends who are "seeing pink" right now, so I'm certain I would have had that to deal with, then I'd REALLY be back to where I was when I finished college -- searching for a teaching job. Leaving the halls of high school education is one decision that I'm still comfortable with for the most part.

Finally, there's a little shred of me that wants to go back and delete this whole post. See, I fall into an ironic little catch-22 here: I generally think that the exhibitionist tendencies that come out in bloggers is a little lame, yet I do it myself from time to time (like tonight). I guess I can take come comfort in the fact that, for the most part, I stay away from my keyboard when I'm feeling maudlin, but I couldn't help myself tonight. I'd go for a long drive tonight to clear my head a bit, but gas is ridiculous these days. Seriously, for the first time tonight, saw premium gas priced at over four dollars a gallon. I'd go for a walk, but there have been intermittent showers all night, and I don't really feel like getting sick again. So, dear readers, here we are. Fortunately for all of us, I think I'm going to call it a night, and leave you with the immortal words of Beck:

I'm a driver. I'm a winner. Things are going to change, I can feel it.

Re-visiting

So I just want to add this as a little coda to the cute female musician thread. It's a music video from the band Silversun Pickups. It basically shows what you can do, as far as videos go, when you have a cute female member in the band. I mean, come on - it has both a cute female bassist AND a female cello player. How could I not include it? Granted, it helps that it's a good song... Enjoy!

Time.

First and foremost, let me say Happy Birthday to Mallorie, even if I am technically an hour and five late at this point. I blame daylight savings time - otherwise, I would have missed the time by a mere five minutes.

Now, on to less pressing matters: I am running out of time. I fear that I have flirted with a life of leisure too much this semester, and will have to shake myself out of it pretty lickety split if I'm going to keep afloat in the next few weeks (months too, for that matter) and still retain moderate shreds of my sanity. I won't say that I've spread myself too thin. I won't even say that I have poorly budgeted my time recently. Neither of those statements are true, really. I just have a number of commitments that I must now juggle. Fortunately, if there has been one advantage to sleeping as much as I have in the past few weeks/months, it is that when I have been required to press my brain a bit, it has responded with a quickness and clarity that I can hardly remember experiencing before. For a change, I feel like I'm really on the ball in my classes, and feel like I not only have something legitimate to say, but I can express it as I want/need to.

"So Bill" you ask, "what is it you have to do that's all so pressing?" Well, I'm glad you asked. Tonight I am editing an essay for our school's lit magazine, tomorrow I do a little online copy editing, write a rough draft of a high school recommendation letter, go to class, and I have band practice (gotta re-string my guitar in there too, somewhere). I have a short prospectus paper due for one class on Tuesday, a five-to-seven page essay due next Thursday for another class, all the while I'll need to be reading books for my thesis while getting that prospectus in order. During this time, I also have to keep up on my copy editing, which is actually a nice change of pace from the mental gymnastics of all my school work. Plus, I make my own hours, so it doesn't matter if I get the bulk of my work done between the hours of one and three in the morning.

Now, regardless of how much work I do or don't have going on, it still seems like time has been flying by recently. Am I alone in this? I swear, if feels at times like I just started the semester. Hell, it feels like I just started the Grad program. It seems like time is slipping from me weeks at a time, and I scarcely notice.

Speaking of time slipping away, it's not getting any earlier, and I have editing to do. Before I sign off for the night, I want to give special thanks to my expert proofreader Jennski, who never lets me down. Unfortunately, I can't pay you for your tireless efforts, but you can put it down on your resume -- I'll give a glowing reference.

What you've been waiting for.

Okay folks, I know some of you have been waiting for this post as much as 24 hours, but here it is, my ode to female musicians. Unfortunately, I have no answers for you. I don't know why a woman becomes twice as alluring once you put an instrument into their delicate little hands, but it's ridiculous. It's almost unfair - there's really something amazing about female musicians that just can't be described, other than those gape-mouthed stares that they draw from all males in the room when they are performing. I will say first and foremost that this whole blog was brought around by Sarah Balliet (pictured immediately to your right), the cellist and keyboard player for a band called Murder by Death, who I lucked into seeing last night at Slim's. Not only was I blown away by the musical ability both of Sarah and the rest of the band, but I was reminded of just how much of an inescapable crush I have on female cellists. I think this stems back to my freshman year of college, when we had the hot female cellist at CSU Hayward, I'm not sure, but nowadays anytime I see a female who is even remotely cute who can play cello, I get weak in the knees.

Technically, I suppose you can say that this blog first had its seeds planted by seeing the Raveonettes last week (that's Raveonette Sharin Foo at the veeeery top of the page, there), but honestly, I was much more struck by the music at that show, to the point where her tall, blonde, Danish hotness was actually eclipsed by how amazing they were to hear live. So why is this? Why do we men (or me, at least) always find ourselves so wildly attracted to women just because they can play an instrument. Yes, there are some glaring exceptions to this generality, but for the most part, a vast majority of female musicians are crazy hot. I will also say at this point that I am qualifying "female musicians" to females who actually play an instrument, so all those little pop princesses are all outta luck.

So here's what I've got: music, generally speaking, has been a boy's club. Most musicians in bands (again, with the exception of singers) have been males, so it's kind of fascinating to see these females who can remain incredibly feminine while doing something we think guys should do. This is why powderpuff football is so great, too, or foxy boxing. But I digress. Women who can crank out tunes just as well as the guys can have entered a grey area: they are "other" but they are still part of the boy's club. Some feel that there is a stigma given to women as "female musicians"; that they somehow escape judgement as "musician" in general because of the label "female." I'd like to think that we've moved beyond that.

There is one other factor that I feel bears mention: when females play music, they move differently. They aren't quite as concerned as much with "rocking out" like male musicians are (except perhaps The Donnas), but the way they groove to music drives men (again, or at least me) absolutely nuts. Guys bob their heads or tap their feet, or do some sort of spastic convulsion that makes it appear that they should be riding the short bus to the show. It isn't sexy. Granted, I am saying this as an incredibly hetero male, so I may be a bit biased, but I think it's valid. When women play music, for some reason bass in particular, they just groove a bit more: they let their head sway, they move in the hips much more than their male counterparts, and they often times close their eyes and throw their head back. Anyone who's been around the bedroom a bit knows exactly the look I'm talking about. There's a full-body experience of the music that females seem to have that escapes men. I think it's that full-body experience that drives onlookers apeshit. Or maybe that's just me.

Either way, female musicians - keep doing what you're doing. You're amazing, and I appreciate it. Plus, it also helps a hell of a lot when you play in a band that also happens to be amazing.

So who are these sirens pictured above, you ask? Top to bottom: Sharin Foo of The Ravonettes, Kori Gardner of Mates of State, Nikki Monninger of Silversun Pickups, Freddy Feedback of Art Brut, Erin Fein of Headlights, Brody Dalle/Armstrong of The Distillers, and the aforementioned Sarah Balliet of Murder by Death.

Sorry, but...

My apologies, folks. I'm exhausted, have a bit of a headache, and my back is bothering the hell out of me this evening, so I'm afraid all I'm writing is that I am not going to say anything of real substance tonight, but look for tomorrow's blog which shold be, unless something amazing strikes me during the day, a musing on why female musicians are so hot. Until then, I'm going to sleep.

So it's offiicial.

We made it through another winter. Daylight savings time is upon us, and tonight I attended the first (hopefully of many) barbecue of the 2008 season. It seems that we can finally pack away our long-sleeves and rummage through our closets to find that one pair of shorts that every San Franciscan owns.

So here's my question: what the hell happened? Where did this winter go? Yes, I lost like a week when I got a cold, but still, it never REALLY felt like winter all that much this year. Despite what the SoCal girl at the on-campus cafe might have said, we never really got that much rain. Yes, we had like those two or three day bursts of "storm of the decade," but other than that, we never had that week long period of hunkering down that I come to expect from winters in the city.

It's funny, as much as I am looking forward to the upcoming months, I also feel slightly out-of-sorts, as if I didn't get to finish what I needed to in the winter months. It's not like I had some grandiose projects or anything set up for the cold season, but still, I feel like I am entering this spring already behind on everything. That might just have more to do with my school schedule and the fact that The Lava Rats are working out or show schedule for the month of May right now, but I can't say for certain.

One more thing before I pack it in for the night: Death Cab for Cutie is much better than enough people give them credit for. I know the die-hard indie kids have shunned them because they sold out and have become popular and actually sell a lot of albums, but dammit, they're awesome. I have been a fan for a while, and really, I can't find much of anything that they've recorded which I don't dig. If you have their stuff, give it another listen, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. If you don't have any, do yourself a favor and get an album or two.

The Finer things in Life

I guess you could consider this a continuation in the "how to be Bill" series, but I thought I'd drop a few lines here about some of the more wonderful things that make the world a richer, better, or tastier place. So in no particular order, here I go:


1) Pinkerton by Weezer: Yes, the album is like twelve years old at this point, and I also realize that it was a resounding commercial failure. That doesn't change the fact that it is far and away the greatest album Weezer has released (or could hope to release). I'm telling you - I could listen to those ten tracks over and over and never get tired of them.

2) Gestalt Haus: It's a German alehouse that serves pints, half liters, and liters of beer. They serve sausages. They have a pool table, and a gripload of indoor bike racks. I might have a new bar to put in my top five Mission bars to go to. It's on sixteenth between Guerrero and Albion, across the street from Kilowatt, and just up the block from Delirium. Check it out.

3) Corduroys: Keep your skinny jeans. Every man needs an option when they don't feel like wearing Dickies. I have recently dusted off one of my old pairs of olive greenish cords, and I couldn't be more comfortable. I just can't figure how I ever got away from these things. Probably summer hit and I forgot all about them.

4) Maker's Mark: I don't drink a hell of a lot of whiskey, but when I do, you'd better be damn sure it's Maker's. I don't know what they do to make it taste so damn good, but whatever it is, they do it well.

5) Pizza: It should go without saying, but seldom does enough. I love pizza. I could be condemned for the rest of my life to eat nothing but pizza and burritos, and I'd be the happiest kid on the planet. Plus, where else can you go into a restaurant and tell them exactly how you want the kitchen to make your food without sounding like a demanding ass?


Arright, and I have to add one thing that drives me nuts if I'm going to be praising all this stuff:

Self-help books: Yeah, it's easy to hate them. But as an avid reader, and someone who went through a brief period of fascination with these books, I can say this very objectively: all self-help books tell you is that you may be weird or crazy, but there are people out there who are every bit as weird and crazy as you are. I mean it. I've read a handful, and every one uses personal testimonials from people who exist in first name and location only, and they tell their stories of how they're going through exactly what you are. I eagerly await the day that we, as a society, don't need books to re-affirm the fact that we have problems and that's okay because other people have problems too.

And with that, I bid you screwed-up crazy people a fond good night.

A little weekend treat

I haven't got a whole lot to say today, so I figured I'd just toss up a little vid for you folks to enjoy this weekend. Plus, this song gets majorly stuck in your head, so have fun with that...

The band is The Cold War Kids, a wonderful indie group from SoCal (Fullterton, for you detail-oriented peeps). I enjoy the song, but quite honestly, I enjoy the video even more. Has anyone else made a music video that looks like a movie trailer before??? I suppose a couple Decemberists videos might come close, but this one has all the trappings, including the green screen at the beginning and some fake reviews and awards for the "film."

Sorry, but the folks that posted the vid have disabled embedding, so you'll just have to click the link: Hang Me Up To Dry by The Cold War Kids.

Two things, I suppose...

Oh wow... okay, so before I write anything else, I have to express my excitement for a moment. Have you seen the new Burger King breakfast feature??? It might be the single greatest advancements in culinary arts in ages: cheezy tots. Let me say that again to let you absorb it: CHEEZY TOTS. Not only has Burger King blended the two fine potato-licious treats of tater tots and hash browns, they've taken it a step further. THEY PUT MOLTEN CHEESE IN THE MIDDLE. Do you hear that???? Listen real close.... hear it? That is the sound of my arteries clogging and my belt snapping.

I guess I don't really have a hell of a lot to say beyond that. I got my new iPod today, or as I like to call it, PODZILLA II. I haven't had a chance to really check everything out, but I can say this much: the new versions of the games are pretty bad ass. Also, it doesn't cease to amaze me that I now have more memory in my little ipod classic (80 gigs) than I do in my whole external hard drive (60 gigs). Damn the world for making technology that boggles my mind.

See you all tomorrow.

This and that

A few things that have been hanging around the old brain banana these past few days:

1) Progresso Italian Wedding soup is so frigging good, it should be outlawed. I don't know if it's just the fact that the can had been taunting me for like a week, or if I was especially hungry this afternoon, but I don't know if I've ever had a canned soup that amazing before.

2) What the hell is up with gas stations placing "charge limits" on their pumps? I hate going to the gas station in general, so when I go, I like to make sure I can go as long as humanly possible before having to go again. So when my car, which has shit fuel efficiency to start with, comes into the station and needs a lot of gas, as it is wont to do, why do I have to drive out of said station with 2/3 of a tank? If I need eighteen point three gallons of gas, why am I only allowed thirteen point six? Call me crazy, but I thought the whole idea of running a gas station was to MAKE MONEY, not to require people to swipe their card twice if they want to fill up.

3) I went to see The Raveonettes play at The Independent tonight, and it was one of the best shows I've been to in a long time. However, instead of gushing about the performance, I will share this observation: for single males, going to concerts is bittersweet. I go to shows all the time, so I know this feeling all too well. You go to the club, you see a number of attractive women milling about (unless it's a surf show, hardy har har). Pretty soon, the music starts and often times said attractive women will dance, or at least move in some way to the music. Then the show ends and everyone goes their separate ways. You've had the opportunity to ogle attractive ladies all night, but you can never talk to them. It's worse than a bar, because not only are you yelling in their face, but you're distracting said ladies from what they came to the club to do: watch the band. So you're out in a room full of women with whom you have at LEAST one thing in common with, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

4) Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer. Nobody puts baby in chemo.

5) As per a conversation tonight, I don't like Stereolab as much as I'm supposed to. I was surprised to see that I actually own three of their albums. They're one of those bands that I'll hear in some context and love them, but seldom have the patience to really listen to.

6) There's a little part of me that would love to go into seclusion for about a week. You know what I mean -- no phone, no internet, no contact with ANYONE. Just have a chance to be alone with my thoughts for a goodly little while. The rest of me, however, is already lonely and doesn't want to exacerbate things.

7) I'm beginning to think that it might benefit me to make some efforts to return my daily schedule to something resembling 90% of people out there. I shouldn't consider it a chore to get out of bed before noon. I shouldn't be this awake at three in the morning. I haven't even had any coffee today. I had three beers this evening, and yet here I sit; awake, alert, and coherent. At least I think I am.

8) Apparently I have some uncontrollable need to laugh at overweight felines. I seriously spent like twenty minutes tonight looking at youtube videos of obese housecats, and I giggled my fucking head off the whole time. Hell, I'm giggling now just thinking about it. I have no desire for house pets outside of fish, but I get all goofy looking at fatass cats.

Okay, it's getting far too late, and I had hoped to be attempting to sleep almost forty five minutes ago. Oh well.

Stalker-mobile

Random thought for the night: why is it that you always think about perverts, molesters, child abductors, and stalkers as driving around in white automobiles? There's the creepy panel van, or the nondescript Taurus but one thing they always have in common is that they're always white. Why not blue? Does a perv elude suspicion by saying "don't worry, I won't hurt you - my van is biege." Granted, you can't exactly be nondescript in a van painted like the A-Team van or something like that.

Before I turn in for the night, I have to make one little admission: there's a little part of me that has always yearned for a conversion van. You know what I'm talking about: badass surround sound, a backseat that folds down into a bed, captain chairs and one of those little center tables. Maybe even those little porthole windows with the fisheye thing. The whole nine. Yes, it's more than a little odd, but there's something fascinating about the whole idea of the idea of that kind of a van. It's not even if the "if this van's a-rockin" slogans that go with owning it, or the whole ideal of the van from Rock 'n Roll High School, there's just something wonderfully absurd about those damn vans.

Pleasure reading

So I'm in the heart of my semester at this point in time. I'm getting paperwork together to prep for my thesis, I've finished major presentations and now get to begin to start looking ahead to what I'm going to write about for final projects of the semester. I'm also excited to get back into the swing of editing now that I have both time to do it and work in the queue for me to edit.

However, as these two parts of my life keep me fairly busy, there is one little part that falls by the wayside: reading for sheer pleasure. I can always find some time to sneak in web comics or the occasional graphic novel. Hell, I can even inch my way through poetry and short story collections usually, but I don't get to hole up and spend a whole day reading a book. I don't get to take a week and go to the cafe every night to work my way through some great piece of fiction. What might be even worse, I don't even get to work my way through all of those not-so-great works of literature that I would never even consider in a scholastic sense.

What's worse is that, generally speaking, when I have the quiet and solitude to read is usually in the wee hours of the morning. In case you haven't noticed, this is also my prime blogging time, but that's not the point. The point is, I spend so much of my time with work and school stuff reading that by the time I get to this time of night, my eyes are exhausted and the thought of reading more still becomes a bit of a hassle. Maybe I just need to nap more.

So folks, this is my advice on how to improve your life: find what kind of books you like, hole up on your own (with or without music - that's a personal taste) and just enjoy the act of sitting and reading. You can do it privately, though I find that I am very easily distracted by anything and everything around my house. You can do it publicly, but that does tend to lend itself to the distractions that come with the world around you. Wherever and however you choose to, set a mark for yourself. Say you want to read so many pages a day, or so many books in a week or month. It's an easy accomplishment to attain, and it may actually make you appear smarter. Sometimes it can even make you smarter.

If there's anything I miss from working as a substitute teacher, it was the ability (on a good day) to sit and read with moderate interruptions for roughly six to seven hours a day. When I was subbing regularly I was at a book and a half a week on average. Many days, I'd finish an entire novel in the span of a school day. I know it takes a certain type of person, and everyone reads at their own pace, but whatever your pace is, don't forget to READ!

Yeah, I'm being overly dramatic here, but you get my point.

One-hit wonders

Has anyone noticed that this phenomenon seems to be dropping from our culture?

I have been on a bit of a throwback kick recently, and I'm re-discovering some of those amazing bands who were around for a hot minute, then disappeared, only to leave behind (for most of them) one amazing and indelible mark on popular culture and music. Yes, I realize that the market for one-hit-wonderdom has been cornered by commercial rap music for a LONG time (since "Baby Got Back", some could argue) and I don't see that getting much better. However, I've noticed that the number of rock bands who come onto the scene and crank out one amazing song is dwindling in a major way. So here is my tribute list to one hit wonder bands, and their lasting song of the mid-to-late nineties.

1) Possum Kingdom - The Toadies: I've had this song stuck in my head for DAYS. I was shocked to see that my buddy Joe has it as his profile song on myspace at the moment, but nonetheless, I've had the opening riff for this classic running through my head for what seems like forever. And I couldn't be happier. Unfortunately, the rest of this album (and yes, I still own it) sucks wicked balls.

2) Hanging By A Moment - Lifehouse: I'm sure I'll get my "good taste in music" license revoked for this one, but I can't help it. That song gets me every time. It's catchy, it's got great dynamics, and dude plays a Jazzmaster in the video. I waited forever for this album to get cheap enough to warrant taking a risk on. I wound up getting it for like eight bucks. Someone out there owes me $7.01.

3) In the Meantime - Spacehog: Yes folks, I'll agree that the rest of the album isn't bad. I'll listen to "Resident Alien" whenever I'm in a nostalgic mood, but in hindsight, those silly Langdon brothers and their bandmates will NEVER match the greatness of this one song, no matter how hard they try.

4) Three Strange Days - School of Fish: Yeah, it's somewhat obscure, but I went through a period in about 7th or 8th grade when I was obsessed with this song. Like all kids of my time, I even taped it off the radio so I could listen to it all the time. I should have kept that tape and never bought the band's CD.

5) Sink to the Bottom - Fountains of Wayne: True, they have been producing solid-playing and solid-selling albums for a long time. But "Sink to the Bottom" is one of the greatest songs of its era, and nothing they have put out since sounds quite as good. (I know they re-gained one hit wonder status AGAIN with "Stacy's Mom" but still...)

6) Stay - Lisa Loeb: I will forever have a crush on Lisa Loeb, no matter how old she gets. I'm eternally indebted to her for making girls realize that you can be ridiculously cute when you wear glasses. However, did she even release another album after this song peaked?

7) 500 Miles - The Proclaimers: I was smart, and I bought the single. I just remember this song being a cultural movement -- was it even that good?

8) No Rain - Blind Melon: I won't speak ill of the dead, but I'll just say that Shannon Hoon's dying made their inability to top this song a little easier to explain away. Lord help them now that they're trying to resurrect the band.

9) Mmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm - Crash Test Dummies: You know you're in trouble when your main contribution to pop music doesn't even have words in the title. "From the band that brought you MMmmmmmmmmmMMmmMMmMM" just doesn't have much of a ring to it.

10) A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins: I despised the song at the time, because I didn't think it warranted the radio play it got. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. Damn it feels good to be right.

11) I Got a Girl - Tripping Daisy: These guys should have been every bit as big as the Flaming Lips (both had hits around the same time), and I personally remember this album being pretty good. Damn shame I was the only person who owned it.

12) Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in my Hand - Primitive Radio Gods: When you have to stop mid-song title to catch your breath, you have already made a tactical career error. When that long-titled song is your one great hit, you've made an even bigger one.

13) Closing Time - Semisonic: Did these guys even release an album on which this song appeared?

14) Tubthumping - Chumbawumba: This song only bears mentioning to I can quote Homer Simpson "I take a whiskey drink, I take a chocolate drink, and when I have to pee, I use the kitchen sink. I sing songs that remind me I'm a urinating guy."

15) Two Princes - Spin Doctors: These guys actually had a few choice songs on this album. I have heard they're back and rolling again, and I wish them the best. This one song pretty much is the key to open the time capsule for 1994.

16) Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms: A great song. This is another "instant flashback" song for me -- what's funny is that even the band was completely non-descript. I couldn't tell you what any of these guys look like. Apparently they JUST released a new album within the last month.

17) Stars - Hum: I LOVE the whole album "You'd Prefer an Astronaut", but again, I fear I might be one of the few people that owns it. I will also say that it turns my stomach a little to hear this one-amazing song being used as background music in the new Cadillac commercials.


So now's your chance to sound off, folks. I know I omitted a TON of songs, and I'm sure there is a new generation that I have neglected as well. What do you say?

Blank

I know I said I'd be back to writing tonight, but I've been sitting here spinning my wheels for at least half an hour, and I have absolutely nothing. It's not for lack of trying, it's not for lack of interesting conversation over dinner tonight. I just don't have any interesting insights, gripes, or raves to share with you folks.

Bloggity bloggity blog blog blog.

Goodnight, and perhaps I'll wake up inspired tomorrow afternoon and the words will flow like spilt milk from my fingertips.