So it's my birthday this weekend. It's somewhat of a milestone that I've been dreading for some time and I'm not feeling any better now that it's here, but it's here, and there it is, no stopping the march of time. It's sort of odd, this aging, I don't feel any older mentally or in spirit but my body -- my shit body that never was really anything great anyway seems to be falling apart around me. This issue with my toe that has dragged through the summer has not been a necessarily major problem but it's troubled me -- first, when it was diagnosed as gout, which seemed to me to be an older person's problem, or a heavier person's problem, but pretty much everyone said you don't have to be any older than I am (with a wink and a nod as if to say "You're pretty fucking old") and that maybe you can't drink as much as you could when you were younger (which I can't say isn't true) and maybe I should stop trying. Or something. Turns out it wasn't gout, which frightened me because we still don't really know what it is and again, my mind tripped to all kinds of mystery bone diseases that have gathered in my second toe and then I think of mortality and all that crap, something you never think about when you're young. And not when you still think you're young. It's likely just some sort of injury that probably was caused from too much running, but again, that's really not a problem for younger people. I mean, my torn ACLs in both knees, they could happen at any age (and they did for me, when I was young) but it seems like everyone is saying, "maybe it's time to stop running" and switch to cycling, which is something everyone has been saying to me for years, due to my knee problems (and ankle problems, and now "toe" problems), which is all to me another way of saying my body can't handle it any more, it's getting too fucking old. And that feels like bullshit because this spring I was running my fastest times since before my knee surgery, my fastest times in fact I'd ever recorded since I started running seriously about 6 or 7 years ago. And then a couple illnesses hit me this spring, travel for work interrupted my training, and now this toe has prevented me from running with this new form in a race. Perhaps ever again.
Bill's Last.fm Page
Top 10 Songs of 2012
NY Concerts via Last.fm
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July 2011
July 29, 2011
July 28, 2011
Palestinian Chicken
It's been a banner year so far for Curb Your Enthusiasm, highlighted by this week's third episode, a laugh-out-loud funny episode about Jews, Palestinians, yarmulkes, good chicken, rabbis, marital infidelity, social assassination, and yes, LOLs.
Palestinian woman: "I like you."
Larry David: "What's not to like?"
Palestinian woman: "Eh, you're a Jew."
Good times. I've been a longtime fan of Curb, which has been on the air off and on for a long time, we kind of all thought that their 7th season -- the Seinfeld reunion season -- would be a fitting ending to a wonderful show, but Larry's back, nearly two years later, and somehow better than ever. He's gone back to his roots and the comedy has followed. And by "roots" I mean, of course, Jew jokes.
Larry Miller: "By the way, your lunch is on me."
Larry David: "I already paid for it."
Larry Miller: "Even better."
July 26, 2011
July 25, 2011
2011 Tour de France Summary
Many commentators are calling this the best Tour de France in years, maybe since the dramatic Tours of the '80s that I didn't watch, when unpredictability was the king and so many riders were riding to win, not just not to lose. This century's Armstrong domination years followed by the drug-riddled suspension years and Contador's similar domination that left everyone else afraid to attack seemed to have killed the Tour a bit, and I will admit that I've ended up a little disappointed in the race, or the results in recent years, particularly in yellow jersey battles that never truly materialized. This year was different, though. We had Phillippe Gilbert and Thor Hushovd animating the first week. Jonny Hoogerland's frightening crash and will to ride on. JJ Rojas and Gilbert trying to outfox dominant sprinter Mark Cavendish for the green jersey. Cavendish winning another 5 stages, giving him 20 overall. Hushovd and Edvald Boassan Hagan combining for 4 Norweigian stage victories with only 2 riders in the Tour, some small solace for a country devastated by a terrorist attack on Friday. Pierre Rolland lighting up French hopes by winning the Alpe d'Huez as a Frenchman for the first time since the great Bernard Hinault and winning the white jersey as well for best young rider -- a Frenchman who can actually climb in the Tour de France! And then there was Tommy, little Tommy Voeckler whose breakaway attack on an intermediate stage gave him the overall lead that he held right through the Pyrenees, right through the Alps, all the way up part of the final mountain of the Tour - the Alpe d'Huez, when he finally cracked, but ended in 4th place overall, igniting French hopes again in their long-time hero. But of course, all of that paled in comparison to the final week battle between Cadel Evans and the Schleck brothers, as Andy took off on Stage 18 by himself, singlehandedly taking over the race to win and when Cadel realized that Contador was cooked and no one was going to save the race for himself, he went after Andy, limiting his losses on the Galibier, where Andy finally cracked a bit, and Cadel won his long-awaited first Tour de France -- the first ever for Australia -- and the oldest winner of the Tour since World War II. Andy ended in 2nd and his dream of he and his brother Frank both on the podium came true, although 2nd and 3rd this year instead of 1st and 2nd. But it was still an amazing accomplishment and Andy says he has no regrets -- he attacked, and he attacked big, but Cadel was just better this year. At age 26, he has plenty of time to finally win one after three straight runners-up in the Tour. There's always next year.
July 23, 2011
July 22, 2011
Moonface at Mercury Lounge
There's a joke on the Daily Kos that perhaps the reason Obama looks like he's always capitulating to Republicans and is governing to the right, not left of center, is that he is playing some sort of 11th dimensional chess than we mere mortals cannot understand and all will work out in the end. I have my doubts about that at this point but I was reminded of the "11th dimension chess" joke while driving home from the Moonface show last night in Manhattan. Spencer Krug crafted a performance that worked on so many levels that I truly can't describe the experience, the songs were so much more than their greatness even on the album, and it's music that I wouldn't necessarily love if he weren't playing it so well, the songs are somewhat similar, and they seem to drag in some ways but I don't mind, they play so perfect live, and this show was easily one of the best I've ever seen. Moonface is not as immediately gratifying as Sunset Rubdown or Wolf Parade of course, but perhaps that makes it more enjoyable when it finally hits you, after slowly taking over you, and overtaking all your senses. To see Spencer, mere feet from me, pounding like a madman over the keyboards for the last few songs of the set was such an amazing experience. And the music. Was perfect. Spencer opened the show with "bad news", saying the massive keyboard setup wasn't working right but they "think they might have fixed it". He said he might need to start and stop a few times and if it's not working, he'll come back in October and play for us for free but he didn't need to do any of that. "Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor" opened the set and sounded perfect. No keyboard problems. No problems whatsoever. Just Spencer's straining voice and the beautiful sound.
They ended up playing all the tracks from Organ Music not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped -- and by they I mean Spencer and his drummer (whose name I forget!), with their friend Andrew on a DVD loop in the background doing what can best be described as performance art. But I really didn't notice anything else, I was right on Spencer's side of the stage and I think I was in a trance from all his whirling motion and incredible singing. Whatever sound and mixing issues they had at that apartment in Brooklyn where I caught Moonface's first show ever were solved and they sounded perfect last night. Absolutely brilliant. The highlight for me was the four song ending wonder of "The Way You Wish You Could Live in a Storm" through to the "cover" of Swan Lake's "All Fires", which was just about as incredible as one could have wished. Spencer is working on a different level these days. We mortals can only witness the beauty.
Setlist:
1. Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor
2. Whale Song
3. Shit-Hawk in the Snow
4. The Way You Wish You Could Live in the Storm
5. Fast Peter
6. Loose Heart = Loose Plan
7. All Fires
And here's a video from his July 17th show at the "Grog Shop" in Cleveland Heights, OH, which appears to have nothing of the enthusiastic crowd we got in Manhattan but my attempts at taking a video of "Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor" came out black and unwatchable... really got to figure out how to video from my Droid. Anyway, here's "All Fires" (minus the whole crowd screaming when he gets to the "all fires have to burn alive" part like at the Mercury Lounge).
July 21, 2011
Andy Schleck Wins Stage 18
Recovering from his bad day descending in Stage 16, Andy Schleck set the Tour on fire today, winning Stage 18 the way everyone has wanted him to from the start of this race -- by going on the attack and not looking back, giving it all until the end. And it worked. Sort of. He really did almost lose it all at the end.
Schleck took off early on the Col d'Izouard -- some 50 km from the finish -- and none of the other favorites chased him, either figuring it was too early to attack or (in the case of Contador) not having the legs to chase after him. Schleck systematically skipped past the remains of a massive 18-man break that was scattered all over the mountain, briefly hooking up with Leopard Trek teammate Joost Pusthuma with a few km left to climb and then, just over the summit, finding another teammate Maxime Monfort waiting for him to coax him down the climb. Andy had a little over 2 minutes on his rivals in the peloton at the summit but actually GAINED time on the descent (with Monfort's help). The two Leopard riders joined forces with the last 4 remaining members of the break and on an extended flat going into the day's final climb of the Col de Galibier, the lead expanded from 3 to close to 4 minutes, with Monfort, Schleck and Quickstep's Dries Devenyns taking turns at the front (while the others sat on). Why did Devenyns help? Um... yeah a few tweets talked about agreed-upon payoffs on the road between team managers, but it only seems fair. Contador in the peloton behind got the Euskatel-Euskadi teammates of Sammy Sanchez to help his lone remaining teammate at Saxo Bank drive at the front. That was either out of Spanish loyalty or cash changing hands. Gotta love the underworld of cycling.
July 20, 2011
Thor Smash Again
We saw a lot of action in the GC competition on Tuesday's Stage 16 but I was most impressed by the second stage victory of this year's Tour de France from former sprinter (and defending world champion) Thor Hushovd. A lot of people were griping about Thor's form early in the year, as Philippe Gilbert dominated the spring classics and Thor didn't seem to compete as the world champion like most had expected (but shit, no one could compete with Gilbert this spring, not even Cancellara). But Thor has come alive this July with:
- 2 stage wins
- Team time trial win (so that's 3 stage wins)
- Leadout for Tyler Farrar's first ever stage win (which makes 4 wins for his Garmin-Cervelo team in this year's Tour, compared to 0 total in their previous years on the Tour, when they didn't have the God of Thunder on their team)
- 7 stages in the yellow jersey as the leader of the Tour.
Hushovd now has 10 career stage wins and I think at least 1 win in each of the past 6 or 7 years. Incredibly impressive. He used to win in his early years out of bunch sprints but as his sprinting legs have left him, he's remade himself into a classics rider and his last few stage wins have been over mountainous stages on breakaways where he outfoxed and outsprinted breakaway companions to the finish. On Tuesday's stage, he was part of a 10-man break that finally took off from the field after 2 full hours of non-stop hard racing in which no break was allowed to escape. This break that took off was full of strong men, but somehow on the final climb of the day, a Cat-2, Hushovd was able to track down all the attacks until his teammate Ryder Hesjedal joined Mikhail Ignatiev to break from the lead group and Hushovd sat up and let others bring him up to the top.
July 19, 2011
New Music Tuesday
When I was in Nashville last week, Real Estate were playing at the local Hard Rock Cafe the one night I was free and I wanted to go but I was miserable, it was just my third day in my boot and one of those days had been spent on airplanes and walking around massive airports while a second day had been spent on a warehouse floor, in the most intense pain I'd felt since I first injured my toe some 7 weeks ago (admittedly much of that pain was in my knees and ankles and the rest of my leg, adapting to the boot on the unforgiving concrete floor). So yes. I was miserable. And I didn't feel like standing for a show from a band I knew I knew but couldn't actually remember any of their songs. Instead I went to a brew pub near Vanderbilt and had some delicious Nut Brown Ale brewed right on the premises and then later, back at the hotel bar, I wasn't so miserable anymore. But yeah. I guess I'm sort of used to the boot by now. Still hurts, still hard to walk in, and I'm 100% convinced that it won't do a damn thing to help my toe (I see no improvement yet), but I'm not going to let it get me down -- my summer's been ruined already, and I'm not going to let it dissuade me from driving into Manhattan to see Moonface tomorrow night. But for now, here's some brand new Real Estate from their forthcoming second album, a pretty catchy song from a pretty cool band that I kind of wish I'd seen in Nashville last week.
We Were Promised Jetpacks has an awesome name for a band and had an auspicious debut full-length These Four Walls two years ago (I think it was their debut). They followed with an EP last year that didn't receive much press and are back with a new song from a new album now, the forthcoming In the Pit of the Stomach. Their sound is sort of a throwback to early '00s, you know, like an Interpol-style that has gone well out of favor in the indie rock blogosphere and in my own interest level but as long as they can keep avoiding drifting into some sort of mainstream approximation of indie rock style like other bands from last decade (The Killers, Snow Patrol), then I'm cool with that.
Here's Spin's review of the new Army Navy album (out July 12) since I haven't actually had the chance to listen yet (sorry):
The second album from this jangle-drunk Los Angeles quartet is pure pop for low people: Underneath Last Place's aerial guitar riffs and chipper choruses lies an astutely observed, acutely wrenching breakup narrative. Frontman Justin Kennedy cycles through the stages of grief, from bitterness (the deceptively upbeat piano plink of "Ode to Janice Melt") to shrugging acceptance (the aptly titled "Pastoral"), emphasizing sharp hooks and partisan reportage over woe-is-me solipsism. A feel-bad record you can actually feel good about.
Balmorhea has a new live album coming out Live at Sint-Elisabethkerk via Western Vinyl September 6. They also have some new tour dates and although I can't say I loved Constellations as much as previous album All is Wild, All is Silent (which blew me away), this single from the live album has a shitload of beauty and really makes me want to see them live, which I haven't done. Check it out.
And finally, Life Size Maps is a Brooklyn-based band that has a new 6 song EP out (I believe their first release) called Magnifier. On Facebook, they feature a blog's cool quote about them: “Life Size Maps is a punk band that manages to sound threatening, experimental, happy, messy, clean, and victorious, all in one six song EP” (Sour Mash Blog). And this one, even better: “If you threw a bunch of pots and pans down a flight of stairs, it might sound somewhat like these new Life Size Maps singles” (The Morning After Pills), which doesn't sound so much like a compliment but hey, they like it I guess. Personally, I'll add my own quote: "Catchy pop punk mixed between experiments with instruments that don't seem like they should fit together on an album, let alone a song, but here they are, together, and it works."
July 18, 2011
VAGUE SPACE
Recent Posts
Favorite Links
- Aaron Gleeman
Baseball news from a blogging original - Beer Leaguer
Phillies baseball - Boston Sports Guy
ESPN.com's Bill Simmons' irreverant sports humor - Daily Kos
They hate Bush more than I do - Elbows
Music blog aggregator extraordinaire - Five Thirty Eight
Politics and statistics together - Pitchfork Media
The indie rock review site that started it all. - Television Without Pity
Spare the rod, spoil the networks. - Think Progress
Bush bashing backed by facts. - USS Mariner
Seattle Mariners and general baseball discussion
