I’ve waited decades for a definitive look at Sly Stone, and this is as close as it will get. Part of the documentary felt flat at the end, because as a mirror to Sly’s life, it is flat. It’s disappointing feeling the waste of great potential, regardless of how understandable it may be. I feel like Sly’s subconscious knows it, too, even if he can’t publicly admit it.
After 15 years away, I’ve decided to start up this blogging thing again.
In the 2000s, I was never a heavy blogger, and while I used to sign up to every social media platform, I was usually just a lurker. By the early 2010s I became even more dormant and stopped posting. I just liked my life better without the extra work.
But an interesting thing happened over the last few years — the enshitification of social media made me reevaluate things. I’d browse Twitter through Tweetbot daily, but when Twitter killed off 3rd-party clients, I left Twitter. I was a huge fan of Apollo for Reddit, but Reddit pulled the same move and I left Reddit.
Watching what is happening across all corporate social media has made me realize that their incentives aren’t aligned with what I want out of social media. While the culture of any platform is crafted by the people who use it and the policies that guide them, it’s a balancing act that’ll eventually loose it’s balance.
People left after Twitter went to shit and landed on Threads. Then Threads drastically changed their policies and people landed on Bluesky. There is nothing I can see that implies that the same won’t eventually happen at Bluesky.
I don’t know if this blogging thing will stick for me, but I’m giving it another go. Feel free to follow me on Mastodon, Lemmy, and subscribe here. I appreciate that you’re even on this site.
Here’s to the next post not being 15 years from now.
I’m a superfan, so I’m excited to hear these stories — but it’s sad to me that you can still hear how much he lacks self reflection. It’s going to be interesting to hear how this compares to the documentary coming out about him this week (which I’ve heard he didn’t participate, so maybe there’s a more reliable narrator).
This is one of my favorite bands, but this is my least favorite of their four albums. I’ve listened to it a handful of times, but nothing’s grabbed me the way “Choose Your Weapon” did. Still good, but not spectacular.
The moment I found out about it I binged all of it. It’s an analysis of Steve Wonder’s run of albums from I’ve been listening to that 5 album run in the early 70s. 50 years later it’s still perfection.
Still good, but not as good as the first season — much slower. But according to folks who read the books, it’s supposed to pick up in the next 2 seasons, which Apple just green-lit. Steve Zahn is a national treasure.
They couldn’t have hired a better director for this. If you’re wondering if this documentary needed to be made, in the first 5 minutes you’d realize how misguided that would be. Loved it.
I have a feeling that this won’t be on my list for long with the way things are going. I’m sure Google’s going to do something to send me to privately host. But otherwise, it’s perfectly good.
This is one of those categories in which the right solution is so hard to come by. Apple Mail has never handled snooze the way I expect. Mimestream is perfect on desktop, but I don’t like that it’s exclusive to Gmail and doesn’t have a mobile app. Spark used to be better, but I feel like their focus on AI comes at the expense of features I’d prefer.
Even when they don’t do something “stock-iOS”, it still feels very “iOS” — minus the settings section. Dock’d a star because you can’t collaborate with others.
Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. This is one of the more integrated apps on iOS, but is so engrained that competitors don’t exist. Bulk management needs to be rethought. Feels like there’s an opportunity here.
Still the king. Amie tries some interesting ideas, but I don’t want to bundle my calendar with to-dos and email. I’m more in the Offspring camp — keep ’em separated.
I absolutely love the ideas that Arc was regularly bringing and was following their every move. I understand why they’ve chosen to go a different route, but I’m not happy about it. If iOS allowed deeper integration for browsers, I’d likely use that on mobile, too.
While I use WhatsApp, I can’t stand it and only use it because of people I know outside of the US. I’d much prefer to use Messages exclusively. I like Apple’s focus on it and the yearly updates are solid.
I don’t understand the need for apps specific to these needs compared to the built in features of the existing apps you are already using. What am I missing that I can’t do in these apps?
I don’t have a strong preference in this space. I mostly spend time in Notes, but if I have to do something meaty, it’ll be in Pages. I’m just happy I’m not using Microsoft products.
For various roles I’ve held, I’ve done a lot of presentations — Keynote is the best. I’ve gotten great at PowerPoint out of necessity, but I use Keynote if given the opportunity.
I know that people love Mela, but Crouton is the OG and Devin keeps adding great features. It’s not often I get my wife to actively use an app, but this was an instant hit.
I’m still mourning the loss of Simple Bank, but One had promise. Then Walmart bought them. It’s still okay, but I just get too many ads for deals with Walmart.
This keeps me relatively in the loop — I get news of my choice through RSS, and everything else from what people post. Every now and then I miss stories that travel in right-wing circles, but I catch a lot.
I like Apple Music, but I feel that for a company that makes Mac Apps, it feels too “web” for my tastes. Sleeve is a great companion app that has a ton of customization.
I was really happy they made this a separate app in the latest round of OS updates. Having it in my menubar is perfect. I choose this over the other password managers because of it’s OS level integration.
I’m not a programer by trade, but I did this site by hand and ported it to WordPress to be the CMS — so I have a limited take on what an IDE should be. That said, it’s great and I love it.
Figma has become the juggernaut of the UI industry, partly because of the constant innovations they’re bringing to the table, but mostly because it’s cross-platform. Sketch is going to struggle to keep up, but I love the fight in them and that they’re “mac-assed“.
Because I’m a sucker for great software, once Twitter and Reddit swore off third-party clients, I jumped ship and won’t do corporate social media again. Ivory is fantastic, and Voyager seems like it’s lost some steam. I’d love to see it handle video much better.
I have this mapped to Trakt, which maps to my Plex server and Sonarr / Radarr. It’s very well designed and the “share sheet” integration is magic. (needs to be on MacOS)
I’ve been a Plex user for about 15 years, and it’s crazy how far it’s come. And I like the moves they’ve been making. Iina really came out of nowhere for me. I was a VLC guy, but the amount of polish in this is impressive.
I know it’s almost blasphemy to some that I don’t use Google Maps, but there’s too much noise for me in Google Maps and the results now are just as good. I just wish I could share and collaborate on my guides.
I’ve spent more time on this game than any other, and still play it daily until I at least get a 1536. I haven’t looked in a long time, but I used to be raked #144 in the world and still feel proud of that.
After 6 months of serious and strenuous evaluation, the BrumBrum Academy is proud to announce the Brummies for 2009. Previously: 1, 2
Music
Boom Shadow by Nino Moschella 2nd album from the guy who I anticipate new work from the most. It’s a near-guarantee that I’ll love every piece of music that he puts out.
Good City for Dreamers by General Elektriks It’s been a while since their last release, but he picks up right where he left off 6 years ago.
Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future by The Bird & the Bee Easily the closest I get to pop in my listening habits, but I think I’m a sucker for Greg Kurstin’s production
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli I remember the author from one of my favorite super-hero graphic novels back in ’88, but I’m glad to see that 20 years later he’s done his first self-written graphic novel.
Nothing I didn’t realize it until I started this list, but what the hell has happened to me?! I apparently stopped reading this year. Asterios Polyp is the only book that I can remember reading the whole thing. I mean, I read a few things that were published before 2009 which don’t count, but still…
Lots to take away from this. For me, most of all is that I’ve been in this employee’s shoes and this story reaffirms that I will make sure to never be wearing shoes like his in a company like that again. It sounds clear that AA is a seriously messed up company, and, as folks have said, the original critique is a little naive of the situation: A little screenshot does not a website make.
I had a bunch of people get together for my birthday three years ago and we all played a few rounds of my favorite board-game, Hoopla (seriously, I’ve played this game with the same set of cards for about 6 years and I still love it; and yes, I understand it’s technically not a board-game). For people who gave a unique performance during the game, I let them draw from a hat a description on a strip of paper of a fake prize that they had won. Examples include free slumber-parties at a mutual acquaintance’s that we barely knew (who had no idea he was involved in the prize) to a dance-off between two friends of the winner’s choice.
Hidden amongst all these fake prizes was a slip that looked just as made-up as the rest of them, but I actually had prearranged to make it into a reality. Some of my friends own a documentary company (Open Road Media, makers of fine films such as Pun Smoke and the Human Hambone) down in LA and I contacted them earlier in the day: Someone at the party would draw a prize of “A Free Documentary Of Your Choice By Open Road Media.” A choice would be made by the winner and I would discretely txt my friend, who would have a team of folks ready to take the chosen topic and turn it into a “documentary” as quickly as possible. They would then send me the result over the internet and I would play the video on the living room television for the winner and the rest of the party at the end of the evening.
Well, the winner of the documentary prize chose the topic of “Friendship” and the wheels were set in motion. About two hours later, I presented the documentary and had a very confused party, who were struggling to figure out what just happened.
Here is the 2min. 40sec. documentary on “Friendship”:
Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.
This particular point set off Mr. Stevenson to put into words concepts that I’ve always been aware of, but have always struggled to articulate as well as he did in his post:
The most contentious point between software engineering culture and visual design culture is the question of whether important things can be always seen in absolutes. The engineering approach values measurable, reproducible results which can be represented in a graph or a checklist. Unit tests and benchmarks illustrate progress. […] Visual design is often the polar opposite of engineering: trading hard edges for subjective decisions based on gut feelings and personal experiences. It’s messy, unpredictable, and notoriously hard to measure. The apparently erratic behavior of artists drives engineers bananas. Their decisions seem arbitrary and risk everything with no guaranteed benefit.
Through out my career, I’ve regularly been in similar environments; and one of my biggest problems has been figuring out how to hurdle that divide. I feel that part of my role is as a visual taste maker. You might test to find the most crowd pleasing shade of blue at the first pass, but I might come up with a blue that might not be your instant choice, yet will grow on you when taken in holistically. Like Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” There is a point with visual design where logic starts to breakdown in ways that only experience can answer.
After Stacey Lester posted his 12 favorite song covers on Facebook, I couldn’t help myself but to compile my own list. In no particular order:
Andrew Bird – Don’t Be Scared Originally performed by the Handsome Family Drastic reinterpretation. Don’t miss the reprise at the end. Love the 3 bar loop over 4.
Groove Collective – Martha My Dear Originally performed by the Beatles One of the most abstract covers I’ve heard, but still great.
Audrye Sessions – Waltz #2 (XO) Originally performed by Elliott Smith There have been lots of albums dedicated to covering Smith, but almost all tracks fall short. I think I got it bad for intimate reinterpretations.
Estradasphere – Super Buck 2 Originally performed by Kōji Kondō Ah, nostalgia. Also check out this take on the classic song.
Toots & the Maytals – Louie Louie Originally performed by Richard Berry Ahh, so much more personality…
Jose González – Heartbeats Originally performed by the Knife Taken from an elctropop song, this is further proof that I love a good intimate music.
Jose Feliciano – Golden Lady Originally performed by Stevie Wonder Great take on an all-time classic with a samba twist.
Phantom Planet & Mark Ronson – Just Originally performed by Radiohead I think I have a tendency to like Radiohead covers more than the originals. I know, blasphemy to some…
Easy Star All Stars w/ Citizen Cope – Karma Police Originally performed by Radiohead All the songs on the Radiodread album are surprisingly good; you’d expect a reggae cover album to come out cheesy, but it works.
Wynton Marsalis – Thelonious Originally performed by Thelonious Monk One of my favorite tracks by my favorite jazzman covered with a little kick
Derrick Laro & Trinity – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough Originally performed by Michael Jackson The falsetto isn’t as strong as MJ, but for some reason it makes me like it more.
Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters – Tonight You Belong To Me Originally performed by Gene Austin Special moment from the greatest comedy of all time.
Here are all the songs for you to download: Covers.zip
Around the age of 10, I started discovering music that I felt that was meant for me for the first time. The first band that I ever latched onto was Faith No More, but that quickly turned into a strong connection to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. My friend Kaley and I were drawn to their high-energy aggressiveness in songs like Stone Cold Bush and Get Up And Jump1. Being from a little town of 3,000 people limits one’s exposure at that age to what you can get on the MTV; the Chili Peppers was IT for us.
We would slowly branch out to discover music through them. I became a lifelong Fishbone fan and my first concert was Firehose, both bands mentioned in RHCP songs. We knew that George Clinton produced the RHCP album “Freaky Styley” and found out that Kaley’s dad had Funkadelic’s “Standing On The Verge of Getting It On” on vinyl. Kaley would turn the RPM to 45 and yell, “IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE THE PEPPERS!”
One late night around this time, I turned the channel to PBS and caught this:
I was blown away and I called Kaley the next day to tell him about what I saw. At the time, I wasn’t resourceful enough to be able to find out who they even were. That added to their intrigue, but I soon discovered that it was Sly and the Family Stone and I was an instant fan. I wanted to know as much as I could about the man and his group.
Strange thing is, for Sly Stone (who led the group) being such an interesting story – stealing the show at what may be the most legendary concert of all time to hitting rock bottom while being on the run from the FBI – only little bits of info has come out about him in the last 35 years.2 In 2007, Vanity Fair did a seven-page article regarding his sabbatical and potential emergence; This last September was the first complete biography3, “I Want To Take You Higher“, of the man and the band was released. The book reveals a little, but upon my reading felt incomplete. UPDATE: I just learned of another bio that came out in Feb. of ’08 that I haven’t yet read.
BUT, what I’ve discovered after reading Higher is that the Dutch are NUTS for the man. I found that in 1992, two Dutch film students set out to document their search for Sly in “Let Me Have It All” (their results are below); Another Dutch documentary about Sly, “Dance To The Music” just finished completion and was aired on Dutch television. AND, another biography written by two Dutch twins that has been in the works since 2002 is set to be released in early 2010.
Back in ’97, when the web was still in its infancy, a Sly and the Fam fan-site webmaster4 was flown to LA by Sly specifically to teach him how to browse the web on a computer. During this time, he was allowed to hear Sly’s 15-year backlog of unreleased material. Since hearing this account5, I’ve fantasized of Sly coming back and releasing a huge backlog of unheard material.
These days, Sly is slowly making more public appearances; if only a few over the course of the last three years. While I’m sure that it’ll be tough to reach the level of his heyday, I feel that if I just am able to catch a glimpse of the man, however satisfactory, it’ll feel like I’ve completed something; regardless of whether it has any actual merit or not.
PS: The only site that I’ve found that publishes Sly & the Fam news is this one, but they don’t have an RSS feed. I used Feed43 to scrape the news off of this page into this feed: Sly & the Fam News Feed
Let Me Have It All (1994, 48 min)
Preview for the just released Dance To The Music (2008, 2 min)
Jimi and Sly: The Skin I’m In (2000, 60 min)
A feature documentary about the music of Jimi Hendrix and Sly and the Family Stone featuring Rose and Freddie Stone, Sly Stone’s mother, and band members Cynthia, Jerry, Larry, Gregg and David Kapralik, Manager of Sly Stone and his partner. You can watch it with a library card on Kanopy for free.
Because jumping is okay in a jumping kind of way (hey-hey). ↩︎
Quite possibly by Sly’s own design. He apparently gets excited about the idea of being the Howard Hughes of the music world. ↩︎
In ’98, there was a book by Joel Selvin called “Sly & the Family Stone: An Oral History”; in 2000, there was a documentary called “The Skin I’m In” that aired on Showtime. But these were relatively incomplete accounts compared to “I Want To Take You Higher.” For some reason, Jeff Kaliss, author of the latter book, decided to talk shit about these former projects; commenting on their negative tone about the subject matter, which seemed to give the impression to the reader that his book wouldn’t stoop to such lows. I’ve taken in all three, and I’d say that all of them regard the subject matter with much the same tone. ↩︎
Once again, it’s time for the BrumBrum Awards honoring excellence in various media over the course of the last year:
Books
Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw I think this is the largest graphic novel I’ve ever read, coming in at 720 pages. I kinda imagined that this was a book by Noah Baumbach in which Noah was able to grow beyond the rut he got in with Margot at the Wedding.
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin I grabbed this because I was particularly interested in Dane Cook’s parallels to Steve’s stand-up career (not really). And I’m a sucker for any tidbits I can find on the Jerk.
A Practical Guide To Racism by C. H. Dalton The perfect book to keep by your side when you need to inflame the racial hatred that you’ve worked so hard to hide away.
The Way I See It by Raphael Saadiq Not as innovative as his first release, but still is probably tied for the best album out of the recent Motown revival along with…
JIM by Jamie Lidell The first guy I know about to do the whole modern Motown sound came out with a close to perfect album. Every track is solid.
Metropolis: The Case Suite by Janelle Monáe I have a strong feeling after hearing this album that she’s going to be huge, with crossover appeal to a number of audiences. She’s supposed to release another EP in Q1 of ’09.
Bigger Stronger Faster by the Chris Bell I went into watching this movie against steroids in competition to now not knowing what to think. Might not be as superbly told as Man On Wire for a documentary, but it had more of an impact on me.
Let The Right One In by Tomas Alfredson I thought about this movie for a couple days after watching it. The two 12-year-olds in this do just as good of a job as most of this years nominees.
The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan A little bit of an obvious choice, but that doesn’t stop it from being hella good.
Rutu Modan, author of last year’s great Exit Wounds, just finished up her 17-part strip in the New York Times Funny Pages, the Murder of the Terminal Patient.
Earlier this year, I consolidated Dan Clowes’ 20-page entry for the Funny Pages into a single PDF file; and now I’ve gone back and complied single PDFs for all of the NYT Funny Pages’ past strips. Enjoy:
About three years ago, I had no idea that I would be anywhere close to where I am today. Around that time, my roommate came up with an idea to solve a problem: Music in an open space (Coffee shops, shared offices, etc.). Collaborative filtering of the collective collections from the open space could potentially be a better disc jockey than any single human with his singular collection.
About 4 of us would get together about once a week and kick around ideas for how to pull this off and generate a revenue model. We eventually drifted away from that when we got more excited about another idea: As the world becomes more and more digital, the tracking of the data that people pay attention to will be easier and easier to analyze. We could use attention data to notify people about events that they might be interested in.
At this point, it was a fun side project and I was always curious as to where it might lead to. It started off slowly and we got more serious about it, eventually convincing other people to join us. Soon enough, I would realize that we could really turn this into a viable business and eventually CultureMob was born.
But I still had no idea that today, I could walk around Seattle and overhear people I’ve never met recommending the service I helped start with 4 guys to other people I’ve never met. 2 weeks ago, we held our first event at Neumos with ?uestlove of the Roots. I never would have imagined that dorking out about attention data with friends in a coffee shop would lead to working with one of my longtime idols.
It’s not as if CultureMob has been instantly successful, but its really starting to come into it’s own. We’ve only been live for 7 months, and I’m already surprised at where it’s taking me. I have no idea where I’ll be in another 3 years, but here’s to hoping it’s just as surprising.
I recently finished “Born Standing Up“, Steve Martin’s memoir about the beginning of his career. Martin’s “The Jerk” has been my favorite comedy since I was in high-school; but there is a relative a dearth of information about this classic film. So I decided to see what I could dig up. Below is a few random interesting things I could find about “The Jerk”. If you have any more additional interesting information on this film, please post it in the comments and I’ll continue to update this post. I’m dying to find more out about the “nine weeks and five days” scene…
The Mansion
The mansion shown in the film was actually two Beverly Hills mansions. The outside shots were taken at the same mansion (map) that was used in the Godfather and the Bodyguard, and was once owned by William Randolph Hearst. It is currently for sale for “what may be the most expensive residential property listing in the US.”
The interior shots were filmed just a year after the owner at the time, Sheik Al-Fassi, took over the mansion (map). After moving in, Al-Fassi proceeded to redecorate the mansion in the tasteful ways depicted in the film. He even painted flesh tones and pubic hair on all the Greek statues within the property. In the course of this 3 years owning the property, he adopted over 100 stray cats. The year after the Jerk was filmed, the property was torched by an arsonist, while onlookers reportedly yelled “Burn, burn, burn”. Al-Fassi was rumored to be secretly detained in Riyadh by the Saudi government for years following the Gulf War for airing radio messages in Bagdad in support of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. He passed at the age of 50 in 2003.
The song was performed in the Jerk by Lyle Ritz. Ritz was a studio jazz bassist during the 60′s and 70′s. In ’58 and ’59, he recorded two jazz ukulele albums and then didn’t touch it professionally until the Jerk in ’79. Since then, he didn’t put it down and was recently introduced into the Ukulele Hall of Fame in June of ’07.
Steve purposely wrote the part for [Bernadette Peters] in The Jerk. David Picker, who was a Paramount executive and the co-producer for The Jerk, said, “The fact that they knew and loved each other made the scenes in the movie work even better.”
It was a joy to work on the movie and the script. Our goal in writing was a laugh on every page. But my favorite line in the movie was an ad lib, one that is mildly obscured by traffic noise in the finished film. My character, Navin Johnson, is hitchiking in Missouri, headed for the big city. A car pulls over, and the dirver asks, “St. Louis?” “No,” I answer, “Navin Johnson.”
I was injecting stage material into the screenplay, including a bit that was taken directly from the end of my act, first developed at the Boarding House. On stage, I would exit through the audience, saying, “I’m quitting, I’m leaving and never coming back, and I don’t need anything, nothing at all, well, I need this ashtray.” I would collect doodads from the tabletops until I finally disappeared out the door. The bit appears in the final film as I forlornly leave Bernadette Peters and my movie mansion.
Martin’s line from the opening scene was taken from his act as performed on his first album “Let’s Get Small” (1977):
I started off at the bottom. I was born a poor black child. And all day long around the house, they’d sing the blues. Then I heard my first Mantovani record, and I knew that this is where it’s at for me. The kind of music I enjoy. These are my people. So I decided to become white. I had my cock shortened. Then I got a job as a television weather man.
Martin’s co-writer (Carl Gottlieb) has a cameo role as Iron Balls McGinty. He also had a hand in writing the first 3 Jaws movies and wrote the character development for “The Jerk, Too”
In discussing the way people actually “did it,” Steve suggested that a man would put his “thing” in the woman and move it in and out. I objected to this theory, and expressed my belief that one should just insert “it” and leave “it.” Well, Steve was right (except in rare cases); nevertheless, his only description of “it” was simply “it.”
Since he apparently had one hand up on me in this in-depth biological debate (no pun indented), I then had to explain to him that the real terminology for this “thing” we were discussing was given to me by my mother when I was but a mere child. “It’s called your special purpose,” I told him proudly. His face widened with a wild and crazy grin, which from that point on was instantly plastered upon his countenance whenever anyone would say “special purpose” –whether it was a teacher or an innocent bystander at Disneyland (we would break up and nobody knew why).
Deleted Scenes
Bill Murray filmed a cameo that was deleted. On the December 15, 1979 broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” (S05E07), Murray jokingly reviewed ‘The Jerk’, saying:
Which brings me to “The Jerk.” Steve Martin is a friend. As a matter of fact, I was in the movie but cut out of it. That doesn’t influence my opinion. The movie is a dog. There’s something missing. I don’t– Who it is, I can’t say.
Post Jerk
Stanley Kubrick was impressed with Martin and was interested in having him play the lead in his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler‘s “Traumnovelle“. Kubrick intended on making his take on the novel as a dark sex comedy. Kubrick approached several writers to take a shot at it, but the project never got off the ground until Kubrick recast the role in 1999 with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in what became “Eyes Wide Shut“.
The Jerk, Too
The Jerk grossed over $100m on a $4m budget, and this convinced the world of television in 1984 to get a piece of the pie. A “made-for-TV” movie was made as a pilot for for a potential series staring Mark Blankfield of Fridays as Navin R. Johnson. It seems to take place in an alternate universe where Martin’s “Jerk” never happened. And there aren’t jokes in the movie as much as lucky occurrences that happen to Navin.
I found a copy of this and posted a torrent: The Jerk, Too (95min., 703MB, MP4)
Greg and I had 10 hours to kill in Taipei on our flight. To kill the time, we decided to go visit the current tallest building in the world, the Taipei 101.
Finding an incredibly tall building turned out to be too much for our cabbie. Greg and I became curious as we got farther and farther away from the Taipei 101. Turns out that our cabbie loves his GPS system a little too much. We were well beyond the entire (massive) city before he realized that he was in the middle of the woods and began to apologize to us. He got off on the next ramp and then preceded to get right back on the same exact road because his GPS told him to.
By the time we got back into town, he had already doubled our trip’s necessary distance. He then felt that the advice he got from his GPS had served him better than we did and decided to drive into town in the opposite direction of the most obvious landmark in the world.
The magazine has been releasing each page as an individual PDF, but I combined the 20 pages into a convenient single 18MB PDF. Grab it and have a read.
Greg and I had a mantra before we embarked on our trip to Thailand: “Make as few plans as we could get away with.” We didn’t want to be tied down to an agenda when reading about Thailand was only going to give us a small window into the best way to travel here. We’ve lucked out so far, but were becoming quite concerned this morning that our luck had run out.
Pretty much as soon as we got to southern Thailand, it became completely overcast and spouting spurts of HEAVY rainfall. We just got into Phuket and it was raining just as much as our mood was souring. We were spoiled earlier with the courtesy and cheap prices of northern Thailand. In the south, the sun and scenery brings too many tourists and too much money. And now we didn’t even have the sun.
So we scrambled to figure out how to salvage our remaining days. We couldn’t get out of Phuket, so we decided to attempt to follow a very loose rumor about a “mom and pop” bed and breakfast joint that I heard about for $8 a night. “Down a dirt road about 2 kilometers from the Marriott” is all I had to go on.
But the cabbie spoke as much English as we spoke Thai and explaining “bed and breakfast” wasn’t working. He dropped us off at what looked like a pre-1989 East Berlin re-creation from the outside. At that moment, what turned out to be the hotel manager walked by and noticed our predicament. He offered to help us and allowed us to stay at what turned out to be a very secluded 5-star hotel for a fraction of the price. We now have our own private pool at our room and several kilometers of our own beach (!).
We were thinking of heading back to Bangkok early, but now we might be a little more flexible with our non-existent agenda.
Anytime Greg and I hit anything remotely resembling a tourist trap in Bangkok, we’re surely going to get asked by locals, “How many years?!” They then commence to point at our beards (occasionally even tug on them). Following this, we’re always propositioned to whatever service that they’re pimping. This happens with enough consistency that it’s clearly a script.
What I want to know is, who disseminates this script. Somebody once studied how spangers were able to consistently display the same sign (“Parents Killed By Ninjas. Need $$ for Kung-Fu Lessons.”) across the country by a matter of months. I wonder if the same logic applies in Thailand. Or if there is some sort of conference where they agree on the best street sale strategies.
There appears to be a parallel in Thailand to Americas obsession with being tan: I’ve seen tons of “whitening” products. All of the lotions in stores contain “whitening” and even most of the advertising here feature very pale Asians that clearly attempt do their best to emulate the “West”. But as curious as they are about Western culture and our beards (boy, do people like to stare at them), facial hair is apparently regarded in Thailand as unkept and frowned upon, unless it’s a single hair emanating from a mole.
I think I’d rather have a beard.
We just got into Chiang Mai and checked in with the woman at the front desk. The first thing she said was “You should shave that off. You’d look very handsome without the beard.”
Greg and I just got into our layover in Seoul before hitting Bangkok. Best plane ride ever. They have Tetris built into the seats! Greg and I were able to play vs. each other for about 9 hours. Outlets in the seats, hot towels applied to the face, spacious seats. I applaud you, Korean Air. Congratulations on superior air travel service and being awarded the BrumBrum Sky Travel Level Of Excellence Certificate.
I love discovering overlooked music from back in the day; particularly those that have been used in samples. Below is a mix of all sorts of stuff form the 60′s and 70′s: soul, jazz, mood, Orleans, ska; some of which as been sampled more than just a couple times. I have no real reason to share outside of the hope that someone might share back. If you’ve got an interesting song, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear it…
Trinkas – Remember Me:
The intro to this song was used in Jurassic 5′s “Quality Control” in an interlude, but the rest of the song is even better.
Serge Gainsbourg – La Horse:
Harpsichord detective funk, with a touch of banjo. He’s more than just a father of a hot girl who can’t write her own material.
Bob James – Take Me To The Mardi Gras:
Sampled over 40 times, most notably in Run DMC’s “Peter Piper“. Miles Davis even sampled it in the song “Work It”.
Soul Brothers – Free Soul:
Recently caught this one through Lily Allen’s “Smile“. Her producers have good taste…
Toots & the Maytals – Pressure Drop:
I can’t believe these guys are still playing. Their version of Radiohead’s “Let Down” is every bit as good as the original.
Hugh Masekela – Grazin’ in the Grass:
Just played last Sunday in Seattle. Sold 4 million in ’68 as a jazz instrumental.
Gunther Kallmann Choir – Daydream:
This song is showing up a lot these days with Lupe Fiasco and Jill Scott.
Professor Longhair – Big Chief:
Another Lily Allen sample from the song “Knock ‘Em Out“. Their use of this one is more blatant than some of their others.
Jean Jacques Perrey – E.V.A.:
Mostly this guy does quirky show-tunes with crazy bing-bong noises, but this was his hit. Grabbed by Tribe, Dr. Octagon, Gang Starr, etc.
Chosen Few – Collie Stuff:
Covered a few years later by Kool & the Gang and re-branded as “Funky Stuff“.
Vincent Geminiani – Ophis Le Serpentaire:
Heavy French soundtrack mood music.
Bobby Hebb – Sunny:
One of my favorite songs. Not necessarily obscure, as BMI calls it the 25th best song of the last century, but I rarely run into someone who knows it.
I’m a sucker for “Best of” lists, particularly if they come from my friends (hint, hint). Here’s mine:
Books
Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan Big time comic releases seem to be more sporadic these days in comparison to a couple of years ago, but this one fits the bill. Israelis with identity issues makes for good reading.
I Am America by Steven Colbert Obvious one for me. I’m a sucker for anything that he does, as evidenced by viewing all 337 episodes of the Colbert Report (as of this writing).
Into Hot Air by Chris Elliott It’s not as good as his last, but it’s still quite good. A cast of Chris Elliott, Kristen Dunst, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Tony Danza, and more set out to climb Everest.
Please Clap Your Hands by the Bird & the Bee It’s just an EP with 5 songs, but each is pop perfect. The production is great.
Armchair Apocrypha by Andrew Bird I probably spent more time with this album than any other this year. Even better than his near perfect And the Mysterious Production of Eggs.
Alright, Still by Lily Allen My guilty pleasure. This is probably the popiest album that I’ve ever fallen for. I very much doubt a sophomore album that matches this.
Holy Smokes! I’ve been a fan of Andrew Bird for a few years now and have become a bigger fan with each release he’s come out with. His last full album just came out about 2 months ago and I think it’s his best yet; and now he’s on tour to promote it. I’ve never been able to make it to a show when he’s come, but I caught him last night at the Tractor Tavern and was blown away. He’ll start a song off with a little picking on his violin. Loop it on his Line 6 petal. Layer a little padding and melody over it. Then grab the guitar and sing n’ play over that. Maybe whistle a little line while playing a melody in unison on his glockenspiel. His drummer might be playing one handed while controlling a sample on the laptop or playing something on his MIDI controller. What really stood out was his whistling. You can’t tell through his records just how good he is at it. But see for yourself (Real Player). That performance gives you an idea…
Every now and then, I’ll somehow find my way into a conversation on social policy and individual responsibility. I might enjoy the conversation, but it doesn’t take me long to realize that I don’t have that Chomski-like ability to recite facts and recall quotes. And that’s where I loose: I can tell people how I feel, but I sure as all heck have a hard time telling them why.
Well thank all that is super for writer’s like this. This is one of the most concise and well said essays on class and poverty. It’s the type of thing that I wanna’ link to here so that I can just point people to that story instead of just being smart myself — the American way™.
I got stuck in the same way the other day when I was having a chatty-chat with someone regarding Kerry Vs. Bush Vs. Kucinich. She asked me what I had against Kerry; and even though I’ve read plenty about hisvotingrecord that I don’t think is perfect, I drew a blank. But I knew that I was a Kucinich fan (he’s vegan!).
She said, “Well, how about this metaphor: Your car (the economy) breaks down outside of town. Another dude (Kerry) in a car pulls up offering to fix your automobile, but you tell them no because you’re holding out for a guy (like Kucinich) to give you a fix AND a wax.” (Ed. note: She didn’t say “dude”. That was creative license at work. Also, she didn’t say anything in the previous parentheses, but man, they really make that metaphor clear.)
That got me thinking until someone else mentioned that the person who offered to fix the car would be using bubble-gum and toothpicks that wouldn’t last me the trip back to town. And that got me thinking about how I don’t want to get stuck again, ’cause I’d get hungry and probably try to eat the gum. And I hate gum.
But none of that matters, because by most accounts, Washington State is not a swing state. And it looks like it won’t be come November (What is the threshold for a swing state, anyways?). So I can vote for Kucinich and know that Bush will not carry Washington State. If I lived in Florida or Oregon, I’d have to re-evaluate my thoughts. But luckily I can vote outside of the shitty two-candidate system. I really hate the attitude that people are specifically voting for the lesser of two evils instead of voting for who they think is the right candidate.
Points on Kerry and Kucinich:
Between 2001 and 2003, the Arab American Institute rating for Kerry went from a 75% rating to a 33% rating, while Kucinich has maintained a 100% rating.