adrian is rad

I was listening again to NPR’s story about Brinkley, AR and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker (and the associated “Lord God Bird” song by Sufjan, I’ve posted about it before) tonight. It got me thinking (and I’ve thought before…

The SF Peninsula isn’t changing. I mean, it is, but it isn’t really. What am I doing here? There are places like Brinkley, serious small town America, that are changing irreparably and getting closer to extinction. Maybe I should plan a week next year (or in the fall) to drive around small town America, staying in small inn’s and talking to locals. Hopefully even catching some local music. It wouldn’t be exciting or crazy like vising NYC is, but it’d be pretty cool. It’s not like I Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and the Big Woods has been called America’s Amazon.

I’m serious about this. Let me know (here or offline) if you’re interested.

Last night I saw another film at the SFIFF: Bunny Chow (official site, wikipedia).

[Note: the film is named after a food popular primarily in Durban by the same name. Despite the description, it’s not a sandwhich. It’s hollowed out bread filled with curry.]

It’s a South African film (so I have an immediate bias) about three comedians and a random fourth guy who travel to a primarily music (but also comedy) festival together. It’s also about the comedy business and different approaches to women.

It’s a good film. It’s was a bit here-and-there, very conversational and, though it had an obvious plot, seemed like you were just watching friends hanging out a lot. I found it engaging. On the negative side, though I did laugh, I thought a film about stand up comedians would be funnier.

I’m fairly used to listening to various South African accents, but Gumbeaux had a hard time, he said. There were some parts that had subtitles even for English in the film (the Zulu and Afrikaans were obviously subtitled). I think the film could use subtitles throughout for American audiences.

Last night I saw Jonathan Richman perform live accompaniment to the 1921 Swedish silent movie Phantom Carriage at the Castro Theatre.

I haven’t been to the Castro Theatre in a couple years and as I went in and saw the beautiful molding and ornamentation in the theater, I remembered how amazing that place is. There was an interesting mix of people milling around and finding their seats: Jonathan Richman fans, silent movie aficionados, indie movie people, etc.

If you’ve never seen a silent film with live musical accompaniment, I’d recommend it. It’s usually a pretty good experience. The semi-improvisational nature of the music adds a lot of excitement to the movie.

The movie itself is pretty complex for the time. The plot’s based around a Swedish folktale. The idea goes that the last to die in a year that has bad things has to spend the rest of the year being Death’s carriage driver. It employed a few techniques that I was surprised were employed then, including non-linear story telling and some fairly good special effects techniques for the ghosts.

On now onto the music. I’d seen Jonathan Richman before. He’s really quirky live and has a lot of charisma and stage presence, so I was really curious how it’d end up when these things were taken away. The set up was Jonathan on (nylon string) guitar and pump organ. Other players were two hand bell players, a trumpet/ baritone player, a bass clarinet/ saxophone/ flute player, a violinist and a cellist. I thought their accompaniment was really good and all the players were very talented. It worked really well with the movie. The main characters had motifs and there were parts were these two motifs were almost colliding when two characters were talking or arguing. A daring move was during certain particularly intense moments in the movie there they left it completely silent; I think it paid off.

View the full photo album.

Update: I’ve noticed the bad justification to the text next to the photos. I have tried to fix it, but it’s stubborn. Sorry!

This Thursday’s My Name is Earl is going to be the TELEVISION EVENT OF THE CENTURY: Laugh N Sniff. You buy this week’s TV Guide which has a special card in it and at certain points in the show you scratch so you can smell what’s going on in the show! It’s like Smell O Vision! For the masses!

I have purchased my copy of this week’s TV Guide; I’m not missing this opportunity.

I was totally right. I saw one of those minature personalized license plates yesterday and bought it. It was pretty excited. I never see “Adrian.” My roommate said that “Adrian” had to be in the top 50 most popular names. How to resolve this? The Social Security Administration to the rescue!

Their site will show you top 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 names for any year back to 1880 (1880’s most popular names? John for boys, Mary for girls). In the year I was born, 1980, Adrian was the 115th most popular male name with 2,387 total Adrians that year.

The top 10 names from that year:

1. Michael
2. Christopher
3. Jason
4. David
5. James
6. Matthew
7. Joshua
8. John
9. Robert
10. Joseph

You can also check out the fads, how a particular name changed in popularity over a period of time.

After the jump how “Adrian” has varied since my birth year.

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Hi. I don’t know if we’ve met. I’m Adrian and I’m crazy.

Last week’s triathlon training.

Saturday: 2.0 miles bicycling -> 0.9 miles swimming -> 17 miles bicycling -> 3.2 miles running

Sunday: 22 miles bicycling (Old la Honda, 2000 ft elevation gain)

Monday: 3.5 miles running

Wednesday: 1.0 miles swimming

Thursday: 3.5 miles running

Totals (and the goals in parenthesis):

• swimming: 1.9 miles (2.0)
• running: 10.2 miles (10-11)
• bicycling: 41 miles (15-22)
• brick: one triathlon (at least one brick)

I don’t know if I can keep this up. The running is starting to become a real problem, like a joint pain problem. I think I’ll try to just keep up this week.
Goals:

• swimming: 1.9 miles
• running: 10.0 miles
• bicycling: 15 miles
• brick: at least one

Here’s the playlist of tonight’s show. I am a bit sick and loopy, but I think the music, at least, didn’t suffer.

There’s just so much good music out there right now. I’ve been picking about 1.5 hours too much music for my show pretty regularly.

I got multiple calls asking about the One AM Radio track, “Lest We Forget”. It’s a good track. (And it’s streamable at his myspace.)

I Once was Canadian, KZSU - 4/25/07 (mp3)

The 50th San Francisco International Film Festival starts later this week. Here are some of the ones I’m interested in seeing.

Bunny Chow A South African comedy. Despite the description, “bunny chow” is not a sandwhich and is not popular in Johannesburg (it’s a Durbs thing)

Phantom Carriage A classic Swedish silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Richman

The Old, Weird America: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music About the second best collection of American folk music and its effects.

Audience of One A documentary about an SF preacher that gets divine instructions to shoot a film and he goes about doing so on 70mm film.

Ghosts of Cite Soleil Documentary about Haitian gang rivals and rappers.

The Monastery Documentary about a former university librarian who wants to turn his ancestral home (a castle, actually) into a Russian Orthodox monastery.

Bamako An allegory about the Western World’s influence on Africa.

Third Monday in October A documentary about the heated battle for middle school president in a variety of schools in three states.

Once A rom-com (as I call them) about two Dublin musicians. I just love Irish musicians, alright?

Emma’s Bliss A German film about a man with terminal cancer and the woman whose pig farm he crashes his stolen car into.

Aqua About two swimmers in different parts of their careers. Minimalist and apparently good cinematography.

Eagle Vs. Shark quirky and compared to Napoleon Dynamite. I’m intrigued.

Rocket Science From the director of one of my favorite movies, Spellbound this is a feature film about a stuttering kid who joins the debate team to win over a girl.

Off the news wire:

April 21, 2007

Menlo Park, CA - Adrian took the prize by a narrow lead in the first annual Adrian Classic sprint-distance triathlon. Adrian held off competitors to take first place in the first running of this tough race.

The course started at the scenic Stanford pool with a 1600 yard (0.909 miles) swim. Then competitors cycled 17.5 miles around hilly Portola Valley, ending in Menlo Park. They then ran 3.2 miles around Menlo Park.

Adrian took the lead at the beginning and never let up. “I’m just glad I could hold them off,” Adrian said. “I think I had a strong swim leg and I really just held on after that.”

“I have to say, the hardest part was the Gauntlet.” What’s come to be know as the ‘Gauntlet’ is part of the run leg where the competitors have to dodge gypsy-moth caterpillars hanging over the route from trees overhead. “After the Gauntlet, though, I was home free.”

A spectator at the finish line who asked not to be named said about Adrian “He looked like shit.”

Twice yesterday this happened at two different social functions:

Dev/ Kyle: Hi, I’m Dev/ Kyle.

Me: Yeah, we’ve met. I’m Adrian.

Both of these people I’ve interacted with a few dozen times. Do I look different? Why are people not recognizing me?

Which reminds me of a pretty great story. At some point Natalie Portman, who went to the little brick schoolhouse up the road was at an MIT party. She was milling around outside. My friend Will was waiting outside for people so that they could all leave. He’s there; she’s there. Both milling. So he walks up to her and says “Hi, I’m Will.” She apparently grunts and doesn’t shake his outstretched hand.

This was in post-Phantom Menace, pre-Attack of the Clones period; there had been a young Anakin but no grow Anakin yet. He had this intricate plan in which he’d bust his butt and get the Anakin part for Attack of the Clones. On the first day of shooting, she’d introduce herself to him, her male co-star. “Hi, I’m Natalie.” He’d then yell “Oh, we’ve met!” and storm out.

Needless to say, this plan did not come to fruition.

I have interesting friends.

At an engagement party/ shinding tonight.

me, to the engaged: Congratulations!

him: you don’t look fat!

I forgot to post my playlist from this week’s show.

Also, here’s the mp3
I Once was Canadian (KZSU) - 4-18-07 (mp3)

I really liked the last set: Andrew Bird->Sigur Ros->Adem.

Miranda July’s new website for her book No One Belongs Here More Than You is lo-fi (so to speak), reminding me, actually, of spultek’s old website which was scanned from a hand sketch. She made the entire website by taking photos of a “whiteboard.” It’s a good idea and great execution.

Miranda’s the same person who wrote, directed and acted in the quirky and funny 2005 film Me and You and Everyone We Know. I’d recommend it.

I’m training for one of the Alcatraz triathlons. Today and last Thursdays I’ve done biking and running in a row and it has hurt. Today was slightly better than the last, I think.

What I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1.5-2.0 miles
  • actual: 2x 1.0 miles = 2.0 miles
• running:
  • goal: 9-10.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.5 miles + 1 X 3.0 miles = 10 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 16.0 miles (+5x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 16.0 or 23.2 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 16 miles biking then 3 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

I bought one of these this week. It was nice to have water on the longer runs, especially when I’m in the sun. It think it’ll also be nice to have if I decide to do something like run to the pool, swim, and then run back. It has a little pocket where I can keep my keys and maybe one of those gel/ goo/ power shot sort of things.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 2.0 miles
• running: 10-11 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

I don’t want to over do it. I have been starting to ache quite a bit, both muscularly and in joints and tendons and whatnot, so I’m not going to push it much this week.

Apparently, the Nike Airs that Marty wore in Back to the Future II might be release. Honestly, the thought makes me grin.

ESPN Page 2 has a great and extensive story about rabbit chasing/ catching in rural Florida and about how it makes the football players there fearless and fast. When I was young, maybe 7, my parents told me that if I could put salt on a rabbit’s tail, I could catch it. (They figured that if I could get close enough to put salt on a rabbit’s tale, I was close enough to catch it, my mom later told me when I confronted her with this.) So, of course, I spent days chasing rabbits around our yard with a salt shaker. Those things are really fast. I can imagine this would make you fast, especially if you do it in mud.

Both from Mefi.

Here’s my latest mixtape. It’s a tad bit late, as usual. I hope you enjoy it. I like these songs a lot!

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007april playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock plus one soul number. There are great local bands like the Finches, the Dodos (what’s with SF bird bands?), and Beatbeat Whisper. I also have national acts like Andrew Bird (ah! more birds!) and Ted Leo. There are a few interesting quirky songs in there too.

Adrian’s April 2007 mix tape (zip file, right click and ’save as…’)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

The other day I opened a packed of peanut m&ms. I found this one:

Look familiar? Anyone else thinking of this?

That’s right, a Katamari peanut m&m. Do you think I should try to sell it on ebay?

a couple more photos after the jump.
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I love Dave Eggers and I make no bones about it. A Heartbreaking Work is among my favorite books and I’ve read all of his books so far, so I picked up What is the What: the Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng pretty soon after it came out.

But before I go too far, let me clear up one thing: you don’t have to be an Eggers fan to like this book and even if you disliked other of his books, I think you may like this one.

This story is presented in an odd way; it is presented as an autobiography but the author and the name don’t match. Also, it’s labeled fiction. I want to explain these things quickly as well, as I understand them. It’s written in the voice of Valentino but it’s written by Eggers. There are some fictionalized elements, like composite characters and events/ conversation from Valentino’s childhood which he couldn’t remember.

The story takes place largely during the Second Sudanese Civil War (which is not the Darfur conflict but is related) follows one of the Lost Boys of Sudan in his journey from his hometown of Marial Bai in southern Sudan to Ethiopia and eventually Kakuma in Kenya, and it also covers some of his life and hardships in the United States after being resettled here as part of the Lost Boys program.

Raiders burned and ransacked his village when he was still very young (about eight, I think). Valentino spent the next few years walking, avoiding disease, dehydration, attacks from the army, and being shuffled from camp to camp before ending up in Kakuma for many years. When I was eight, I was trying to see if I could jump and touch the sign during recess, he was seeing friends die and starving.

But anyway, you can read about the displaced people of southern Sudan during that war. You can hear about what some of the boys went through. I’d see the documentary (which I’d also recommend) and something on 60 minutes about the Lost Boys, but I hadn’t really gotten a feel for what all happened. It’s different reading one person’s narrative from the beginning to end.

It’s a really good book. Eggers’ prose bring this story to life and even some of his sometimes-annoying literary quirks are diluted in telling this other man’s story.

I saw Valentino speak earlier this week at Kepler’s. I was struck by this in the book as well, but in person it is even more evident. He’s been through more hardship than I could imagine going through in my entire life and, yet, he still has hope. He still has hope and it’s amazing.

I went to bed last night. I always fall asleep to music. I wanted to fall asleep to Beatbeat Whisper’s song “Play Me a Time” (a lullaby, so very appropriate), but I also wanted to hear their “Old River” (3:55) and “The Cowboy’s Lament” (3:02). If felt like a century trying to stay awake for that 6 minutes and 57 seconds before “Play Me a Time” was to come on. In the end I didn’t make it. I think I got into the middle “Cowboy’s Lament” before falling asleep.

I’ve always been able to fall asleep easily. If I have my head on the pillow for more than seven minutes before falling asleep, it’s a truly extraordinary night. The only times I can’t/ couldn’t fall asleep easily, at least usually, was the night before my first final and when riddled with jetlag.

Last week I sent out my goals for triathlon training for this week (my training weeks go Saturday-Friday for this, for whatever reason).

They were and how I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1-1.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 0.75 miles = 1.5 miles
• running:
  • goal: 8.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.0 miles + 1 X 2.5-2.6 miles = 8.5 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 15.0 miles (+4x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 15.0 or 21.6 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 15 miles biking then 2.5 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

The brick was a whole new experience for me. I’d only biked and run in the same day once before and those were hours apart. It feels very strange to do that to your legs. They’re already tired and then you ask them to do a different and (for me) more painful movement. The feeling was assaulting. It wasn’t pain necessarily, not acute pain at least, but just a general feeling of wanting to not be running at that moment and tiredness in my legs.

I know it’s no great physical feat and wasn’t about to collapse, but I’m not quite sure how I did it. I certainly wanted to give up. I think it was very mental: if I couldn’t do that today, then I certainly couldn’t ready and do a triathlon. I had to prove it to myself.

Really one of the things that got me through the run part of the brick was the great album from Beatbeat Whisper which I just posted about on my music blog.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 1.5-2.0 miles
• running: 9.5-10.5 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

My radio show will be at the same time this quarter: Wednesdays 10p-midnight (PST (or PDT?)).

Meanwhile, if you want to read me ranting about music in a different forum, you can check out my music blog.

Update: Here’s this week’s playlist

And here’s the NEWSPECIALFUN:

I Once was Canadian - 4-12-07 (mp3)

I feel like I must have posted on this last year, but I can’t find any references to it.

Yesterday was the annual big wheel/ tricycle race down Lombard Street. It seemed like it was all big wheels this year. Here’s a great photo gallery.

I’d been talking with a friend about going to watch this year. I guess I missed my chance. Next year!

I think it was a lot more tricycles in previous years.

My dad’s German and extremely efficient. I’m not German.

However, I do like efficiency. I was quite chuffed with myself today when I figured out the most efficient route to do all my errands: swim, then KZSU, then haircut, then picking up my glasses. It is almost all right turns with the only left turns coming at 4 way stops and a fast-cycling traffic light with a left turn arrow. It also allowed for enough time for my hair to dry after the swim and before the hair cut.

Yeah, these are seriously the sort of things I think about. I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks about path efficiency.

Passive activity credit?? You mean I can get credit for sitting on the couch and watching TV? That’s awesome!@!

Wikipedia has everything. Including Bristol Stool Scale.

[Update: Graphic removed; it was too…graphic.]

A couple guys (professorial types) in Bristol wrote a paper on it. Goodness.

I signed up for the Alcatraz triathlon a while ago. Running’s not quite working right yet and it’s got me a little worried. I was having second thoughts at the beginning of the week about whether it’d be possible at all to do this (1.5 miles swimming, 13 miles biking, 8.5 miles running) at all, but now I am think it might be possible. This past week consisted of:

• running: 5.2 miles
• swimming: 0.5 miles
• cycling: 43.3 miles

I think this coming week I’d better do something more like this:

• running: 8.5 miles
• swimming: 1-1.5 miles
• cycling: at least 15 miles
• at least one brick (cycle and then run, or run, cycle, run)

Last night’s playlist is there.

The mp3-rip (NEWSPECIALFUN) had problems and got split up into a bunch of small pieces.

I Once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, first hour)

I once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, last hour and change).

To some people, “Pittsburgh sound” might conjure up Don Caballero and other math rock groups. Other might think of Girl Talk. Now people might think of Wiz Khalifa. He’s a young Pittsburgh MC (a senior at Allderdice, in fact) with a song out by that name.

Rolling Stone has a write-up about him. Ed Masley at the Post Gazette talks much more about Pittsburgh.

I like the video because it shows a number of familiar sites. As for the music, it’s competent and listenable, but not great. I’ll give it time.

You can find out/ hear more at his his myspace page.

I scanned and uploaded a bunch of black and white photos to my picasa thing.

Galleries include Pittsburgh over Christmas, my first try at fisheye, the Oakland A’s last game of their sweep of the Twins in the playoffs, Jose Gonzalez @ Stanford, and John Vanderslice @ Stanford.