back to the tule

and yes, it was that kind of weekend:



many, many thanks to mary, seth, sarah, ben, and jules for making this such a great weekend.

sonific product plug

so, via pho, i discovered this service that lets you drop tunes into your blog. the list of music is okay, and it's essentially a link to buy the song if you like it, but hey - that's cool by me. UI is pretty good for searching for songs and quickly generates the code, including auto play on download and repeat functions if desired. I think i'm going to start playing multiple streams soon. it's like the soundtrack to my blog. i picked something weird for starters. the black sea. reminds me of chris holmes for obvious reasons.

rides I enjoy lately

san rafael (aka home) to alpine dam. (this map is actually to the west peak, which is a little over a three hour ride, but you can cut it down to just under two and a half by stopping at the damn and turning around, which is what duncan and i did yesterday 20-25 miles, 1500-2000 ft of climing)

san rafael olema alpine lake loop. (this map only covers san rafael to olema, from there you have to ride south to fairfax/bolinas road and return on the alpine damn run. 50 miles or so, 2500-3000 feet of climing, the bulk of which is one grade (about 6.5% grade) from highway one to the west peak of the alpine damn run)

water is hard to come by on the alpine damn run (there is a spring or two, I've never drunk from them) but fairfax has great coffee and olema has a small general store with cold water. I usually stop in the store to replenish on bike fluids and treat myself to a coffee on the way home in fairfax.

busy day for the courts

first the NSA gets it's hind quarters handed to it (on one of two issues, the other of which it got a huge pass on) and then big tobacco gets a (small, thanks to a 93% reduction in requested damages by the bush justice department) spanking for rackateering.

some more updates from over the past few weeks

red boiling springs, tn. where I met with the rest of the staff of the joint board on universal service. the roof fell in on our hotel too i might add.


litho postcard stylized snap of doug casting at rainbow lake on our perfect weekend up there...


need i say more? I think not.


some great east bay graphiti which i of course sent to john kane.

whilst I'm at it...

i've been playing with photoshop again. duh.

quiet quiet at the henry miller library

so, last friday t-dub and i rocked out the quiet quiet festival curated by brightblack morning light front buddy naybob shineywater.
for anyone that's never been to the library, it's awesome and I recommend it. as for the show, ramblin' jack elliot was pretty great, but we only caught a bit of his set. brightblack was good as always, and seemed a bit too at home amongst the redwoods and wealthy kids dressed in dirty clothes, but hey - it's their festival no?
highlight for me was lavendar diamond, who i really enjoyed, and meeting steve, who was cool (cold even).

poster looked a lot light this:

forgot to post this earlier

but when tom and i were at monterey peninsula artists on friday we saw the funniest clip on indie rock since fred armisen (who makes a cameo here) went to SXSW. many thanks to jackie for pointing it out. also mad props to brian, duffy and lynn for the hospitality.

Aziz Ansari rocks it out!

clell tickle!!!

in virginia they let the monkeys out of the cages to stalk politicians

HOLY CRAP!!!!
"positive, constructive ideas" indeed.
Senator Allen! Well stated. Racism is the bedrock of almost all of the worlds positive, constructive ideas. "Macaca" is in fact an asian monkey.

What I'm not so sure about is how you confused the Indian (sub continent) with the camera with an asian monkey.
Senator, maybe you meant Western Oriental Gentleman?

There is hope for Virginia yet, just not for the morons who cheered in response to this frustrated racist outburst.

get my robes ready....I've got jury duty

from the nytimes on the Gotti trial and the problems they've been having with jurists:
Then there was the young man who said that he believed in karma, which, of course, alone was not enough to send him packing.

That occurred when Judge Scheindlin said she found it troubling that he kept referring to Mr. Gotti as “Mr. Gandhi.”

when milk is not milk

spectacular example of the lies and stretched truths put forth by lobbyists.

the milk is milk and stop labeling lies campaigns are just pathetic. do they really think people are going to go to those sites and buy their BS?

my personal favorites:

misleading links used to pretend there are actual supporting facts behind claims made in hyperlinks "broad based coalition" links to a page with no reference to coalition members (made up mostly of mothers they say), but instead features a long list of "suspect" pro-organic organizations the milk is milk site opposes. This is particular offensive because it almost implies that the organizations that they are opposed to actually support them in addition to not including the implied but almost certainly non-existent "broad based coalition" of mostly concerned mothers.

likewise, the "labeling lies" link takes you to a page where claims such as "we do not use antibiotics" are considered "lies" because they don't consider the fact that milk "is tested" for antibiotics.

Cannot your money be better spent? I suspect the people that this in designed to reach (the people paying for it, to feel like they're doing something) feel great about this, but if you get 10 people to be anything other than bored or outraged by the "information" on these sites you're fooling yourself.

i couldn't have said it better....

but where will i get way too drunk at now that the standard is lame?

from the nytimes:
“The Schrager-Starck hotels reshaped the landscape of the small urban hotel,” said Mayer Rus, design editor of House & Garden magazine, who has followed developments in Mr. Schrager’s empire for many years. “Now, in 2006, the world is littered with the hell-spawn of that marriage: every city has cheesy boutique hotels that primp and strain to convey their hipness in different, disagreeable ways,” he added, many characterized by “poor service, pointy furniture and poseurs galore.”