new song posted. first one i brought in from lp, through the mixer, into the iMic and prepped on the mochine. hope is sounds ok - probably not the best song to worry about that stuff.

i thought there were supposed to be naked chicks on the boat frying up eggs, not this. more chit from floriday 'natch.

i've got australians coming into town this morning. they usually stop over in l.a. for a few days on their way to, or returning from europe. one is a curator/gallerist and the other is an artist.
one thing that is very good about australia is its coffee. they bitch and moan about the quality of coffee over here, and one gets tired of hearing how great it is 'down under-neath' but at the end of the day, the shit they make is good. i'm hoping they bring some of this. dean merlo is the owner of this biz and a friend of the curator's. good stuff, just ask stazz.

speaking of which, stazza called yesterday. he seems to be doing very well, having a blast n' chit. he took a day off from cycling and visited Ghent, which is all mid-evil and chit. everyone over there rides three-speed bikes around including the beautiful ladies in prada shoes and skirts and funny shoulder bags. the folks he's staying with are an older couple, both with a background in education. he plans on helping then around the ranch a bit as a thank you. other than that, he's managed to meet a few other cyclists who were nice enough to invite him on one of their club rides (closed 'cept to club members typically). there are bike races every third day or so.

from the guardian, a rosy outlook on staving off war in the sub-continent - this time through the waving of a big fat check.

this pic of yer president i just flat out love.

dom likes to cook tounge.

can't recall if i mentioned it here or not, but a month or so ago the nytimes ran an article following the raising of a single cow in today's factory farm system. the article was an introduction to slim margins, the interests and consequences in force-feeding a grass eating creature corn and how this is all managed on a large scale. the end of the article mentioned grass-roots efforts that are moving towards raising cattle the old fashioned way, buy letting them do the job they were designe for, namely turning sunshine and water and grasses into protein, something very few animals can do. still with the intent of cattling as a source of food, it described differences in flavors and textures of grass-raised beef to corn-fed as well as grass-fed from other regions.
last weekend this story appeared at the times mentioning how grass-fed beef i starting to appear at some premium restaurants in s.f. and nyc. the industry is compared to organic foods 15 years ago, pretty rarified. but there is still plenty of opportunity for farmers, the article has one describing himself as someone who raises grass, who don't want to simply be part of soviet style government support.

new song posted.

dave berg, a cartoonist who was best known for his work in MAD, past away recently. here is the story/obit. formative years spent with plenty of issues of MAD as well as mass-market paperbacks of berg's, don martin, spy v. spy and al jaffee (sp?).
the summer before ninth grade was my last sesh of summer camp. went out with a bang as mom sent me to Camp Seagull, a sailing camp on the outer-banks of North Carolina. almost everybody else there was from some Silver Springs Md., or some other suburb of our nation's capital. i was placed in the next-to-eldest cabin and al jaffee's nephew was there as well! we were skeptical at first, but it was true.

more from stazz:

Tomorrow I do my first race, as the Jet Lag is going away slowly. I suspect it will feel like a fast night at the rose bowl. the local races seem to average about 27 or so. I hope its clear for the race.
I rode two local loops next to the Canal for about 4 hours today in the wind and rain for about 110 KM. there were Cobbles for about 5 miles total, and let me tell you, those fuckers are slippery when wet (no bon
jovi comments please). Riding them is a sort of fuzzy logic, you can pick a line, but you'll never actually be on it.
Also if you go less than 20mph, you vibrate like crazy and if you go faster than that you float above them and they just hum. The problem is that your tires aren't actually on the ground very much of the time and a cross wind will land you on your ass.
The loops went up through Holland for about 20km and I went out through the resort town Knokke as well. It was 10 degrees C, which felt like 55 or so.
Its hard to say because it was raining sideways.

welp, the retardation continues as geocities won't let one link str8 to media. thank you RIAA or whoever decided to set that up - probably saves 'em loads on the yahoo servers.
wotta pain. this is the kind of chit that makes people hate computers.

it's 2002 and i'm sick and tired of chit not working. so after writing what i'm guessing will be an ineffectual note to pacbell asking them WHY i can't host an .mp3 for apple product users successfully from their servers, i set up a geocities account since i already get the space for having my yahoo email address.
to add insult to injury, the free space i get from yahoo is half-again larger than the space i'm getting from pacbell for which i'm paying $50/month!
jackasses.

d/l's of the "song" to the left should work now, gonna run a few tests just to make sure.

another update from stazza:

So, I got the bike fixed. 25 EUROS later.
today is the first ride in a strange place. Ill go from here to knokke to oostende then back to here in a big ol loop. Its 6am the roosters are crowing - seriously.
yesterday I missed the amatuer race but watched the pro finish of the tour. They were fucking ROLLING. after 220km they cranked up the pace to 35 MPH. ROLLING. the guys at the front were riding efforlessly it appeared. But I looked into the news and found the entier Mapei team got popped for strange drugs. What the fuck do those people think is going to happen when they leave "mysterious ampules" laying around the hotel? Soft!
That's just soft!

yesterday I tried a beer that was 25 percent alcohol. not much fun really, you get wasted with a quickness. Im sticking to the light stuff which is still like drinking Chimay.

f it.
been trying all morning/day to get the goddamn song/mp3 link to werk on my and some friends mac and can't quite do it. some fucked up MIME setting i reckon and i just am not going to f with it any more.

so if you are using a mac, click on the link and download the file to yer disk, should work fine from there. windows? do what ever ye want.

new link linked.

click here for a little contribution from clunk and sentrall.

my roommate made it to belgium safe and soundly and sent an update this morning:

First of all, these keyboards are completely backwards. I have to hunt and peck to write anything, so this is brief.
I arrived, the weather is perfect. The tour of Belgium comes past the house today, and there is a small cremasse that Im gonna do this
afternoon if my bike gets back from repair. The little bolt that adjusts the brake tension snapped off in transit. If the bike isnt done, Ill just go to watch to see what to expect for the next one.

The house which Im staying in is really beautiful, in the middle of a big cow pasture across the road from the canals. The canals are lined with huge Cottonwood trees and run for 90 miles. They were built by Napoleon.
No shit. Napoleon.

Beer update: yesterday I had hoegaaden blond, one local trappist triple(12% Alcohol) and another hoegaarden that was the "grand cre" (not sure what that means). Today I begin to explore the lagers.

Ill send some photos, as the hosts (who are very, very grqcious) have a digital camera.
More later,
Stephen

here is a link to a nytimes article (registration required i think) about megachurches. the example used for the article is good ol' southeast christian back in the center of the universe, louisville.

i have one born-again friend and i hear-tell that he attends southeast christian. haven't gotten to the article yet - first things first, put it on the blog - but i understand that the congregation is so large (22,000 members! thats almost the size of the University of Utah!) that there are assigned services to attend as everyone wouldn't fit in the joint, let alone be able to park all their SUV's.

the article describes what seems to be the worst/next incarnation of the mall world, complete with gyms, fast food, cafe's and single scenes, but this time, the main anchor store is not a Nordstrom its an evangelical christian church. this southeast christian has a rep for being quite the meat-market for the faith based. i turned down many an invitation to hay-rides (no joke) and mixers from my twice born friend. i had no idea the place was festooned with all this extra stuff to keep the fools coming back.

i'm not down with malls and i'm REALLY not down with this nonsense.
if you would rather not register, here is a sample of the insanity of a project going on in Arizona, a state trying its hardest to become Texas 2:

The town within a town being fashioned by the Community Church of Joy in suburban Phoenix will let members live on church grounds and even be buried there, venturing outside perhaps only to work and buy groceries. Even the water park, which will be part of an Olympic-size aquatic center, will have a Christian theme, with laser shows depicting Jonah and the whale and David and Goliath. The housing development, which will not be limited to church members, will have a full-time chaplain. Though not meant to replicate Disneyland, it is a Disneyesque utopian vision with a Christian spin.

lookit, got a notice on today's american homebody. it is true, back patio changes have begun. the excavation was a by-product of a visit by joe to sketch out ideas for some new book/record shelves for me. after lunch, stazz suggeted joe take a look out back in case he had any thoughts on materials to replace this green fiberglass screen.

next thing you know, we're halfway to china.

meanwhile stazz is now on a big silver bird headed for belgium to race bicycles for a month.

in the news: ew.

heh. from Unqualified Offerings, a link that i found on Through the Looking Glass (see list of links to the left) comes a note re: the attacks of the clones:

Who Needs Movie Critics? Which of them could so efficiently dispatch Attack of the Clones as Virginia Postrel?

"We saw the movie Friday night. It's not quite as good as the remake of Planet of the Apes, which should not be considered an endorsement of Planet."

the next matrix movie i'll probably go see, the new stars war: attacks of the clone? not likely.

yesterday, the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition hosted the 2nd Annual Los Angeles River Ride, a "fun-ride" that started in Griffith Park at the Gene Autry Museum and wound down on the lemontine to Long Beach and back with the majority of the route being the bike path along the Los Angeles River. the ride was a fund-raiser to support the coalition in its efforts to extend and complete the bike path.

it really was a perfect day for a ride that although billed as a metric-century, was actually a little over 70 miles. i'd never ridden anywhere near this far before so a cool overcast morning that continued until after we had left from long beach was a bonus. e. was along for the ride as was a friend of his, g.

there were a number of mishaps right away as the large groups of riders had to funnel through the gates to the river bike path, poor souls unable to clip-out when stopping went down. it was hard not to laugh. from gene autry we rolled an easy seven miles to the home depot at figueroa and riverside. at this point the groups had not thinned out so there were still people everywhere, oranges and bananas and water and granola bars.

the next stage was road riding; down ave 20 (i think) to north broadway, over the bridge, past phillipe's and union station and continueing down alameda (watch the train tracks in the road - of course some were off to the side rubbing their domes after they took a spill) to olympic where we took a left and rolled out and down to vernon, past my old recording studio and then finally back onto the river.

the graffitti was everywhere and the pace mellow enough to allow taking some in. comparisons were made, likes and dislikes discussed - use of color in particular - you can tell when someone has it going on - as well as noting formal elements. on the first stage, we decided that the local crew, the "rascals", were a bunch of cheap asses as someone simply used white paint and rollers to lay out a giant "RASCALS". at the same time, a "rascal" got some points for drawing out a huge hand flashing the "R" sign with the word "hood" within the sealed top part of the "R"; nice.

but south of vernon, cudahy et.al., the work increased in quality as well as quantity. e. reckoned at one point that it was like a texture it was so pervasive - literally surrounding us on the path, the walls, the ceiling, that you could sell it as wallpaper or bed-sheets. a nice display of urban reclamation was noted as the supports for one overpass is used as a hand-ball court as well as an easel.

a number of locals thought we were in a race; "GO MISTER!" was my favorite cheer.

the second rest-stop was in Paramount, probably 25 miles into the event. a park next to the bike path had a tent with more fruit and water, some johnny-on-the-spots (fresh ones too!) and a p.a. system that was, on the way down at least, blasting hits from the 80's so that when we arrived there was a field of cyclists of all vibes, wandering around to joy division's 'love will tear us apart' and then some O.M.D. (actually we reckoned it was O.M.D. not exactly sure.)

then we had about 12 miles to go, some on surface streets, before we rolled into Long Beach. e had spent some time in the LBC so he pointed out some buildings of note and some others that had taken the place of older deco numbers, as well as buildings in which he once worked. paticipants signed in and had more bananas. there was not much to do besides rest for a bit, eat more and people watch. this is where we saw 'mr. falling-apart-man'.
muttering to no-one in particular he wandered into the small sign-in area (crowded, but with his bike) and seemed to be completely confused. in fact, there seemed to be alot of confused people in this group, but mr. falling-apart-man was driving me bats because he had some kind of olde tyme cycling outfit on with these removable sleeves that seemed to connect to his short sleeved jersey by some system of saftey pins or garters or some chit. one sleeve was hanging on above his elbow for all it was worth while the other one was collapsed around his wrist.

so a neurosis of mine went nutz, pull yerself together! i wanted to yell, but of course didn't. 'i'm looking for a place to set my bicycle' he said to noone and everyone, meanwhile behind him were piles of bikes leaning on anything and everything. dude, C'MON!

as karma would have it, the minute we pulled out of the long beach rest stop to return home, mr. falling-apart-man was right there with us. this trip was a text-book case for someone who studies traffic-flow and the movement of large numbers of people. no matter how fast or slow we went it seemed like we were always running into the same folks, which means that when we experienced a flat, the fools that passed us, got passed when we resumed. luckily, mr. falling-apart-man had a pace that was at our speed if not a little faster so that when we had our first flat, we never saw him again.

hot tip on fixing flats. be sure to inspect the tire as well as the tube because if there is still glass in the tire, it will continue tearing holes in each successive tube you replace.

the ride back was where the fatigue set in, but we still were not too far off our pace from the way down. someone had realized that the event was sponsored by K-EARTH so by the time we got to paramount they were blasting oldies to a mostly empty park. we think that a good number of folks took advantage of the free blue line pass to train it back to union station. pusses.

the flat was finally cured at the home depot rest stop, just as the bike shop dude thought he was leaving for the day.
back to the starting line at four o' clock. thank you for the roses j.

if you've made it this far, here. a story of fools for yer monday.

klackveedesteen!
with the iMac comes a working cd-drive - thus, the mp3 link has re-appeared to the left. dig it.

looks like i'm a day late and a dollar short, but here.

"if my eyes are a little puffy, i'll wear an ice pad."

so the imac arrived yesterday and it wasn't two hours before i had gummed it up somehow. i think that what happened was that i noticed 'software update' and figured 'what the hell?'. while it was updating i clicked on something else in the dock and -zzt- frozen. any number of restarts did nothing to get the mouse moving again (everything else seemed fine - sigh). so, break out the software restore disks. spinning like a top now.

so today is about a cross-over cable, preferences, maybe some itunes - who knows. the rest of the ram and the griffin iMic is on a truck between here and dallas - i'd say closer to here by now. by monday this white pod'll be hooked up to the mixer.

periodic table table. here.

a nice post for the morning over at lagniappe, eliminate the middleman. hah.

so, how was the star wars?

good morning, more or less.
got home last night in time to be invited back ot the neighbors to watch the movie "american psycho". they had rented the digital video disc. i completetly missed this one when it came out, although i remember friends enjoying it. good movie. nope, i have not read the book. i do remember when it came out - i was werking at hawley-cooke in louisville and there was much ado about it - quite a little shit storm. same with the madonna sex book.

so i'd recommend this one, some gore of course, but nothing you have not seen in a slasher film without the sucker-punch jump scares. seems like all the blood takes place with a great deal of apartment lights on. not a light film mind you, but the business card scene is rich.

we watched the trailer, after watching the film, and it didn't seem to give the feeling of the movie at all, according to one. i agree.

funnyman. via clunkified.

a pleasing couple of jabs over at dodgson's site, here.

pleasing is good as i'm a bit anxious today having ordered a new computer. not the best person to make the big purchases, just the same, can't wait!

the last day or so has been spent gutting the overgrown weeds and unruly ferns and lord-god-king mulberry bush from my back patio area. we've got new neighbors and they've raised the bar when it comes to gussyin' up the place. destruction is easy, construction demands a little more thought. also had a bunch of comics sent out from my trip to louisville and have been reading my old hellblazer issues. i spent my college years listening to the butthole surfers and reading swamp thing et.al. which may be one of the reasons why when i see a comic like DK2 i'm let down by the lack story. splash pages just don't do it for me unless yer jim steranko or maybe barry w-smith. on deck are about a million things - the shadow series by helfer and baker as well as some of steve rude's nexus ishs.

comic-con this year? i think so.

tony pierce has a good couple of rants re: ticketbastard, here. anything that is not in favor of these cretins, i'm for.
ticketbastard is one of my key examples of people making something as a cheap cash grab rather than making something well done. how can you honestly be proud of 'your work' at ticketmaster?

last night i met up with some of the crew at la parilla, a mexican joint down on wilshire, just west of the 110. G. was describing his trip back to texas for a family reunion and his chat with his 80+ yr. old grand-uncle. grand-uncle was all "mijo, what do you do?"and G. tried to describe his job - he is a senior product/creative developer for an online cityguide - a job of responsibility and a place where he actually creates something, that being images or the layout of the site. it can be hard to descibe this to an older, non-internet interested generation and he quickly lost his grand-tio's attention. we joked about how i descibed online design work to my mom (73 yrs. old) and i thought that at the very least, you could simply tell them that i make THIS MUCH MONEY for goofing around on a computer all day. that, they'd understand.

so today, after reading about ticketmaster, i thought, how would he describe that job to his tio, "i created a company that taxes people who want to by tickets to concerts and movies and stuff."

"i created a toll-road so you have to pay me to be entertained grand-uncle."

f.

late gettin' to it today - spent this morning at the getty center and once you end up on the west-side, it's hard to get back quickly.

stayed out late-ish last night as i saw "dogtown and z-boys" the docu on skateboarding. essentially a behind-the-pictures look at a group of west-side sk8rs who changed sk8ing from trying to copy very stiff surfing on land into what it is today, rat-ass punks freaking out.

it is filled with interviews and footage and well, pictures. amazing shots of these kids from the seventies - beautiful. i've got a few friends who know who these people are, but aside from having sk8r friends, i don't know dick about the sport. i recommend this flick unless you can't stand the stuff for some reason. the interviewing seems acceptable, the editing moves along well enough - the documents outstanding and the soundtrack agreeable and enjoyable (which is usually where films fall flat for me.)
imho, you'd have to WANT to fuck up this movie. the supporting material and recounts are just so much kodachomy golden endless summer of all of our youths goodness.

that said, a few folks have heard about this thing via NPR and it has won a few festival awards, so i imagine some have gotten hit by the hype machine. i was fortunate to miss all of that and just have my roommate tell me it was dope. it was.

another article, this time at the guardian, about how f'ed colin powell is these days. a nice run-down.

was at our neighbors last night and ended up watching "buffy the vampire slayer" and "roswell" over dinner. i was completely interested in the first two seasons of buffy, but hadn't really kept up with it for years. geller is looking kinda flockhart'ed out i'm afraid, or maybe its just sloppy lighting, the zander character is looking really doughy, apparently he's a bit of a drinker. "willow" is still a little cutie pie - oh my lord - her character has turned into a lesbian witch/wiccan (whatevs) and last night she "made-up" with her old girlfriend. "teenage" girls kissing all OVER the place!

They told him don't you ever come around here
Don't wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it

You better run, you better do what you can
Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it

They're out to get you, better leave while you can
Don't wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man
You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
So beat it, just beat it

You have to show them that you're really not scared
You're playin' with your life, this ain't no truth or dare
They'll kick you, then they beat you,
Then they'll tell you it's fair
So beat it, but you wanna be bad

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Beat it, beat it, beat it

Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or who's right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Beat it, beat it, beat it

Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or who's right

Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or who's right

Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin' how funky and strong is your fight
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Beat it, beat it, beat it

finally home after a wonderful trip home.
sorting through my life that is covered with a fine layer of southern california dust this morning; here is a great deal of good luck.

i don't use a digital camera and at this point don't have access to a scanner (oh chit, i'm unemployed!) so i can't promise any trip pics any time soon. while away, email and computers and telephones were ignored, so i'll probably be catching up with news for a bit. i did manage to grab some recent music news though, as a small record store in louisville had a bunch of back issues of Mojo Magazine! didn't spend any money on the ponies but bought all these mofo's that i could find.