05-28-02, 1:53pm   (time for me to fly...)
Helluva weekend. Started off with Mike Roy's CD release shin-dig. Not the most organized musical event ever planned, but an amazing one regardless. My cool Sanyo phone was stolen (I think), but I kept my old one as a backup, so that wasn't a huge deal.

Saturday morning, I wake up early and mosey over to Bethesda to test-ride a gorgeous '95 GPz1100 that my friend Richard is selling. I promised myself I'd play it cool regardless of how I felt, but after a few seconds, I was a giddy little kid on a sugar rush. What a bike. We wind up making the test ride last about 200 miles, and put a down payment on a gorgeous local bike for a friend of ours from Chicago (to which his wife later responded, "I'm not too sure I'm thrilled about that" over the phone).

When we got back, we met up with Dave and Janine... two riding friends from Pittsburgh who were passing thru town. We all decided to go see REO Speedwagon playing live in Rockville (and yes, they did actually say, "THEY DON'T CALL THIS PLACE ROCK-VILLE FOR NOTHIN'!!"). While seeing a stadium rock band playing to a crowd of hundreds at a town fair is pretty funny and/or depressing, I have to admit that they "still have it", even though it's not my thing.

Sunday had a gig out in St. Mary's. Another Bombay Sapphire-influenced fun fest which was capped off with a large old boat being burned down and, well, more Bombay Sapphire.

So, anyway... just waiting for @*#& Allstate to call, so I can finally pick this thing up.

05-23-02, 4:22pm   (crashboombang, Googlewhack!)
The ball is rolling on my poor smooshed motorcycle's insurance claim. It's now in the less-than-capable hands of Heyser Cycle in Laurel and that's about the best place I could find. Beats some scary Confederate named "Jesse" who said, "Yeaaeye canna worrk onna motorsaakle." (that quote looks far more Swedish than I had intended)

Initial outlook was grim. May be totalled. Not positive, though. Awaiting their final decision which should come along today some time.

Tuesday's gig in Philly was pretty nice. Black Magic only got to do 2 songs, so that was disappointing, but Philly has a distinct lack of non-cokehead, non-pretentious organ players (as does every city I've been in) and I was able to play for 4 straight sets. Not too bad of a drive out there, either... only 130 miles. I'll probably make that more of a tradition. Getting sick of the DC and Baltimore scenes anyway. You can only play the same songs with the same people for so long...

I scored a bonafide Googlewhack today, unexpectedly at that. On the way back from Philly, I got a bottle of Sobe Oo1ong* tea. I really enjoy good tea, and some bottled tea is surprisingly high quality, but this Sobe stuff was terrible. Overly sweetened, overly tart, all hopped up with steroids and ecstasy or whatever it is they put in there.

"Hellacious Oo1ong*" - only 1 Google entry - relating to Anime and those KFC commercials with Randy Quaid voicing the Colnel, oddly enough.

Yay.

(* of course, if I didn't substitute the 1 for the l, it would cease to be a Googlewhack.)

05-21-02, 5:02pm   (git up onna git down)
Sudden gig invitation in Philly tonight. Great venue... hopefully a no-pay jam gig or two will result in some steady work. Gotta run.

If you're curious as to what the hell kind of musical instrument a "Hammond organ" is, here's an MP3 excerpt from a gig I had at the Inner Harbor a few weeks ago. Fun little ditty.

05-20-02, 1:54pm   (responsibility)
Some guy ran into my parked motorbike last Wednesday. At first, he fled the scene, so when I found the bike that morning, I figured it was a hit and run. After being pissed for an hour, I accepted the fact that parking on the street comes with its risks. I took responsiblity for my contribution to the incident (warranted or not) and dealt with it.

But then I guess his conscience caught up to him, and he taped a business card to my front door later in the day when no one was home.

My bike was knocked against my roommate's car... so there's damage to both vehicles. He admitted to running into my bike, but swears it was already against her car when it happened. Anyone who saw the bike and the car laughs at that proposition.

He also failed to give us his insurance information, and claimed he's been in touch with his insurance agency and they're working it out. My roommate was able to find out his tag number and insurance agency, and called them. He hasn't talked to anyone there yet, so there's little they can do, but at least they're aware. As are the police, who were laughing with us at his explanation.

When we call him to try to find out if he's done anything yet, he gets mad at us as if we're being pushy or rude. He's the one who won't just say, "I screwed up" and deal with it. If he'd have just handled this like you're supposed to handle accidents (exchanged information immediately), it'd probably be done by now, and we wouldn't have to keep calling.

I should have known it would be bad when I read his consulting service's business card, "Your Company's Search Engine for the New Millennium!".

05-10-02, 5:35pm   (homes, indie rock, suvs)

Last weekend, I played at a wedding on a private peninsula in St. Mary's County, surrounded by the Patuxent River. In addition to a 3,500 sq. ft. house, the family had a dock, yacht, deck that went out over the water, and acres of land. It was their weekend house. Their regular house is in San Diego, but when they saw this one, they "just had to have it."

Houses are not cheap. Even tiny little pieces of crap out here are around $175k. Anything with a 2-car garage is $250k, easy. How do so many people own houses? Especially trendy urban single folks?

It was an indie rock explosion in DC last Tuesday as Damien Jurado, Pedro the Lion, Danel Smith and the Nine Fruit Tree, and assorted other scene establishing bands from the mid-90s were out in force on 14th St. I blew $40 and flitted between the clubs like a butterfly, but it was so nice. Hopefully we'll be road-bound with one of those bands not too far off. The Roy project is attracting some important ears, methinks.

My officemate randomly asks, "Why the hell do people buy SUVs?". While I share many people's disdain for behemoth land yachts, I haven't really thought about why they're so popular. I mean, if you own a ranch or live in Montana, it makes sense. Or if you haul a whole lotta crap. But why do trendy urban single folks drive them? Image? What kind of image?

I'm phlegmy. Phlegmy. Good word. Kim and I often say words, then repeat them because they're so fun to repeat. Like "lettuce", and "thumb".

Phlegmy.

04-29-02, 6:11pm   (mu-zak)
Music is back to being the energy focus in my life after a month or two of hiatus. Headed to Peabody tonight to wrap up final mix of the "Roy" project (sort of an alt-country-americana-rock kinda thing... but not). Very very cool, though. Two words : pedal steel.

Wrapped up a weekend with the Westcott Brothers and have been booked to play the Bele Chere Festival in Asheville NC with them this summer. Also awaiting word on my own slot at the DC Blues Festival.

I've been tinkering around on my own, as well as tracking down some big musical influences from my childhood (see sidebars).

04-22-02, 1:45pm   (SME6.9)
Another SME (the spring gathering of Honda V4 nuts to terrorize the citizens of central West Virginia and leave footpeg marks on all the incredible roads of the area) has come and gone.

It was an interesting experience. I was in a slightly altered state last night and wrote a rambling report for no discernable reason. More like a journal entry than a ride breakdown. But after wasting an hour writing it, I didn't want it to go to waste. If you care to wade through it, go here.

If you want pictures, go here.

Long story short : great fun, great roads, funny places, horrible trip home due to bad planning on my part.

Looking forward to the next one in Georgia, though.

04-16-02, 5:36pm   (splotch)
This past weekend I had the fortune of seeing Erasable Inc (University of Maryland's improv troupe) hold a 24-hour show. One word : quality.

It's been a long time since they've been able to do it thanks to university red tape, but this year they just said screw it and did it anyway, 'cause they have some.

24-hour shows are one of the major defining moments in an Inc member's life. It is grueling. It is frustrating. And if you play your cards right, it metamorphosizes into a surrealistic collage of genius and insanity.

04-02-02, 11:12am   (riot part I)
Perhaps one of the worst played NCAA championship games of all time. But who cares? The Terps finally won, in the last ever year of Cole. A fitting end to a storybook season. Oh, and then there was rioting. It wasn't that bad actually, but still amazing to witness. Pepper spray and tear gas are pretty interesting experiences if you get the chance.

Probably 90% of the people out there were just having fun and being harmless. 8% were being a bit too agressive. 2% deserved to be shot. Conversely, about 90% of the cops I ran into were surprisingly cool. 8% were assholes. 2% deserved to be shot. I've heard less heartening stories from other parts of the melee... but at least the media coverage was universally negative. That's always a constant.

I only had the Nikon out at "peacetime"... so it appears that rioters do a lot of general milling around. Actually, they do.

03-27-02, 4:14pm   (big mass of incandescent gas)
Ever wonder what was going on on the sun RIGHT NOW?

NASA can tell you.

The massive solar activity spike is waning, but some badass stuff has been recorded. Like this monster. It was about the time of this flare that I managed to see aurorae in light-polluted suburban DC. It was faint (the sky slowly went from a standard sodium-vapor orange to purple to blotchy red and back and forth for over an hour. Or maybe it was the Chipotle.)

More content (ride journal, favorite road database, gadget reviews, opinions, and random self-appointed know-it-all banter) on its way soon.

Wondering how long it will take before RIAA comes along and fines me for the fine selection of funky tunes? Go ahead, I dare you to find this stuff at Best Buy.

03-21-02, 10:07am   ("da da da da da da da daaaaaa")
A few weeks ago, I heard what was probably the most incredible piano performance I've ever heard. It was 19-year-old Lang Lang playing through a piece that was dubbed almost impossible to play (Balakirev's "Islamey") on NPR's "Performance Today from Studio 4A". Just amazing. I was on my way to a blues gig and pulled over to the side of the road, cut the engine, and listened to Lang Lang's playing with as much fidelity as my stock Nissan speakers could belt out. I was a little late to the gig, but after that, I could care less.

A few days later, my friend Eric sez he wants to get some people together to jam around and see what happens. The only rehearsal space he can manage to dig up happens to be the famed studio 4A at NPR's headquarters in DC. As if that wasn't cool enough, the Steinway grand I choose to play around with (I had a choice of two) is signed, "Thanks! Lang Lang 3-1-02" on the side, in addition to containing the signatures of a dozen or so other master artists. I do not deserve to be looking at this piano much less pounding out dissonant quasi-musical funk rhythms on it. Fun, fun stuff.

Sadly, the music that we cranked out wasn't all that spectacular, but it was fun being there none the less. Hopefully we'll get some inertia going and make NPR's weird-ass-jam a tradition. I'm applying for a few open positions there as it is. Maybe I can produce it into a show? Yeah, Linda Wertheimer will be all over that.