drop

Oof - taking care of parents post-surgery is hard. My general desire to be lazy is running up against having to plain take care of shit. Weirdly the thing that has been saving me is making checklists and keeping extensive notes. 

I'm both amused by and completely over Tay-Travis. And what's with his stupid copstache anyway? My sincere hope is that 5 years from now, I am reading this and and I have no idea what this was about. 

Texas is extremely problematic but these sunsets are ... first class! [placeholder: I should really post a picture]. 

Meanwhile I'm missing my tiny family. I also missed a killer Portola lineup this weekend.  

OK - I'll end with a little fun I've been having with VCV rack.

Ah - the joy of deliciously emo lyrics

Do you remember when we thought the world was ending?
Seems funny now
The future is a text message sending
Out, out, out
I live forever in sunset
An ending not quite done yet
Some people don't understand that

(Hmm - I may be getting a bit old to be posting dramatic lyrics, but also whatever - enjoyment of the dramatic is a pure thing man)

yearendpost

I am missing Amar quite a bit right now. Or maybe the idea of Amar - we'd drifted in and out of closeness over the years, but he represented something more broadly wrt the zeitgeist. Being connected to the Culture. He'd like that I think. 

He did an annual music list which served as a touchpoint for a lot of people. The rest of the distribution list is keeping it going this year which is both wonderful and heartbreaking. It is still a little surreal and shocking for someone to just be gone like that. 

Anyway - here is what I posted on that thread:

Been a very strange year - everything seems a bit fractured and all over the place.

Some things

• Kid Cudi made a Netflix rom com (or extended music video) which somehow served as comfort food - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxL6gzYls7Y 
• Porridge Radio's Back to the Radio ended up being a bit of an anthem in our house - feels like it could have belonged on a playlist from 25 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDw9nTQKGd4
• Casisdead - From a few year's ago - vaguely UK rap adjacent and makes me think of Amar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKSGhZi8SLU 
• I discovered that it is in fact called a chaise lONGue and not a lOUnge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9jeJk2UHQ
• Ezra Furman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqUTcb368kM

+1 on the Sudan Archives, Dry Cleaning

Also digging into old Ska/Rocksteady stuff - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw66FA6OTqA 

I'll think of more later ... let's keep this going .. 

not wfh

staycation is kinda nice. i wake up in the morning and my brain wants to deal with work things i'm responsible for and then i realize - nah - i don't need to do this. very liberating indeed.

so instead i'm taking pleasure in voluntary house tidying (this is what growing up actually means - hello adult paradigm). catching up on champions league football (atletico "fashy" madrid are officially my least favorite club). doing deep dives into old school jamaican ska (hot take - ska >>> reggae - reggae messed with the best parts of ska).  

rudy, a message to you

end of the year / beginning of the year

There will be lists. Not quite ready with them yet, and I struggled to keep up with new music this past year, so I'll probably just fall back on everything old is new again (at least to me). But I did read a bit. And I certainly watched a lot of TV (didn't we all?). 

Speaking of TV - Book of Boba is pretty lame. Mando was fun but the Boba Fett show just seems like they took all the charm out of the previous show, while throwing in a bunch of stupid, nonsensical scenarios. Maybe I'm just reaching the end of the line with the bloated corpse of the extended Star Wars universe. And if we're being honest with ourselves, maybe it was never that great to begin with, and more derivative than anything else. But hey - this is the mono-culture nostalgia. 

Anyway - here's hoping for an upswing in 2022. 

Less COVID, more Klay. 

And hopefully we'll get to go on some family adventures. 

vote no

at some point politics went from being public to personal for me. a private thing that matters to me but not something I feel comfortable talking about in any kind of public forum, because it feels so damn stressful. I mean I still believe more or less the same things I've believed for a long time. and no - age has not made me "more conservative" or whatever (I really don't understand this one). I just decided to stop making it a public thing since I have no capacity left in me to have a discourse around any of this stuff. that said, you should still vote no on (or before) tuesday. okthxbye.

In Praise of Giannis

I am genuinely happy for Giannis. He seems like a fundamentally good dude, and a normal human being (apart from being 7 feet tall and insanely athletic). He is funny and real and has a such an inspiring backstory. He seems to be the opposite of the LeBron industrial complex that has controlled the basketball narrative over the past decade. Bonus points for beating Chris Paul - the most annoying dude of his generation (Point God? More like Point Godawful amirite?). 

On a more sombre note, I am truly terrified of how these finals are going to end up being a series of superspreader events with no discernable masking or distancing, and the Delta Variant gaining steam. Adam Silver - I'm really disappointed in how you've dealt with this after being so serious about the bubble last year. I'm really, really hoping that this will spur people into taking vaccination more seriously. We shall see. 

 

 

Not A Total Cachu Hwch

The last couple of days have been not terrible. It is saying something about the collective trauma of the last four years that "not terrible" is all I'll allow myself right now, but small steps right?

So in no particular order, stuff that happened:

• George Floyd verdict
• I'm fully vaccinated
• Steph going supernova
• The European Super League nonsense sputtering and crashing

OK - so the truth is when people claim to post lists in no particular order, they are probably not being completely honest. Our brains aren't wired that way. There is always an implicit order encoded in there, certainly at the beginning of the list. Just sayin'.

A bit of a footnote - Cachu Hwch is apparently Welsh for "Total Fucking Disaster" (literally "Pig's Poo"). See also the David Tennant / Michael Sheen episode of Staged 

calm before the ???

I know a lot of people are super anxious about the election right now, but I'm just going to put this out there. It is OK to be cautiously optimistic. 

homebound

so 2020 took on quite the weird turn, eh? we're all home recalibrating everything about everything, while a microscopic half alive thing wreaks havoc on our conception of what it means to be a social society. i think i'll be in a better place to offer up words as a retrospective somewhere down the line. in the meantime, i'm going to take comfort in lists. here is all the media that has kept me distracted while also offering up some level of enjoyment:

• Charles Yu - Third Class Superhero 📚
• Black Crouch - Recursion 📚
• High Fidelity 📺
• Everything is Going to be OK 📺
• Sharon Van Etten - Seventeen ♪
• Grosse Pointe Blank 📽
• Tokaido 🎮
• Robin Sloan Newsletters 🗞

i'll keep adding stuff here as i go. 

i'd include it on the list (it has been a great way to stay in touch with peeps), but scrabble go is pretty much scrabble at its worst - lots of ads, stupid power-ups, crappy zynga-ish ui, too much distracting visual bling etc. but, thanks to copyright, it is the only thing out there. 

the gawd, the trade deadline, distortion

Messi to Man City? A reunion with Pep? Almost certainly just rumors, but the possibility has me salivating!

NBA trade deadline leaving me strangely uneasy. I guess it feels weird to lose a bunch of players you kinda became semi-attached to. Dubs season about to get even uglier. On the bright side maybe I can get some courtside seats on the cheap.

On a JAMC kick lately (kicked off by this lovely Chromatics cover of On The Wall). Funny how different flavors of feedback can date a song to a particular era. Also there is this: 🔥🔥🔥 (that is supposed to be a link, but emojis don't bend to ordinary href tags)!

8-24

I've been in a state of shock all day. Kobe Bryant has died at the age of 41. I don't want to paper over the fact that Kobe was a problematic dude. But there is something about a celebrity who was pretty much my age dying, seemingly randomly, that has me messed up. Plus I'm an NBA junkie, so my twitter feed is pretty much full of other people in shock which is maybe adding to the effect. Anyway - this all just feels weird and I feel bad that someone died while taking his kid to their game. 

MUSIC TIME

2019 Fave Albums:

• Florist - Emily Alone
• Tinariwen - Amadjar
• Girl In Red - Beginnings 
• Hot Sick Vile and Fun - New Sounds From San Francisco (Rocks in Your Head Compilation)
• Cindy - Cindy
• Eerie Wanda - Pet Town 
• Tullycraft - The Railway Prince Hotel
• Julia Shapiro - Perfect Vision

2019 Fave Songs:

• Lizzo - Truth Hurts
• Habibi - Come My Habibi
• Acid Arab - Staifia
• The Jeanines - Either Way
• Juan Wauters - Rubia
• Lucy Dacus - Dancing In The Dark
• Japanese Breakfast - Head Over Heels
• Billie Eilish - Everything I Wanted

Spotify Playlist

Muh bad

Damn - I really didn't post anything in 2019. I really need to write more. It doesn't matter what - just say stuff. Like for example, here is a hot take 4 years late. Rae Sremmurd is the best band* name. There can be no argument here. Ear Drummers spelled backwards wins every hypothetical band name contest.

*I use the term "band" loosely to include any musical act that is a duet or group. Kinda like the Grammys do.

2018 Music

Albums

This list gets smaller each year which makes me sad, but I still think there is a place for a coherent set of songs released together.

• Haley Heynderickx - I Need To Start A Garden
  • This was soo soo good. She has this weirdo voice and does this folky/punky/warped garden elf music that sounds old, but totally fresh. Also my favorite live show this year.
  • Standout Track: Oom Sha La La
• Beach Slang (Quiet Slang) - Everything Matters But No One Is Listening
  • Apparently they are divisive but whatever - they are super fun, and unapologetic about being bombastic, pretentious art school poseurs. Quiet Slang is James Alex’s acoustic-ish solo-ish version of Beach Slang stuff.
  • Standout Track - Future Mixtape for the Art Kids
• Instant Music - Instant Music
  • A 1981 reissue that never got due credit back in the day. Minimal Synthy Post-Punk. Dark Entries is a really nice label for these kinds of reissues. A bit like Young Marble Giants.
  • Standout track - My Boy

Random Songs

• Travis Scott - Sicko Mode (I guess I didn’t listen to much rap this year. But you should also watch the Warriors listening to a “special version“ of this. Dray and Steph are the best)
• Migos - Motorsport (I guess I didn’t listen to much rap this year pt. 2)
• Parquet Courts - Total Football (Socialism, Soccer, and a “Fuck Tom Brady” Drop in the end - so I’m required to like it!)
• Death and the Maiden - Wisteria (Reminds me a bit of that Primitive Radio Gods song)
• Iron & Wine - What Hurts Worse

Pre-2018 Stuff I found

• Psychic TV - Orchids
  • OMG - This might become my favorite song ever. It is that good. If you listen to one thing in this post, listen to this.
• Snail Mail - Thinning
  • This track is way better than their new album which made its way into everyone’s lists, because people found this track and then felt like they needed to recognize them post-fact. It’s cool. I’ve done this too.
• William Onyeabor - Atomic Bomb and Fantastic Man
  • I kinda knew about him, but I didn’t really give him a listen until now. Oh wow. This is so much fun, and intersects nicely with old bollywood and afro-funk.

small wins

it has been a couple of weeks. failed attempt at adopting a dog. fires. smoke from the fires. being cooped up in the house from the smoke. a stir-crazy 11 year old not excited about being stuck in the house. took the week off, but felt myself on edge the whole time. plus my usual release - deriving joy from our local world-beating basketball team, has turned into its own form of angst, bickering and ugly losses. these are all temporary things. the rains are here. steph will be back. our new house is finally emerging from a sea of boxes. but i need some small wins - now! i'm tempted to ... gasp ... go for a run, just to count that as a small win.

football's coming home

based purely on their name, and knowing nothing else about them, huddersfield town seems like the team most likely to be relegated in the premier league. in other news i'm a bandwagon football fan now. i just need to find a wagon to band to.

world cup edition

Dear World Cup 2018,

I have some questions.

Why do teams seem to be taking so many short corners, when the set-piece has been shown to be the biggest statistically underutilized xG inefficiency? Bend it in for the inswinger and let probability do its work. (Note: It is also entirely possible that I don't actually know what I'm talking about, and I'm saying this because I read a book and now I'm basically a Blog Boy)

Why are sliding tackles ok again? I seem to remember there being a concerted effort to get rid of them in the 90s. Not sure if this is just confirmation bias, but it does seem like injuries are up this year. I really want to see some transcendent Messi/Neymar shit, dribbling fools out of existence, and mostly all we get are these ugly fouls.

Why aren't yellow cards reset after the group stage? It really sucks to watch teams playing without their top dudes. The 2 yellow cards = suspension rule seems a little too low of a bar. My solution for these last two questions: Just hand out more reds for dangerous tackles and do away with suspensions, unless they are for really flagrant fouls or non-football shenanigans. The NBA gets this right.

Why are most of the Fox commentators so awful? I am so done with all the "as it stands" commentary. We all know that if the score is Uruguay 2 Portugal 1, "as  it stands" Portugal and Ronaldo will out of the tournament. And can we please ditch the guy that sounds like Troy Aikman?


(To be continued ... )

open src

When I retire I want to spend my time curating a tiny but useful open source tool. I mean, I could theoretically do this right now, but I do plenty of ((mostly) satisfying) software work in my day job and I'd rather spend my free time doing other life things. Eric Raymond's excellent The Cathedral and the Bazaar and this great interview with the creator of curl* got me thinking about this, but really, I've kinda had this as my retirement plan pretty much since I graduated from college.

Other things I want to do when I retire:

• Do a longish bike ride.
• Actually finish a Coursera course.
• Play one-on-one basketball with my daughter (this is more of a waiting until she gets big enough/skilled enough for this to be a contest thing).
• Move to a fancy loft space.
• Spend several months in a totally new country.
• Join a beer brewing co-op**.

Maybe what I'm after isn't retirement so much as Keynes' fabled 15 hour work-week.

*What is the correct form of capitalization for UNIX utilities like "ls" or "curl"? The English language doesn't seem well equipped to handle computer commands.
**I don't have the patience/dedication/knowledge to be a solo homebrewer, but it seems like a fun group activity.

2017 Best Music

I think I officially stopped listening to albums this year. Once I gave up on that, listening to music became a lot easier and I was able to come up with my best-of list pretty easily.

• St. Vincent - "New York" - Masseducation (Loma Vista)
  This was my jam for the year. Beautiful and sassy.
• Rostam - "Bike Dream" - Half Light (Nonesuch)
  I've been super impressed with his post Vampire Weekend stuff. It is earnest and bombastic and really well crafted.
• The Courtneys - "Tour" - The Courtneys II (Flying Nun)
  Hits my sweet spot in terms of fuzzed out garage pop.
• Destroyer - "Tinseltown Swimming in Blood" - ken (Merge)
  Some heavy shades of When In Rome. Super catchy - some may call it derivative. I call it a throwback.
• Wax Idols - "Born Without A Mind" - Evaluate What You Tolerate! Volume 1.
  This isn't on Spotify, so I'm linking here. Cover of a 7 seconds song, that is sadly even more relevant now. Musically, I like the direction that Wax Idols is taking (moving away from the gothiness of their last two albums and bringing in more sonic density).
• (Sandy) Alex G - "Powerful Man" - Rocket (Domino)
  Weird and twangy, in a good unexpected way.
• The Mountain Goats - "We Do It Different on the West Coast" - Goths (Merge)
  A Mountain Goats song, but with a funk bassline that makes you smile. And lines like "Almost always something happening in Ohio".
• Lil Uzi Vert - "XO Tour Llif3" - Luv Is Rage 2 (Atlantic)
  The Ringer describes the anhedonia that this conjures much better than I can, so I'll just link.
• The Drums - "Blood Under My Belt" - Abysmal Thoughts (Anti)
  Synthy pop revival goodness.
• Ariwo - "Alafin" - Ariwo (MANANA)
  I kinda cheated since I only heard this song this morning. But I'm going to put this here anyway. A dubbed out afro-beatish electronic jam that is both new and old.
• Shabazz Palaces - "Eel Dreams" - Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star (Sub Pop)
  Rap is clearly going through a phase change, but its nice to see oldheads putting out stuff that updates indie-rap with some fresh soundz.
• Younger Lovers - "Ballad Of Two Stubborn Men" - Younger Brothers (Southpaw)
  I saw him live and it was the most raw, raunchy, eff-you perfomance I've seen! The record has a very different feel but still captures the lo-fi minimalist punkish aesthetic.

Here is the Spotify version, with a couple of Bonus tracks: