drinking in the afternoon/ l.l's.d.p. vol I...

good morning, dear readers. sorry to have missed you yesterday.

yesterday's no- show [no- blog?] was due to that two friends and i went to the anchor brewery and did the tour, and i just have to say that if you live in sf and have not gone, or are going to be in town and have the two hours, i highly recommend that you do so. reservations are needed, as they keep the tour parties small, but it's all totally gratis and they even serve you after it's done and let you hang out. special thanks to our tour guide, lindsay, who seemed like just the kind of person you wanted to spend an afternoon drinking beer with.
-- drinking in the afternoon.

shifting gears [especially since i do not have a lot of time this morning], i'm going to introduce our first installment of leveraging lee's del.icio.us page [l.l's.d.p.], where i pick out a couple five things that i've found interesting or edifying and repost them for you all to enjoy. and, as always, i'd like to dedicate l.l's.d.p. to cory, brick, and edward-- the fellas behind media gems-- for letting me in and teaching me so much about web 2.0... for without them, none of us would be here right now.

on to it, then, shall we?

1] an interview with alice waters

2] portland/ indie rock

3] hilarious/ indie rock

4] sidney blumenthal is a god

5] also hilarious

hope you all enjoy. tune in tomorrow-- same bat time, same bat channel.

~lee.

my aim is true...

wow i was a part of the coolest thing last night.

undoubtedly the two main non- family/friend reasons i love sf so so much are the weather and the live music. that it is an epicurean wonderland, populated by truffles and unicorns, is a close third, and that i feel like lots of people here byob to the grocery store* also sincerely pleases me and helps me believe that all is not lost.

but last night i got to see elvis costello perform his debut record, 'my aim is true', in it's entirety [favorite quote of the night: after 'sneaky feelings', elvis quipped that it was "time to flip the record over" before going into 'red shoes']. the performance was held at the great american music hall, a wonderful venue where i've seen maria taylor, midlake, thurston moore, and of montreal. many of you will most likely remember it from the tweedy solo show segment of 'i am trying to break your heart'.

backing him was none other than clover-- the band that played with him on the original recording-- adding to the significance of the evening. i went with an out of town friend [in town fortuitously and available when the wife bailed on me] and when we got there at 9:15 [doors were at 9:30] there already were two huge lines, broken up by last names a-l and m-z. it was all will call [why on earth do they call it that?], which i'll always tolerate and accept because i know it's an anti- scalper thing** but a pain in the ass nonetheless, but by 9:50 or so we were in the line for the bar and all was well. after a short set that started promptly at 10:00 by two older gentlemen whose names i never caught, the man himself hit the stage.

i have to stop for just one second-- and i don't want to turn into a jerry seinfeld/ dennis miller thing here-- but last night i was stuck behind some asshole in a porkpie hat, blocking my view. okay i get that these hats are supposed to be timeless, and i may even have a something similar that i wear from time to time, but, once indoors, formalities require gentlemen to remove them, don't they? it's what would've been done in sinatra's day, and isn't that supposed to be the fuckin' point?

sorry about that. so like i said, elvis & co. hit the stage around 10:40 or so and they did their thing. he [and they] sounded great, and even from behind the walking anachronism i could tell that he wasn't having to rely too much on the music stand in front of him, something i always kind of wince at [talking to you, lou reed]. he was funny and nostalgic, for obvious reasons, telling great stories from before he was elvis costello***: about how spoiled and luxuriant he felt staying at the howard johnson's [he called it a 'hojo', which in and of itself was pretty rad] in mill valley on his first tour, having come from the traveler's hell that was london, england at the time, and of battling the better- than- average- sized rats in the recording studio where they all did the very album we were there to celebrate.

in short, he was affable, gregarious, and he played a great set. he did a few acoustic numbers solo as an encore but nothing i recognized, as he basically said he wasn't doing anything from before 1977.

and the whole thing was a benefit for the richard de lone special housing project, a new non- profit "with the mission of working toward providing a state- of- the- art residential group home setting in marin county, california, capable of serving both children and adults with prader- willi syndrome and utilizing best practice techniques to serve the prader- willi population. by extension, we hope to be able to benefit all people who need to live in special care facilities".

"prader- willi syndrome [pws] is a rare and random complex genetic disorder affecting appetite, growth, metabolism, cognitive function and behavior... our goals are twofold: to raise public awareness... and to raise funds... to give these kids, who have such a tough prospect in life, a chance to enjoy themselves".

so there you go, dear readers. elvis costello did his job last night and i hope i've done mine just now. please go to www.pwsusa.org or www.rdshp.org to make a donation. have a great weekend.

~lee.

*http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/10/plastic_bags/

**also i have no choice.

***his given name was declan mcmanis. and i knew that off the top of my head. also i know the given names of sting [gordon sumner], slash [saul hudson], alice cooper [vincent furnier], and elton john [reginald dwight]... i have no idea why.

brought the fog with me i guess...

good morning, dear readers. i slept later than i had intended to today.

since my first few posts have centered on athens, georgia [as i'm sure many future ones will], i'd like to shift gears and talk a little bit about how much i love san francisco, the place where i hang my hat. or i guess you could say that san francisco is where my wife lives, and that home to me is wherever she is [awww...]. last week we were back on the east coast in both atlanta* and north carolina** and this trip solidified, just as sure as that jerry fallwell is in hell and that pat robertson is next, how felicitous our living in san francisco is.

i mentioned a second ago that my wife let me sleep in a little bit this morning [she gets up everyday around seven, i don't]. i'm a heavy sleeper, like the bush administration in the middle of a national disaster. sometimes i even sleepwalk and do funny things: if we're ever in a bar together, ask me about to regale you with some of my funnier somnolent adventures.

subsequently it turns out that, as anyone who has ever lived with me will now attest, my internal body clock has always been set to pacific standard time. i can not tell you the peace this simple fact-- and a fact it is-- brought to me. that for twenty- eight years, living in the southeast as i did, i'd been fighting forces beyond my control, things like circadian rythms and sleep inertia and confused arousal. no wonder i'd been so fucked- up for so long, you know?

so again, the wife and i were back east last week and i was just not myself. not the person i am when i'm at home in sf. i was irritable as hell in the daytime, especially as it pertained to the overabundance of stupid fucking traffic, and drunk as hell in the evening, especially as it pertained to it no longer being daytime. this went on for days and never exactly seemed to relent. i was making my wife crazy. i longed for the fog and fucked- up beauty of sf.

by the time the weekend rolled around the beauty and excitement of the wedding festivities was enough to temporarily ward off any bad mojo brought on by the problems with my body clock. it was a beautiful weekend all around, from the bride to the autumnal leaves to having all those wonderful people [re: my crazy fucking friends] within arms reach.

that being said, it was such a relief getting home. home to sf, where my body breathes easy and is at peace. home to sf, where i wish all the people i was with last weekend lived. home to sf, where i am the luckiest guy in the world.

~lee.

*i was born there, twice: once at northside hospital in september of 1977 and then again at a bar in midtown in july of 2004 when i met my wife.

**seeing one of my best friends marry an absolutely awesome gentleman. i only wonder if they'll have physically fit, freakishly- attractive blonde babies.