danmusic

Twitterstorm! Stanford Football!

2012-01-02T23:48:00.000-08:00

Follow me on Twitter at @thednaze

Today's Twitterstorm after watching the Fiesta Bowl:

All posts tagged #stanfordfootball are genuine word-for-word quotes from Stanford football fans at a sports bar

There's no rivalry with Cal and UCLA, I respect those schools #stanfordfootball

We were roomates at Stanford and Oxford. That's like a Turdunken of dorkiness. #stanfordfootball

Capitalism ruins everything #stanfordfootball

This is called a drive. #stanfordfootball

It's a metonym #stanfordfootball

Now it's like the election of 1824: closer than it should be. #stanfordfootball

Their cheerleaders are all white. #stanfordfootball

I think this is all being taken out of context to make me seem like I know less about football than I do. #stanfordfootball

This is just degrading, it's called the TOSTITOS Fiesta Bowl. #stanfordfootball

If Zeno's paradox applied to football no one could get a first down. #stanfordfootball

Argh, don't put your head down, you'll get spinal compression! #stanfordfootball

That was a really bad defensive showing on that big ... what ever just happened. #stanfordfootball

Go forward! #stanfordfootball

Go around that guy! #stanfordfootball

You don't understand the ethos of Stanford do you? Excellence! Excellence! Excellence! #stanfordfootball

What a horrible way to go out! #stanfordfootball

This terrible! #stanfordfootball

When we lose, we console ourselves with having Google. And Herbert Hoover! #stanfordfootball

His hat is crooked! What's his problem? #stanfordfootball

Poor Williamson, he's going to have to go back to the campus. Though I suppose no one will recognize him anyway. #stanfordfootball

This is like Bush v. Gore all over again. #stanfordfootball

Spreading Santorum

2012-01-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

Best headline of the 2011:

Santorum Surges From Behind In Iowa

Yes, that's a real headline.

In case you didn't know, world class homophobe Rick Santorum has a Google problem. Whether you Google Santorum or Rick Santorum, there are some interesting links among the top results. Why does Santorum have such a bad google problem? Probably because bloggers keep linking the name Santorum to Dan Savage's site.

Good luck in Iowa Rick Santorum! Santorum2012!

Mini Book Reviews

2011-11-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

(Belated book review project explained here.)

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
3 1/2 stars

This book is creepy and sad. But unlike other books I've read that were no fun at all (e.g. Coetzee's Disgrace), I didn't feel this was worth it. The narrator is so mawkish that I had trouble identifying with her and the other students. This book effectively conveys dread but not much else. I don't recommend it.

Straight Man
Richard Russo
4 stars

Reviewed here.

No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy
3 1/2 Stars

Much more sparsely written than anything else by McCarthy. I found the book easier to forget than Javier Bardem's haircut in the movie. It doesn't even compare to the bloody poetry of Blood Meridian. But it's a good high-brow substitute for an airport thriller.

Will Microsoft Own Crowdsourcing?

2011-09-28T16:40:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted at the Center for Internet and Society Blog
______________

The patent application has a simple title: Crowdsourcing.

Filed on May 18, 2009, the application is assigned to Microsoft and claims a “computer-implemented” crowdsourcing method. The claims seem very broad. Folks have noticed that Facebook has a pending application for crowdsourced translations. But Microsoft's application for crowdsourcing itself has, at least so far, slipped under the radar.

The ownership of crowdsourcing seems like an important question. Crowdsourcing has been in the news in the wake of the amazing paper published last week in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. The paper reveals that players of an online game called Foldit needed only a few days to solve a difficult biological puzzle (the crystal structure of M-PMV retroviral protease) that had stumped scientists for years.

The paper notes the significance of crowdsourcing in the breakthrough:

Although much attention has recently been given to the potential of crowdsourcing and game playing, this is the first instance that we are aware of in which online gamers solved a longstanding scientific problem. These results indicate the potential for integrating video games into the real-world scientific process: the ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems.

If crowdsourcing could become a major source of innovation, I worry about patents--whether from Microsoft or others--that might capture the inventive process itself.

Perhaps I'm wrong to worry. Maybe Microsoft's application isn't as broad as it appears to me. If so, Microsoft won't mind its patent application getting a little bit of attention. After all, it recently joined a crowdsourcing service that looks for prior art to knock out patents. And other initiatives, such as Peer-to-Patent, allow the public to crowdsource prior art for pending patent applications.

It would certainly be ironic if a patent on crowdsourcing was rejected thanks to crowdsourcing.

Blurring the Situation

2011-08-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at my work blog

Abercrombie & Fitch has offered to pay Jersey Shore cast member Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino not to wear its clothing. I hesitate to give this publicity stunt more publicity. But the coverage from the New York Times includes a garbled account of fair use law. The article spreads the damaging myth of the clearance culture: the false view that artists need approval for every single item of trademarked or copyrighted material appearing in a work.

Here's how the Times wades into the law:

Jordan Yospe, a lawyer who handles product-placement deals in movies and television shows, said that if Abercrombie were serious about keeping its clothing off the Situation, it would have pursued legal options rather than offering him money.

“They could try to prevent the series from airing their intellectual property without their permission,” said Mr. Yospe, a lawyer at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in Los Angeles. Logos and labels fall under fair-use law, he said, and shows have to get approval from the owner of the intellectual property to use them
.

That’s why on so many low-end reality shows, brands are often blurred, Mr. Yospe said — the shows either could not or did not try to get approval. Abercrombie “could say, ‘Blur ’em,’ ” if they really wanted to sever the association, Mr. Yospe said.

But it is simply false that an artist needs permission for every logo or label depicted in a creative work. See, e.g., Mattel Inc. v. Walking Mountain Prods. Walking Mounting, 353 F.3d 792, 812 (9th Cir. 2003) (use of Barbie trademark in photographs fair use); Wham-O, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Corp., 286 F. Supp. 2d 1254, 1263 (N.D. Cal. 2003) (depiction of and reference to Slip-N-Slide toy in movie was nominative fair use). Indeed, in what I can only assume is a clumsy paraphrase of Mr. Yospe, the Times gets the law of fair use backwards—you do not need approval if something is fair use. See Campbell v. Acuff–Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 585 n.18 (1994) (“being denied permission to use a work does not weigh against a finding of fair use”).

This is not the first time the New York Times has incorrectly suggested that approval is needed for any use of trademarks in creative works. The resulting fear and confusion around fair use is exactly why we have the absurd result of brands being blurred in reality shows and documentaries. Producers would rather deface their own work than risk a lawsuit, even if the lawsuit lacks merit. It is a sad situation indeed.

An Open Reply to PZ on Copyright

2011-07-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at my work blog

Louis Zukofsky (LZ) is the author of the very long, sometimes difficult, yet always amazing “A”. LZ died in 1978 and his son, Paul Zukofsky (PZ), owns the copyright in all of his father’s works.

Anyone interested in LZ’s poetry will likely stumble upon PZ’s open letter to the poetry community concerning copyright. In this letter, PZ asserts that any and all quotation from LZ requires express permission from PZ as the copyright holder. But the law does not support PZ’s position. I hope that this post will help prevent PZ from further chilling legitimate scholarship and commentary.

In his statement, PZ makes it plain that he does not like the concept of fair use. He writes:

Despite what you may have been told, you may not use LZ’s words as you see fit, as if you owned them, while you hide behind the rubric of “fair use”. “Fair use” is a very-broadly defined doctrine, of which I take a very narrow interpretation, and I expect my views to be respected. We can therefore either more or less amicably work out the fees that I demand; you can remove all quotation; or we can turn the matter over to lawyers, this last solution being the worst of the three, but one which I will use if I need to enforce my rights.

In case anyone has any doubt, PZ’s “narrow interpretation” of fair use has no impact on the law. It is well-settled that the views of the copyright holder are not relevant to the contours of fair use. See Campbell v. Acuff–Rose Music, Inc., 510 U.S. 569, 585 n.18 (1994) (“being denied permission to use a work does not weigh against a finding of fair use”). Indeed, the possibility that a copyright holder will prevent scholarship and comment is precisely why fair use is essential.

You may think that PZ should encourage scholarship because it promotes his father’s work. PZ strongly disagrees:

I can applaud your desire to obtain a job, any job, although why in your chosen so-called profession is quite beyond me; but one line you may not cross i.e. never never ever tell me that your work is to be valued by me because it promotes my father. Doing that will earn my life-long permanent enmity.

PZ is entitled to believe that literary scholarship is a waste of time. But, once again, his personal view about scholarship has no impact on the law. Within the contours of fair use, scholars are entitled to write about, and quote from, LZ just as they would from any other writer.

PZ’s stance on fair use is reminiscent of the stance of the Estate of James Joyce. PZ might do well to consider how that turned out for the Estate.

There are lawyers, including the Fair Use Project and others, who help defend against meritless infringement claims. If you believe that your scholarship or research has been impeded because of claims by PZ, please feel free to contact us.

Joseph Conrad in Chattisgarh

2011-07-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

As we heard the instant matters before us, we could not but help be reminded of the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, who perceived darkness at three levels: (1) the darkness of the forest, representing a struggle for life and the sublime; (ii) the darkness of colonial expansion for resources; and finally (iii) the darkness, represented by inhumanity and evil, to which individual human beings are capable of descending, when supreme and unaccounted force is vested, rationalized by a warped world view that parades itself as pragmatic and inevitable, in each individual level of command.

The Supreme Court of India in its decision banning the practice of hiring untrained villagers as militia to fight Naxalite rebels.

Empire Falls

2011-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

Richard Russo - 3 1/2 stars

Review Seven

(Belated book review project explained here.)

At this rate, I'm reviewing books slower than I am reading them and I still have about 65 to go before I catch up. I've read a couple of other Russo books since this one and they all kind of blend in together. As far as I can remember, this one was fine but I wouldn't recommend it. Straight Man is much funnier and is definitely worth reading.

So So So

2011-07-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

2011-06-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

Michael Chabon - 4 1/2 stars

Review Six

(Belated book review project explained here.)

I enjoyed the hell out of this book. I'm a sucker for the hard-boiled format in the hands of a good literary writer (e.g. Lethem's Gun With Occasional Music and Amis's Night Train). Add a waterlogged Alaskan landscape and a likable tough guy for a protagonist and you've got something pretty close to my perfect book.

But any story that starts so engagingly will struggle to keep up the magic--especially in noir, where the suspense is usually far more compelling than the plot's ultimate resolution. And this book is no exception. (The dark ending of Amis's Night Train is the only exception to this rule I can think of right now - that was like a punch in the gut). Chabon's Sitka is still super fun. I'll read this book again.

Review Five

2011-04-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Big If, Mark Costello

3 stars

Although Big If has a rich slate of characters, its central figure is Vi Asplund, a Secret Service agent. Vi returns to her home in New Hampshire where she is tasked with guarding the Vice President (who is running for President) during the Democratic primary. Vi's difficult brother is still living in New Hampshire and Franzenesque family drama ensues.

Published in 2002, Big If was clearly conceptualized and written before 9/11. The Secret Service in the book are focused mainly on individual nut jobs and seem unsettled about the lack of concrete threats in the post-C0ld War world--as if the Secret Service is worried that it is an anachronism. Costello had rotten publishing timing given that an even more massive and self-assured security state exploded into being just as he released the book. So Big If itself ends up feeling like an anachronism.

I read this book mostly because Mark Costello is a Yale Law School graduate and I was rooting (in the American sense of the word) for the book to succeed. I didn't end up liking it as much as I hoped I would but still reckon it is pretty good.

Review Four

2011-03-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Continental Drift, Russell Banks

3 Stars

I am a big fan of Russell Banks. Around 2004, when I was living in Vermont, I went on a Russell Banksathon and read a bunch of his books back to back. I strongly recommend The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction to anyone who hasn't read them. (And the movie for The Sweet Hereafter is also amazing.)

Continental Drift never grabbed me in the same way. The plot felt contrived. In Affliction, in contrast, the protagonist's problems seemed so real I could almost feel the severe toothache that afflicts him throughout the book. Reading Continental Drift, you can't shake the sense that Banks is making a point and it gets in the way of the story.

I was disappointed to read a Banks book I didn't thoroughly enjoy. Little did I know he would later inflict the execrable The Reserve on the world.

Review Three

2011-03-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

4.5 Stars

I read this book before I'd bought furniture for my apartment. So I mostly read it while lying on a mattress on the floor in an otherwise bare room. I think the setting helped me identify with the protagonists ("the man" and "the boy") who spend much of the book squatting in the abandoned houses of the post-apocalypse. My defining memory of reading The Road is of when pure dread caused me to involuntarily put it down. I don't recall a book ever causing me to do that before.

It's a cliche, but this is a book that stays with you. I think for months afterward I was returned to its world every time I saw a hobo pushing a shopping trolley down a San Francisco sidewalk (which is every few minutes in this town).

Review Two

2011-03-25T21:41:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

2.5 Stars

Having set out on a pretentious project of reviewing 78 books, I find myself undermined by a very light-weight start. But I decided to review the books in the order I read them so this is how it must be.

I've read most of the Harry Potter books (I think I missed one) and, despite the perfunctory writing, the flat characters and the repetitive plots, I still find them entertaining. I'm sure I would have loved them if they'd been out when I was a kid. Since all the Harry Potter books follow an identical structure, I can't with confidence remember anything specific about the plot of this one (is this the one where Dumbledore dies?). I vaguely remember enjoying this book a little more than the earlier ones.

That's a pretty uninformative review.

The 78 Books I Read As A Corporate Lawyer

2011-03-21T21:47:00.001-07:00

In the 3+ years I was working hard at corporate litigation, I managed to find time to read 78 books. I can thank SF Muni's slow service on the J-Church for giving me some reading time each morning.

Now that I have a bit more free time, I plan to post a short review of all 78 books I read during my time at the firm. These reviews will be fairly cursory (especially as I read some of these books over 3 years ago). My goal is to give a quick sense of how I felt about the book, whether I think it's any good, and whether the limited readership of this blog might want to check it out.

As I finished each book, I posted it to an app and gave it a rating out of five stars. I'll be giving the rating I gave right after reading the books, even if I have changed my mind a little in retrospect. Here's a rough sense of what the ratings mean:

5 = beyond fucking amazing
4.5 = fucking amazing
4 = excellent
3.5 = very good (this is my default rating for a book I enjoyed a lot)
3 = good
2.5 = ok (might be worth a read if it's your kind of thing)
2 = not good (2 and below should be avoided)
1.5 = shitty
1 = very shitty
0.5 = lowest ranking that can be given (if you gave yourself a paper cut with each page, you'd have a more pleasant experience than actually reading the book)

My ratings averaged 3.3 with a mode of 3.5. My reading list reflects my taste and thus the ratings trend high. Here's a complete break down of the ratings for all 78 books:

5 stars = one book
4.5 stars = five books
4 stars = thirteen books
3.5 stars = twenty four books
3 stars = twenty books
2.5 stars = ten books
2 stars = one book
1.5 stars = three books
1 star = zero books
0.5 stars = one book

I'm going to post reviews one at a time with a goal to post them all within a hundred days or so. I'll post them in the same order that I read them.

So, here goes. My first review . . .

Review One: Dogs of Winter, Kem Nunn

2.5 Stars

Nunn's fiction is sometimes described as "Surf Noir." I don't think that anyone else who reads this blog will be jumping out of their chair to hunt down some Surf Noir. And I didn't even like the book all that much.

Dogs has plenty of surfing (check) and North West scenery (check). But it also has some very unpleasant violence and I don't feel like Nunn ever does anything (i.e. characterization of the perpetrators) to justify (if that's the right word) the violence. It's just there. Some bad dudes come along and do bad things. The end. It feels like the book equivalent of the low-budget cable thriller (but with surfing and cool scenery).

Back To The Future

2011-02-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future/

Back to the Future is back by popular demand (or one request). Not sure why I deleted the post, it's an amazing project.

Why You Don't Need A Car In San Francisco

2011-02-27T00:41:00.000-08:00

Walking from Pacific Heights to Noe Valley, 11:57 p.m. Friday to 12:37 a.m. Saturday.

E. Coli For Christmas

2010-12-26T20:44:00.000-08:00

With a strong south east wind blowing on Christmas day, Linda Mar beach was the only surfable spot in the area. Unfortunately, it was still posted after Thursday's epic downpour and subsequent overflows. Together with about 50 other stupid surfers, I paddled out anyway. No symptoms yet. For now, I say it was worth it.

Noe Valley Sunset

2010-11-07T20:53:00.001-08:00

At 5pm Sunday, the first day after the end of daylight savings, and the sun seemed reluctant to go down so early.

Freedom

2010-09-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan Franzen

I enjoyed Freedom. This was not a surprise. It's exactly the kind of book I tend to enjoy; expansive, post-war American literature with grand ambition. About 150 pages in, I was enjoying it so much I already didn't want it to end. The early section narrated by the mother is fantastic. Franzen's gift is to make you care deeply about deeply flawed characters.

I find that longer books (i.e. 500 plus pages) tend to flag in the second half. I hoped Freedom would be an exception. Unfortunately, it is not. In the latter stages of the book, it becomes more and more obvious that Franzen wanted to paint the definitive portrait of our times. This not only gets in the way of the story, it results in increasingly thin and cliched characters. All of the conservative characters are caricatures (the portrayal of Jenna -- the spoiled rich Jewish girl -- is the worst example). I imagine actual conservatives will like this portrayal even less.

I also felt his younger characters were less well drawn. Perhaps I am just getting older and can't relate to college students anymore. But I suspect the same is true of Franzen. I didn't find Joey, Connie and Jenna (or even Lalitha) as believable and compelling as the adult triangle that drives the book -- Walter, Patty and Richard.

Overall, a fantastic read. But by trying too hard to write the Great American Novel of our times, Franzen diminished an otherwise excellent story.

You Were Asking About My Novel

2010-08-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

False Klamath Cove

2010-07-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

On the drive up to Oregon, a few miles before you hit Crescent City, you descend out of the trees for just a moment to touch the coast at False Klamath Cove before ascending the winding road back into the forest. It was a windy day and I'd long given up on encountering any rideable waves before sunset. But, though I had no right to hope for such a place, the cove was sheltered from the wind and seemed surfable, if suspiciously rocky.

The cove rewarded me for paddling out with some clean shoulder to head high waves. Aside from dodging an errant floating log as I headed out, I had no incidents with submerged rocks or sea life and enjoyed a glorious surf as the sun set among the nearby sea stacks.

Best surf of the summer.

Bombast

2010-05-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

A mostly 80s mix:

Bombast - The Fall (Manchester, UK 1985)
Golden Brown - The Stranglers (Guildford, UK 1981)
Crosseyed and Painless - Talking Heads (New York, NY 1980)
Jesus and Tequila - The Minutemen (San Pedro, California 1984)
Damaged Goods - Gang of Four (Leeds, UK 1978)
Age of Consent - New Order (Manchester, UK 1983)
Fire in Cairo - The Cure (London, UK 1979)
Tally Ho - The Clean (Dunedin, NZ 1981)
Hell of a Summer - The Triffids (Perth, Australia 1983)
Chrome Injury - The Church (Sydney, Australia 1981)
Doomsday - The Verlaines (Dunedin, NZ 1985)
Streets of Your Town - The Go-Betweens (Brisbane, Australia 1988)
Life's What You Make It - Talk Talk (London, UK 1986)
Pink Frost - The Chills (Dunedin, NZ 1984)

Before and After

2010-05-15T19:32:00.000-07:00

I Haunt The Streets of San Francisco

2010-04-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

One of the pleasures of living here is finding myself in the setting of some of my favorite music. Many years ago, in Perth, I discovered Mark Kozelek and the Red House Painters. Just as Paul Kelly is determined to evoke Melbourne with his songs, Mark Kozelek constantly references his adopted city. The Painters are not for everyone but they have a distinct, melancholy sound that is steeped in the foggy atmospherics of San Francisco.

The homage to the city starts with album titles like Ocean Beach and Ghosts of the Great Highway. And the lyrics range across the Marin Headlands, Mount Tamalpais, Strawberry Hill, and Grace Cathedral.

The cover of Ocean Beach is a photo of the windmill facing the beach at the edge of Golden Gate Park. And on the inside sleeve, there is a creepy photo of a giant plastic dog's head mounted on a pole. This Doggie Diner Head (a ghostly advertisement for a restaurant that disappeared decades ago) is at the beach end of Sloat Avenue, right near where I park when I surf. The first time I saw it I thought it looked familiar but I credited the memory to a spooky false déjà vu.

Months later, driving away from the surf, I finally remembered the sleeve image as I listened to the album. The Red House Painters (and Kozelek's new band Sun Kil Moon) make for the perfect unwinding, post-surf music for the ride over Twin Peaks back home or to work. If I move away, I think that is what I will miss most about the city itself.

Some San Francisco lyrics from the Red House Painters or Sun Kil Moon:

coming into the haunted city at last/my heart beat fast
down Kearny/down Pine/down Stockton/down Hyde
Unlit Hallway

a mist above the skyline/i haunt the streets of San Francisco
Lost Verses

going past golden gate/elementary everyday
kids down colorful hill/recess and fire drill
she likes the side without the heat/ where the sun don't beat
she likes the cooler side/of washinton street
Priest Alley Song

Ten Years Later

2010-02-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Some of you might remember that I was arrested--together with approximately 700 other people--way back on April 15, 2000 in in Washington D.C. We were peacefully and legally protesting on the sidewalk at the time. That experience completely changed the direction of my life since, for better or worse, it led me to apply to law school. Now, after almost ten years of litigation, the case has settled.

You can find the gory details here.

It is great to be vindicated but it is a pity that the money (over $13 million in total) is coming from the hard-working DC taxpayer. Meanwhile then-Police Chief Ramsey, who ordered mass false arrests and later perjured himself about it, now heads the Philadelphia Police Department. His time may yet come, the Police Department's cover up (relating both to my 2000 case and the later 2002 Pershing Park mass false arrest) has finally began to unravel.

Follow the Washington City Paper for great coverage.

Words vs Actions

2010-01-22T16:12:00.000-08:00

The January 22, 2009 Executive Order on Guantanamo:

Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guantánamo. The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order. If any individuals covered by this order remain in detention at Guantánamo at the time of closure of those detention facilities, they shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third country, or transferred to another United States detention facility in a manner consistent with law and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

Barbed Wire Bookcase

2009-12-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

My incredible new bookcase handcrafted by Jay. The photo doesn't really do it justice (it's just a still from a flip video recorder since my other camera isn't working) but gives you an idea of the concept. It's not as dramatic as Jay's spike table but still might not be suitable for a household with toddlers.

If you were on Facebook . . .

2009-11-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

It would suck up time you could be doing more fulfilling things, and it would begin to substitute for a real social life, but you'd get to see photos like this:

My New Baby

2009-10-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

35 today. Got myself a birthday present: a 6'10" x 19" x 2" semi-gun. Not sure if I have the chops to ride a pin-tail like this but I'll try to take it out at OB this winter.

Cosmos Remix

2009-10-15T21:44:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted from Facebook

2009-10-08T17:51:00.000-07:00

Once again, instead of providing any kind of moral leadership, Labor panders to ignorance. Cowardly leaders like Rudd and Gillard (just like Howard) are the reason Australia makes so little progress on race:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/09/2709039.htm

Adding today's comment:

I think all you professor types should now award all of your students an A for the Fall semester in recognition of their lofty academic goals and as a "call to action" for them to actually fulfill these goals.

Drones Far From Home

2009-09-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

I spend the day in a regional city at a large suburban campus of a giant corporation, walking through the cube farms to the windowless conference rooms. When the day ends, I rush through peak-hour traffic on the unfamiliar freeways to the airport. A quick flight later, I'm on the ground in San Francisco and head straight into the city. I meet B__ and we hurry to Cafe Du Nord where The Drones are playing. My only hope to catch them is if the show runs late.

The Drones are led by Gareth Liddiard. Gareth grew up in Perth's northern suburbs and played music with friends of mine back when we were all barely out of high school. I remember him vaguely from that time as the slightly older rock guy with the Einstürzende Neubauten symbol tattooed on his wrist. I also remember that Robin the drummer would complain that Gareth would turn his amp up so loud that Robin couldn't hear his own drum kit during rehearsals.

We get there at 10:30 and the support act (some local band I don't know) is still playing to a nearly full room. Acclaimed in Australia, the Drones are almost unknown in America so I feel like it's a good crowd. But, by the time the Drones go on, the crowd has thinned. As the Drones launch into their set, with the thundering Jezebel, the band looks slightly bored--except for Gareth who plays and screams with his usual intensity, as he probably does even in the rehearsal room. A couple of songs into the set, a drunk guy in front of us collapses backwards. He cracks his head and blood spreads across the floor. The Drones don't stop as staff and patrons surround the kid and call an ambulance. As the blood keeps spreading, another patron faints, not from drunkenness or drugs, but from seeing so much blood.

As the band plays on, the collapsers are carried out and staff clean the bloody floor with bleach. The room reeks of the bleach and the crowd thins even further. Only 20 or so people seem to still be watching the band. Gareth writhes on but the rest of the band looks more and more bored. I can't tell if they've even noticed the commotion in the crowd or if they can smell the bleach. They belt out Shark Fin Blues and a couple more songs and walk out quickly.

There is no encore.

Lobster Gangs

2009-08-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has an interesting article about escalating tensions among lobstermen in Maine. Lobstering territory has been regulated informally for decades and was the focus of a classic study by Acheson in the 1980s (though the NYT sadly neglects to give Acheson his props). I compared lobster localism and surfing localism in my 'Tragicomedy' paper and probably took the parallel a little further than I should have. It looks like the lobster wars are getting even more serious as the industry has fallen on hard times.

FYI, I've been too busy to blog much lately. Status updates on the pernicious Facebook are easier. I'll keep updating here occasionally for the few free thinking non-Facebook folks who still visit.

Keeping The Past Up To Date

2009-07-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

From Orwell's 1984:

This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs — to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.

From yesterday's New York Times:

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for.

The books? 1984 and Animal Farm.

Happy Fourth of July!

2009-07-04T12:48:00.001-07:00

Mexico

2009-06-20T00:45:00.006-07:00

Sol vs. Australia

2009-05-30T13:38:00.008-07:00

Sol Trujillo to Australia: "You are a racist backwater."

Australia, all whipped up into a frenzy, replies: "Who are you to call us racist you Mexican bastard!"

While it's hard to summarize a few days of national dialogue, I think that is a fair take on how Australia responded to Trujillo's comments.

Between Rudd's characteristically pathetic "Adios" comment, the repeated "three amigo" references, the radio stations playing the Mexican hat dance at the mention of Trujillo's name, and even the Age's tasteless headline, I'd say Trujillo (who was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to a Mexican-American family) is on pretty solid ground. Crickey collected a number of examples. Once again, Rudd shows he has read and understood the John Howard guide for getting ahead in Australian politics: be as mundane as possible, treat outsiders with contempt and stoke existing prejudices.

Snippet

2009-05-19T20:02:00.003-07:00

“Raymond Carver used to describe himself as a cigarette with a body attached to it.”

“How did that work out for him?”

“He died of lung cancer.”

“Well then, I guess Raymond Carver is just a cigarette now.”

“Maybe he’s this cigarette,” I suggested, holding out my durrie.

Kat laughed. “You’re smoking the world’s greatest ever short story writer. I hope you’re enjoying him.”

I carefully inspected the cigarette for evidence that it might somehow be Raymond Carver in the afterlife. But I didn’t find anything conclusive, so I continued smoking. When I’d finished sucking the dregs, I gave the possible Raymond Carver a sombre burial in a pot plant and we headed inside.

Not An Onion Headline

2009-05-06T09:08:00.002-07:00

Afghanistan's Only Pig Quarantined In Flu Fear

For those that are not on Facebook (where my 'status update' on this drew a lot of comments), I'm heading to Mexico on June 9-14 - swine flu discount! There are cases of swine flu in the Bay Area but none in the Mexican state I'm headed to (Sayulita in Nayarit) so I'm not at all concerned. Looking forward to surfing some warm water waves and drinking beer on the beach.

Netherland

2009-05-01T23:23:00.003-07:00

It's been getting very strong reviews and had been highly recommended to me by friends (even the President is reading it). But I didn't like Netherland by Joseph O'Neill.

I had high hopes for the book after its brilliant opening scene -- a cricket match on Staten Island where the umpire (the supposedly Gatsby-esque Chuck Ramkissoon) confronts a gun wielding player. But Netherland slowly lost my interest over the rest of its 250 pages. Nothing much happens. I feel like I have a pretty high tolerance for books (and music for that matter) where nothing much happens (for example, I like Joseph Heller's second novel, the ironically named Something Happened). But I was irritated this time.

Netherland is narrated in the first person by Hans van den Broek, a Dutch oil analyst living in New York. Although a lot of reviewers have compared it to The Great Gatsby, any "echoes" of Gatsby (as the New York Times put it) seemed pretty faint to me. The central story of the book is the breakup of Hans' marriage. The Chuck Ramkissoon character often seemed tacked onto the rest of the book. And many of the allusions to Gatsby, such as the manner of Chuck's death, seemed forced to me (I'm not giving away much here, the death is foreshadowed very early).

I also found that Hans' baroque narration did not fit with his very plain personality. I guess since O'Neill is a barrister who's also a novelist he finds it easy to imagine an oil analyst with such a flowery inner life - but I found it incongruous given Hans' behavior.

My biggest complaint with Netherland might be fairly unique to me - and could suggest a strength. After his wife leaves him, Hans' life in New York (that of a single, overworked somewhat isolated expatriot urban professional) was so much like my own that I found reading it to be excruciatingly mundane. One of the pleasures of reading a good novel is when it takes you inside a new and unfamiliar world. Netherland simply brought me back into my own world -- a world I wasn't particularly enjoying at the time (I read Netherland slowly because I was preparing for trial and had no free time to read other than my commute).

Perhaps other readers will find Hans' life interesting. I hope Obama enjoys it.

Poor Archie

2009-04-25T18:01:00.001-07:00

Message included in today's surf forecast for 13th Beach:

Local dolphin Archie seems to be besieged by crew that want to ride him and an other bunch that want to be a dolphin even swimming like a dolphin. exciting as it may seem i don't think we are meant to be re enacting the sea world experience with a wild dolphin . Archie has given everyone heaps of stoke but we should still accept that interaction should be on his terms and not that of those who have the flipper syndrome.

What to do in Tyler, Texas

2009-04-09T23:21:00.002-07:00

http://www.etmc.org/supercolon.htm

Visitors walk through the Prevent Cancer Super Colon™ and get a close-up look at:

* Healthy colon tissue
* Tissue with non-malignant colorectal disease
* Colorectal polyps
* Various stages of colorectal cancer

I'm in Tyler for a while. Don't think I'll get time to visit the Prevent Cancer Super Colon™, unfortunately.

Everything

2009-03-22T09:48:00.003-07:00

Everything Counts
Everything I Do
Everything I Have Is Yours
Everything In Flames!
Everything In It's Right Place
Everything Is Alright
Everything Made More Sense
Everything Should Try Again
Everything You Do Is A Balloon
Everything You Touch Becomes A Crutch
Everything's Fucked

Inspiration

2009-03-08T23:10:00.003-07:00

A while back, I posted a great video from Boards of Canada. The reclusive Boards were inspired by the soundtracks of 1970s and 1980s National Film Board of Canada nature documentaries. After looking at some clips from that era, it's easy to see the influence.

Bees (Sesame Street):

The Loon (NFBC):

Some more Boards:

And more:

These Boards of Canada videos are fan made. Dayvan Cowboy is their only official video.

Montgomery, TX

2009-03-04T22:08:00.002-08:00

An empty luxury hotel next to a fake lake. To get there, drive north from George Bush Intercontinental Airport for an hour and a half past endless rows of strip malls and office parks. The landscape runs past like the background in a computer game where the programmers have recycled the same few graphics over and over: pawn shop, Taco Bell, I-Hop, furniture store, office park, Walmart, pawnshop, Taco Bell, I-Hop, furniture store, office park, Walmart, pawnshop . . . . It goes on forever. I wonder if it would look any different here if conquering aliens ordered Texans on pain of death to make the landscape as ugly as possible. I wonder if maybe this already happened and for some reason I never heard about it.

It doesn't seem any more fanciful then the alternative hypothesis: that people made the world look like this by choice.

Change

2009-02-21T19:55:00.002-08:00

Change?

2009-02-09T21:51:00.003-08:00

Now this is disappointing. Very disappointing. I would have thought it was exactly the kind of issue where Obama would have broken with Bush. Not so. Makes you wonder what will happen to the detainees in Guantanamo. Are they going to be brought to the US just so they can languish for years in a similar legal limbo in a domestic supermax? If so, they'll be nostalgic for Cuba.

UPDATE:

More, from David Luban, here. This is a big issue. The idea that something is unreviewable by the courts solely on the executive branch's say so was one the Bush administration's most Orwellian doctrines. As the ACLU"s Wizner points out, under the government's theory in this case, the only place in the U.S. where you are not permitted to talk about the rendition program is a federal courthouse. Now Obama/Holder are invoking the same arguments to cover up Bush's misdeeds. A lot of people have been very surprised by this.

I was not alone when I worried that Eric Holder was a very bad choice for attorney general. But I felt like, given my respect for Obama, I should at least give him the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of my doubt is hereby withdrawn:

Australia Day

2009-02-05T21:17:00.003-08:00

Today, Surfline has a feature about a visit to Australia by some seppo groms (i.e. young US surfers). It includes some sadly comical reflections about Australia Day. Apparently, the seppos where amazed that almost no one could tell them what Australia Day was about.

Finally, young Aussie surfer Mitch Crews explained it to them. Here are Crews' words of wisdom (the audio, with thick Aussie accent, is classic):

Yeah, Australia Day is pretty much, like, a day where to celebrate, um, the discovery of Oz I guess. Captain Cook found Australia. Yeah so we thought, why not name it Australia day? And everyone gets blind on that day. So it's a good excuse to get blind.

Crews appears to be the most knowledgeable person the seppos could find. Nevertheless, for the benefit of my American readers who might not know this history well, I will quibble with a few of his claims:

First, Australia Day commemorates January 26, 1788. Thus, Crews' suggestion that it relates to Captain Cook's "discovery" of Australia suffers from the following flaw: Cook had been dead for almost 10 years.

Second, even leaving aside the fact that people had already been living in Australia for 40,000+ years, Cook wasn't even close to being the first European to "discover" Australia. The Dutch beat him to it by over 150 years.

Third, the day doesn't even relate to "discovery" or exploration at all, but commemorates the establishment of a colony by the First Fleet. In other words, it celebrates the displacement of an Aboriginal community by a few hundred half-starved, lice-ridden convicts and their military masters. This is why the day would be much better known as Invasion Day (or maybe Survival Day).

The Surfline feature is a sobering reminder of how hard it will be to convince Australians to change the date of the national day. How can Australia's Aborigines convince the rest of the country that the anniversary is inappropriate for celebration when most people have either no idea what the day is about or have some half-formed but completely wrong notion? No wonder Rudd, who I'm beginning to think likes to mollycoddle ignorance as much as Howard, shoots down any suggestion of moving the day.

Learning In Slow Motion

2009-01-20T23:29:00.003-08:00

The Onion predicted the Bush presidency eerily. If you haven't read it before, or recently, I recommend revisiting their article published on January 17, 2001 (and yes, it really was published before he took office):

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over'

It took the rest of America a lot longer to realize that this impatient, incurious, ideologue was a terrible leader. Apart from three spikes (for 9/11, the invasion of Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein) his popularity eroded at a slow, but amazingly consistent, rate:

It looks like the overwhelming evidence of Bush's incompetence gradually burrowed its way into the national brain.

Anyway, I'm feeling good about Obama's inauguration today. Some evidence of real change: Marty Lederman will be at the Office of Legal Council. I've followed his writings on Balkinization over the last few years. It's fair to say he'll offer a different perspective than John Yoo.

And Counting

2009-01-13T22:01:00.000-08:00

And Back

2009-01-05T20:43:00.002-08:00

Back in San Francisco. Winter arrived while I was gone bringing some chilly air and water and big groundswell. The contrast with Australia's summer has been bracing but not without its pleasures. On Saturday I went mountain biking on a proper single track (at Tamarancho in Marin County) for the first time. It was more challenging than I expected but definitely something I could get into. On the way back into SF I crossed the Golden Gate at the exact moment the sun was setting - it had just touched the ocean in the west as I entered the span and it disappeared fully into the water a few seconds before I left the bridge. Meanwhile the skyline of SF was side-lit with a gold/red alpenglow. The traffic was very slow as I think everyone was looking out of their side windows the entire time.

Ocean Beach to Ocean Beach

2008-12-06T23:23:00.003-08:00

I fly to Australia tomorrow - traveling to Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Denmark. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and also to returning to Denmark's Ocean Beach, one of my favorite places in the world.

One of my new favorite place in the world is San Francisco's Ocean Beach. I've become completely obsessed with the break and its shifty, cold and pounding peaks. It's a break of many moods. Today's mood: clean, consistent 6 foot waves under sunny skies.

Ocean Beach SF is well known, even outside California, and is often featured in Surfing Magazines. And yet, even though runs all the way along a big city, it is rarely crowded. On a weekday morning you can often find a peak to yourself (assuming the peaks aren't shifting around like ghosts) with only a handful of guys out. I've surfed it in fog where, with 50 meter or so visibility, I didn't see another soul (or the beach) for over an hour. When you consider how crowded other city breaks get--I felt like I'd traveled to a parallel universe (the afterlife maybe) to have such quality waves so completely to myself.

It seems there just aren't that many people who want to get up before dawn to drive through dense fog, get into a thick wetsuit, walk across the Great Highway (hoping the car won't be stolen), then enduring countless duck-dives, getting caught inside and taking a few right on the head, getting held under for a while until there's finally a lull so you can paddle like mad to get out the back, then, having at last made it out the back, chasing the shifting peaks around for a while before-finally-catching one and, assuming you even make the drop and don't get obliterated, probably still finding yourself caught inside again, leading to taking a few more on the head, etc. Anyway, that's my theory as to why it doesn't get crowded.

Morning in America

2008-11-05T16:14:00.005-08:00

From the streets of NYC - wonder if that counts as one of the pro-America parts of the country.

Hard at work right now so no time to reflect at length on last night. Even having seen it happen, Obama's victory feels no less amazing.

Of course, I predicted that McCain would defeat Hillary in the general election. Being wrong never felt so good. This video captures my perspective almost perfectly:

Oh, and by the way, apparently Palin didn't know that Africa is a continent when McCain's handlers started prepping her on foreign affairs.

Snippet

2008-10-25T10:33:00.006-07:00

We stepped to the door but were shoved backwards as every Hydie patron fled. Trying to regain my balance, I felt my eyes burn and fill with tears. I reached out into the flowing crowd for Kat, first grabbing onto the wrong girl before my eyes cleared sufficiently for me to recognize her bright red jacket among the dark mass of Hydie escapees.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked me.

A flannel-clad bystander answered for me, “Some girls were fighting and one of them pulled out some pepper spray. It choked up the whole bar.”

“Some bar you chose,” Kat said, almost impressed by the sheer awfulness of my recommendation.

The flannel wearing stranger—who was still holding his pool cue out there on the street—came to my defence, “It should clear up soon.”

“Well there you go,” I said, “within a few minutes the bar will be free of chemical weaponry once again.”

Kat looked at me like I was insane but, at the same time, she was curious, so we milled around with the assorted Hydie dwellers – the indie kids in stripy shirts, the punks in black with chains hanging off their back pockets, the flannel-wearing pool sharks and the older local bar flies with thick, wiry beards – until they began returning to the bar. Following the crowd through the doors, were soon tearing up and blinking from the residual pepper spray. A kid setting up a drum kit in the corner was taking quick breaks to spray fresh water into his eyes. Kat and I headed to a booth—torn red vinyl seating and a table covered by ancient graffiti carvings—and slid into place with a jug of Carlton Draft. Her face scrunched and blinking madly, Kat stared across the table.

“I’m not sure I can stay here.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said, “I’ll get some water for your eyes.”

I fetched a bottle, of ‘Sport Water’ with a spray nozzle. “This will wash the tear gas right out,” I said, handing it to her.

“My hero,” she said, without conviction.

I poured beers while she daintily splashed water into her eyes. By the time she had rinsed, I’d already knocked one Carlton Draft back and was pouring my second.

“Holy crap!” I yelled, recognizing the drummer in the corner, “that’s boy-Robin.” This meant the other three members of The Max Deutsch Trio had to be around somewhere. Craning my neck, I saw them huddled conspiratorially around a pool table writing out a set list. “The Trio is playing!”

“Oh great, my favourite foot fetishist,” Kat said, but she waved him over anyway.

Max bounded across the room—the rock star in his element—as every girl in the bar watched him pass.

“My God you kids move fast! I introduce you on Friday and by Saturday you’re going steady.” He pinched us each on the cheek like we were his adorable cousins.

I batted his hand away. “I didn’t know you guys were playing tonight.”

“Last minute replacement,” he explained. “Some guy from Bluetile Lounge got a blister on his pinky or something. Maybe it was syphilis. I can’t remember.”

As he wandered back to his bandmates he yelled, “We are going to ROCK THE HOUSE!” and punched the air with exaggerated hair-metal enthusiasm; clearly drunk before his set even began.

“He’s wasted!” Kat said, laughing. By then, the pepper spray had dissipated and she had stopped blinking.

A stage would be far too bourgeois for the Hydie, so bands just play on the floor in the corner. As the four members of the trio assumed their places, the sweaty crowd gathered in close. Max took an unsteady swig from a bottle of Coopers then fired an invisible pistol at the punters as the band launched into a ragged version of their traditional opener: We Are Here (Uninvited). In the confined space, the blast from the amps and drums seemed to scare the air itself. Kat and I sheltered in our booth and worked our way through two jugs, our conversation chopped into tiny fragments in the pauses between songs. I was doing the lion’s share of our drinking and enjoyed the extra pulse the alcohol gave to the Trio’s familiar songs.

When Kat headed to the bathroom a couple slipped into our booth before I could stop them. I recognized the skinny boy with thick horn-rimmed glasses from the political scene. Michael was a member of Queer Radical. He sat next to me, almost squeezing me against the wall. His friend, a pretty blonde girl in a tight tank top, sat across the table and smiled at me flirtatiously. I was being ambushed by a queer and his fag hag.

Reeking of vodka, Michael put his arm around my shoulders and said, “You’re very cute you know—cute in an exotic, foreign kind of way—and we were thinking it would be a good idea if you made out with my friend Amy here.”

Amy blushed but said nothing to suggest they were kidding. They were wasted. I was pretty drunk myself and felt a momentary thrill before remembering Kat would return any moment.

“Come on, what do you say?” Michael asked.

“I’m flattered—definitely—but I’m here on a date.” I said.

“A date?” Michael said, sceptical, his head swivelling around wildly on his skinny neck. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

Just then, Kat returned. She looked startled by our new company and was soon shocked further by Michael’s effusive greeting.

“This must be her! Oh, she’s pretty. Sit down gorgeous.”

“Um . . .” Kat looked at me for guidance. I shrugged. Michael was drunk and annoying, but he was harmless. Kat slid in next to Amy, so the two girls sat across the table from the boys. Beginning to behave, Michael introduced himself and Amy. He said, “Don’t be afraid of me honey, I’m just an old Queen. And your boyfriend here is very loyal. He just turned down a free pash with Amy. Who, as you can see, is really quite delectable.”

We all fought to talk over the music as the Trio continued to pound out their songs. During a break, Michael returned to the topic of what a big queen he was. With his skinny arms waving around for emphasis, he looked like Elastic Man. “It’s is queer you know, being attracted to your own sex. I accept that. I mean, just the other day I was looking in the mirror. And I realized I turn myself on! How transgressive!” Kat laughed and gave me a “where did you find this guy” look.

I stood to go to the bathroom. This required sliding out of the booth past Michael. I gestured politely for him to move. But, instead of getting up, he angled his spidery legs to one side and invited me to squeeze past. Drunk and unsteady, I slid past him, face toward the table. At the moment I was ready to break free, Michael playfully bit in the arse. I yelped, almost fell on the table, and turned around saying, “What the fuck?” Although he hadn’t meant to hurt me, thanks to drunkenness or just plain enthusiasm, Michael had bit me hard. If it wasn’t for my denim jeans, he would have broken the skin for sure.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Michael said sheepishly; hand over his mouth to suppress a giggle.

“You didn’t mean to chomp me in the arse?”

“It was just there,” he said, laughing openly now, “how could I resist?”

I was prepared to let it go but I wasn’t going to sit back down.

“Let’s go watch the band.” I told Kat.

“Can’t take him anywhere,” Amy offered weakly as we disappeared into the crowd.

Kat held my arm with both hands as we watched the rest of the Trio’s set. Standing close to the band, we could smell the sweat of the punters as they swayed and nodded vigorously (but not too vigorously, grunge is dead, remember) to the beat. The air still had a slight sting from the pepper spray. His guitar as loud as the drums, Max thrashed back and forth wildly. Seeing us near the front, he parted the crowd with the leading edge of his guitar, and Mosesed his way through. Still playing, he did a suggestive little dance and pecked Kat on the cheek before returning to his mike for the next verse.

“All your friends are crazy!” Kat yelled in my ear.

When the set ended, we left the band packing up in the corner and headed out onto the cold pavement.

“Crap!” I said.

“What?”

“It’s 12.40, the last bus has gone.”

“I guess we’ll have to take a cab.”

But this was supposed to be an Austudy date, I thought. A cab fare home would be half a week’s rent. That wasn’t part of the deal. Yet I knew I had no choice; I’d dragged Kat out here and I had to get her home to bed. And looking at the expression on her face, it was apparent that I would not be joining her there. Scanning up and down the street, I patted my sore arse and realised that it would be half way to forever before we saw a cab on these dark streets. We were stranded.

Beginning to despair, I heard a voice behind me, “Need a lift?”

Turning, I saw Amy the blonde holding up car keys with one hand while Michael the wobbly spider steadied himself against her other arm.

“Are you ok to drive?” I asked, unable to keep disbelief out of my voice.

“I’m fine,” Amy answered, teetering under Michael’s weight before the two of them fell against a parked car.

Kat glared as they steadied themselves, “I really don’t think you should be driving.”

“There are booze busses everywhere,” I added. It was true. Lately the cops had so many checkpoints across the city that Perth felt like a war zone. We were at war with the contents of our own veins. And we were losing.

Kat offered to drive. “I haven’t had much to drink,” she announced. Turning to me, she said, “You finished off most of those two jugs yourself.” What did she mean by that? That I’d scoffed the beer? That I was a drunk? Had I screwed up our Austudy date? Kat strode resolutely to the car park with the three of us drunks following her like wilting balloons on string. As we arrived beside Amy’s shiny new VW Golf (daddy must have money) Kat assigned our seats: lanky Michael in the front, Amy and I in the back. Obedient, we got in and she rolled us out of the lot, through Northbridge then onto Thomas Street, shooting us past the hospitals and the dark urban forest of King’s Park.

Even the effusive Michael was silent as we drove. Perhaps he was chastened by the memory of having bitten me in the arse only minutes before. A mind full of worry, I sat quietly figuring that this was not what Kat had in mind when she asked me to take her out on a date. Amy stared out the window. Then, in a deliberate slow motion, she picked up her glittering purple handbag from the floor, unzipped it and stared inside. The bag shone like a mirror ball in the confined space. She looked intent and extremely serious. I wondered what she needed so badly in there. But that wasn’t it. She wasn’t looking for lipstick or gum. She needed the bag itself; the vessel. It started as a girlish growl, then her body shook slightly, then she held the bag open wide, raised it to her mouth and demurely filled it with puke before slowly re-zipping it closed.

“Oh … My … God!” Michael said twisting around like a liquorish stick, “Did you just puke in your bag?” He began laughing hysterically. Kat glanced back from the wheel with an amazed look that was one-tenth amused and nine-tenths annoyed. Thankfully, the smell wasn’t too bad as Amy had promptly closed her bag post-chunder. What did she carry in there? I wondered as I hurriedly wound down the window. Whatever it was, it was covered in puke now. That wasn’t going to be any fun to clean out tomorrow morning. Partly disgusted, I was glad that, in comparison to some of the car’s other occupants, I was looking more sober and responsible by the minute. Perhaps I could emerge from the evening with my respectability intact.

“Sorry,” Amy said, “Guess I’m drunker than I thought.”

“Well, if you feel sick again you can always borrow my wallet,” Michael said, holding his wallet open and miming a retch.

“You’re not helping,” Kat said.

“I’m ok,” Amy assured us. But we encouraged her to wind down her window anyway.

The Early Days of Weimar America?

2008-10-09T23:32:00.001-07:00

Told Me So

2008-10-07T21:34:00.003-07:00

Less than a month to go and it looks more and more like I will be proven wrong. McCain futures are now in the twenties on Intrade. Obama has done well in the debates and is ahead in every closely fought state except Indiana (and George Bush won Indiana by TWENTY! points in 2004). I'm just about ready to dare to dream.

At this point, it's all starting to look like a hospital pass. Obama will inherit two unwinnable wars, a massive and fast-growing deficit, the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression and the beginning of the end of oil. I think Obama's an amazingly smart, careful and hard working guy. But will that be enough? America's debts have come due and I don't think America is ready (either psychologically or financially) to pay.

Dow 36000

2008-09-29T19:50:00.003-07:00

UPDATE: It occurs to me today (as the Dow drops below 10,000) that one way to defend Hassett's book is to say that the title is a typo. What they meant to write was Dow 3,600. Now that would have been prescient.

....

Worth noting today, when the Dow fell nearly 800 points to 10,365, that one of John McCain's senior economic advisers is Kevin Hassett, co-author of the now infamous Dow 36,000. This book, published in 1999 (and now available used on Amazon for 81 cents), predicted that the Dow would reach 36,000 within a few years.

And he has an explanation for the current crisis - it's all the Democrats fault. In truth, the Dems probably shouldn't have opposed that particular bill in that particular committee but they didn't even have a senate majority in 2005! It is an extraordinary stretch to blame the entire financial crisis on one procedural vote by the minority senators on a Senate committee. (One might point out that the Republicans have controlled the White House and had majorities in both houses for almost all of the last eight years, but that would seem churlish). But this is exactly the kind of semi-magical thinking typical of folks like Hassett. To this day he will not repudiate his pathetic Dow 36,000 book. And this is one of the main economics guys advising McCain. God help us if he's elected.

[And yes I am revisiting my pessimistic election predictions in light of all that's happening but am not quite ready to dare to dream yet]

An Eye Is Being Kept

2008-09-26T23:18:00.001-07:00

Alaska has a very narrow

maritime border

between a foreign country

Russia,

and on our other side,

the land--

boundary that we have with—

Canada.

It—

it's funny that a comment like that was—

kind of made to—

cari—

I don't know, you know?

Reporters--

Well, it certainly does because our—

our next door neighbors

are foreign countries.

They're in the state

that I am the executive of.

And they're in Russia--

We have trade missions back and forth.

We--

we do—

it's very important

when you consider

even national security issues

with Russia

as Putin rears his head

and comes into the air space

of the United States of America,

where—

where do they go?

It's Alaska.

It's just right over the border. It is—

from Alaska

that we send those out

to make sure that an eye is being kept

on this very powerful nation,

Russia,

because they are right there.

They are right next to—

to our state.

Summer Pychebuster

2008-09-21T21:08:00.003-07:00

Jonathan Lethem's latest novel disappointed (even with expectations already lowered by all the tepid reviews) but his meditation on the Dark Knight is laser sharp.

In Today's Mail

2008-09-15T23:51:00.001-07:00

Counterpoint

2008-09-12T19:58:00.002-07:00

Gail Collins is having none of the doomsaying.

And there is reason to believe that Palin is not quite the electoral catnip that the Republicans (and I) seem to think she is. But there's no questions she's helping McCain - mostly by keeping the coverage away from substantive issues. There's a reason Republicans want this: voters who say the issues are the most important factor for them (as opposed to the candidates' personalities) favor Obama about 60-40 (can't find a link right now but trust me - just saw a poll on this). In the face of that kind of data, the last thing the Republicans want is any discussion of substance.

This election is the ultimate test of the strength of the United States' dwindling reality-based community. It is just extraordinary that the Republics are ahead while carrying the twin burdens of a very unpopular incumbent and hard economic times. But they've figured out that the US has a media and political culture in which reality is no barrier to success (to political success that is, the Bush administration is proof that reality remains a barrier to successful management). So it is possible to run a campaign dominated by easily refutable blatant lies. On the rare occasions you get challenged, you just deny that you denied reality. They intuitively know a deep and dark truth: if you put enough effort into spreading falsehoods, people start to believe the lie.

So Gail Collins can make fun of me all she wants. I still think McCain is going to win.

Sadly, the Onion gets it better than the real media.

Audience Surrogate

2008-09-09T23:01:00.005-07:00

A few months ago, I said McCain was very good value on the Intrade market at 32.6% for president. If you'd taken my advice you'd have made almost a 50% return as McCain is now trading at over 47%. Unfortunately, these prediction markets are illegal in the US and I couldn't take advantage of this. I still think McCain is great value at 47%. Not to hold for a while and sell - he probably won't trade much higher - but to hold until the election. He'll win.

I'm very pessimistic about Obama's chances now. Palin's entry into the race will only amplify the disturbing racial dynamics of the race. And she's very difficult to attack because so many Americans will take any criticism of her personally. So what if she doesn't believe in evolution or global warming and only got a passport last year and has barely traveled outside the US? I believe that each of these things on its own shows that she is hopelessly unqualified to be the most powerful person on earth. But none of these traits are exceptional: see stats on global warming, evolution, and travel. Only on global warming is she arguably outside the mainstream (but it's not a major issue). Palin has become a kind of audience surrogate in this election - a weird and unprecedented development but one that will help the Republicans (with their damaged brand) enormously.

...

To make up for this depressing post, here is a link to a free song by Blue(ish). Obscure but excellent:

Go to Bed Business Casual

To Assault and Perjure

2008-09-03T22:10:00.002-07:00

Although I might poke some fun at folks who ride fixies, I'm glad for anyone to ride a bike rather than drive, especially in big cities like NY and SF where it takes some courage to ride in a hostile environment. And in NYC the police are essentially at war with cyclists. Don't believe me? Read on.

First, before you watch the video below, I want you to read how the police officer described this encounter under oath. He said that the cyclist was "weaving in and out of the center lane of traffic, thereby forcing multiple vehicles to stop." He then instructed the cyclist to stop, but the cyclist "drove [his] bicycle directly into [the officer's] body causing [the officer] to fall to the ground and to suffer lacerations."

Ok, that's the police officer's sworn story. Here's what happened:

As the New York times put it, "the availability of cheap digital technology — video cameras, digital cameras, cellphone cameras — has ended a monopoly on the history of public gatherings that was limited to the official narratives, like the sworn documents created by police officers and prosecutors."

Translated from New York Timesese into English, that means some cops have been getting caught perjuring themselves.

While incidents like these do sometimes get caught on tape, imagine how this usually would have gone down. This poor cyclist, the victim of a brutal and completely unprovoked police assault, would be facing serious charges of assaulting a police officer. Any trial would likely be his word against the police. He'd probably plead out and end up with a criminal record.

Education Through Ignorance

2008-09-01T23:18:00.003-07:00

Conservatives in the U.S. are enamored with the Orwellian and oxymoronic practice of 'abstinence-only' sex education. Research has shown that abstinence-only education has no discernible impact on whether students actually have sex. Its only effect is to make it less likely that teens will use contraceptives when they have sex.

So while Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy might be a private issue, Palin's stance on sex education is fair game. I wonder if a debate moderator will have the courage to ask the perfectly fair question:

Do you support abstinence-only education in schools or do you believe students should be given an opportunity to learn about contraception?

Two Years

2008-08-19T21:31:00.001-07:00

Today since I moved back to the United States from Australia.

Fixed-Gear

2008-08-13T21:58:00.004-07:00

Moving on from the impending peak oil catastrophe, it's worth thinking about oil-free transport. Like fixed-gear bikes for example. Can one of my Australian readers tell me if the insipid fixed-gear craze has taken hold there? The Mission in SF is one of the hot spots of this absurd practice. I can't ride a block without having to overtake some tragic hipster struggling along on a fixed-gear bike in black jeans and connies with a bandanna around his neck.

A "fixed gear bike" is really just a pointless hybrid of a track bike and a road bike (too heavy for the track and just too damn stupid for the road). But I can't hate on these monstrosities nearly as well as Bike Snob NYC who has an entire blog devoted to it. It's a surprisingly rich topic and the blog is consistently entertaining.

Check out his Fixed-Gear Bicycle Owners Manual

The highlight, the suggestion that a fixed-gear owner should "do track stands for hours outside of the residence of a person you would like to impress." (Though since I'm prone to doing unnecessary track stands at red lights myself I probably shouldn't laugh.)

The End of Oil/Life as You Know It

2008-07-24T22:01:00.006-07:00

I've been reading a lot about "peak oil" lately. And it scares the crap out of me.

I don't know why this issue gets so little attention (even with $140 a barrel oil already driving global inflation and food shortages). As far as I can tell, there is a very credible case to be made that we reached peak oil in 2005 or so and that--no matter how high prices go--production will plateau for a while and then decline. As demand is growing fast, the price of oil will skyrocket ($140 a barrel is just a teaser of what's to come). Given that the global economy is completely oil dependent, the global economy will collapse not just within our lifetime but maybe within the next 10 to 20 years. Leading to resource wars (more than we have already), despotism and chaos.

Here's some references.

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/the-peak.html

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/the-age-of-oil-.html

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/14178/

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/7203633/the_long_emergency

That's some gloomy shit. I'd love for someone to tell me that this is just fringe, alarmist nonsense but I really don't think it is. But doomsayers have certainly been wrong before.

...

There's an article in today's New York Times that casually mentions an estimate of global (proven) oil reserves of 1.24 trillion barrels (new discoveries are slowing and likely to add up to much less than existing proven reserves). If you do the math, at today's daily usage, that's 39 years of oil (which still isn't that long). But the key to peak oil theory is that the oil that's left will be much harder to extract to the rate of production will steadily decline. So the crunch will hit well before 39 years from now.

Obscurity

2008-07-01T00:26:00.003-07:00

My Tragicomedy of the Surfers' Commons (prettier version here) paper was briefly rescued from obscurity by the Marginal Revolution blog and got linked to and discussed in a few places this week. While I'm grateful to the Deakin Law Review for publishing it, I often regret that it languishes in a forum that is not widely available in the United States where there is more of a market for law and economics. If I'd been smarter, I would have sent it to US environmental law journals (selling the tragedy of the commons angle). Nevertheless, it's good that it's out there somewhere and people read and cite it occasionally. For academic work, that is success I suppose.

And yes, yes I did discover this by narcissistically googling myself.

Difficult Choices

2008-06-16T22:44:00.002-07:00

Sasquatch! scheduling created some difficult choices. Probably the most perplexing was Flight of the Conchords vs. Battles. On one hand, precise and driven math-rock. On the other, New Zealand's fourth best folk-comedy duo. Two very different bands. I chose Flight of the Conchords. Did I make the right decision?

Battles

Flight of the Conchords

Triple Play

2008-06-02T22:33:00.005-07:00

Three pieces of news.

First, I passed the freakin' California Bar Exam. The less said about that miserable experience the better. Still waiting on some paperwork to get admitted formally but hopefully will be a legit California lawyer soon.

Second, Sasquatch!

So awesome. Hard to do it justice in a single blog post. Pitchfork did a good feature which gives you a sense of the event. I went with a group of 8 (including 5 lawyers, yikes). We rented an RV, bought about 1000 bags of chips, picked up way too much beer and spirits and had a blast. One of my RV mates was covering the event for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and you can read a sampling of her posts (I'm "the Naze") here, here, here and here.

Who was good? As expected The Flaming Lips, The Cure, The National (who played on the small stage because they were late and it worked out perfectly), The New Pornographers, Death Cab for Cutie and Beirut were fantastic.

Who was unexpectedly good? Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Rodrigo y Gabriela (Mexican acoustic metal, who knew?); M.I.A. (highlight of the first day with The National) and The Hives stole the show.

Who was bad? In three solid days, very few bands sucked but The Mars Volta sucked big time.

Ordinary life has seemed very ordinary post-Sasquatch!

Sasquatch! + M.I.A. + P.B.R. = Fun!

And third, Triple Play!

Scored some great seats for Friday's Giants-Padres game (eight rows back behind the home dugout) and was in a good spot to see a rare triple play. It was the first ever triple play in the eight year-old ballpark.

Linda Mar Dusk

2008-05-18T21:52:00.005-07:00

I head to the beach from work at 6:30 p.m., driving through city traffic past the ballpark to Route 280. The sun shines brightly for now but thick banks of fog are rolling in from the ocean and spreading across the city. As I climb the hill behind Pacifica, the mist gets so thick that cars slow to a crawl. And as we descend to the coast, it feels like night already. It's 7.15 when I pull into the Linda Mar lot and 7.30 by the time I'm walking along the beach in my wetsuit.

Sunday at dusk--my absolute favorite time to surf--it is almost never crowded and has a unique calm.

I see a decent peak toward the northern end of the beach with just one guy sitting on it. He'll go in soon, I think, and I'll have it to myself. But, as I stretch on the sand, another latecomer gets ready to head in at the same spot. We eye each other, both thinking the same thing--why do you have to paddle in here? After last week's "heatwave" the water has crept into the mid-50s (about 12-14C) and feels like a warm bath. I exalt in surfing without gloves for the first time in months. I feel the water run through my fingers as I paddle and the moguls of wax against my hands as I push the board through the waves.

The sets are inconsistent but, every five minutes or so, they roll in and offer a long right or a steep bowling left that peters out a bit too quickly. The three of us sit close together--collectively trying to keep track of the peak during the lulls--so etiquette demands close attention to who's paddling for a wave and who's on the inside. We don't hassle each other but compete quietly. We are all natural footers--preferring the right--so I focus on the left, often taking off next to one of the other guys as we split the peak. The left walls up occasionally and I ride a few all the way into the beach--giving me a tiring paddle back out. The three of us sit out there for over an hour. No one says anything. No one nods or smiles. No one is hostile. The vibe is completely neutral. We all wanted a solo dusk session and we do our best to create that impression.

As it gets darker, the house lights on Pedro Point appear out of the fog on our left. The uninhabited rocky point on our right disappeared into the gloom long ago. The lines of swell are black but the whitewater is brighter than ever. It gets hard to see the waves but no one goes in. As far as I can tell, we are the only surfers still in the water. I begin to wonder if each of us has resolved to stay out the longest to catch a few minutes solo.

I decide to wait for a decent set to ride a last wave in. As always, this resolution is followed by a long lull and I sit there waiting. One of the guys catches a small wave and two of us remain sitting out the back. The sun set over half an hour ago and the mist is sucking up any remaining light. When I can no longer see more than a few feet, I paddle for a wave and ride it unsteadily into the beach, pulling out just before the shore pound dumps me into the sand. My companion catches the next wave in--he was waiting to be last, I think. It's after 9 p.m. and our three cars are the only ones left in the Linda Mar lot. It is truly night now--pitch black--and, like the other two guys, I fight my way out of my cold wetsuit and drive home alone.

Because Three Surfboards Is Not Enough

2008-04-29T23:13:00.002-07:00

My new baby

The Guy Who's Where He Is Only Because He's Australian

2008-04-24T19:45:00.006-07:00

Title of the post could just as well be: The Guy Who's Where He Is Only Because Of The E-3

Anyway, think I'm going to have to check out Colson Whitehead's books. Anyone read him? He has a great op ed in the Times today.

And his blog has this great riff on what the Google of the future might look like:

[T]he unfinished killer Google app, the Google Superego. It will be quite handy. When you’re out late and say to yourself, “I’ll have another pint before I go home,” the Google Superego pops up and goes, Did you mean: Go home right now? When you think to yourself, “There’s a twelve hour Top Chef marathon on Bravo and I’m going to watch it,” the Google Superego pops up and goes, Did you mean: Read a book and tell your family how much you love them?

...

The weird thing is that we are probably not so far away from the time when our 'devices' (I-phone, etc) are implanted in our bodies and Google Superego will not seem far fetched. I prefer the idea of a Google Id, however: "I think I'll clean my apartment and take my car in for a service," the Google Id pops up and goes, Did you mean: Get really drunk and ride your bike down a steep hill?

We'll need to call Google technical support to resolve conflicts between our Google Superego and our Google Id.

21st Street

2008-04-13T22:48:00.009-07:00

An unheralded, mostly residential Mission District side street, forever in the shadow of its showier cousins like the hipster boulevard of Valencia Street, the bar-filled 16th, mercado-filled 24th or bustling Mission with its one-dollar stores and fast food joints. I have a soft spot for 21st though and always choose it when riding the long way to work through Potrero Hill and around the ball park to the bay (something I tend to do on the all too frequent days I go in on the weekend). Riding east:

Bethany Center

Pedal Revolution

El Cachanilla

Pirate Cat Radio

Galaxy House. It's for sale if you're looking for somewhere new and kinda stupid to live.

At the end of 21st, looking back toward Twin Peaks.

I Still Miss New England

2008-03-18T23:11:00.001-07:00

Although the surf here is excellent and much more consistent than in the North East, nothing compares to surfing New England in the winter after a northeaster when a real swell is running.

To get a sense of what I'm talking about check out this amazing photo set from Surfline.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Don't Bother!

2008-03-09T23:13:00.003-07:00

A comment from Alex as we drank beers with the hipsters at the 500 Club. For no clear reason, he's making his way through Shakespeare's collected works. Some of the early comedies are not up to snuff, apparently.

It reminded me of a similar evening's drinking from a couple of years ago.

For All The Stolen Bikes I've Known Redux

2008-02-18T20:45:00.005-08:00

One of my all time favorite pieces of writing is Tim's blog post For All The Stolen Bikes I've Known (click the link and scroll down to the third post). Why do I remember this now? My bike was stolen last night. Unfortunately, my tale lacks a heroic ending.

I was woken at 5:45am by a friend who had noticed that my garage door was wide open when he drove past on his way to an early flight. My surfboards were still in there so Malcolm may have saved them from an opportunistic early morning thief.

I initially thought that my neighbor (we share a two-car garage) had carelessly left the door open but it turns out she was out of town for the weekend. I hadn't been in the garage for a while and had walked past it a number of times since then so we are certain that they broke in somehow. The lock seems fine so we think they mimicked the signal from the electronic door opener. I lost my 3 month old bike and my neighbor lost 4 boxes of old and valuable comics. Life in the big city. Think I might buy me some renter's insurance (closing the garage door after the bike has bolted, so to speak).

I'm not too heartbroken. The bike was new but it wasn't super expensive and I didn't like it all that much. It had an aluminum frame (these are light but don't absorb shocks well) so I sometimes felt like I was riding a jackhammer as I cruised along San Francisco's potholed streets. I'll see if I can replace it with a mountain bike with front suspension at least.

Prediction Markets

2008-02-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

As the New York Times noted recently, prediction markets tend to be better predictors than polls. Before Super Tuesday I predicted a McCain-Clinton race with McCain winning. Right now, the biggest prediction market - Intrade - has Obama at over 70% to win the democratic nomination. It also has him as a much better chance (48.8%) than McCain (32.6%) to win the presidency even though McCain has his nomination wrapped up. This strikes me as absurd.

Although Obama has done better than I expected, I still think Intrade is overestimating his chances and is massively underestimating McCain's chances. A savvy punter might put money on McCain to win in November, hedged with a bet on Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. You'd collect handily if either prediction turned out correct and very handily if both turned out correct. The only way to lose would be if Obama wins in November (which I'd prefer to losing a bit money anyway): truly a no-lose investment.

Also, I'd be amazed if McCain's current value (32.6%) doesn't go up once it's a two-horse race (It'll shoot up to about 50 if Hillary wins and go up to the low to mid 40s if Obama wins). So you could just buy McCain with the plan to hold and sell two months from now when I'm guessing it'll be trading at least in the low 40s.

(I should note that prediction markets are considered gambling and are illegal in most states so I'm not suggesting that anyone actually take this advice . . . )

UPDATE - shortly after I posted this the NYT posted a similar article.

A Sign

2008-02-04T16:51:00.001-08:00

I can't vote but my window (which overlooks a busy Muni stop) can.

I'm not holding out much hope. It'll be Clinton v. McCain with McCain winning in November. You heard it here first (and I'm warning you I'm never wrong in election predictions).

Wonder Man

2008-01-09T22:10:00.000-08:00

Recently read Straight Man by Richard Russo and Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. Both are written in the first person with a creative writing professor as protagonist. Both books follow the protagonist for a few days as his life falls apart. Both are set in Pennsylvania. In both books an act of animal abuse sparks the plot (Chabon kills a dog, Russo strangles a goose). Other common plot elements: marital stress, black outs, writer's block, quirky in-laws. Both end (spoiler ahead) with the protagonist's life being put back together rather too neatly.

I didn't mind. I read Straight Man first and enjoyed it so much (it is hilarious) that I wanted to read it again straight away (but for the first time). And, by reading Wonder Boys, I was able to satisfy this paradoxical urge.

The biggest difference is in tone. Russo's narrator is a smart arse and shit stirrer. The book is played for yucks from the get go. Chabon's narrator is more passive (but Wonder Boys is still very funny). Tough to say which is the better book. Maybe Chabon should win a tie breaker for being first.

Happy Everything to Everyone

2007-12-24T22:01:00.001-08:00

Boomers Beware

2007-12-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

A couple of days before Australia's election I found out that Scott Ludlam (a friend of my sisters and all-round great guy) was number one on the Greens' senate ticket in WA, giving him a 50/50 chance of becoming a senator. So the first results I checked were the WA senate returns. Not only did the initial results suggest Scott would win (yay) but I was amazed to discover that a friend of mine from university, Louise Pratt, had won a senate seat with the Labor Party. She'd been in the state senate (or whatever it's called) for a while but I guess she figured she should move up to the federal senate before she got too old (she's 35).

Anyway, I have high hopes for these two. You can tell Scott will be a good senator, what with his Myspace page listing Blade Runner and Serenity as favorite movies.

(Yes I know Australia's election was a couple of weeks ago but I've been busy ok).

DOORED!

2007-11-08T22:42:00.000-08:00

get doored verb. To collide with an unexpectedly opened car door while riding a bicycle.

I got doored on Tuesday night. There really is nothing much you can do about it unless you "claim the lane" as a matter of course. Spend enough time as a gutter bunny, and you'll cop one eventually. It is an extremely unpleasant experience.

I was riding west down 15th St between Mission and Valencia at about 7.30pm. Thankfully, I was not riding at my usual frantic, all-out pace. Rather, I was cruising steadily, happy to be out of work early and just two blocks away from meeting someone for dinner. But, before I had time to hit the brakes or even see the door open, I heard the simultaneous crunch of metal on metal and felt an explosion in my knee. I was thrown off my bike and out into the middle of the road. I looked back to see the offending door and, finally realizing what had happened, let out a furious yell and a torrent of profanity.

Luckily, there was no traffic immediately behind me or, given how I fell, I would have been run over. Instead, I just lay there in shock until the driver told me to move out of the road because a bus was coming. And indeed, when I looked up, a bus was headed my way. So I slugged my way to the sidewalk where a bunch of bystanders and the offending driver crowded around asking if I was alright and if they should call an ambulance. My right leg hurt a lot and I had door-edge shaped bruise and scrape down the knee (later I discovered scrapes on my other knee, wrist and elbow) but I could move and straighten my leg and it didn't hurt to put weight on it. Nothing was broken.

My door opening assailant and her passenger were extremely apologetic but I was still pretty annoyed. I had bike lights with brand new batteries that were flashing brightly. I got the driver's insurance details in case I needed medical attention later. But, in the United States, you have to be in a lot of pain before it is less of a pain than getting medical attention so I decided to limp away and try painkillers and ice. So far I've been ok. My knee still hurts but it doesn't seem to be injured too badly.

San Francisco is not a bike-friendly city (try riding down Market at 8.45am) and I feel like a casualty of bike-unfriendly planning (for example, there is a bike lane going east on 14th st but no bike lane on any nearby street traveling west so, on the way home, I must take bike-lane free 15th). One day (when we run out of cheap fossil fuels) they'll make cities friendly for bike commuters. In the meantime, we play roulette with car doors.

The City That Won't Sit Still

2007-11-05T22:19:00.000-08:00

We had a 5.6 quake in the Bay Area recently. I heard a rumble, saw the leaves of my office plant start moving, then one of my co-workers yelled "Oh yeah! That's living in San Francisco!"

I moved to my doorway. I've since discovered that the better tactic is to get under a sturdy table. Still, if I'm at home I don't think it would be a good idea to take cover under this table.

Waiting for a Crisis

2007-10-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

My old band the fourelles have new songs up on myspace: check it They're getting better without me, which makes me kinda sad actually. There are some classic new Fourelles lyrics:

I'm waiting for a crisis/so I can show you how nice I can be
Maybe some kind of injury/so I can bring you ice cream
Maybe some sort of illness/so I can give you a kidney
I hope you lose everything/so I can be the one you need

And here, for no reason at all, is a hilarious photo of phil in peru:

By the way, make sure to click on the photo in the last post to see the full-screen panorama from the top of Twin Peaks.

Living in Omelas

2007-10-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today I rode to the top of Twin Peaks at sunset and, wheezing, enjoyed the stunning view up there. Then, after darkness came, I wandered through my peaceful neighborhood, past the painted Victorian houses, to Dolores Park and met up with folks for a free outdoor movie. In the distance, we could see fireworks over the bay. The day left me struck by what an incredibly beautiful and rich city I've found myself in.

The other thing that strikes you about San Fancisco, is its vast, intractible, stinky and widespread homelessness problem. The disconnect reminded me of the classic Usula K. Le Guin story The One's Who Walk Away From Omelas, which I recommend to anyone who hasn't read it.

[Whether the Omelas analogy is truly apt is another issue.]

Snippet

2007-10-03T23:05:00.000-07:00

A stranded platoon, surrounded and outnumbered by enemy forces, needs to exaggerate its size. So each man runs back and forth, firing from behind every tree. From a distance, the enemy will sense each shot as a sign of a unique beating heart. But, if they are brave enough to get close, the enemy would discover a tiny band of resisters, winded, low on ammunition and ready to surrender. Applying the same principle, the radical left of Australia fires as many shots as it can: attending every political event, pasting posters on every wall, publishing newspapers and setting up webs of front organizations as complex as corporate tax shelters. By making sure to fire a shot from behind every available tree, even the tiniest sect can seem like part of the national political conversation. Yet in reality, by the mid-1990s, the radical left of Australia—bundling all the Trotskyites, Maoists, anarchists and Leninists together—numbered no more than 2000 lost souls.

The fall of the Berlin Wall had thinned the herd. Though, out of at least a dozen parties on the hard-left, only one, the flagship Communist Party of Australia, collapsed entirely. Affronted and perplexed by the complete failure of soviet communism, the CPA packed up its toys and went home, voluntarily disbanding in 1991. Everyone else soldiered on. Most had a ready excuse to hand. The Soviet Union abandoned ‘true socialism’ decades ago, they would say. Some were secretly relieved. Finally, they would no longer hear the refrain: Why don’t you move to Russia?

The Past

2007-09-24T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is me in my grad school "office" at Rutgers in 1999. I would keep my bike in there (you can just catch the wheel) but the space was so small I had to stand it upright next to my elbow. Steve has posted a photo album from that era that captures the bleak and institutional atmosphere of Rutgers perfectly. If you'll indulge me, here are a few more photos:

My Home - Starkey Apartments

Aaron Ruby sits in the philosophy grad student lounge and contemplates 5 more years in New Brunswick. He took a different path.

Gathered in the lounge (me with the shaggy hair)

I can't believe I lasted 3 years.

UPDATE:

As Gazza reminds me in a comment, the Rutgers philosophy building was the world center for static electricity. You just had to sit around for a while to build up a charge. One time, I was working in my tiny cube, listening to music on my headphones (just like in the photo above) when I decided to remove a fleece. Bad decision. So much static electricity was produced by the fleece running over my long sleeve shirt that (as I was grounded via the headphones in my ears) it discharged into my ears with a CRACK so loud Gary heard it in the next office. I leaped out of my cube swearing and holding my ears. Good times indeed.

BBC Report: End Of World As We Know It

2007-09-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, in all seriousness, once said: "You know, you can be a weekend warrior. But if you ever want to do that big back hand cutback off the lip, you've gotta put in some serious dole time." He was living proof. Thanks to two years of unemployment in the Walpole area (with its uncrowded winter swells), he had formidable surfing skills.

As I remember it, this is part of Australia's social contract. But according to the BBC, Australia is targeting work-shy surfers. Is nothing sacred?

Spikes!

2007-09-03T19:13:00.000-07:00

I'm 'table sitting' (did I just coin a useful phrase?) for my former housemate Jay until he and Alyse move to San Francisco in January. Jay spent all of last year hand crafting this awesome birthday gift to Alyse. I remember when he first told me it would have spikes. He must be kidding, I thought. Only when I saw him sanding out the spikes by hand was I convinced. We'd hear him sanding away up in the attic; crazy man that he is.

Welcome to Noe Valley

2007-08-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

It's sunny. The thick fog flows up Twin Peaks to my west then, as if exhausted by the climb, it burns away as it crests the summit ridge. Meanwhile, down in the sunshine, silicon valley yuppies push their technospawn along 24th St in expensive strollers. The 24th St shops are full of expensive and useless things but Mission St with its endless rows of $1 stores is just a short hike away. I flee the yuppies and head across to the Mission to buy essentials: shower curtain, bath mat, tea towels, etc. Street finds, thrift stores and craigslist supply lamps, bookshelves, a desk and a sofa. The place starts to come together.

I'm just about finished moving in. Am waiting for a sofa bed to be delivered. When that gets here, guests are welcome. Here are some photos of the new place:

Kitchen.

The 24th and Church Muni stop right below my deck.

Living room.

Looking west toward Twin Peaks from my deck.

Jason Molina strums by a street-found book case and lamp.

My new address is:

96 Jersey St, Apt 3
San Francisco, CA 94114

Land line: 415 875 9452
Cell (same as before): 831 325 7801

Keeping a Car in San Francisco

2007-07-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

I tried to figure out how much it was going to cost me per year to keep a car in San Francisco. I calculated $3,300,000. That seems like a lot. Definitely thought I could keep it under a million dollars. I guess it's possible I hit the multiply button somewhere in there by mistake.

I re-did my calcs and got $4670. That's probably about right. I wish I didn't "need" a car. But with surfing, visiting folks in Santa Cruz, etc, it's difficult to contemplate life without one. Unfortunately, San Francisco's otherwise excellent car share program wouldn't work for me. That plan is designed for people taking short trips around town rather than weekend trips. It's a great concept but even surf day trips (assume 7 hours and 140 miles for a Santa Cruz surf) get very expensive. Though I spose I should be grateful I won't be in New York.

Strawberry Hill Forever

2007-07-13T21:12:00.001-07:00

Anticipating my upcoming move to San Francisco, I've been rediscovering all my old Red House Painters albums. It's been ten years or so since I was listening to the Painters but - for better or worse - they are back in rotation. Their songs are steeped in the atmosphere of the city's foggy neighborhoods. Every other song features a San Francisco location: Ocean Beach, Grace Cathedral, Strawberry Hill, Golden Gate Elementary. Lots of hills in those songs.

Strawberry Hill - one of my favorite Painters tracks - is especially apt, being about a kid who has moved to California.

(Any many folks already know, I'll soon be working for Keker and Van Nest in San Francisco.)

In other, strangely related, news I resourcefully ordered Vanessa's book, Strawberry Hills Forever, from the US and am loving it so far (66 pages in). The title and cover art make Vanessa Berry's name seem like a nom de plume.

Best story so far: Sometimes, You Just Feel Like Spending Two Days as a Rabbit

The King of Crap

2007-06-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

That's what my housemate Jay calls me. Because I continually scan the Point and 38th for those moments when supposedly crappy conditions (onshore winds, full tide, etc) drive away most of the surfers and then - zoom - I'm running back to the house, jumping into my wetsuit and paddling out to enjoy some uncrowded waves.

Like on Sunday evening when, at the tail end of a weekend of good swell, a light onshore breeze and a long wait between sets had the crowd down to only 5 or 6 surfers. By the time I paddled out (just before sunset) there were only three of us. BUT about every 15 minutes a big southern hemisphere swell would roll in through the kelp and break way out the back (right next to a recklessly moored catamaran). In 45 minutes of surfable twilight I picked up three epic rides including an 8 foot set wave that peeled gloriously all the way to the sand. King of Crap indeed.

Killer Mix

2007-05-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Been making some mix CDs lately - here's my killer mix (and Zach Braff can kiss my ass):

The Place Where We Dwell

The Place Where We Dwell - Gang Starr
All Alone (No One To Be With) - Slick Rick
Glue Of The World - Four Tet
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1 - The Flaming Lips
Daft Punk Is Playing At My House - LCD Soundsystem
Da Funk - Daft Punk
Big Shot - Bark Psychosis
The Yellow Ones - Pinback
The Bleeding Heart Show - New Pornographers
Move Something - Talib Kweli & DJ Hi-Tek
Hard to Explain - Strokes
French Disko - Stereolab
Hey Goodbye - Macha & Bedhead

...

If you're real lucky you might get a copy.

Snippet

2007-05-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

... anyone who has lost a hand to a flywheel or spindle or had a finger severed by shears, grinders or slitters knows – since the beginning of this industrial age – we have built a world where we are not on top of the food chain, a world where spinning, pinching, crushing machines are hungry for human flesh, a world where tigers and great white sharks are endangered but careening metal boxes, powered by thousands of barely controlled explosions, criss cross our cities, passing so close we feel buffeted by their turbulence and we tempt these machines continually, teasing them like teenage girls, till we grow so accustomed to the attention we lower our guard and a machine reaches out, grabs hold of us and has its savage way, leaving splintered bone and severed arteries in its wake while as bystanders we look upon the gory scene surprised and a little hurt, as if our favorite cousin just demolished a treasured family heirloom and we assure our careful selves that we would never be so foolish as to place our own bodies in harm's way ...

Soap Opera

2007-05-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

Check this out. I love that the band was "The Germs." You wouldn't dare write it that way. Enjoy . . .

Narco Pouch, Lousy Drug Test, Great Soap Test

The World Series (Of The ACLU)

2007-04-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you already know - since it's been the talk of the blogosphere - the ALCU's Drug Law Reform Project crushed the Washington DC Legislative Office 23-4 in a transcontinental softball grudge match in St Louis. Others have written about the game (see Jed Miller's live blogging and the enemy's admission of defeat) so I won't give you a play by play. In the end, it was like watching Australia play cricket against, well, anybody else really. For the record, I went 4 for 4 at the plate (facing only five pitches total) for 5 RBI. Who says there are no more 400 hitters. The show awaits!

Hopefully I'll get some photos to put up here later.

Folks have reported problems with the comments so I've switched to blogger comments.

Meet Me Where?

2007-04-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

I'm in St Louis (the most dangerous city in America) for the ACLU staff conference. My hotel room looks right over the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi. You can tell why they built the Arch: There sure as hell isn't anything else to see in this city.

This blog has been getting kind of boring lately. Readership is down and no one's posted a comment since January. I'm just not finding much to write about here anymore. As I move further into my career as a lawyer, my life is increasingly defined by my work. But I can't blog about my work. Outside of work, of course, there is mucho surfing but I've already written plenty about surfing . And, when I feel like writing, I tend to work on my draft novel (which progresses very slowly).

Despite all this, I don't plan to give up blogging. I'll have stuff to write occasionally and it's an easy way to stay in touch with people. And on that note, I have news: I am staying in Northern California. I don't know exactly where I'll end up but I am now sure that my next job will be with a law firm in San Francisco. I'm excited to be staying in the area and glad not to have another stressful long distance move.