Old School

Green Day
DNA Lounge
April 9, 2009

Hmmmm...It's been too long since I've updated this space and far longer since I've been to a show. Okay that's not entirely true, as I was at the Social Distortion show at the Fox Theater back in Feb but I didn't write about that. Maybe that's because I've seen Social Distortion a lot over the past 20 years, and I've written about them here.

Ok. I'm prepared to admit that I was not a fan of Green Day until the release of American Idiot. I was already 22 when Kerplunk hit the shelves, I had just returned from living in London, and was busy listening to Blur, Ride, Lush, etc. I still enjoyed my punk roots but felt like Green Day was too punk/pop.

American Idiot completely changed my perception of this band and made me develop an appreciation for their earlier material. A concept album!? Brilliant!

So now I can admit that it took me 12 years to dig this band.

The band hit the stage on Thursday night around 10:30 and launched right into the new album (due out May 15th). The new material is brilliant -- I particularly like "21 Guns", "Gloria", and "Horseshoes and Hand Grenades" (not sure if that's the right title). The new stuff harks back to a time when bands made albums that told a story. I can't wait to discover that full story when 21st Century Breakdown is released.

The second half of the show was audience requests. I was up in the "balcony" so I had a clear view of the main floor. I was super impressed by the women (not girls) who were in the pit -- they looked liked they were having a blast! There was an 8-year-old-kid at the front of the stage who spent most of the show on his dad's shoulders. Billie Joe pulled him on stage, sang to him, and then said: "Dive little man!" and the kid threw himself into the crowd and was carried along. A young girl toward the right side of the stage knew the words to all the songs: when Billie Joe forgot the lyrics to "The Grouch" she hopped on stage and sang it for him.

The band wrapped things up with "Minority" and we shuffled out of the club just after 1:00am.

I'm glad it's your birthday

My Uncle Bud is 65 (!) today! If it weren't for this man, I'd have really shite taste in music :)

You see, in the early 70s, my family and I lived above my Grandfather and Uncle Bud in a duplex on 83rd street. Uncle Bud had long hair, a corvette, and a kick-ass stereo (he still has his Marantz receiver).

My older brother George and I used to lie down on the living room floor, each with an ear to the carpet so that we could listed to whatever Uncle Bud happened to be playing on his stereo in the room below. I got my early musical schooling that way. I learned the lyrics to Rubber Soul while lying on that floor, and I'm pretty sure that's why George got the Hey Jude album for Christmas in 1974. We listened to that LP upstairs on our Zenith console stereo. The sound wasn't nearly as good, but that didn't stop us from learning those lyrics, too.

After Rubber Soul came Sgt. Pepper's and Let it Be. I also got the early Beatles stuff, along with the opportunity to listen to Uncle Bud's older 45s from artists like The Coasters and Buddy Holly. That led to my first musical obsession: the 50s. I became a big fan of Bobby Darin and Elvis, Danny & the Juniors and Bill Haley. My dad would let me get my own 45s from Sears. My first was: Splish Splash (the b-side is Queen of the Hop). Then I got Don't Be Cruel, Jailhouse Rock, At the Hop, and Rock Around the Clock. Most of the time, I didn't even pay attention to the artists, I just liked the songs: Roll Over Beethoven, Little Darlin', I Only Have Eyes For You...

I was still in my 50s phase and I hadn't even turned seven. But Uncle Bud wasted no time graduating George and I to the 60s. I'm pretty sure we were allowed to hang out downstairs by that point, as I distinctly remember looking at the cover of The Worst of Jefferson Airplane and wondering why a band would want to release a collection of their worst songs (heh). I also remember thinking that both Janis Joplin and Grace Slick were in the band (I think I was in 3rd grade before I figured that one out). We listened to Jimmy, Arlo, and CSNY. And we also got schooled in folk music that we could sing with mom: the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel.

George and I liked the fact that some of the songs we liked had "bad" words that made mom gasp. We'd sing the lyrics, and when the forbidden word came up we'd shout it really loud: "When I think back on all the CRAP I learned in high school" or "CHRIST, you know it ain't easy, you know how hard it can be..." (Of course, I realize now that this was obviously done to prepare her for my teenage years when I sang songs like: This is my Life and I Don't Need Society)

Clearly it was Uncle Bud's intention for us to sing those lyrics by Paul Simon and John Lennon! Cheeky!

During the height of the disco era, I really wanted a Bee Gees album. I think Uncle Bud was appalled, but for Christmas that year he relented. Only...I didn't get an LP of disco songs: I received a compilation of their 60's hits. Thanks to Uncle Bud, my disco phase didn't last long and I made my first real rock purchase in the 4th grade: Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. (I remember holding a copy of Live at Leeds, but my brother recommended against it - I guess he didn't think I was ready.)

When I was in college, Uncle Bud took us to see Roger McGuinn and we sat on a picnic table, drank beer, and sang along to Easy Chair. We took mom to see Crosby, Stills and Nash (but she didn't inhale). And we still knew all the words to all the songs.

Sometimes, I'd hang out at his house and he'd break out his LPs and continue to school me with The Great Society or introduce me to artists like Kate Wolfe. We'd sit around and smoke cigarettes, listening to tunes for hours on end.

Uncle Bud, I hope your birthday mix is worthy of the musical education you gave me. I'm only sorry that it's not an LP.

Screen Door- Uncle Tupelo
Steal A Ride - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Please Read the Letter - Robert Plant & Alison Kraus
Me & Julio Down By the Schoolyard - Paul Simon
My Winding Wheel - Ryan Adams
She's Gonna Two Time - The Kaisers
Mendocino - Bottle Rockets
Poison Ivy - The Coasters
I Want You Bad - The Long Ryders
Mother-in-Law - Ernie K-Doe
Second Hand News - Fleetwood Mac
I Wish I Was the Moon - Neko Case
Niteclub - Old 97s
At the Zoo - Simon & Garfunkel
Windfall - Son Volt
Roadworn and Weary - Supersuckers
I'm the Face - The High Numbers
What May Seem Like Love - Whiskeytown
Stranded in the Jungle - The Cadets
Walking My Dog - The Woggles
New Madrid - Uncle Tupelo
Badge - Cream

Don't read this before bed

I should know better than to read something like this late at night. And please, if one of your Russian friends asks you to go on a ski/hiking trip on the Mountain of the Dead to reach a place called Do Not Go There, remember to say NYET! Or at least check the translations of the Russian names...

Sweet dreams.

Another Happy Ending

You may remember that I wrote about Adam (the poor little kitten who was set on fire by a couple of kids) back in July.

Well...Adam's doing great and was adopted!

Read about it here and see some new pictures in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Vincent's Big Adventure

It's annoying to get one parking ticket. But how about 29 tickets? All on a stolen car that just happens to belong to you.

(I really couldn't make this up if I tried.)

At about 7:45am on Wednesday September 26th I walked into the parking garage of my apartment complex and was greeted by an empty parking spot. I panicked. Maybe my car was towed, or I forgot where I'd parked. But no...Vincent was stolen (yes, my car is named Vincent).

I immediately called the police - an officer arrived about 30 minutes later to take my statement and file a report. The time on my copy of the report is 8:40am. About two hours later Vincent was parked in a disabled zone on 511 Union and marked by DPT (department of parking and traffic). It was ticketed at 2:37.

I could let that one slide...because maybe it takes a while for the info that my vehicle was stolen to upload to their computers. But the very next day Vincent received another ticket on 21st avenue at 1:05pm. And another on Friday at 1522 Grant at 12:37pm. And again on Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all on the 1500 block of Grant Ave. (Sunday is a day of rest for the DPT).

Don't you think DPT would have put two & two together? I have 29 tickets from only four streets: Grant Ave, 21st Ave, Union St, and Harriet St.

The parking tickets after I pulled them from the glove box.
A hip hop mix CD was in the car's player (photo by Missy)

Now you're probably wondering how I obtained all this information.

On Tuesday October 23rd I received three parking tickets in the mail. I called the police - the officer with whom I spoke was shocked. She couldn't understand why DPT didn't check the license plate. If they had, Vincent would've been recovered hours after the theft. The woman from SFPD said that's just laziness on the part of DPT, because the meter readers are supposed to call in a license plate before they issue a ticket.

So I called DPT to find out why no one had checked the license plate before ticketing the car. The person on the phone had no good answer, but apparently the DPT database and the police database aren't linked! She also told me that the meter readers hand write the tickets (which isn't true), so they can't check the plate! And I could contest my parking tickets! Sorry? If DPT had actually been doing its job, I would've had Vincent back the same day it was stolen!

On Friday October 26, my friend Missy and I turned detective - we were determined to find Vincent.

Our first stop was 10 Harriet (the location of the last ticket - at least DPT was helpful enough to give me the address). We drove down Harriet and also checked some of the side streets in the area. No luck.

North Beach was our next stop - most of the tickets were given on the 1500 block of Grant, but Vincent wasn't there. We checked the 500 block of Union, and continued to drive around North Beach for another hour. Saw many black Hondas, but no Vincent.

We stopped to get Italian food and then did one more loop of the area on foot (we had to work off the ravioli). Still nothing.

We made a trip to Trader Joe's and decided to check Harriet again before calling it quits. We drove down the first block of Harriet and crossed Folsom to check the second block. As we crossed Folsom I saw a black Honda Civic on the corner of Folsom at 6th. It was too dark to read the plate.

We drove around the corner to check the car - I remember saying something along the lines of "it's probably not mine, but we should check it anyway." We'd been driving around three hours by this point and we were tired.


We pulled up to the car saw the license plate...it was VINCENT!

Missy parked directly in front of Vincent and I called the SF Police - then we drove across 6th and pulled over to wait for the squad car (we figured it wasn't safe to park so close in case the thieves were nearby). Now we were officially on stakeout (sans donuts and coffee).

It was an hour before the police arrived.

We would have been here sooner, but we were abducted by aliens.

The police didn't even search the car before releasing to me...and in the process of filling out the paperwork, they lost my driver's license. There's barely any damage to Vincent, but the thieves stole most of the stuff in my trunk, reprogrammed my radio stations, and left some crappy hip hop CD in the car.

But the reunion was a happy one, and the next day Vincent got a well-deserved bath.

de-hip-hopping Vincent (photo by umlaut)

To aid in Vincent's cleansing of the heavy bass, Umlaut compiled a mix of much better music:

1. Vincent - NOFX
2. Robber - The Sonics
3. Out There - Dinosaur Jr.
4. Looking For Lewis & Clark - The Long Ryders
5. In Between Days - The Cure
6. Keep The Car Running - The Arcade Fire
7. It's All I Can Do - The Cars
8. Lovely Rita - The Beatles
9. San Francisco's Doomed - Crime
10. Drive - Fu Manchu
11. Police Story - Black Flag
12. Fucker - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
13. Over The Hills And Far Away - Led Zeppelin
14. A Quick One While He's Away - The Who
15. Hold On! I'm Comin' - Sam & Dave
16. Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
17. Long May You Run - Neil Young
18. Head On - Jesus & Mary Chain

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Today's email thread between miatomic and umlaut.

miatomic: Funny…even with the error: http://mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/22JohnMoe.html

umlaut: HA.. Nice catch. It's *almost* up to Umlaut standards... Almost. I love Slade... mainly because they weren't afraid to use alternative spelling in their song titles... Coz I Love You... Mama Weer All Crazee Now.. Gudbuy T'Jane.. Cum On Feel The Noize.. Skweeze Me Pleeze Me... etc. etc.

miatomic: I knew a guy named Slade when I worked at TSR -- he made a HUGE editorial error when he did a global search and replace on a manuscript for the Complete Wizards Almanac to change the word mage to wizard. Unfortunately, he neglected to add a space before the word during his search, thus changing every instance of the letters m-a-g-e to w-i-z-a-r-d. The result: All instances of the word DAMAGE were changed to DAWIZARD.

And of course, he didn’t check the manuscript after performing the global search and replace, so it went off to the printer…and the rest is a little bit of funny TSR history.

umlaut: CRAZEE!

MotoGP World Championship at Laguna Seca

Please click twice on the video to watch it on YouTube.

Thursday 19 July 2007
We left San Francisco at around 7:30 pm and headed down the 280 in search of an In-N-Out burger…the most interesting part of the drive consisted of a discussion about Wake Up Little Susie by the Everly Brothers.

M: So why are they still in the movie theater at 4:00? Wouldn’t someone have kicked them out?
G: Maybe they’re at the drive-in.
M: Then why would the people running the drive-in just leave one car in the lot without checking it? That doesn’t make sense. Plus, the guy told Susie’s mom that he’d have her home by 10:00, so they couldn’t possibly be at the drive-in because the movie would’ve still been playing – so they must be at the theater.
G: It’s just a song.
M: I know, but it doesn’t make any sense.
G: If you don’t shut up I’ll skip ahead to the next track on the disk.

Friday 20 July 2007
The GP riders had practice at 10:00 and 1:50, so of course we needed to be there to watch and spend the day buying lots of cool gear that will most likely be sold out by the time Sunday's race begins. We arrived at the track around 9:30am and found a spot near the fence by the Dunlop tire bridge to check out practice...and of course I forgot how LOUD these bikes are.

Think of it like this: the average decibels at a concert range from 85 - 100. The MotoGP bikes generate 130 (which is just a wee bit quieter than an air force jet), so when you're standing next to the track and the bikes fly past you, your bones rattle and your ears hurt. It's a good thing that Honda handed out free earplugs (given to me by a kind gentleman standing to my left). It's so loud that you can't have a conversation in pit row or even when you're standing a good 100 feet from the track. But then again, who comes to a GP to talk?

After the first practice we headed over to Ducati Island to check out the bikes and buy stuff -- I picked up a rad Ducati jacket with the 80s logo. We scored lots of freebies and ate poorly all day -- favorite food was Le Dog. It's a hot dog inside a baguette (they skewer the baguette and insert the dog and your choice of condiments). Yummy.

I really wanted to check out the corkscrew (turn 8) which drops riders 12 stories in 3 turns (I've tried to watch an on board camera on the corkscrew and it makes me dizzy). It was a great spot for watching and not too crowded on Friday. During practice, Alex Hoffman was hit by Sylvain Guintoli and broke his hand so severely that he now has a metal plate and 15 screws holding it together. That put him out of Sunday's race.

And we had weekend paddock passes...

Saturday 21 July 2007
GP qualifying was scheduled for 1:50, so we arrived at the track by 8:30 in order to stake out a good spot. We ended up near the beginning of turn 2 which gave us a good view of the straightaway from the start/finish line and all of turn 2. Sat there most of the day, then headed out for proper food (Italian -- to support Rossi) before going to the store to pick up the new Harry Potter book (I figured I would need something to do while waiting for Sunday's race).

Sunday 22 July 2007
The last time we were here, we arrived at the track a bit later than planned and it was already crowded. So this time we went through the gate at 8:30 and immediately headed to the same area we staked out for Saturday's qualifying. We set up our chairs next to some Brits and took turns finding food, etc. I read my book and enjoyed sitting in the sun.

The race started at 2:00 and was immediately exciting. If you watch the video (above - or you can just look at the pic, below) you can see the 1st lap where John Hopkins slides into Nicky Hayden (it happens around 58 seconds into the video). Hopkins was able to finish, but Nicky's bike was damaged and he pitted out on lap 22.



Casey Stoner was on pole and took off so fast that no one was able to catch him. He's now 44 points ahead of Valentino Rossi in the standings...but there are 7 races left this season, and I'm sure The Doctor has a few tricks up his sleeve to take the championship.