adrian is rad

actually, just spanish.

I signed up for a beginner’s Spanish class at the Palo Alto Adult School. It’s from Sept. 13-Nov. 29 on Tuesdays. I can take the second and third parts in the winter and spring.

There’s also this motorcycle class that I’ve been thinking about. I’ll hold off a bit before signing up for that.

Other languages to learn:

• Zulu
• Afrikaans

I should be able to learn five languages (english, german, spanish, zulu, afrikaans), right? They’re just words (and syntax and whatnot)….

I spent basically all of Sunday up in San Francisco with Jon Werberg (and Helene and others).

I got a bunch of CDs at Amoeba:

• Bruce Springsteen Nebraska
• Songs:Ohia Didn’t it Rain
• Mogwai Government Commisions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003
• Pinback Pinback
• Classic Mountain Songs (from Smithsonian Folkways)
• Classic Southern Gospel (from Smithsonian Folkways)
• Northumbian Rant: Traditional Music from the Edge of England (from Smithsonian Folkways)
• Songs and Ballads of Anthracite Miners

We went to Alcatraz, which was actually pretty interesting. They have an audio tour which is done by some old wardens and old convicts who served at Alcatraz. There are some really interesting stories of attempted escapes and the general conditions there. It’s not quite like having ex prisoners themselves give you the tour but it’s pretty interesting.

Continuing on the things that San Franciscans never do, we headed to the Coit Tower but the parking lot was full and rather than wait for a while or park farther away and walk up, we just gave it a skip.

After wandering around the Mission a bit, we went to Studio Z for a film fundraising thing for a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (to me, Jon had one less of those). They’re making a documentary about two twins who were born boys but recently (at age 20 or thereabouts) one starting living as a girl and has had sexual reassignment surgery. They showed a 20 minute excerpt of the movie and I really didn’t know what to think. Various people from the mayor’s office and city council spoke afterwards. It was all a bit strange.

After that it was already after 9 and we were a bit hungry so we (Jon, and a few friends and friends of friends and I) headed to Walzwerk, which is a kickass East German restaurant (though don’t be fooled! Spaetzle is Swaebisch, not East German!). I had a Koestriker, potato pancakes, and an entree with chicken stuffed with apples and bacon and mashed potatoes on the side. Man, that’s a heavy meal! I thoroughly recommend Walzwerk. I’d recommend giving the “green salad” a skip; one of my dining companions was thoroughly disappointed with it. Just get some wurst or something!

I went to see 40 year old virgin at the Capitol Drive-In for my birthday on Saturday with Andyl and Shad.

The title basically explains what the movie is about.

It was really funny and well-written. I laughed out loud a bunch. It’s also got a reasonably good story and good characters given the genre.

Of the four major sports (baseball, basketball, football. and hockey), there are 15 cities with exactly one major sports franchise. They are as follows:

• Columbus (Blue Jackets, NHL)
• Ottawa (Senators, NHL)
• Edmonton (Oilers, NHL)
• Raliegh (Carolina Hurricanes, NHL)
• Calgary (Flames, NHL)
• Vancouver (Canucks, NHL)
• Montreal (Canadiens, NHL)
• Greenbay (Packers, NFL)
• Jacksonville (Jaguars, NFL)
• Orlando (Magic, NBA)
• Sacramento (Kings, NBA)
• Portland (Trailblaizers, NBA)
• Salt Lake City (Utah Jazz, NBA)
• Memphis (Grizzlies, NBA)
• San Antonio (Spurs, NBA)

the following are what I call “sort of”s because they are in the metropolitan area with major sports franchises:

• San Jose, CA (Sharks, NHL, in the Bay Area with San Francisco and Oakland teams)
• Arlington, TX (Texas Rangers, MLB, in Dallas/ Ft. Worth area)
• Foxboro, MA (New England Patriots, NFL, in Boston area)
• Tempe, AZ (Arizona Cardinals, NFL, in Pheonix area)
• St. Paul, MN (Minnesota Wild, NHL, in Minneapolis area)

A reminder to listen today because John Vanderslice is playing on my show in the 8am (PST) hour. woo!

The playlist for the rest of the show.

I added a “covers contest” tag so now you may click on that on the right side (at the bottom of the list, currently) and see all the posts about the covers contest. It’s great for going back and listening to them!

The song for last week was Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie.

The votes went like this:
Best Cover:
Adrian 3
Dave 2

Most Original:
Adrian 0
Dave 5

Congrats to Dave and me.

four sports or activities in which I can beat the layman but I am no match for the skilled or professional:

• swimming
• cycling
• table tennis (or “pong” as I call it)
• foosball

I saw Johnny Clegg at Slim’s last night. Johnny is a South African who is sometimes called the “White Zulu.”

It wasn’t my normal indie rock concert fair. The crowd was entirely different—much wider range of ages. It was good fun though. I was suprised at how few South Africans I heard. I mean, how do you hear about this guy if you’re not South African? Have any of you heard of him?

The music was good; many of the 80s-era cheesy keyboard lines weren’t recreated live, fortunately. Johnny told some interesting anecdotes and danced some in the Zulu style. He also speaks a fair amount of Zulu, it seems. One day I’ll be able to speak a fair amount of Zulu.

I made a bunch of Adrian is Rad shirts:

Also, I made a couple hoodies:

Now, for some business. I’m trying to decide whether it’s good or fair to charge people for these? I mean, it’s sort of shameless self-promotion. On the other hand, I did spend ~$8 on each of these shirts? So what do you think?
a) sure, those shirts are pretty sweet and I’m willing to pay for it.
b) I’m willing to pay for one but not $8.
c) this is pretty much shameless self promotion. I’d like one if it’s free.

Anyway, let me know.

I’m doing a different show this week, a world music show.

right now I’m playing this awesome dhrupad by the Dagar Brothers.

this is the playlist and you may listen here

my radio show is indirectly mentioned on tiny mix tapes today.

check the second show under the “tour.”

a couple quality “reality” shows that I picked up recently:

• Stranded A British guy gets dropped off in an undisclosed location without food or money or contact to that outside world (besides the camera crew, I guess). He figures out where he is and learns about the town. It reminds me of that guy on one of the network news casts whose idea is that everyone has (or is) an interesting story, so he’d go to random towns, open the phone book and start calling people. An the Everyday American always had an interesting story. Similarly, the Everyday Town has interesting things.
• Going Tribal A British guy goes to a remote tribe somewhere in the world and makes contact, often with a guide, with the hope of learning about and living with them. It’s tremendously interesting. Today’s episode he went to the occasionally canibalistic Kombai tribe who sleep in totally sweet treehouses. And this guy really tries to live in the traditions of the tribe. He ate maggots, went hunting, had his nose pierce (horizontal bar through the septum), and even tried (but didn’t end up going through with because he almost fainted) a vaguely described penis inversion thing that the tribe does for unknown reasons.

Overall some really interesting stuff to learn about our world.

Alright kiddos, here we go.

The entries in the Covers Contest for this week’s song, Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie (Original):

• Adrian
• Dave

Listen and vote for the best and most original cover.

The results for last week’s contest, the original for which was Matter by boom bip:
Best cover:
Adrian 0
Andy 1
Dave 2
Jesse 4

Most Original:
Adrian 1
Andy 0
Dave 0
Jesse 6

Good job, Jesse.

One last announcement for this post: We’ve decided to take a break for a bit. We may be back in a few weeks. Dave didn’t seem to have trouble finishing these but I’ve been scheduling my weeks around these because they take me a lot of time and Andy’s been having trouble getting them done, as you may have noticed. Hopefully you’ll see some original output from the three in the near future as well. If anyone would like to make their own cover contest with themselves, I’ll post a link to the result, just let me know. I can even pick a song for you to cover, if you’d like.

There’ll be a covers contest post next week to recap the results from the voting this week.

I saw Grizzly Man tonight.

It’s a documentary about bear activist Timothy Treadwell who lived among bears in Alaska for 13 summers. He called them and his friends and repeatedly tells bears that he loves them. He and his girlfriend eventually get eaten by a bear.

This is nutso German director Werner Herzog’s take on the Treadwell story, assembled largely Treadwell’s own footage.

This movie is pretty intense. It’s definitely an interesting study of one man by another interesting man. There’s some amazing bear and wolf footage. It doesn’t have a happy ending.

I’ve noticed the slowness of the site loading.

I’m going to try to see what’s up.

it is right here.

also, you may listen on the online.

Here’s a couple fun tests: take a piece of paper and write all fifty states down. No references or asking people. No studying. Take as much time as you need.

Andyl got all of those.

Second test, write all of the capitals down next to the fifty states. Between andy and I we got 44 out of 50 right (and one additional spelling error). That’s a bit so-so.

I made a flower vase out of an antique hand held urinal which I bought as part of the crap buying contest:

It is right by the door of our house.

Here is the original proclamation of Adrian is rad:

I’m going to silk screen shirts to basically look identical. If you want one, let me know. I should have them within the next couple weeks.

This week’s cover contest was for the song Matter by boom bip (Original)

entries!

• Adrian*
• Andy
• Dave
• Jesse

*I’d like to note that this one is not in stereo. It was done with one mic—banjo and vocals at the same time—all the way through, no overdubs or patch-ins.

Listen and vote for the best and most original cover. We have lots of entries this week so lots of votes would be good!

The results for last week’s cover of Consequence by the Notwist were:
Best:
Adrian 3
Dave 0

Most Original:
Adrian 3
Dave 0

Not that many votes but a clear mandate for ME. weeeeeeeeeeeee

The song for next week is Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie (Original)

Over the last two nights I watched part of The Gods Must be Crazy and The Gods Must be Crazy II. Man, what a set of fantastic movies!

The basic plots are Xixo, a bushman from the Kalahari, interacting with “heavy people,” e.g. South Africans and westerners. Both movies have a bumbling South African and a woman who interact in a love story.

There is something very charming about these movies. Movies just aren’t made like this any more! Slapstick humor, slightly spead up film for effect, a goofy “narrator” part that makes it seem like an anthropology movie. The first movie even has this problem with the audio where it’s out of sync with the mouths moving on the screen.

I remember in 1989 or so, we’d just moved to Pittsburgh and the whole family went to see 2 at the Galleria (in the right most theater, if you’re counting). It was just at the time when my brother and I didn’t want to sit with our parents at the movies so we sat up near the front (probably the 3rd row—we’d often sit in the 3rd row) and my parents sat near the back. During the entire movie I could hear my dad’s laughter over everyone else’s.

I saw Me You and Everyone We Know on Thursday.

There’s a mentally unstable father and shoe salesman who is just separating from his wife. There’s a performance artist and “elder cab” driver. Then there’s the neighbors and coworkers and clients and whatnot.

I liked it. I can’t really pinpoint why. It’s tremendously funny at points and sad at points. There’s good chemistry between the two leads and in general I like the charactters.

)) <> ((

today’s the 60th anniversary of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima.

it’s August already! Not only that but it is very August already. the fourth! that’s not the first or second or even the third!

anyway, the first playlist of the month in which I turn 25.

Listen if you’re around right now (before 9am Pacific).

A friend of mine (Leo) set up a site a called runthere.com. It’s a pretty neat thing he’s set up. You can plug in a route that you run (or walk, or bike, or whatever) and it’ll tell you how long it is.

It’s based on the Google map API which they apparently released, which is pretty cool.

My walk to work this morning was 1.82 miles.

I confirmed today that John Vanderslice will be playing on my radio show in the 8am hour on August 25th, 2005. I’m really excited.

In the meantime check out this track from his new album, Pixel Revolt, coming out August 23rd.

Trance Manual - John Vanderslice

There is this part about 2/3 the way through where there’s this awesome plucked string part that adds to the hand bell part and then another string part on top of it.

Here’s a list:

• Start my Pentax K1000/ Canon A40 self-made all-manual digital SLR
• get a haircut
• Sell 2-4 Wurlitzer electric pianos
• order shirts for, make silk-screen for, silk-screen “Adrian is rad”* shirts**
• have a blast with jon werberg while he’s out here
• ask landlady about painting my room, pick colors, buy paint
• try to find a firmer bed, a smaller desk, a dresser
• learn php, get a start on internal online ticket giveaway system for KZSU

*The shirt came first, the blog with the same name second. I made it with iron on red letters a white shirt with blue ringers; the ones I’m going to make are basically the same except they’ll be silk-screened.

**Let me know if you want one (and your size). I don’t think I’m going to be able to swallow the cost on them so they’d be $8-$10 or whatever they cost me. I’ll see if I can get a picture of the original up soon.

The cover for this week was Consequence by the Notwist. (Original version).

Here are the entries so far:

• Adrian*
• Dave

*best with headphones or stereo, like usual.

Andy may have one to add tonight. If you want to hold off voting for mine until you’ve heard his as well, that’s okay.

You may listen and vote.

Covers contest #6 Shape of My Heart by Backstreet Boys
Best Cover:
Adrian 2
Andy 2
Dave 3

Most Original Cover:
Adrian 4
Andy 3
Dave 0

Looks like Dave and I squeezed out narrow victories. Thanks for the votes!

Andy was also the chooser for this coming week’s song (cover’s contest #8) so currently we have no song for next week. This may be the end of the cover’s contest.

Update 1: The song for cover’s contest #8 is the Matter by boom bip (with Nina Nastasia) (Original).

Update 2: Added Dave’s cover above.

Update 3: Andy’s not doing a version of “Consequence” so go ahead and vote. I’ve gotta stop being nice and make the deadline the deadline.