Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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an honest-to-goodness dump truck

I saw this old guy on the web, and he needed some more exposure. Here he is.
Another gorgeous day in Northern California. If I don’t get some camping and hiking in soon I think I might lose it. This weather is just taunting me to get outside and get things done. Speaking of getting things done, the dirt-pile is gone! I thought it would never happen, but every last bit of rock and dirt is outta there. Before I go into the story, I just wanted to let you guys know that, as I write, I’m listening to one of the best albums ever made. Once upon a time in 1968, Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Stephen Stills got together to make a record. What resulted is, to me, a freakin’ masterpiece of free-form blues rock awesomeness. Honestly, I could listen to this album over and over and over. 1968 must have been amazing. The White Album, John Wesley Harding, Disraeli Gears, Super Session, Led Zeppelin (yeah, I know it was the first week of ’69, but that’s close enough), Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Traffic, Electric Ladyland, Astral Weeks, Bookends, Spirit, and so many more I’m probably leaving out. Yeah, what a year – and the Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills album Super Session is just dripping with that sound. Turn it up.

So back to this weekend and the great dirt-removal project. All my planning and orchestration was wasted. I schemed with friends to borrow wheelbarrows, 2-ton trucks, dump trailers, shovels, and other implements of destruction. The plan was to use manpower to fill up the dump trailer, then drive the whole thing to the landfill and repeat until done. We got out there at about 8am on Saturday morning with shovels and picks and wheelbarrows – and starting filling up the trailer. After about 2 hours work it became painfully apparent that the shovel and wheelbarrow route wasn’t going to cut it. Around 10:30am I rented a Bobcat. I swore I wouldn’t rent one again, because I get nervous driving them around in my backyard. But the size of the project made it a necessary evil. The Bobcat filled up the trailer right quick. We hopped in the truck and headed to the dump. The trailer was extremely heavy, and the brakes on the truck could barely stop us. It was a little scary. Once at the dump, we backed into the dirt-dumping area and hit the hydraulic lift switch on the trailer. Of course, nothing happened. Turns out the trailer couldn’t handle the weight of the dirt. So Anthony and I spent the next half hour shoveling ? of the load out by hand. We were finally able to get the trailer to dump, and we took of back towards home.

One the way home, the realization that we wouldn’t be able to finish with the Bobcat/trailer model began to sink in. We dumped 9100lbs of dirt on that 1st run to the landfill, since a yard of dirt weighs roughly 3000lbs – we had only gotten rid of 3 yards? and by the looks of what was left that was only about a 10th of the entire job. Not to mention a round trip to the dump was an hour and a half excursion when you counted waiting in the line of cars to get in. It was obvious we’d need something with a bigger hauling capacity to get the job done right. So, I called up and rented an honest-to-goodness dump truck.

You know they let just anyone rent a friggin’ 10-ton dump truck? I mean, I was thinking – why not rent one and fill it with bombs and blow something up? Or go on a Vice City style rampage through the city streets? Anyway, the dump truck held 5 yards and could handle from 20-30 bucketfulls from the Bobcat. We were furthered screwed by the dump’s weekend hours – they closed at 4:30pm. By the time we got the dump truck filled up for the first time, they were already closed. That’s when I got the idea to call a buddy who had mentioned that he needed some fill. Turns out he wanted anything I could bring him, so we took it all up to his place. The trip was quicker than the dump too.

In the end, we removed about 28 yards of dirt. Five dump-trucks full and one dump-trailer full. Managed to get all the rented equipment returned on time, and finished the project to the tune of ~$450. More than I wanted to spend, but less than the $1k+ estimate I got from some professional hauling companies. Plus, it felt good to get it done under my own (and Anthony’s) power. As I was pulling out of the driveway this morning, I stopped, put the truck in park, and went to take a peek over the fence at the dirtpileless backyard. It just feels good to look at it. Next on the list is forming up the patio and trenching for drainage and sprinklers. If only we had unlimited funds? ’cause I can always come up with another project.


Pat pushes dirt around while I drop a load.		        
Anthony drove the ‘cat most of the time, here he is on break.

One thing I like about owning a house is that it’s given me the opportunity to learn how to do a lot of things I would’ve otherwise probably never tried. I’m not saying I’m a Mr. Fix It or a DIY posterboy, but I have gotten a little better with my mechanical skills. I’m nowhere near some people I know. A buddy of mine at work recently bought a house too, an older one that he’s really doing a lot of work on. Talking to him, it seems like he’s not afraid to do anything – he just takes a run at it and it normally comes out great. He recently redid the kitchen, and is talking about rewiring the whole house. Crazy. Maybe I’ll get a little more confident as I get some more completed projects under my belt. The backyard thus far has already done wonders.

Listen to Super Session y’allz. I implore you. Oh, and I don’t care what you think about the Stills – I love that album. Dave out.

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so i write them down

Weather.
Yeah. I didn’t write yesterday. What you gonna do about it?

Woke up this morning at 4:30am to hop a flight to Seattle. Tonight we hit Gameworks, some kind of fancy virtual-reality arcade which is somehow related to Steven Spielberg. It’s a business trip, but the weather here makes me want to do anything but business. I’ve caught the camping bug pretty bad lately, with the awesome weather we’ve been having this past week. Makes me want to get outside and get away. I’ll be needing that release soon. Right now I’m so busted-tired that I can’t focus.

I was gonna write about writing, but I read my old journal and found a nice summary from April of 2001:

Yo. Listening to CSN&Y’s “Deja Vu,” and totally reminiscing about the good old days when this music was brand spankin’ new to me and how amazing it all was. Seems like times gone by can always be remembered as “simpler times.” I think that’s what has crystallized those special years in my memory as the best of all things. I have had many great times in my life, and am in fact living some of the best right now – but I’ll still remember those middle school years (7th, 8th & 9th) as some of the absolute best.

Even with all the pressure and junior high social politics – the things we did and saw have just been permanently etched into my memory. I think it has something to do with the glory of discovery: doing, seeing, and living things for the first time. Experiencing things for the first time can only be done once. Just really becoming a person, and having so much fun along the way.

I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. They are the epitome of what I yearn for now. So much less responsibility, so care free, not knowing what to do but making a go at it anyway and laughing at the “seriousness” of others. I know, it’s all about being a kid – and I pity kids who don’t get to have that revelatory period, it takes a pretty balanced combo of curiosity, stupidity, courage, perceived invincibility, and somewhat lax or liberal parenting. But if all those planets line up at the right time, it can be a most wonderful thing – and I speak from experience.

So many memories that I don’t want to ever forget. So I write them down, however small and fragmented, just to get them archived somewhere – mainly for my own benefit. I’ve also thought about one day letting my kids read through these things. I wonder would I like to read something like this that my dad wrote? I think I would , once I was old enough to appreciate it. Even if it did make blatant references to drugs, sex, and other things I would of course forbid my children from getting into.

But, I guess that goes with the idea of not letting them in on it until they are old enough to understand or appreciate it.

Back to the 2k4. Dave out.

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drinking wrong since day one

GIS for sunshine.
Today a buddy at work sent me a news story about the Hubble telescope’s latest findings. The folks who run the telescope had it do it’s “deepest” probe ever of the universe. Looking as far out into space as possible and gathering data from that point allows scientists to see light from events that happened just a few hundred million years after the big bang. It’s pretty insane to think that we’re looking out across a massive amount of distance to point X, to collect light that has itself traveled a massive amount of distance just to get to point X – and this effectively enables us to see back in time.

After chewing on it for a while, and thinking I understood for a while – I think I totally out-physics’ed myself. If the universe is constantly expanding from the big bang, then that’s the reason we’re so far away (distance-wise) from that point of origin. So now we’re using a telescope too look back over a long amount of distance towards that point of origin. However, light from the events that happened billions of years ago at that point of origin have been traveling outward since the events happened. So as we look back over distance to point X, we’re capturing light that has managed to travel to that point X from the point of origin. The farther back in distance we can look, the earlier we can intercept light emitted from events that took place at distances even farther away. Right?

But, we were also a part of those early events right? In some way, at least. How did we manage to get so far away from them that we can look back on them? Why did we get to our current point in the universe before the light that we’re now looking back on? To simplify it, let’s say that the big bang happened and our galaxy as we know it now was created right off the bat. We’re right at the point where everything exploded into stars and energy, surrounded by those events. How did we then manage to drift so far so fast to some point that we can now look back on the light of those events? How did we so well “outrun” the light from those early events? My lack of understanding comes from a severely physics-challenged mind.

I do know that listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor! and A Silver Mt. Zion puts you in the perfect mindset to think about the beginning/end of the universe. You know, confronting your own mortality and insignificance and whatnot. Good music that most people would hate, or as Sharaun calls it “that stuff you listen to that makes me want to kill myself.” Can you guys believe we can look back in time?! Jumping to what Sharaun’s essay trumped for yesterday.

Sunday afternoon and one of the most beautiful days I’ve seen in a while. Not a cloud in the sky and the perfect temperature. I’ve got all the windows in the house open and some Stills‘ “Logic Will Break Your Heart” on the stereo. I know, britpop is old ‘n’ busted, but for some reason I love this album – even if it is Canadian britpop. It reminds me of my brit-soaked last years of high school – and hints somehow at Nada Surf’s underappreciated “Let Go.” Wow? the OC is playing Death Cab and I’m listening to britpop again? maybe my whole musical microcosm is turning inside-out.

This morning I caught up on some much-needed house cleaning while Sharaun was at her game. Now I’ve got to create an “instruction sheet” for using the hack on my Pioneer CD burner – since it sold last night for $250. Then it’s off to a matinee show here in town at Old Ironsides starring the Stars and Dears. We were actually supposed to do that same show last night in San Francisco, but Sharaun discovered on Friday that they would be in Sacramento the next day. Considering the cost of gas to the city and back, and eating out on the way there – we decided we’d actually make money by skipping the one we’d already paid for and taking in the show locally tonight. (From the future – the show was good).

I think I’ve been drinking beer wrong since day one. When I was in middle school and I got my first real taste of beer, I can recall thinking it was completely horrid. I think it was the bitterness of it that put me off at first, I just hated it. After much practice though, I came to love the beer as I do today. Last night we were enjoying some at Anthony’s, and my nose started getting stuffy – like it often does when I drink beer for some reason. I started thinking about why my nose would be affected from one beverage over any other, and I decided it had something to do with the way I swallow beer. And get this, I think I discovered that I’ve been drinking beer completely wrong for like 12 years. See, back in my na?ve youth, the bitterness of beer bothered me so much that I must have subconsciously developed a technique to minimize my tasting of it. When I drink beer, and only when it’s beer, I “throw” the beer right past the front of my tongue and directly to the back of my mouth. I hold it at the back and then let it drain down my throat more than swallow it. I think I must have developed this nasty habit in an attempt to let the beer bypass the front part of my tongue – which in my mind somehow reduced the bitter taste. I think the “draining more than swallowing” is also an effort to keep the front of my tongue beer-free. I don’t drink any other liquid this way.

So, I am now making a conscious effort to drink beer like I drink any other beverage. I mean, I’d hate to think that I’ve been missing out on a whole other element of beer’s taste. It would certainly be a shame if I were to go through my whole life never knowing what beer tastes like when you let it hit the front of your tongue.

Dave out.

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belgian benefactor

Stop! It's the International Police.
S’appenin’ y’all? Me, nothing much. Just sitting here watching the OC on a Thursday night. That’s right, the OC on a Thursday. Yes, I have magic powers.

Tomorrow (tonight when you read this) we strike out on the Noise Pop warpath. Three concerts in two days, a music bender if you will. We tackle Vanderslice and Pedro first, then move along our battlefield to confront the Wrens and Earlimart, and wrap up with a pirate battle asea versus the Decemberists. We’re doing an overnighter in the city at a hotel in the Union Square district, which means we can hoof it to the Friday night show. It also means we have a morning to kill on Saturday. Should be a fun weekend.

My calculator totally sold for $90. That makes me happy. I think I’m getting a little addicted to selling stuff on Ebay, I keep trying to think of other things around the house that I can sell. I was thinking I could sell my hacked Pioneer PDR-05 pro cd burner. That thing was ~$5k new. I modified it to be able to accept the PC-type blanks, since it can normally only support the “pro” type (audio only). Maybe that mod would make it more desirable? I don’t know.

What’s that? You’re curious as to why in the world I bought a five-thousand dollar cd burner? Ahhh? now that’s an interesting story. Bottom line is, I didn’t. A guy I’ve never met, who lives in Belgium, bought it for me. I’m gonna tell you the story that I used to refer to as my “benefactor in Belgium” story.

Back in the time before PC shipped standard with PC burners, i.e. my junior year of college, I was an avid music fan and collector. Sometime late in high school I had created a webpage dedicated to the band Question Mark & the Mysterians. I had made the site mostly out of frustration that there wasn’t one out there already. Long story short, that site still exists today – and is now the #1 return on most search engines for Mysterians-related queries (although as webpages go, it’s a terrible, shaming example of what I can do? hey, I wrote it in high school).

I used to, and still do, get lots of questions on the Mysterians site. The major reason I made the site is because the band’s recordings aren’t commercially available, despite being very popular. So most of the questions I get are from people looking to obtain the music. One day I got an e-mail from a guy named Raymond. Raymond was in Belgium and was compiling a digital library of all his favorite American oldies. He needed the Mysterians song “96 Tears” as part of that collection, and he contacted me to get it.

Raymond asked me if I could get him a copy of the cd. At the time, I had no idea how to get another copy. I searched high and low to get the one copy I had, and I wasn’t about to part with it. When I politely told him I didn’t think I could find another copy, he asked me if I had a cd recorder – which I didn’t. Now, here’s where it gets strange. Over the course of maybe two more e-mails, Raymond explained to me that he was looking for some rare American recordings like “96 Tears” which were only available on vinyl or hard-to-find cds. Out of the blue, he offered to buy me a cd burner. Yeah, he offered to buy me a whole cd recorder just to get a copy of one song.

Honestly, I thought the guy was kidding. However, I figured “what the hell,” and one-upped him. I said something like “why not buy me a professional burner and then I can find some of the vinyl your after and transfer that to cd as well?” Unbelievably, he agreed. He said that because he was after mostly older American recordings, he was stuck placing large orders from the US – and that the import tax he paid on those items was an exorbitant 20%. He proposed an agreement whereby I would buy all the cds and vinyl he was after, have them shipped to me, open them all, and re-ship them to him declaring them as “used.” Seems that the import tax on new foreign goods is huge, but used foreign “gifts” are hardly taxed at all. He sent me an e-mail telling me to find the recorder I wanted, and let him know how much it was.

Still half-thinking the whole thing had to be a joke, I purposely searched for the most expensive and high-end burner I could find. At the time, professional burners weren’t that common, and were still very expensive. I found what I wanted in the Pioneer PDR-05, which retailed for ~$5k. As a complete joke, and without the slightest idea that he might actually follow through, I sent Raymond an e-mail saying the Pioneer PDR-05 would be the perfect burner. He didn’t even blink. The next afternoon I was picking up $7000 from a Western Union inside the Winn Dixie across from my apartment. Raymond had sent an extra $2k as “starter” money for the upcoming import-tax-evasion scheme we’d be working.

Now, here I am, a college kid who just got $7000 from a stranger he’s never met who lives in Europe. I bought my new Pioneer burner, and sent my first package to Belgium – two copied Question Mark & the Mysterians cds. After that Raymond would send me lists of cds, hundreds at a time, and I would order them. When they got to my house, I’d open each and every one, throw away the piles of cellophane, rebox the discs, and ship them to him declared as “gift: used music cds.” I also ordered vinyl, which I transferred to cd using the new burner and sent. He paid for all the shipping, the cost of materials, and frequently told me to use the money to pay for my gas and other expenses. Each week I would send him an accounting of his funds, a balance sheet showing all my expenses and what was left. I did this mainly because I wanted to assure him I was honest.

By this time I had developed quite a friendly relationship with this man. I learned that he was single, was in his fifties, and had been stationed at a US Army base in Germany during the 50’s and 60’s – which is where he developed his love of American music. I learned that he was retired, but was working as a “promoter” or something for a French modeling agency. I also learned that he was loaded, and very liberal with his money. He would often send packages for Sharaun. Perfume from Paris, chocolate from Germany, etc. Each week when I would send my homemade accounting sheet, he would tell me to take $200 or so and take my girlfriend out for dinner – which I gladly did. After a time, we began talking on the phone. He had a very thick accent, but I had no problem understanding him.

You’d think it couldn’t get any stranger, but it did. A few months into our buyer/seller relationship, Raymond e-mailed me asking for what he called “a favor.” Hang on, it’s gonna get strange here for a lil’ bit. In whatever year this was, I can’t remember, Pfizer had just come with Viagra – and the FDA’s approval of the drug was making big news around the world. Europe’s drug agency had yet to approve the drug, and it probably wouldn’t be available there for another year. What’s this have to do with Raymond, you ask? Well, as I mentioned before – Raymond was a man in his fifties, who worked with models. All the international news about Viagra must’ve gotten to him. He e-mailed me and asked me if I knew any US doctors who could get him some Viagra. He asked this completely out of the blue. Of course, I wasn’t really tied into any crooked prescription-writing doctors – so I wrote back apologetically saying I couldn’t help.

A day or so later, Raymond e-mailed me saying he’d found a way to get the Viagra in the US, but he needed my help to get it to him. He said he’d given my address to a doctor who would be sending me the pills, he ended up paying $80 per pill. A week later, I got a package in the mail with the Viagra. It came from New York City and was prescribed by, and to, a doctor there. Raymond had instructed me to get a large bottle of vitamins from a nutritional store, and make sure the bottle wasn’t clear. I found some Shark Fin pills, and after wrapping the Viagra in a small bag I hid them in the vitamins. I then re-sealed the foil on the pills and mailed them off to Brussels. At the time I really didn’t think much of it, but I think that might be in violation of at least some kind of federal laws. Strange indeed.

Over the next few months, business with Raymond continued as usual. Until one day when I took a phone call from him, and he told me he wanted to start a corporation in the US. In order to avoid some heavy taxation, and to get the corporation to be legally “based” in the States, he needed a US citizen as a founder. He asked if I would be willing to be a partner in this S-Corp that he was starting in New Jersey, so they could legally claim US status (for whatever reason). It was when he approached me with this that I started getting a little leery. I did a couple conference calls with Raymond, his sister in Milan, and some dudes from New Jersey, but I eventually ended up stalling and they were tied up with paperwork.

After that, Raymond just disappeared. As quickly as we started working together, we stopped. I got no more e-mails, no more phone calls, nothing. The whole thing went on for the better part of a year. After it was all over, Raymond had wired a twenty year old kid more than ten grand. My parents and friends suggested that I was being used to launder money, was being groomed for a young gay lover, was messing with the international mob, and would sure surely end up being taken away in handcuffs. After it all, I made out with an awesome cd burner, some pretty rare vinyl records, and a pretty good story.

To this day I haven’t heard from Raymond. I don’t know if he died, got arrested, was murdered, I know nothing. I do know that I have him to thank for enabling me to start trading cds as a hobby, and teaching me about Joey Dee and the Starliters‘ “Peppermint Twist” (his favorite song). Thanks Ray!

Wow, that turned out to be longer than I thought. But owell, at least it’s a good story. Last night I had asparagus with dinner. I don’t know what chemical it is in asparagus that makes your pee stink, but it sure acts fast. I peed within what must have been ten minutes after eating it, and it was already nice and stinky. I love asparagus, but I hate asparagus-pee.

Dude, my fingers are burning. Dave out.

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teetering on the edge of collapse

In the USA they lock you up for that kinda shit, brother!
My gawd y’allz. As crazy shows go, last night was one of the craziest I’ve seen. The Unicorns are three fresh-out-of-high-school young guys who do whatever the hell they want on stage. After watching nearly the whole show with my mouth open and a “what the hell” expression on my face, I thought I’d write about it a bit. For me, the show was confusing, funny, unbelievable, and entertaining as anything. Musically, it often seemed like the songs were teetering on the edge of collapse, but I think maybe that’s just how these guys play. Let me do my best play-by-play to try and get across what I mean.

We went to the show to see the Unicorns. There were three opening acts, so we knew we were getting ourselves into a late night. Two of the three openers were “meh,” while one – Irving – showed a lot of potential. When the last opening act left the stage, it was about a quarter to eleven. The Unicorns took their sweet time getting on, not taking the stage until somewhere around 11:30pm. That’s when three guys took the stage. One guy, will call him the long-haired one, was decked out with a pink matador’s cape, pink pants, and pink suspenders. The other guy, we’ll call him the curly-haired one, had on a pink tie and pink Boy Scout style belt over grey slacks, no shirt. The drummer, we’ll call him the drummer, had a white dress shirt and pink pants. All three were barefoot.

The opened the show with “The Clap,” which set the tone for the “we’re either gonna fall apart or get through these songs” vibe that stuck around for most of the show. The two “front-men,” long-haired and curly, switched between guitar, bass, and keyboard – each having playing all by the end of the show. The drummer worked with a regular drum kit, a drum-pad, and an AKAI MPC2000 sampler. As for the band’s on-stage histrionics, where do I begin?

They came out, did a brief unintelligible banter with the crowd, and then launched into song one. Apparently there was some guy heckling from near the front of the crowd, and he and the band exchanged some good-natured barbs at each other. Throughout the next couple songs, I guess this guy was still ribbing them – and I could hear him comment after each song. By the third song, the band was telling him to “eff off you eff-hole” (and yeah, that’s what they said). Before the fourth song, they told they guy (or everyone, who knows) that if he didn’t shut up – this would be their last song. Sure enough, as the song ended, the club turned on the vamp and the band walked offstage while shooting each other confused looks. To me, it looked like they didn’t want to leave – but the club started vamping like the show was over and they just did. About a minute later they came back onstage. The long-haired dude took the mic and addressed the heckler (or whatever he was), saying: “Hey, we just talked to the boss of this place… and apparently you don’t even work here. You work for me now, I own you, you’re fired.” I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that, if I waited 45min for these guys to take the stage – they had better at least play that long in return.

Anyway, the rest of the show was just as strange. In summary: In the middle of songs they broke into Kylie Minogue and 50 Cent covers. At one point the long-haired one accepted a joint from a front-row fan and proceeded to smoke marijuana throughout an entire song, on stage. After which he started clutching his chest and conferring with the other band members – who announced to the crowd: “Our friend here is having an ‘uncertain’ reaction to the marijuana… we’re gonna give him a few seconds for it to wear off.” Then he ambled up to the mic and asked the crowd for some “nachos or chips.” Someone was kind enough to throw a box of fig newtons onstage. Long-haired stoned dude snatched them up and ate one, showing poor manners by telling the crowd, while eating, that: “Fig newtons are chewy.” There was bass guitar humping, go-go dancing on speaker stacks, a bottle of vodka, and even a show’s-over crowd surf by the long-haired dude. Certainly an entertaining show, if somewhat insane.

That’s all I have the heart to write today, any more and I’d be forcing it. Bye.

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angry at the urinal

I spit on your urinal!
What’s up with people spitting in the urinal before they take a leak? Is this some manly pre-pee ritual that I never learned about? Is it just a convenient place for chronic-spitters to fix without offending others by keeping a spit-cup at their desk? I’m lost. I only mention it because I actually find it pretty gross. Yeah, it’s a bathroom and all – so it’s probably the best place to do it, but some guys seem to do it with such contempt. I mean, they just spit to be spitting, almost like they’re angry at the urinal or something. Strange.

You wanna know what’s crazy, I thought I was the only person in the world who had ever noticed, let alone, thought about this. However, an on-a-whim Google for “spit in the urinal” came up with a whole mess of hits. Almost all the other links are from fellow bloggers. This tells me that either: bloggers like to examine the bathroom habits of others, or the spit-before-pee thing is really not that uncommon. This, this, this (may be NSFW), this, and this link prove I’m not insane.

Remember the pizza-neck-bomb thing from Pennsylvania? A pizza delivery man was called to deliver a pie to an abandoned building. Next they hear from him, he’s outside a bank he just robbed with a homemade cane-gun and wearing a homemade bomb-collar which is counting down to detonation. He tells the cops he’s been forced to rob the bank and has to follow an elaborate series of instructions to get the collar off before the time runs out and his head blows up. Bomb squad arrives a little late, man blows up and dies, and the FBI has no idea if he was part of some crazy scheme or just a pawn in one. Anyway, that story intrigued me so much – mostly because of the elaborate plan and orchestration, and because of the pictures of the collar and gun the FBI released. Every once in a while I do a Google news search for any updates on it. Turns out the FBI’s leads are running cold – so they released part of the nine pages of letters the guy was carrying. So odd, can’t wait to hear the ending to this one.

Tonight is the Unicorns show at the GAMH, I’ve been listening to “Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone” all this morning to get pumped. What a great album, and surprisingly enough – it’s good “doin’ schematics” background music. I’m really looking forward to this show, not only because I think they’ll be great live – but because it’s a return to the initial hard-core concert crew of just Benz and I. While that may sound gay, well, Ben is totally gay. Yeah… should be fun.

Dave is outta here.

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this bitchin’ secret cave

I pledge alligiance, to whatever I like.
This morning I woke up thinking it was Wednesday. I even checked my calendar to see what I had going on. I don’t know why, I guess I’m just thinking ahead or something. Looking forward to the weekend perhaps. I kinda wish it was Wednesday.

Man, last night was a crazy dream night. I woke up with so many dreams still lingering in my head. The main one I can remember involves being naked in public places. I found that strange. I mean, I’ve heard of the classic “at school naked” dreams, but I’ve never actually had one. I this dream, I was about to take a shower – so I stripped off my boxers and started walking to the shower. Only thing was, I was at work. To make matters worse, the bathroom at work with the shower was on a different floor than I was, and I hadn’t realized it. Funny since there are no showers at work. In my dream I realized about halfway to where the shower-equipped bathroom should be that I was on the wrong floor. At that point I was stuck. At first I started looking for another bathroom to duck into, but there were none on whatever floor I was on. So I had to walk back to wherever I had come from, stark naked. I remember trying to act like it was all normal as hell, ignoring the stares from strangers. At one point I think the scene changed from work to a shopping mall – just for added humiliation I think. You know how dreams are. Anyway, I remember being all self-conscious and terrified. Strange dream.

The other dream I remember is, I think, somewhat of a revisit to a dream that’s slowly becoming a recurring one. In the only other two recurring dreams I have, the scenery is what makes them “recurring.” However, in this dream – it’s the events that happen the same, not necessarily the surroundings. I think I wrote about it before, but it involves swimming or diving underwater and discovering a hidden cave. Often I’m trying to escape from someone, or hiding from something underwater. Then I always find this bitchin’ secret cave, which in my head is kinda similar to One-Eyed Willie’s pirate ship cave from the Goonies. One element of the story that never fails – there’s always a ladder leading down a small rock-chimney into the cave proper. I think the ladder and underwater/secret cave must signify something, but I dunno what.

There was even another dream, where I was living or at least staying in a trailer park. I was the friend of a woman who was in the middle of a failing marriage. I recall lying down in the room where I was staying, hearing them fight, and feeling sad. I remember seeing her in her all-black underwear, crying on a bed in the room across the hall after the fight was over. I think that’s when I left to take a shower… and it turned into the naked-at-work thing from above. Such crazy dreams, I never remember them like that. Wonder if the dream-gods are trying to communicate with me or something.

Well, off dreams and onto reality. I saw the governor on TV this morning before work, talking about the two propositions he’s got on the March ballot. Since I have no idea what either is, I wanted to check it out. On the commercial, if I understood the Austrian accent right, Arnold describes the two propositions as: One to balance the budget and stop the overspending, and one to “tear up the credit card for good.” I liked the credit card analogy at least. Anyway, from what he said in the thirty-second spot, both items sounded reasonable to me. However, being a child of the ever-mistrusting Gen X, I wanted to do a bit o’ research for myself. I found this site which summarizes the current propositions, as well as this one. I found this “yes” site for 56, as well as this “no” site. I found this “yes” site for 57 and 58, and couldn’t seem to find a “no” site. So, I started reading.

After some research, I think I figured out the following: Prop 56 eases the quorum by which a budget is passed – requiring only a 55% vote versus the current 2/3. It also sets aside money for “certain circumstances.” I’m assuming that is the equivalent of me putting extra dough into savings for “what if’s.” Also, and I like this part, if the budget isn’t balanced, the governor and legislature don’t get paid. The opposition to this one say that it also makes it too easy for the legislature to approve tax hikes without enough constituent representation. Prop 57 is getting us some near-term savings by getting what’s essentially a debt refi bond, giving us lower payments over more time (the whole time-vs.-money thing again). Prop 58 makes a balanced state budget a constitutional requirement, and limits the taking out of new bonds to solve the problem (this must be “tearing up the credit card for good”). To me, 56 and 58 sound logical, while Prop 57 sounds kinda iffy. Then again, 56 could be dangerous in that a slim majority (55%) could potentially pass bad stuff. Seems like 57 and 58 enjoy some bipartisan support (1st Google link), which is interesting.

Well, there’s an ignorant voter’s take on what these things mean. At least I feel better for looking into it, now I can vote with some knowledge. I still don’t know if I trust the websites I read… it’s times like these when I need my politico friend Kristi to walk me through the stuff, so I can get a better handle on it. Owell.

Wanna see what Anthony’s gay ass did? He made a color-coded spreadsheet to figure out who owes who what for our recent concertgoing. You can tell he made it, because I ended up owing everyone everything. Peace out y’allz. On the real.