Transitions

The last few days of the rollercoaster-from-hell that was 2004 were no less frustrating than the year as a whole.

After losing out on putt-putt to pouring rain and bowling to bicycles, missing cocktails and clubs in sickness and in health, my sister ditches me to go to a dance with some Mormon friends.

I'd planned to take her to her first punk-rock show, on New Year's Eve, at the legendary 924 Gilman, to see the Rock and Roll Adventure Kids and the Dollyrots, among others. It would have been a treat to see a couple of successful alums rocking old-schoolie with my sister. But she was worried she'd be tagging along with my friends and me, and might not like the band. She wasn't going to tell me she'd made other plans until she was ready to leave.

I sat her down and played some of the music, explaining how I don't have any friends and it was just to be she and I.

As I was driving her to her friend's house, she told me she didn't know, and kind of wished she could go to the show now, but had to go through with her obligations. I know she had a blast anyway, I just hope she learned to trust and to talk to her brother.

Staying home, yet again, for New Year's wasn't all bad. We had lobsters and crab legs, wine and steaks, champagne, and some damned fine movies.

2005 has been promisingly different, though.

I met Dave in Berkeley today, hung out with Samm on the air at the K-A-L-. I ate some Zagat-rated, cheap Na'an & Cyurry (yes) and drove with Dave to the Bottom of the Hill.

Irish Carbomb Numero Uno and Dave called shotgun as soon as we walked in the door. Dave sank the 8-ball just as the band got on stage.

The Flakes were kind of like Dick Dale meets the Rolling Ramones ... oldsters, to be sure, and kind of iffy.

Irish Carbomb, Part Deux had me pony up, with a dollar price increase ... strange.

The Bobbyteens were a bit better, and the lead singer Tina got some mad props for shamelessly flaunting the largesse that she's got. Sort of like the Bizarro Donnas, but with the same old Japanese dude who drummer for The Flakes. And he still kept thanking us in German after each song ... "donky shit," he would say. Twice.

Before finishing a smoke, even, the Fevers were starting to play. And they were good! It was a grown-up Simpletons, with the bassist rocking the Thacker stance, older Eric on guitar, and Thor flipping sticks and singing sideways into the mic. "The Complexitons?" Dave asked. with their matching t-shirts underneath their jackets, I agreed. It was too bad the merch table consisted of ... a table with no merch.

Ein, Zwei, Trei Carbombs, and this one turned it up to eleven. Delicious. Again with a dollar price increase ... they're getting more expensive as the night wears on.

A brief wait and a bump back in the crowd prepared us for the main event of the 5,6,7,8's.
This is the band from Kill Bill restaurant scene with O-ren and the Crazy 88's.
And they were just as good live.

It wasn't just the novelty of seeing the Kill Bill band. It wasn't their infirm mastery of the Engrish language. It wasn't even their cute Japanese girliness. These chicks had a musical acumen topped only by their comprehensive grasp of what made the music of the 1950's the birthplace of Rock'N'Roll.

Tomorrow I'll bang some wood with my pops, and hopefully bang out a paper that night. I can't justify not finishing at least one before I get back.

On that token, goodnight.

Ahi're you are, Durkheim.

Isn't it a pain in the ass to write to your blog, then not be able to publish and lose your post in the process?

Yes. Yes it is. I hate you, technology, as much as you make my life easy and fun.

You are my nemesis.

Durkheim, you are also my nemesis. Why it is I cannot figure out what I want to say about you is yet another thing I cannot figure out. Double-confusion is doubly confusing, heard?

Durkheim, tomorrow I begin the arduous climb to the top of your summit, whence I shall stomp you to oblivion. All I am promising by 7 p.m. tomorrow is tha ability to sit down and begin to write ideas onto a piece of paper. E- or otherwise.

E-paper = Word document?

I think so.

On the lighter side, today I made an incredible dinner out of nothing other thanmy head. I wish I'd pulled a Nick and photographed it, to post.

First have your sister and mother shell some roasted, salted pistachios while you and your father buy presents for underprivileged children. Preheat the oven to 425, then mash those shelled pistachios into crumbles and dust with various apparata. Mix in 2T room temperature softened butter, slowly heating in a metal bowl or pan on low to get the butter just soft enough to adhere all over between the pistachio bits.

Take some nice, thick ahi steaks and coat them as thoroughly as possible (a task of no little skill!) with the pistachio/butter mixture. Drizzle olive oil lightly over the steaks, after placing them into a baking dish (ceramic or glass). Lightly grind salt and pepper over each, then squeeze 1/4 lime's worth of juice over the whole.

Bake ten minutes or so. Take care not to allow the inside of the ahi to cook all the way. Ideally, the inside should remain red to dark pink.

The salad was a thrown-together mixture of varied salad greens (the mixed, bagged kind) and some crumbled feta cheese with 1/2 a red onion, a cup of kalamata olives, 1/3 of each of a roasted red, orange, and yellow pepper, a cup of pepperoncini, one large vine-ripe tomato, and two celery stalks, all more or less roughly chopped, drizzled with olive oil, salted, and peppered.

When the fam. was eating it and talking about how delicious it was, I thought they were being grateful and kind until I dug in myself and realized that I am awesome.

I think that it is funny how you can post something to 1999 or 2006 on this platform. I want to start posting to 2006. Will it not show up for another two years?!?

Atari.

Jem and the Holograms

Jesus did Bush get smoked.

Afterward, Page asked us to all vote for who won the debate online immediately afterward. I plan to do so shortly.
AJ proclaimed his opposition based upon the ineffectuality of such. After lengthy debates about how the average age of a newspaper reader has, for over a decade, been increasing by one year, yearly (indicating that young people are not subscribing, and old people are continuing to) and other such things, AJ decided to tell me he simply didn't believe me.
I told him that I could accept that he didn't believe me, then immediately turned to Dave and told him I felt like I'd just debated with President Bush.

Success.

So this is what blogging feels like?

I'm about to go watch the debates. Then, perhaps, I will have something to say.

Ahhh ... something to say. That would be nice.

Perhaps this "blogging" thing will help with that.