You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. For your selflessness, my admiration. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.
Kind and Generous – Natalie Merchant
You’ve been so kind and generous, I don’t know how you keep on giving. For your kindness, I’m in debt to you. And I never could have come this far without you. For everything you’ve done, you know I’m bound, I’m bound to thank you for it.
Oh, I want to thank you for so many gifts you gave with love and tenderness. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your generosity, the love and the honesty that you gave me. I want to thank you, show my gratitude, my love and my respect for you. I want to thank you.
Porkchop Express’s Fault Lines & Good Times just dropped, and Thursday night’s CD release party was a rockin’ good time. Rumor has it they will be the first opening band for Def Leppard’s SF/Mtn View show, along with Cheap Trick and Poison. THAT would be HUGE.
My dad is the youngest of 10 kids. My grandmother survived her husband more than 40 years. She never remarried. While she rolled her own cigarettes and drank dark beer every day, she lived for more than a century. She loved life. On her 102nd birthday, she insisted she was 110 and that no one can prove her wrong. She lived most of her life in a provincial town in the Philippines. Even when a 3 bedroom house was built on her land, she insisted on spending most of her indoor time in her bamboo nipa hut built on stilts. I will write more about her in the future.
BAMBOO is not a tree, it’s grass
Bamboo is fast-growing and durable. Some can grow up to 24 inches per day. It can be harvested in 3 years to make hardwood, unlike 15 years for most trees. There are close to 1,000 species of bamboo that can be found around the world in diverse regions – from cold mountains to hot tropics. Many of us may see bamboo as garden decor, but it’s also extensively used as building material and a food source.
CNN recently published a video that highlights bamboo.
Rainy days are perfect for catching up on podcasts. Familiar voices can be like comfort food. Such is the case with Ira Glass, host of This American Life. Some rainy days I go back and re-listen to old favorites.
Skip to Act Three: Oedipus Hex – Shalom Auslander reads his true story, “The Blessing Bee.” It’s like a spelling bee, but instead of words, kids compete reciting complicated Hebrew blessings said before eating certain foods.
It tickles me every time Auslandert gratuitously throws in quick admissions of all the sins he committed as a kid. Watch Auslander’s video – Foreskin’s Lament.
Slaughterhouse Five is the first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut, an definitely not the last. It’s the story of Billy Pilgrim. My initial thoughts about this name—BILLY is the name of someone fun and approachable. I never met a Billy who was a jerk. PILGRIM is a someone on a religious journey or an a quest to find something new or sacred, like the pilgrims on the Mayflower. Well, this Billy Pilgrim is an eye doctor who is sent to fight in World War II. He becomes unstuck in time and travels to and from different stages of his life and the far far off planet of Tralfamadore, where he is caged with a Hollywood pornstar for observation and on display in a Tralfamadorian zoo.
So it goes. Thank you, Kurt Vonnegut, for challenging me to think for myself and encouraging me to occasionally go “elsewhere.” You are one of the main reasons I enjoy reading.
Borrowing Money in Plain English… the latest from our friends at Common Craft. Perhaps this should be included with every loan application, so people understand the concept of loans, term benefits, flexibility (if any), and consequences if they fail their commitment.
For all of us still stuck in the 80’s, here’s a rage gem. Robert Seidler’s “Christian Boy” features that hard to forget chorus haunt “No more scooter rides in the cemetery.”
The actually content doesn’t start until 30+ seconds into the clip. And towards the end he breaks out those signature 80’s moves. Even better than Molly Ringwald in “The Breakfast Club” - See below.
I’m the first to admit that I’m a rocker at heart, and there will always be a special place in my heart for SKA music—The Specials, English Beat, Madness, Ban Manners, etc. But I really don’t know any ska bands after that… is that wierd? Some consider early No Doubt ska—I can see that. Many mainstream rock bands today definitely have ska roots.
(6/2007 photo of Fatty Buster Bloodvessel from LAist.com)
Now 20+ years later, I was finally lucky enough to see a slimmer Fatty with Bad Manners perform live at the Red Devil Lounge. More notes to follow…
I’ve worn Izod shirts my entire life. Though a rocker at heart, I never dressed the part. I’ve always felt most comfortable in a beat-up wrinkled alligator shirt. I’m a preppy pig. And now I wear Crocs almost every day. I may be a technology professional working for a commercial bank, but I will always consider myself a member of the dressed-down Leisure Class.
While I’m on the subject of crocodiles, a friend sent me this YouTube video of the late Steve Irwin. What a neat guy. The croc hunter stars in this clip with a guy named Ross … not Ross from FRIENDS, not Ross Perot. Take one last guess, then check it out. It’s a good tribute, and you will laugh your ass off.
I am one of the lucky ones with a window seat at the office. The image you see above is the view I have from my desk on the 19th floor. This isn’t a side view or a tip-toe and crane-my-neck view—this is what I see when I am facing directly forward. I am truly lucky and very thankful.
Planning this blog post brought back memories of living on the west side of losAngeles. On the weekends I used to ride my RockHopper along the beach path from Marina del Rey to Redondo Beach stopping to watch when airplanes would fly low overhead. I stopped to watch every time.
Speaking of stopping to watch… Have you ever stopped to watch a construction team erect scaffoldings on a tall building? I did that for the first time this week—it was AMAZING! Across the street from the historic PG&E building, I found myself stopping to watch a vertical row of workers passing pipes and wood planks non-stop up a single-file human assembly line straight up 20+ stories. It was an awesome display of strength, precision timing and teamwork. Of all days not to have my camera!
The next morning I remembered to bring my camera hoping to shoot some video on the way to the office, but they weren’t doing the single-file vertical line gig from yesterday. I didn’t see any workers. When I got up to our office on the 19th floor, I looked out the window and saw the entire team working at the top of the structure. From my desk, I have a distant view of the Bay Bridge and a close up view of gothic spires on the roof of the historic PG&E building across the street. I pulled out my camera and clicked a few photos and shot 60 seconds of video while the team erected the top rows of pipes and planks. Some workers had to climb up, down and around corners without safety harnesses. Others had to balance along single pipes in order to hammer in connectors and perpendicularsupports. I can’t imagine doing that job, and have so much respect for those that live it every day.
You’d think the sight of construction would ruin my view of the Bay Bridge. Just the opposite—as people in hard hats climbed up, across, over, and down, it looked less like construction and more like a team of players floating around in a 3-D video game matrix. All this with the Bay Bridge in the background—my view became more interesting, even more incredible, almost surreal. I’m thankful not only for my million dollar view, but also for my new perspective.
Background music for this photo/video montage—
New Order’s Temptation
“Up down turn around, please don’t let me hit the ground…”
Remember ABC’s Saturday morning School House Rock? One day I’m going have to look up those videos and post them along with the lyrics.
Here’s a video that appeared on John Stewart’s Daily Show. In the spirit of School House Rock, this clever video focuses on this year’s mid-term election.
Today is election day. I wanted to show you something other than a negative political campaign. Here’s something different.
Figure out what it is yet?
Here’s a a partial transcript.
Wild kind of look to the day
Opening eyes impale neon flickers
She moon she turning away
The city’s her slave but he’s cheating his mistress
She’s moody and gray
She’s mean and she’s so restless (so restless)
All over you as they say
Rumours or rivals yell at the strike force
Hi guys, by the way
Are you aware you’re being illegal
It’s making your saviour behaviour look evil
’scuse my timing but say
How d’you fit in with this flim, flam and judy
Maximum big surprise
Your smile is something new
I pull my shirt off and pray
We’re sacred and bound together
To suffer the heatwave
Pull off my shirt and pray
We’re coming up on re-election day
It’s an extended remix of the music video Election Day by the 80’s band Arcadia.
What do you think of this Victoria Secret model 100% inked? Kinda edgy… Pretty hot… But if she got rid of those goofy sandals, her PIG factor would definitely go up—at least more 25 points.
