Hi, How Are We?


Coherent posts, eventually.
First: pay off the sleep deficit.

Books that I am reading:
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson
Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan

Books I have been meaning to read:
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
History of the French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle (yeah, right)

I saw Wilco last night at the [Insert Corporate Bank Sponsor] Pavilion in Boston. It was pretty good. I saw them last summer at Metropolis in Montreal from about 20 feet away, and my seats in L36 section 6 didn't quite size up to that occasion, but they played a badass show which only vaguely resembled anything from their mediocre and disappointing new album. The new songs took on a fresh and more vibrant life live, with $$ Nels Cline performance on everything, except for when his guitar wasn't turned up in the PA on part of one song (slops).

Also, for the two encores, a couple of gentlemen moved in front of me and decided to hold a jovial conversation whilst not applauding songs for the remainder of the performance. I would like to address that annoyance in list form:
1. Shut the fuck up.
2. [Insert Corporate Bank Sponsor] Pavilion you need to turn your PA up for those of us in L36 section 6.
3. What the fuck, guys. One or more of you paid money to be there, and you chose it as the time to converse? Do you think what you have to say could possibly be more worthwhile than the sounds made by 6 professionals who incited hundreds of people to congregate in the same place at the same time? Maybe you should get a talk radio show, because those guys are dicks, too.
4. It was obvious the one guy was a dick when the only song he acknowledged in any way was from A.M., Wilco's first and least original work. I don't care how pretentious I may be; at least I don't chat it the fuck up during shows.
5. Shut the fuck up, go fuck yourselves, and get the fuck out of the [Insert Corporate Bank Sponsor] Pavilion if you don't want to be there.


I checked out Iowa, here is what it looks like.

Also, I turn 21 on Monday, which I'm told, is the legal drinking age.

My trip to the Giuliani headquarters with Taylor was unsuccessful, yet eventful. The passenger van and two Escalades out front were indicative of something unusual afoot. We entered and spoke to two sharply dressed, confused twenty-somethings who informed us that the Mayor himself was in a meeting and about to head to a speech, and that there would be no one in the office to respond to our suspicious inquiries. Being a shaggy-haired college student in a Republican campaign office is like the first day of middle school; everyone looks at you funny and nobody wants to be friends. It seemed to me that our friends in the Grand Old Party were a bit distrustful of our stated intentions, and may have been more accommodating had we donned well-pressed suits with pin stripes. Feeling despondent and dejected, we decided to wait outside in what was quickly becoming a sadistically humid and sweltering day, hoping to at least get a photo with the candidate to serve as defense of our unique situation. Rudy was running about an hour late apparently, and we were going to have to be quick. Apparent big wigs with good grooming, beaming, sauntered past us after confused and awkward glances, and then Mr. Giuliani himself. “Mr. Mayor,” I pleaded, “could we get a couple pictures real quick?” Unenthused, he complied while his aides reminded us what super big hurry this super important gentleman was in. The photos were snapped without incident, and that concluded my visit with Rudy Giuliani.

-live from Iowa-

Hi.
I'm in Waverly Iowa being a "First in the Nation Scholar." It involves analysis of various aspects of the 2008 presidential campaign. We are at Wartburg College doing some learning and talking to people and asking people questions and doing field trips and other great and fun things.
We went to the literal field of dreams(tm).
There is lots of corn.
And now they are closing the computer lab.
Bye.

I went to a Subway sandwich shop today to get a Subway sandwich; inside, on the wall, to the right of the cash register was a framed certificate stating that the location won the award for cleanliness in 1995. Upon reading this, I carefully calculated how many years it has been since 1995. Satisfied, I ordered my sandwich.




Today in class ( a summer class about the presidency and the primaries and other such business) we were looking at some polls some dude (dr. dude) had done. I don't understand why the polls on primary candidates for president are including people like Chuck Hagel, George Pataki, Wesley Clark, and Als Gore and Sharpton. Their respective non-candidacies and non-campaigns make their inclusion in these and other polls somewhat puzzling. Is it just because they haven't ruled it out? I don't get it. Wayne Brady hasn't dismissed a 2008 bid. Political polling is supposed to be scientific and as precise as possible. Hey people-who-do-polling, why not only ask people if they're going to vote for who's running for president? It would be a big help.

First: new live UTCP song up here and here
bookmark them, there will be more to come.
Well gee, it's been about a week and I haven't put anything useful up. A short story:

New Jersey
I drove to Florence, New Jersey to pick up Katie so that she could come see the UTCP's show and hang out with all the other friends she has up here. To be perfectly honest, the moment I crossed the line into NJ, the air started to smell; sort of like a wastewater treatment plant with a hint of garlic. There are far too many cars, and proportionally far too many roads in the area. I had the pleasure of exploring the NJ Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, the latter of which was quite clogged with traffic ("traffic" here in New Hampshire means that you're any more than four cars from the stopsign). Her house was about a quarter mile from the Delware River, which I thought was pretty cool. The area was quaint and suburban, if a little crowded compared to here. One of the first things I noticed was that nobody seemed to have any driveways. They all parked their cars on the street, which I've never seen before. Around here, the more rural houses have driveways the size of small landing strips. There is a slight difference in population density. If you're interested in the actual figures:

Population Density:
Concord, NH: 244.4/km²
Florence Township, NJ:74.6/km²

Ok so I was wrong. It turns out I live in a more dense city than Florence, NJ. But statewide:

NH: 53.20/km²
NJ: 438/km²

New Jersey is in fact the most densely populated state in the union, and New Hampshire ranks twentieth. The drive took about seven hours each way.



Unrelated Photos:



P.S.
If you're interested in knowing in a general way what it's like to have my job, go here.

Brian, Cameron, my brother and I recorded a new song, "Lunch Time", which took about 4 days to do. It sounds quite good. The instrumentation is:
Acoustic Guitar/Lead vocals/Kung-Fu Hampster: Brian; Bass Guitar: Cameron; Electric guitar/backing vocals: Me, Drums: Mike.
At about 1:40 we managed to integrated the combined reading of page 132 (second paragraph) of several novels into the track. You can listen to or download it right here. If you're Dima, you already have it.

Today after a prolonged period of sitting around thinking about how tortureously hot it is outside, and how few clean clothes I had, I realized that a good solution encompassing both of those factors would be to wash my clothes and hang them outside on the line. Yes, the old fashioned way. No lint collectors, no ventilation ducts, no noise, no dryer fires, and most importantly, no electricity expended. Electric clothes dryers take up about five to ten percent of your energy bill. If you hang out your clothes, as I did here...


for the price of a rack, clothesline, and a few of these handy pins, you can dry your laundry using the free power of the Sun. You will save money, exert a little energy of your own, and reduce pollution. Precipitation is the only limiter. In the winter, you can dry your clothes indoors on a small rack, or (carefully) dry them outside. Any high school chemistry student can affirm this. A great resource on hanging out your clothes and links for the necessary accesories is Project Laundry List, a group run by my good friend and activist Alex Lee. Think twice next time you turn on your dryer when it's 80 degrees and sunny. Lastly, here's a picture I took of my self in the bathroom mirror.




PS. The show last night only paid 10 dollars. Time to get a real job.

By request of Dmitriy, the only person who will ever read this, this photograph did not involve any photoshop trickery or editing. It was taken in my freshman dorm room which was lit only by christmas lights, as I asked my good friend Sarge to sit still in a chair. I donned some dark clothes and used my handy LED flashlight on my cell phone to write "POO" in the air for a 15 second exposure. Here you see the results. Questions? Comments? Click below. Though I know you won't, and if you do, you'll be Dmitriy and I'm talking to you right now anyway.

First: anyone who reads this can comment on it down below each entry where, oddly enough, it says "comment". You don't have to be a registered member of anything to do it; please do if you feel so inclined. Insults are appreciated.

Today I played a show with the A&B Wrecking Company (sponsored by Strings and Things Music) for an American Cancer Society event at the New Hampshire Technical Institute, known locally as "the tech", which was still a little flooded.
Of course, they had to have a DJ too, which just created a battle between the band and the DJ as to who was going to make noise when. I ended up sitting in the wind and cold with my bass in hand and my amp politely on "mute" as the theme to "Rocky" (I'm serious) and several other over-played hits from the 1970s were played to get the party started. A word about Disc Jockeys:

I play in a band. I play in several bands. I've done so for many years. In doing so I have carried quite literally, tons of equipment, practiced for weeks, and dealt with many technical problems including, but not limited to: on several occasions not even having electricity and being severly shocked. Being a musician is not easy, and being good a good one is even harder; also you tend to make very little money, and many people want DJs more than they want bands. Today's DJ plugs in his/her laptop, buys a few PA speakers, a microphone, a couple swirly lights, and makes 500 bucks to play "Stand By Me" for 50 year olds who pretend they're still happily married. These DJs for some reason feel that they themselves are somehow specially qualified to download songs off of limewire and operate windows media player. I am a musician, a person with the creative capacity to write and perform music for specific events. I can set up and tear down quickly. I have played with large bands in very small spaces. I am too often told to "please turn it down a little bit" or "do you mind if I make a quick announcement?" The whole while I am expected to smile, act very professional, and wear a collared shirt. At the end, if we're lucky, a group of 5 might get paid as much as the one DJ with a laptop and a disco ball. Have I made the unfairness clear enough? I am a very frustrated person.

Well there was sun today. Yes, sun. Remember that large 74% hydrogen sphere with the mass of 332,950 Earths which is the source of all life of which we are aware? (Thank you, wikipedia) Well it made a brief come back for most of today. People were crawling out of their flooded basements and rubbing their eyes in disbelief. I know I was. The Concord Monitor's Mark Travis puts it more cleverly:

On Channel 9 this morning, meteorologist Josh Judge showed a graphic explaining what the sun is. (For the record, it's a bright star that shines in the daytime sky.) And at the Beanstalk store on Route 106 in Loudon, the talk at the counter was about calling 911 to report a strange object in the sky.

I'm not the only one who noticed.

Also in today's news I rode my bike to the library and renewed my card, and decided that Gatorade® tastes better when diluted with an equal amount of water. Here is the product in question:Gatorade Frost® "Glacier Freeze®" ingredients: Water, sucrose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, salt, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, ester gum, blue 1.

I saw the syrup with two "-ose"es before it and wanted to water it down.

It's raining now.

Here is the flood situation:
and there are some good photos from around the area, including some i've submitted, at this site

Bow, NH...this is normally a very small brook.

Bow, NH near the end of Interstate 89

Bow, NH Route 3A

Concord, NH Clinton Street...this officer was at first not happy to see me, as I approached on foot with camera and tripod she stepped out of the car and stood in my way. I asked, as I planned to anyway, "How far can I go?", "right here", she said, which was very far away. The concern was that the road was likely to fall apart. I said "okay well I can't get anything good from here so I'll go somewhere else." "Well you can go up to that driveway there but that's it", so I was able to get some okay shots, these guys were with a third person with a camera who was also allowed where to where I was. We were special.

Paraphrase from the 2nd person from the left:
"All these people who toss their cigarette butts and don't recycle this is it all coming right back to you."

Bow, NH Route 3A

Stay dry.

After my fifth consecutive rainy weekend in Montreal, my first glimpse of home is this.



Floods. Roads closed. The pump's running in the basement. The internet, and it's usually right about these things, doesn't forsee the rain stopping any time within the next ten days. After those ten days? Only god knows. There may not be an eleventh day. This could be it. Rain until all the damned pot holes are finally filled and we can't breathe anymore because, well, we're under water.
In the mean time here are some outtakes from the big city. It was raining hard most of the time so I only took the camera with me once.

Oh, and welcome to my blog.