adrian is rad

Last night’s playlist for your glancing.

Incidentally, if you’re on the radio or otherwise DJing at some point, do not try to follow Thom Yorke’s “Harrowdown Hill” with Jens Lekman’s “Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa.” The transition does not work and is quite jarring.

Two time co-host wicked child was back in town and he cohosted once more. It was a fun time. We are almost entirely non-sensical when we’re on the air.

(Andy, note that Band of Horses was formed out of the broken up bits of Carissa’s Weird.)

With my dad working for a coal company, I grew up around talk of mining coal veins and the like, but I was a little surprised to see this in an article about Centro-matic:

Centro-matic’s dynamic is intelligent, emotional American rock that mines some of the same veins as My Morning Jacket, Son Volt and the Drive-By Truckers.

How about that? Is that a common expression? Does your average San Jose (or other major city resident) know that coal (and other fossil remnants) is located in veins?

I always have moments like these because the linguistic hodge-podge that’s in my head: South African English, Pittsburghese, south-eastern PA dialect, geek slang. I know that 98% of what I say is understandable by the listener; it’s that last 2% that I’m never sure if it’s some specific or specialized term, phrase or way of talking that I’m not sure is in the common lexicon.

They should build a Buddhist amusement park in Tibet.

They’d call it Dalaiwood.

I finally was able to make a theme (wordpress 1.5) out of my old style (wordpress 1.2). So this is what the ol’ blog looked in ’04. I don’t think all of the bugs are worked out, but it mostly works.

I don’t know if I’ll stick with this permanently, but otherwise this’ll be the “throwback theme” week here at adrianisrad.

[Update:] Yeah, comments are broken. I’m not sure what’s up…

[Update2:] Comments are fixed. Heroic!

I went to see the Red Sox play @ Oakland tonight.

Beckett pitched well, but the Papi-less, Manny-less offense just couldn’t score enough runs, losing 2-1.

Oakland moves to 7.5 ahead of the Angels in the AL West. Boston moves to 7.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. (The BoSox are 6.5 back in the wild card race.) Doesn’t look good for the Sox.

I don’t like Oakland when they’re playing the Sox, but I must admit, they’re growing on me otherwise.

I have a bunch of friends about to leave for Burning Man so I’ll leave them with…

Five things I’ll be doing while you’re at Burning Man:

1. carefully stewarding my pallor
2. repeatedly watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the TiVo
3. defecating indoors—copiously, often, and without queueing
4. not tongue-kissing a sweaty Java programmer in clown makeup named “Shanti”
5. wearing clothes—lots and lots of square, capitalist, heinous-body-covering clothes

Tonight was the 826Valencia benefit show at the Palace of Fine Arts with Patton Oswalt, Zach Rogue, Mark Kozelek, Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell, Jonathan Richman, and Aimee Mann.

The Palace of Fine Arts is a pretty big building. The auditorium area has very comfortable chairs in stadium-style seating and the walls are drapped in red velvet. (I’m getting that old that I’m really glad that this was a seated show.) The stage area is large and the visibility from pretty much anywhere seemed like it’d be good. The sound was excellent. That’s thanks to the sound guy, John Karr (seriously, that was his name). Thanks John!

Let’s go through the night:

Patton Oswalt: actor comedian guy. I recognized him. IMDB tells me it’s probably King of Queens (from the twoish times I’ve watched it). Turns out he’s very funny, in the offensive vein of humor, mostly.

Zach Rogue (Rogue Wave): I’ve seen him play solo before. He played a short set including “Publish my Love” and “Postage Stamp World”. He sounded great on the guitar and his vocals sounded really good too. He said a couple funny things and a few things about 826 and that was that.

Mark Kozelek: I feel pretty lucky I live in the same city (or metropolitan area) as Mark Kozelek (Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters) and that I get to see him with some frequency. This guy is amazing. His voice is just so pure and incredible and his fingerpicked guitar playing is intensely good, though my concert companions wished “he’d just strum a chord sometime!” His set included “Trucker’s Atlas”, “Rock N Roll Singer”, and “Glenn Tipton”. I could listen to him singing about killing babies and he’s probably sound good. [I do no condone killing babies.]

Dave Eggers: He just showed a video about 826. It was fine. Then he showed some slides of the work of this kid named Alex who utilizes 826NYC. These were hilarious. He’s about 7 and does this collages of things like a peanut and a gingerbread man and then scrawls “A gingerbread man and a peanut got married. Can you imagine what their kids look like?” or a picture of a robot playing a trumpet and the scrawled writing says “Robots are the new jazz man. They are not good. If you want to go to a jazz restaurant, do not go, no matter how good the food is! DO NOT GO!” I’d buy a book of these if they made one.

Intermission: Hug Dave Eggers for $20, get a “buddy punch” from Sarah Vowell for $5 (or 5 for $20! bargain!). I did not partipate in these deals.

Sarah Vowell: She did a reading of a story she wrote about her favorite explorer, a German cartographer named Charles Preuss who she read about when she was on a book tour, reading a book about explorers. Patton Oswalt provided the voice of Preuss in thick German accent. He was quite funny about it. The story was entertaining and funny. I’m saying “story” but it was more like a report or something. There were many mentions of the Oregon Trail, but no mentions or jokes associated with The Oregon Trail. I was quite disappointed. You gotta pick the low hanging fruit!

Jonathan Richman: The last time I saw him was also a benefit show (and also with Mark Kozelek). He’s still as absolutely entertaining as always. He’ll move his hips to the music while playing Spanish-influenced guitar and singing in Italian while providing running translation in English or making off-handed comments. And then he’ll do an odd stage bow (or think of it as a figure skater at the end of a routine). I had a big smile on my face the whole time. I’m not overly familiar with his music but he closed with “Not So Much to be Loved as to Love.”

Aimee Mann: She was the only one to play with someone else, Paul Brion (any relation to Jon ?) He sang back ups, played bass (which was up way too much in the mix, only sound problem of the night), and guitar. I’m not incredibly familiar with her stuff, mostly just her Magnolia work and a handfull of other songs. She played a nice set, including “Save Me” and “You Could Make a Killing.”She’s got a great voice and the way her melodies work over her guitar is something else.

I’d heard reports of collaborations (Byrne/ Stevens and Gibbard/ Roderick) at other 826 benefits and so I had my hopes up for this one, but nothing materialized. Mann/ Richman? Mann/ Kozelek? Kozelek/ Richman? I wonder what any of those would have sounded like.

All in all a very good concert. What’s with benefit shows being great shows? I want my Small Stakes poster for this one, though. (I don’t think any were actually made.)

Yesterday I did the coast loop ride out to San Gregorio (stopping at the San Gregorio General Store for lunch) via Old la Honda and Tunitas Creek Road. The full map is here. I went with Dostal and a few of his friends, including a couple guys from the Campus Bike Shop. The total ride is about 45 miles and 4200 feet of climbing.

Thoughts on the ride:

• You shouldn’t rush up the first climb, Old la Honda. Pace yourself, unlike me. I went up 3.5% slower than my best time. Oops
• W. Old la Honda’s a fun descent
• 84 has a couple construction zones with severe bumped. I was sure I broke a spoke when I accidentally went over one of them. They are avoidable if you pay attention.
• Stage Rd. is sort of steep but fairly short
• The part down the PCH by Tunitas Beach is incredible. You’re going 40mph and it’s a gorgeous view.
• Tunitas Creek Rd. hurt a lot. It’s about 6.2 miles of climb. Shallow for 1 mile, then pretty steep for 2 (that’s the hurting part; and I didn’t realize I could go that slow on a bicycle without falling off) and then quite shallow for another 3.
• Having a bunch of professional bike mechanics on a ride with you is great when you get a flat 30-some miles into a ride. Thanks Parker!
• Then it’s a quick descent down King’s Mt, through Woodside and up Sand Hill. The bit up Sand Hill hurt because I was pretty fatigued.
• having a happy birthday balloon tied to your bike for 45 miles sort of sucks but people will wish you happy birthday when passing
• the Dutch Goose is a good of a place as any for post-ride drinks, burgers and chatting in there outside patio area

I went to see Talladega Nights with andyl at the Capitol Drive In the other night.

We had a hilarious mix up with the screens (“How come the sound doesn’t match up to the screen? [rolling down window] Excuse me, what movie is this?” “Barnyard” “Oh crap, we’re at the wrong screen”) After that we got to the right screen and everything was sorted out.

The movie was pretty funny. It was no Little Miss Sunshine, but I laughed a lot. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly were both good. This movie isn’t going to make you smarter or a better person, but it’s entertaining.

Fin.

Five albums that I own but somehow have failed to rip from CD:

1. Beach Boys Pet Sounds
2. Low Things we Lost in the Fire
3. Beulah The Coast is Never Clear
4. Mogwai Young Team
5. Pedro the Lion The Only Reason I Feel Secure

Other albums that I missed ripping:
Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol. 1
Rachel’s the Sea and the Bells
Mark Eitzel The Invisible Man
Beatles Let it Be
Matt Pond PA Green Fury
Modest Mouse This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About
Seam Headsparks

Last night’s playlist. it turned out alright.

(Andy, note the Kleenex Girl Wonder.)

(Note the appearance of the full length from Night Rally.)

Tide (with Febreze) is using the #22 great song of all time, Be My Baby, in one of their commercials. They start with the huge drums from the beginning at the beginning (as well they should) and then there’s an absolutely horrible cut to the first chorus.

The edit’s so bad it hit me like a train.