A Brisk Football Afternoon

I went to Qwest Field today and witnessed the complete demolition of my beloved Seahawks by the lowly Buffalo Bills. When I my dad and I picked this game to go to we were worried it would be a blow out for Seattle. Boy, were we wrong.

In addition to Dad and myself; Headstart, my brother, his girlfriend Amy, and my step mother Renee enjoyed the game. Our seats were on the 30 yard line but were in row SS of the 300 level putting us at the very tippy top of the eastern side of the stadium. The view was awesome but I just about died hiking up those step stairs past 45 other rows to get to our seats. hiking up the stairs to 300 level killed me as well. Hopefully my new commitment to fitness will make that sort of stair work easier on me in the future. The whole experience was a lot of fun for everyone.

The game painful to watch the Seahawks couldn't do anything right. Three Seahawk interceptions made the 38-9 beating look better than it really was. The score should have been 59-9. There were tons of bills fans at the game and they really enjoyed themselves. The Hawks just look terrible and they haven't looked decent in a month. Only the fact that the play in the weakest division in the NFL gives them hope for the playoffs.

The B & T Family Band

My wonderful mother is now singing in an adhoc semi-drunk family band. I forget how much creativity there is around me. Conga drums, harmonicas, guitars, and percussion. I dug the a shambling version "Flying Purple People Eaters". Mark and John's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" was pretty sweet too. I even sang on "Shortin' Bread".

My cousin Ross also showed off an excellent short film that ended up being set to Air's "Another Day". I'll try to provide a liunk to film sometime in the future.

Good Oly Times

Came down to Olympia with Ryan, Amy, and Jackson today. Was orginally going to come down with my dads car from PO but it seemed simpler to do it this way. We stopped off at the Supermall in Auburn on the way down. It was packed but not nearly as insane as i had expected it to be. I didnt do any x-mas shopping and ended up buying myself two pairs of shoes. One a nice pair of black Doc Marten low tops and a pair of black vintage Nike's. I also got a sweater and a few new t-shirts. Here at olympia two of my step dad Mike's brothers are here with their kids and my mom's brother John is here with his with gail and their daughter Hannah. The mood here is very mellow and comforting. Mike's nephew ross is busy editing a short film he shot yesterday and good music is playing and there is good coversation every where you turn. Maybe later we'll all play Trivial Pursuit and I will destroy them all!

In anycase, I really need to visit down here more often. Its really freakin nice.

The Giving of Thanks

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving down in Federal Way and my grandparents' place. My grandma and my step mom collaborated on the meal with grandma cooking a turkey and a ham and my step mom doing all the sides. Everything was excellent! Grandma is a notoriously bad cook but she did a great job with the ham and the turkey. Also there were my dad and my Uncle Tom and his daughters. There was lots of good conversation mostly centering on politics and sports. Grandpa also shared some really cool stories from his days as a 15 year old army volunteer in the late 40s. tomorrow I'll be heading down to olympia with my brother and his girlfriend to see my mom and all of my step dads family.

On a sappier note, some things I'm thankful for this year are my family who are always there for me, my friends who have shown that they care about me in ways I didn't realize, and my city which is still the best damn place in the world.

Finding Neverland

I had intially planned on doing nothing tonight other than watching television and napping But my brother and his girlfiend invited me to the movies and I'm really glad i went out. We ended up seeing Finding Neverland, a movie I really didnt have much interest in but it turned out to be an excellent film. I have a soft spot for Peter Pan stuff and Johnny Dep was great. Its no Sideways but it was a very solid film.

It was also really nice to see my brothers best friend and my former roomate AH. We all had a drink at the Moon Temple afterwards and AH filled me in on his impending court date from an auto accident that I was involved in. I may get to testify in court which should an experience!

Faces of Defeat face defeat (again)

Tonight brought more pub trivia this time at Cooper's Ale House in Maple Leaf. I had a great time with Merychippus, Grumbles, Keith, and Tong. At first we were doing great but the one hit wonders category at the end kicked our ass. I think we ended up finishing in 4th place and we won a bottle of french table wine with cartoon cows on the bottle if that's not a sign of quality I don't know what is! We resolved to play again in a few weeks.

Also of note tonight Grumbles, Keith, and I agreed to start a collaborative MP3 blog. More details to follow...

Anyway time to retire for bed and watch some more Seinfeld Season One!

G-B-V! G-B-V! G-B-V!

I have just returned from what may have been the best concert of my life. Yes, even better than Elvis Costello and the Attractions in 1996. The show? Guided By Voices at Neumo's. Completely sold out. Packed to the rafters. This was the last GBV show in Seattle ever. Guided By Voices will break up after 21 years following their New Year's Eve show in New York. This is sad development but Robert Pollard is sure to continue rocking. I attended with Headstart and some of her friends including the illustrious Frumster and Deano all of whom proved excellent concertmates. I know Headstart had an especially good time as well.

The show itself was over three hours of non-stop rock spectacle. Bob Pollard was amazing. He and the band drank almost three cases of Miller Light through the course of the show. Bob did his best Roger Daltry impression replete with high leg kicks and mic twirls. Bob also had some great rants during the show I especially enjoyed the ones ripping into Scott Weiland and the current sucky state of REM. The band was tight as a drum and Doug Gillard is probably the most underrated guitarist working today. Kim Warnick joined the band on stage at one point which was cool.

The set list was astounding they must have played over 40 songs including almost all their hits including: "I Am A Tree", "Game of Pricks", "Echos Myron", "Tractor Rape Chain", "Motor Away", "Hot Freaks", "The Best of Jill Hives", "The Official Ironmen Rally Song", "Watch Me Jumpstart", "Exit Flagger" and many many more. They only favorite of mine that was negleted was "The Brides Have Hit Glass".

I was complete blown away and found myself hugging strangers and singing along all the time. One of the highlishts was when some fat bearded guy bounded up on stage to spontaneously sing along with Bob during "A Salty Salute". I was even overcome with emotion near the end and found myself tearing up during up during "Teenage FBI".

Fucking. Amazing. Show.

Robert Pollard is the King of Rock. Long live the King!

Rest In Peace ODB

Ol' Dirty Bastard AKA. Big Baby Jesus AKA. Dirt McGirt passed away this weekend. This really kinda bummed me out maybe because he seemed to be just getting his shit together and he wasnt shot or anything stupid. ODB was really one of the most unique rappers around and its really unfortnuate he won't be able help bring the Wu-Tang Clan back to their former glory. In honor of ODB here is one of his best raps from the song "Shame on a Nigga" from Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) although its not quite the same in text form:

Yo...!
I come with that ol' loco
Style from my vocal
Couldn't peep it with a pair of bi-focals
I'm no joker! Play me as a joker
Be on you like a house on fire! Smoke ya!
Crews be actin like they gangs, anyway
Be like, "Warriors! Come out and playiyay!"
Burn me, I get into shit, I let it out like diarrhea
Got burnt once, but that was only gonorrhea
Dirty, I keep shit stinks in my drawers
So I can get fzza-funky for yah
Murder, taste the flame of the Wu-Tang RAHH!
Here comes the Tiger verse Crane!
Ow, be like wild with my style
Punk! You playing me, chump, you get DUMPED
WU! Is comin THROUGH! At a theatre near YOU!
And get funk like a SHOE!
What?!

UPDATE download this track here.

Ramblin' Ramblings

- Sideways is one of the best films I have ever seen. Funny, silly, gentle, and straight to the heart. And I don't even like wine.

- The second Bush term will be far less scary than the first. The only truly scary moments will come during the Supreme Court Nominations but those will turn out ok.

- Contrary to popular belief Alias Season 3 does not suck. It is a very different show than it was in Season 1 but its still quite good and Rocky Gervais's guest spot rules.

- Ted Leo's new album Shaking the Sheets is mindblowingly good. I can't wait to see him tomorrow!

- Christine Gregoire will be the next Governor of Washington. She'll win by 3000 votes. Her administration will suck but it will suck less than Gary Locke's last 4 years.

- The Ali G movie Ali G InDaHouse is best dumb guy into politics movie ever but that's not really saying much.

- Veronica Mars has been picked up for a whole season and that is awesome. Easily the best new show of the year.

- If the Seahawks beat the Rams on Sunday they will go to the Super Bowl.

Disappointment

"If it wasn't for disappointment I wouldn't have any appointments"
- They Might Be Giants

The sick feeling in my stomach has finally disappeared, but I am still profoundly disappointed by Tuesday's results. While there is some disappointment in party and my candidate, I can't help feeling disappointed in my country. But hey that's how democracy works. Winner take all. That's how it works. Congrats to Bush and the GOP, they won fair and square.

I'm not that worried about the next four years. I am hopefully that they will be less disastrous than the last four if only because without the specter of reelection looming the President will maybe even admit some mistakes. Iraq will continue to be a mess and because of that we won't end up in another war which is a strange blessing.

It will also be interesting to see how the Democratic Party recovers. Maybe they'll realize that they need to be about something that appeals to lower class whites. Maybe they'll stop running away from class warfare and go back to Truman's Fair Deal and make economic fairness a moral issue. Maybe that will turn states like Arkansas back to blue. And just maybe in 4 years this country will be ready for a change. Or maybe I'll just be disappointed again.

Lost Classic

As I was about to go to sleep last night I caught one of the most underrated series in TV history on Comedy Central: TV Funhouse. This Robert Smigel show only had one 8 episode season and was based on two of Smigel's best bits on his SNL TV Funhouse shorts and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog style animal humor (in the form of the Anipals) all wrapped up in a Pee-Wee's Playhouse format.

Since sleep is important, I immediately started taping what would prove to be a 4 episode block of the show. But I did manage to watch most of the first episode and witnessed probably the two funniest cartoon parodies ever. First was was Fetal Scooby Doo, kind of A Pup Named Scooby Doo taken to the next level with Scooby, Shaggy and the gang all as fetuses solving ghostly mysteries. I laughed so hard I seriously was worried about waking up my upstairs neighbors. Next was Jokamel a Pokemon parody starring Joe Camel that was both hilarious and obscene. Genius.

I also think I was lucky enough to tape the episode where the Anipals go to Atlantic City and run into Triumph and hopefully I can catch the other 4 episodes on tape sometime soon.

Election Day is Here!

Last night I saw Dan Bern at the Tractor Tavern and what a damn fine way to spend Election Eve. The set started off with a cover of Woody Guthrie's "The Best Thing Man Has Ever Done" complete with updated election related lyrics (click here for an MP3). The rest of the set was Bern originals and the overaoll experience left me wishing I could vote all over again.

I encourage everyone to vote today, regardless of who you support. Although all you Socialist Equality voters may want to think twice. This is a very important election and how becomes President really will make a difference. I think Kerry will win tonight. But I really hope that whatever happens that the election has a clear cut winner. I don't think i can take another long drawn out process.

Gilbertson Ousted!

UW football coach Keith Gilbertson got the boot today. Thank God! It has been clear from day one that he wasn't cut out for the job. Hopefull his replacement will be the big name cocah this program needs.

With Bob Melvin and Gilbertson getting canned, the Red Sox winning it all, and John Kerry likely winning tomorrow its been a damn fine couple of weeks!