Ok, so remember that last post about the old photo of an Atari 800 on a desk from 1983? The one that I said reminded me so much of the old Atari 800 I grew up with? The one that I said that I was pretty sure my parents had walled off as a disaster area? Yeah, well, my memory was correct, and my parents are awesome. They just sent me a photo of the desk, taken today.
Here’s, again, is the photo from 1983 that Pesco’s friend sent him:
And here’s the photo taken today, April 14, 2008, of the Atari 800 I grew up with that’s still sitting in my parent’s basement:
See why I saw some similarities? Gotta love the wood paneling, right? Ok. So mine’s a bit messier… but I can blame that on 25 years of usage… right? Er… probably not. Next step will be turning on the Atari 800 and seeing if I can coax it to do something next time I’m at my parents’ place.
Boingboing has a post today including a photo from one of Pesco’s friends, Jennifer Brown, of a computer desk showing an Atari 800. The photo is circa 1983:
The scary bit is that looks exactly like the setup I had with my Atari 800, which I used all through school, right up until I went away to college. The differences are really small. But we had a similar ancient TV. We had the tape player (remember when you loaded programs via cassette tape?). At one point we had two separate floppy drives (the 810s), with the two different doors (one flips, one goes up and down), just like the photo shows (though, i think we had two because one broke, so I don’t think we had them lined up next to each other). I also don’t think we had an Atari branded printer. But, even the desk and the overall setup looks kinda similar to what we had.
So I was looking at that and then started thinking… My parents pretty much declared their basement a federal disaster area after I went off to college (and yes, it’s my fault that it’s was a disaster), and have been waiting for the feds to send in a cleanup crew ever since. I know that they’ve finally been dumping out all sorts of old stuff over the past year, but if I remember correctly (and I might not) that corner of the basement has not been touched in 15 years. In other words, our Atari 800 with the similar setup and the crappy TV may STILL be sitting in my parents basement. I’m not back in NY for a couple months, but Mom & Dad, if you read this and if I’m correct that the old Atari is still sitting pretty in the basement, would you mind taking a photo and sending it to me? And, yes, I do talk to my parents regularly on the phone or via IM or email, but making the request by blog just seems like more fun. If I’m right, and the setup is still there, I’ll update the post with it once they send it.
Thanks to RSS, just noticed that Amazon is now taking pre-orders on the latest Slackers album, Self Medication which will be out in a month. Fred was asking if I’d heard it, and while I haven’t heard the full album, I definitely recognize some of the songs, especially the first one, so I figured I’d post it here:
Hmm… in pending, for some reason, the audio is compressed like the Chipmunks… I’m going to post this anyway and hope that’s not the case when it’s posted for real. If it is, I’ll see what I can do…
Well that didn’t work at all… not sure why it’s playing it like the Chipmunks, but in the meantime, if you want to hear the song, it’s here at Tumblr. Gave me an excuse to try Tumblr.
This version was recorded live on the radio when they were in Texas last year. Vic’s playing a baby grand piano rather than a keyboard or organ, so I’m guessing the album version will sound a bit different… but either way, I know that this song has been stuck in my head for a while, so I’m happy it’s the first song on the new album. I had a lot of fun doing my music post last month, so maybe I’ll try to do a review post once I get this album. In the meantime, take a listen…
Mentioned this over on Techdirt last week, but might as well mention it here as well, since all sorts of folks are emailing/texting/calling to say they heard the show. On Friday evening I got interviewed by Robert Siegel on NPR’s “All Things Considered” talking about “The Streisand Effect,” the phrase I jokingly coined a while back. It was quite a bit of fun. Siegel seemed pretty cool, making sure I was at ease before we got started. I had expected the questions mostly to be about examples of the Streisand Effect in action. Many of the questions were of that nature (though a few other examples I spoke about got left on the cutting room floor). I wasn’t expecting that last question about other phrases I’ve coined or a separate question which didn’t make the cut either about other similar phrases (not by me) that had caught on. I rambled on about Godwin’s Law for a while, but even as I was saying it I knew I hadn’t done a great job describing it, so I was pretty happy that got cut. Either way, it’s been nice to discover just how many people listen to All Things Considered — and I’m glad I didn’t make a total fool of myself (thanks, in part, to the NPR editors).
I’ll admit that I was pretty skeptical about Twitter for a long time. I had a few false starts in trying to use it, but a couple months ago I got serious about it and have discovered that it can be useful in surprising ways. It seems that a lot of bloggers have recently been coming to the same conclusion with a bunch pointing to Howard Rheingold’s post about why Twitter is useful. Russell Beattie followed it up with a post claiming that Twitter is great because there are no spammers and no trolls. Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing more and more messages alerting me that my Twitter feed was being “followed” by some odd name I didn’t recognize. Like I do with most followers, I’d go check out their Twitter-feed, and discover that it was mostly spamming stuff. I’d also notice that they were following thousands of people with very few following them. Even better, despite having said they were “following” me, most stopped following me immediately. They only followed me to get an alert sent to me so I would check out their spammy feed.
No, it’s not as bad as some other types of spam or trolling, and it can be avoided if people lock their feeds and have to approve followers, but it’s not quite correct to say there’s no spam. And, as Twitter gets more popular, don’t be surprised to see them come up with even more spamming and trolling methods.
This is a crazy long post, so if you actually decide to read it, might as well hit the play button on this playlist, since it’s equally as long. And, yes, if you’re wondering where the hell I found the time to write this up, I’ve been traveling way too much lately, so this post was written over the course of a month during multiple flights and airport layovers, in between sleeping.
Note: The imeem player has been buggy lately. If it’s not working, let me know and I’ll go hunting for a better player solution. I also have each song playable separately in the playlist below.
Okay, so I had promised both more posts about music (from 10 months ago) and more posts about the wedding (from 7 months ago) and haven’t had time for either — so I’m going to try to do both at once. I originally had planned to write up a post like this before the wedding when I was trying to figure all this out, but that didn’t happen.
Anyway, given my (at this point…) 18 year (yikes) and ongoing obsession with ska music, you might think I always expected to have ska music at my eventual wedding. But, actually, that’s never really been the case. I remember talking to Sammy from the Scofflaws about the wedding performances they used to do on occasion, and I asked him if they did anything different than their standard live performance — and he said no. He said that there would be grandmothers and the like staring at them wondering what was going on. It made me wonder. The Scofflaws put on one of the best live shows ever, but part of that is the excitement of the crowd. I couldn’t exactly see my grandparents dancing around to songs like “William Shatner” or “Nude Beach”. While I know how a good song with a good beat can get almost anyone to dance, people most like to dance to songs they recognize. So, I had pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I shouldn’t expect any ska at my wedding — especially if the wife-to-be wasn’t a huge ska fan.
Of course, while it’s true that the wife isn’t a huge ska fan, she is pretty cool (why I married her and all), and she just assumed that there would be ska at the wedding — and looked at me like I was silly when I suggested maybe it didn’t make sense. Either way, it gave me a good project to work on leading up to the wedding. The DJ we picked knew absolutely nothing about ska (of the DJs I interviewed, only one had heard about ska, but knew nothing about it — and we didn’t pick him anyway). So it was up to me to try to put together a nice representative sample of ska music for the wedding. We weren’t expecting all of the music to be ska, but wanted to be able to throw in a ska song here and there to keep me happy (along with the… um… two or three wedding guests who also were ska fans).
That’s when I realized how tricky this actually was. I have well over a thousand ska CDs, of varying styles, eras and quality. However, I still wanted to make sure that the songs were appropriate — which required a few things.
First and foremost, it had to be a good song (probably goes without saying). However, recognizing that most people wouldn’t even know the songs at all, it had to be a different level of good: it had to be good-on-the-first-listen good. That’s a lot trickier. There are plenty of songs that take a few listens to before you really start to dig them, but there are always a few standouts. I wanted to focus in on the standouts.
Second, it had to be more upbeat and danceable. Most ska qualifies, but there are some tricky ones — especially if the song has massive tempo changes, as some of them do.
Third: It has to be relatively short, in the two to four minute range. Longer than that can usually get annoying, especially if people don’t know/like the song. I’ve been told that 2:55 is the ideal length for a “danceable” song. Who knows if it’s true, but I didn’t want to push my luck with something like the Jumpstarts’ “Lucky One” — a fantastic, catchy song that has great lyrics for a wedding… but clocks in somewhere around 7 minutes.
Fouth: Perhaps the most annoying/limiting: the recording quality had to be good. That knockedout pretty much all first generation Jamaican ska songs. While they really are awesome, the recording quality is generally pretty pitiful. This basically knocked out a good 35 to 40% of my collection.
Finally, and perhaps the trickiest of all: the song couldn’t have any easily heard or understood lyrics that would seem inappropriate for a wedding.
Combining all those factors really made it stunningly difficult to come up with an hour and a half or so worth of songs. I started (of course) with The Slackers. I have over 200 Slackers songs (between albums and live recordings), and they are far and away my favorite band, and have been ever since I first saw them oh so many years ago at the Wetlands. It seems scary now that they have 8 or 9 albums or whatever out — but I still remember the fact that it took them bloody forever to scrap together enough money for the first album — entitled appropriately enough “Better Late than Never.” However, going through songs from The Slackers, it’s pretty difficult to find “wedding appropriate” material.
Hell, perhaps their most popular song ever is called “Married Girl,”
but it’s all about having an affair with a married woman (key lyric: “Married girl, don’t you wanna… smoke a little marijuana… and think about what you’re gonna do to me…”). Great song. Catchy. Not, so good for a wedding.
Ok, but there must be other Slackers songs among the hundreds. Except… I began to notice that the Slackers don’t have love songs. They have heartbreak songs. Every one of them. A few months ago (after this whole process) I watched the recently released documentary on the Slackers, where Vic basically admits that. He notes that the love of his life dumped him in high school when he couldn’t write a love song about her. The best he could do was write a song about why he couldn’t write a love song about her. Oops.
Based on that experience, he wrote one of my favorite Slackers songs (and the first one I saw them perform live): Sarah. Key lyric (stated very clearly): “Girl you know I love you and I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Sarah! I’m always thinking of you… I’m so sorry I can’t make you my wife.” Oops. No good. And then you notice there are more songs in that vein. “No I don’t want no other girl… at least not for tonight.” Oops. “What I’m sorry for is all those wasted days and wasted ways that I loved you.” Yikes. “I’ll find another before this night’s over. She might not be you, I might not be sober…” Nope.
And, it wasn’t just the Slackers. One of the very best Pietasters songs is “Night Owl”, which sounds sorta like a love song if you’re not listening too closely to the lyrics, until you hit the chorus and they sing (oh so clearly): “I don’t love you no more… and one more thing, now listen here: I hate your guts. You ruined my life. Ba-ba-baby you’ll never be my wife.” Yeah, not quite wedding material.
Anyway.
Ok. So, I did finally put together a list and gave it to the DJ (there’s a post script to this, but you gotta get to the bottom to read it…).
Here’s some quick thoughts on each of the songs in the playlist.
“No Strangers Here” — The Robustos: Seemed appropriate for a wedding. About a gathering of people where everyone’s welcome. Plus, it’s the best Robustos song, showing off the lead singer’s vocals and is upbeat and catchy. Years back, I remember talking to Bucket about this amazing band he had found down in Georgia (I think) called the Robustos (Bucket pronounced it “Robooostos”). When their first album came out on Moon Satellite, I rushed to get it and was seriously disappointed. Just didn’t have anything special going on. Even on a classic standard like “Perfidia” the lead singer’s vocals seemed average. A couple years later, I spotted the second Robustos album in a bargain bin for $0.99 and figured I’d give it a shot. And it’s fantastic. The music is great. Plenty of soul. Fantastic vocals. I went back and listened to the first album… and it still sucks. Not sure what happened, but whatever they did for the second album worked.
“Take Me With You” — The Jumpstarts: These guys were awesome, though unfortunately went through a few too many lineup changes. Back when we had the radio show, the Jumpstarts were very cool about sending us their demos and all new recordings before anyone else had them, so we helped debut songs like this one on the radio. Again, great vocals (though I’m pretty sure this female singer left the band before their album even came out). The recording quality isn’t great, but had to include a Jumpstarts song somehow.
“Do You Know” — The Slackers: Aha! I did find a Slackers love song. This is actually one of my favorites. I saw them perform it the very first time I saw them, and had a copy of it on their “Special Potato” demo tape. However, for completely unknown reasons, they didn’t put it on their first (or second) album. On the first album, instead, they put the song “You Don’t Know I” which has a similar title and an identical opening (and is also sort of a love song, though it’s about falling in love with a girl he saw in an elevator, but couldn’t talk to). The demo version showed up on a European comp somewhere, but the recording quality isn’t great. This is the version they finally put on the third album “The Question.” I actually like the original version better, but the recording quality just wasn’t good enough.
“Thank You” — Hepcat: Check it out, kids. Rare Hepcat. Honestly, I think this is my favorite Hepcat tune, highlighting Alex’s vocals. And, yet, it doesn’t (as far as I know) appear on any Hepcat albums. It’s just on a comp of SoCal ska. Unfortunately, the levels on it are really low. But it’s such a good song (and it’s a love song, too) that I couldn’t leave it out.
“Kids” — USCB All-Stars: Okay, this one may even stump ska fans. I got this CD recently from Chuck Wren, and have been listening to it a lot, so that influenced the fact that I ended up with 3 songs from the album. I think the band’s from Sweden or something. I have no idea what USCB stands for, but they’ve got some catchy songs.
“I Don’t Know” — Blue Beat Stompers: Okay, so it’s a really long story for details (that actually involves how I met Korby, but we’ll skip that part), but I accidentally saw this band in Berkeley one night soon after I first moved to CA, and was blown away. Good trad ska, great vocals. Their album wasn’t as great as I’d hoped it would be (though, it’s still good). This is actually the only cover song on the album, but it’s a favorite, and the original Jamaican recording just isn’t great in terms of recording quality… so I went with the Stompers version.
“Subway Joe” — Skavoovie and the Epitones: Probably my favorite Skavoovie tune. It’s a cover of a fantastic (non-ska) song by Joe Bataan. Plus, it’s just a fun song. Not sure about the wedding appropriateness, given that it’s basically about getting beat up on the Subway, but…
“Night Before” — The Pietasters: A fun Pietasters song. Not actually sure if it’s really a love song or the opposite, but I figured that if I couldn’t figure it out after all these years, someone listening casually wouldn’t either. The other struggle on this one was which version to include. Before the Oolooloo album came out, there was a different version of this song released on a comp, and I always thought that it had a much better keyboard solo in the middle. But, I think I’ve gotten used to this one now, so I went with the album version.
“I Shall Be Released” — The Slackers: Well, since there wasn’t much else in the way of Slackers love songs, I just figured I’d grab a Bob Dylan cover. Not that many Dylan covers turned into ska songs, and the only other one I can think of is just awful (The Rude Boys doing “Blowing in the Wind” recorded in ‘63 or ‘64). Thinking about it now, the fact that this is a song about being in prison, it’s perhaps not really wedding appropriate. Also, that first line: “They say every man can be replaced.” Hmm. But, it’s soooo good. How could anyone complain?
“Reggae Got Soul” — Toots + Ken Boothe + Marcia Griffiths — I’m a big Toots fan, not just because of the great music, but the one time I got to meet him, he was incredibly cool, and recorded a promo for the radio show where (right after having performed a 3.5 hour (!!!) show with a soar throat!) he pulled out the most amazing “Give it to me one time!” yell (a la 54-46). In retrospect, not sure why I didn’t include 54-46, considering it’s so catchy. I think maybe I was worried about the recording quality. Which is also why I didn’t include any 60’s Toots recordings. The two in this list come from his recent “True Love” album where he re-recorded his classics with famous musicians from a variety of genres. For this song, though, he pulled in Ken Boothe and Marcia Griffiths, which seems appropriate.
“Heart Attack” — USCB All Stars: Another USCB Allstars song. Just struck me as catchy. Not much else to say about it.
“Every Afternoon” — The Pietasters: I’d been listening to “Turbo” a bit around this time, which is why there are two songs from that album. The Pietasters have gone through a few different phases, but I tend to think they’re at their best when they tend more towards the Motowny sound. Of course, listening to this song as I write this, I’m realizing it’s actually about stalking someone. Oops.
“Bow Bow Song” — One Groovy Coconut: Such a catchy song. I don’t think people can help but bounce along to it. Not much else to say about this band. It had some ex-Scofflaws in it, but never did very much. This was about the only song on the album that was any good, but it’s super catchy. Follow the bouncing ball and sing…
“Mama Bird” — Go Jimmy Go: Probably not the best Go Jimmy Go song, but the first one of theirs that I heard, and I still like it. I liked these guys well before I realized their original (occasional?) bass player was actually the brother of this girl I knew back in school who used to hang out with me and Nat and make fun of us for liking ska.
“Bin Waitin” — The Slackers: Another enjoyable non-love song from the Slackers. Though, now I’m realizing (uh oh) this is actually the second Slackers song I’ve included that’s actually about prison. Hmm. Bad subconscious, bad.
“Time Tough” — Toots + Ryan Adams: Not really going to comment on Ryan Adams recording with Toots here. I’m just a big fan of this song, and since it’s off the album recorded with all these other musicians, that’s what we get. Yet another one with lyrics that, in retrospect, probably weren’t all that wedding appropriate. Weird. I’ll chalk it up to pre-wedding stress.
“Old Man of the Mountain” — Skavoovie and the Epitones: Another personal favorite. I was hesitant to put this one on the list, as I thought that it was too long (almost five minutes) or too weird, but it’s just really good — and given that the wedding *was* up on a mountain, it just seemed appropriate. Plus, it’s the type of song that tends to get people dancing.
“Give In Give Up” — USCB All-Stars: Yeah, as I said, I was listening to these guys a lot back in June. Still a good song. Funky.
“Lightning & Thunder” — The Aggrolites: Didn’t have the latest Aggrolites album at that point (got it about 3 days before the wedding), and the best song on this album we used as our first dance song, so I wanted another Aggrolites song. I think I sort of picked at random from their first two albums, as they’re all pretty good.
“Parakeet” — Skavoovie and the Epitones: One of the few instrumentals on the list. Went back and forth between this one and “Cornbread,” both of which are great Skavoovie instrumental tunes. I think Parakeet may be a bit more upbeat.
“Rachel” — The Pietasters: Another Pietasters track from Turbo. Not much to say about it, other than that I like it. Has a little more of a “rock” drum sound that the band got into in some of its albums.
“Once In Awhile” — After Hours: A random assortment of top SoCal ska musicians got together to do this little side project. Mentally, I file this one as a combination of See Spot and Hepcat (who provides the vocals). A bit mellow, but figured we needed *some* “slow songs” in there.
“Love Ya Mama” — Skandalous All Stars: Now here’s an album (Age of Insects) that never got any attention at all, unfortunately. The Skandalous All Stars were an “all-star” band of mostly NYC ska types, who did two albums of covers that were just so-so. Apparently, they had signed a 3-album deal with Shanachie, so they had to do a third album. But rather than actually doing another album with the same cast, the two Vic R’s (Ruggiero and Rice) who are the kings of the NYC ska scene just wrote up and performed a bunch of their own songs. It’s like the lost Slackers + Vic Rice album. Sorta. But most people who had heard the first two Skandalous albums just skipped it over. I know I did until someone told me the details. There are a few clunkers on the album, but a whole bunch of fantastic songs — and this is one of the fantastic ones. Most of the songs seem to be telling the story (I think) of a dustbowl farmer during a time of trouble (The Age of Insects). How two city boy musicians ended up writing such an album, I have no clue.
“Ton Tok” — Jump with Joey: If you talk to a ska fan from the mid-nineties, Jump with Joey was this sort of mythical beast. The LA band, who spent a few years performing every Wednesday night at the King King club in LA, had (for some completely unfathomal reason) only released albums in Japan. If you wanted one of Jump with Joey’s three albums, you had to pony up like $50 or $60 via the internet (thank you internet!) and get it shipped to you. For a few years, I debated whether or not to do it. Those who possessed the albums insisted it was totally worth it. Then, just as I was finally about to give in and order it… all three albums got rereleased in the US (on Ryko, no less!). Lots of good songs on all three albums, but “Ska Ba” is my favorite album, and Ton Tok always struck me as one of the catchier songs on it. Not everyone agrees with me, but, hey, it was my wedding, not yours.
“My Heart & Soul” — The Robustos: Another Robustos tune from their second album. Seemed wedding appropriate, and a great song too.
“Till the End of Time” — The Scofflaws: Okay, this one’s cheating. I have to admit, I realized as I was putting this list together that there wasn’t a single Scofflaws song in the bunch. That seemed unfortunate, since the Scofflaws were who got me into ska so many years ago. So I went through the first two albums, and discovered the Scofflaws aren’t great at love songs either. This one’s a good one, though, and I went with the live recording (which I actually attended, thanks to Glen) as the Scofflaws have to be experienced live to be fully appreciated. Unfortunately, I don’t think the live album they released really was that great. Somewhere in a box I’ve got a bunch of bootleg tapes that actually sound much better. Someday, maybe I’ll convert them.
“In Between Times” — Go Jimmy Go: One of my favorite Go Jimmy Go tunes, and seemed appropriate for a wedding.
“No Worries” — Hepcat: Another Hepcat favorite (this one from an actual album, though). This one comes from their best and most well-known album. I think it even got a shout out in Rolling Stone (which for a real ska band is pretty much unheard of).
“Sugar Sugar” — Doreen Shaffer: A ska classic, performed by a bunch of folks, but this is one of my favorite versions. Doreen Shaffer, backed by Dr. Ring Ding & His Senior All-Stars. This one also had special meaning, as our dog (originally my wife’s dog) is named Sugar, and I gave her (my wife, not the dog) a copy of this song soon after we started dating. Yup, corny modern guy thing: give the girl a song, but you know… it apparently worked.
“Love Isn’t Love”: — The Aggrolites: Okay, this wasn’t on the playlist either, but it was our First Dance song, so wanted to include it here. My favorite Aggrolites song (and I’m not alone in thinking that, either). It’s a great song and works as a love song. Plus, with a little bit of training and practice, you can even learn to dance halfway decently to it (well, maybe not halfway, but somewhere above total novice).
Okay… for the none of you who actually made it through this post. Here’s the amusing post script: the DJ lost the CD and didn’t bring it with him. I actually had brought a backup copy, but left it in the car, down at the base of the mountain, and by the time the DJ realized he didn’t have the CD itself (he had the case), there wasn’t enough time to go down and get it. The only song from the list that actually got played was “Love Isn’t Love” for the first dance (which, luckily was on a separate CD). So, after all that… it really was a mostly ska-free wedding. But, it really didn’t matter in the end anyway.
Ok, I’ll admit that I was a bit unsure of the actual usefulness of Twitter, but a couple months ago I figured I’d give it another shot, and it’s been growing on me. The first thing about it that struck me was how incredible it was to follow the Iowa caucuses via Twitter. People who were actually taking part in the caucuses were reporting in real-time on what was being said in the caucuses, and it made it clear that there was a real groundswell of support for Obama. What was most amazing was contrasting that to CNN, which reported a statistical dead heat between the three leading candidates quite late into the night, before Obama’s sizable lead emerged. Yet, watching the real-time reports via Twitter, it seemed clear that there was strong Obama support. That’s only one data point, but it was kind of neat.
Now, a second useful Twitter example. I’m not sure how long ago, but a while back I became an email acquaintance with Whitney McNamara. I’m not sure when/how it happened. I think he may have commented on Techdirt a few times with pretty intelligent thoughts, or maybe sent in some stories/feedback. Just a couple weeks ago, he started following me on Twitter, and I started following him as well. Last week, he mentioned that he was going to Mamoun’s Falafel for lunch with his Dad, which set off a wave of nostalgia for me. I love Mamoun’s. Back in high school, Yuval and I used to go visit record stores in the Village and get Mamoun’s for lunch. It was a pretty regular ritual. I do still try to go to Mamoun’s whenever I’m in Manhattan, though it’s increasingly rare that I need to be anywhere near the Village.
Yet, when I saw Whit’s Twitter about Mamoun’s, I wrote my own about my Mamoun’s obsession, noting that I was hoping to go this week, since I was in NYC. A few twitters/direct messages back and forth, and yesterday, we were sitting in Mamoun’s enjoying the best falafel sandwiches money can buy and having an interesting conversation about online communities. It worked out perfectly, as I had a hole in my schedule and no lunch plans. Here’s his version of the story as well. It’s pretty clear that this never would have happened without Twitter.
Without Twitter, I probably wouldn’t have remembered that he was in NY, thought to get together with him, known that he liked Mamoun’s (or even convinced myself to make a trip down to Mamoun’s). So, while I’m still not totally convinced that Twitter is as amazing as some make it out to be, I’m beginning to understand the areas where it has potential.
As mentioned, I’ve been in Edinburgh, Scotland for the week, thanks to Mike Clouser over at the Edinburgh-Stanford Link. It’s really been a blast. I gave three separate talks (one on market research, one on economics and business models and one on the history of Techdirt) and then we had a Techdirt Greenhouse over at a local incubator, the Alba Innovation Centre (which is a bit tricky to get to apparently). The students have all been fantastic, generating lots of interesting discussions. The local entrepreneurs I’ve met with have been great as well. While there’s definitely some concern from folks about entrepreneurship in Scotland, there does seem to be a fair amount of energy and buzz around.
However, following in Mark’s footsteps, given the opportunity to wear a kilt, I couldn’t refuse. Timing-wise, it was fantastic. January 25th is Robert Burns Night, or more accurately, a Rabbie Burns Supper. It’s difficult to find something to compare it to in the US, but possibly a mix of July 4th and Thanksgiving. It involves celebrating the Scots “national bard,” Robert Burns, who lived in the 18th century. I’d imagine, for most Americans, all they know of Burns is the song Auld Lang Syne, which people sing on New Years and, it turns out, to close out a Burns Supper.
The kilt is surprisingly complex, though, honestly, it may have been the shoes and socks part that were the most complex. You wear special shoes with excessively long laces, and you have to twist them and then tie them around your calf in a rather specific manner. You also wear a dagger stuck in the socks (you know, just in case the British attack). The kilt itself is quite warm, though walking through Edinburgh on a cold, windy, rainy night still isn’t recommend. You definitely feel the breeze on your knees.
The supper itself is a traditional Scottish dinner of haggis, champit tatties and bashed neeps. People often seem to joke about haggis as a Scottish delicacy, but most of the folks we spoke to admitted that you really only eat it at a Burns dinner, and some of the folks at the table also admitted that they really had been scared to eat haggis for many years. It actually was quite good. Very peppery, but tasty. We actually went to two separate Burns Suppers. Clouser had implied to me that these were strictly black-tie affairs — you either wore a tux or a kilt. It turned out that this was a slight exaggeration. Or, rather, a fantastic exaggeration. In fact, the first Burns event we went to was at the university, and was the “International Post-Graduate Students” Burns Night. That meant that they were all foreign students, most of whom had never been to a Burns Night… and many of whom came dressed as, well, students. Jeans and sweaters were pretty common. We were a bit out of place in our kilts, but it was fine.
Then we moved on to the second, much more traditional Burns Supper. One of Clouser’s old frat brothers is married to a woman who is a member of the local Conservative Party and recently ran for office here. So they got us tickets to the local Conservative Party Burns Supper. Amusingly, everyone we mentioned this to either winced or audibly expressed their dislike for the Conservatives/Tories. Apparently, they’re not particularly popular around these parts. Either way, we showed up, and were still one of only a few folks in kilts. People were a lot more dressed up, but mostly suits, rather than kilts. There were a few kilts, but I think the number of Americans wearing kilts (3) tied the number of Scottish people wearing kilts. Even the former Edinburgh city council member sitting next to me told me he’d never worn a kilt. One of the Scottish entrepreneurs I’d met also told me he’d never worn a kilt.
And, true to what Mark mentioned when he wore a kilt, if you walk through Edinburgh in a kilt, people will ask to get their picture taken with you. Clouser and I were standing outside our hotel in the kilts, waiting for a cab when a group of Irish girls asked if they could get their photos taken with us. At first they thought we were doormen for the hotel. Then they realized we were Americans, but, of course, still wanted a photo.
The actual dinner was a blast. The address to a Haggis was fantastic, done by someone who clearly takes the role of entertaining the guests seriously. This same gent later did an impressively theatrical recitation of Burns’ version of John Barleycorn, pausing to drink a rather large glass of whiskey at each mention of Barleycorn’s name (with one extra at the line “And drank it round and round”). How he was still standing at the end of the night, I have no clue. The other addresses, both the “to the lassies” and “to the laddies” were quite amusing as well. As one of the links above describes, both toasts are “witty, but never offensive, and should always end on a concilliatory note.”
All in all, quite an experience. Prash came up from London, and we dragged him along. He had no idea what he was getting into (he chose not to wear a kilt). Prash and I ended up at one table (Clouser got shipped off to another), and we had a very interesting dinner conversation, about a bunch of different topics from Edinburgh to local politics to India (Prash had just returned from a trip there, and the couple sitting next to us had honeymooned there). All in all… lots of fun. And now I need to go find Prash (staying in a hotel across the street) and figure out how we can try that Scottish delicacy, the deep-fried Mars Bar, as suggested by Mark as well.
So my hotel room in Edinburgh is tiny, but decent enough. I realized that it was missing things I’ve come to expect in a hotel room, such as an alarm clock, but was a bit surprised to see a note saying that I could schedule a wakeup call through the television. I’m fairly used to hotels having interactive TV systems using LodgeNet, which seems to be the standard interactive TV solution, but I don’t recall them offering a wakeup/alarm offering. So, I was a bit surprised when I turned on the little TV in the corner here and discovered what appears to be interactive TV using ancient DOS applications:
For whatever it’s worth, the wake up system actually works quite well. It turns on the TV and very, very gradually turns up the volume. It has helped me gradually wake up each day without any kind of shock to the system. I’m actually now thinking that something like this would be a lot nicer at home than the standard super-annoying alarm clock I use. DOS or no DOS, it’s pretty slick.
Man. Wasn’t expecting this when I opened my BoingBoing feed today:
There are a ton of little hidden ska jokes in both the song and the video. Someone had a lot of fun creating that. As a sidenote, in my dealings with him, at least, Alex was one of the nicest, coolest people I met in the ska world way back when — perhaps even cooler than the character he later played in the movie Swingers. Though, still not sure this would have actually made me clean my room as a kid (sorry, Mom).
And yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve got a few posts I’m working on, including a big one about music, but it may take some time to finish. Not that anyone’s reading any more anyway…
It’s funny that in all the time I’ve lived in California, I’ve barely known any of my neighbors. Perhaps it’s been my fault for being anti-social, but it just seems like I always end up living places where neighbors pretty much keep to themselves. Apparently, that’s no longer the case. Following our Halloween fun with the neighbors (and, yes, the caramel covered apples were delicious), we’ve had yet another enjoyable gathering with some more neighbors.
Just after running some errands on Sunday, we heard a knock at the door, and met Bob, who apparently lives diagonally across the street. He welcomed us to the neighborhood and then let us know that he’s an amateur astronomer, and that he was planning to set up a telescope in his driveway later that evening to check out the Holmes Comet that’s been in the news lately. We agreed to come by around 7:30, and just as we were getting ready to go he knocked again to let us know he was set up (we were surprised that he bothered to come remind us, as he needed to climb up our fairly steep driveway).
It was a pretty big telescope, and the view looked pretty much like the picture above (though, a little fuzzier). It was pretty cool. The next door neighbors were there, but we also got to meet a few other neighbors and find out a little bit more about the neighborhood. We thought our driveway-mate Frances had been here a while, since she’s been living next door for about 30 years, but Bob’s got her beat by another 10 years. He pointed out that there were two others in the neighborhood who have been here longer. It seems like the neighborhood mix is basically people who have been here a super long time and then a bunch of young families who moved to the neighborhood in the last five years. No matter what, feels nice to be welcomed in to the neighborhood.
So, DiPasquo and Robin got married last Friday, and while it was a lovely and fun wedding in many ways, it may be most memorable for the… er… somewhat unplanned pre-ceremony group event known as “everyone search through the grass for the missing wedding band.”
While apparently the rings were originally tied to the young ring bearer’s pillow, somehow they came undone right before the ceremony. Someone saw Dan’s ring fall, so that was picked up quickly, but Robin’s was already long gone. So, a large segment of the wedding attendees spent 15 to 20 minutes combing the grass for the elusive wedding band to no avail.
A substitute was procured and the rest of the event went off without a hitch. Dan sent me a text message on Sunday saying that his brother-in-law rented a metal detector and they spent four hours Sunday morning… and finally found it! Damn. Four hours with a metal detector? I’m not sure I would have lasted that long.
Update: Aha! Mer put up a video montage from the wedding that include a bit of tape on everyone searching through the grass:
When I lived in Foster City, every year at Halloween the house would be mobbed by kids trick-or-treating. It was a non-stop barrage of costumed kids, and required quite a lot of candy. I don’t know if things were organized, but Foster City is a very planned community, and my neighborhood was very residential (and very flat). There was a shopping center nearby and I once drove by on Halloween and saw the entire parking lot filled with trick-or-treaters. It seemed like other towns must have bussed their kids in. Perhaps they came from Belmont or San Carlos.
We lived in Belmont for the last two Halloweens and we ended up with a grand total of zero trick-or-treaters both years. After six or seven years of the Foster City mobs, this caught me by surprise. However, in retrospect, there were potentially a few reasons why this could have made sense. The biggest issue was that there really weren’t that many kids in our neighborhood. Second, our house probably felt a little out of the way for the kids, as it was either at the top of a big hill or partway down a hill that you would have to climb back up. So, it probably wasn’t worth it. Finally, that old house was huge and had been broken up into some apartments, so it wasn’t clear at all to visitors where the “front door” was — which may have resulted in a fair amount of confusion.
When we moved to San Carlos last month, even though it was only a mile away, I started to think that this year we would see plenty of kids. First of all, there are a lot more kids in the neighborhood. Many of our neighbors seem to have young kids. The house is walking distance to a bunch of schools, so kids are walking around here all the time. The biggest indicator though was the decorations. I mean, I’m used to seeing people gear up and go all out for Christmas decorations, but you usually don’t see that much effort (if any) going into Halloween decorations. Except here in our neighborhood apparently. It certainly wasn’t every house, but a noticeable percentage of houses had really involved and detailed Halloween decorations. There were huge witches and spiders and cobwebs. More than a few homes had their entire front lawns converted into fake graveyards (some with bones sticking out of the ground as well). Witches crashing into things (garage, telephone pole) were common. It was definitely impressive and it made me think that this neighborhood takes its Halloween seriously.
We bought some candy and I rushed home from meetings in the city to make sure I was around when kids came… and then… no one came. I think that something may have been going on at one of the schools nearby (I could hear the loudspeaker), but no kids stopped by at all. It certainly could be that it’s kind of a pain to get to our front door (you need to walk up a very steep driveway, and the front door is on the side of the house rather than the front). However, when I was a kid, things like steep driveways were never a deterrent to trick-or-treating. We had a pretty strict methodology: ring the doorbell of every house in the neighborhood. It was pretty effective. Perhaps, though, times have changed. One thought is that the lack of Halloween decorations was a signal not to bother.
We did finally get one knock on the door however. I was munching on a post-dinner apple and there was a tapping at the door. So I grabbed the bag of KitKats and swung the door open. It was our next door neighbors with their daughter (she’s probably around 2 years old or so). We’ve met them a few times and they seem quite nice. So I’m all set to give the kid a KitKat and they say “Wait, we’re here for a ‘deconstructionist’ Halloween — we have something for you!” And with that, our neighbor reaches into a canvas bag and pulls out two delicious-looking caramel & nut covered apples. Turns out that one of our neighbors a few doors down is a chocolatier, and made a bunch of these caramel apples. I’m not quite sure why the neighbor three doors down gave the neighbor one door down caramel apples to give out, but that’s what happened. And that was that. We didn’t give out a single piece of candy (most of the candy is still wrapped up, so we’ll return it), but we got two caramel-and-nut covered apples. Of course, since I was halfway through an apple already, it felt wrong to start eating the caramel one… so it’ll have to wait for another night.
In the meantime, it’s an interesting welcome to the neighborhood. Rather than giving out treats, we actually ended up with some.
So, we’re finishing up dinner tonight, and just as I stand up to pick up the dishes, the whole house starts shaking along with a low rumble. It sounded like a big truck was driving by, but the truck sounded really close and really loud… There was a brief discussion: “Is this an earthquake?” “Hmm… yeah, it’s an earthquake.” At which point my wonderful wife, still seated in her chair as I move towards the relative safety of a doorway, starts looking around calmly at the walls of our new house and repeating the mantra: “don’t fall down! don’t fall down! don’t fall down!”
It worked. The house did not fall down (yet).
We took bets. She thought there was no way it was more than a 4.5. I was originally going to say 5.1, but she talked me down to a 4.8. I think I was using the “Price is Right” strategy of going just slightly over, knowing that I’d “win” for anything higher. Turns out it was a 5.6, which someone said is the biggest since the big earthquake in ‘89. In almost 10 years in California, this is actually only the 3rd California earthquake I’ve felt (I also felt one in NY when I was a kid).
Anyway, I know I’ve been meaning to do more music posts, and I actually have written a few good ones out in my mind, but they tend to be longer and I don’t have nearly enough time these days, so they’ll have to wait for a down moment. But soon after the earthquake hit, I suddenly started thinking about ska songs that used “earthquake” in the title (no, there’s no reason why… it just happened). I immediately hit on the Prince Buster song and the Crazy Baldhead song (which is actually called Heartbreak, but refers to a “California earthquake” in the chorus). I’m surprised it actually took me a few minutes to come up with the obvious one: Hepcat’s “Earthquake & Fire” which is unfortunately all too accurate of California this particular week. I thought the Aggrolites might have an earthquake song too, but I think the song I was thinking of was “Lightning and Thunder.” Not close enough…
So anyway, a short 3 song playlist to listen to when you’re hoping your house doesn’t fall down:
Also, a random other note… while the Prince Buster song came to mind immediately, the tune I started humming in my head was actually “Shaking up Orange Street” rather than “Earthquake” (which also talks about Orange Street). But, for the playlist, I’m using the real Earthquake song, even if Shaking up Orange Street is a much better (and more accessible) song. Oddly, earlier today, after a random train of thought, I’d pulled out an old Madness live album and had been listening to the song “The Prince,” which is about Prince Buster, and mentions Orange Street. Also… in doing a search through my music files, I discovered I hadn’t converted Buster’s “Earthquake” to mp3 from CD, though I was sure I had it somewhere (I’ve got a ton of Prince Buster stuff around). I still haven’t unpacked my CDs from the move, and they’re currently scattered in a relatively large number of big boxes organized in no particular order. However, I took a chance, opened one box, and a Prince Buster CD containing Earthquake was right at the top of the box. Freaky. Maybe we can just assume that the actual earthquake shook it loose so it would be easy to find…
Well, my last request for help from all two of my readers didn’t work out so well, but I can’t resist trying again. As mentioned, as a wedding present, Audris put together a really cool cookbook with recipes (and stories and well wishes) from all our friends and relatives. We’ve actually been using some of those recipes (thanks!) but now we could use some more help. We moved into our new house and have discovered it has a cool fig tree in the front. So, for a couple of weeks, we’ve been eating fresh figs. But, plain old figs are starting to get boring… so, anyone got some good fig recipes?
