A few days ago we watched a movie called The Guitar. ( SPOILERS )

I hereby announce that I am starting a public feud with the band Backpack from Goleta, CA. I have been told that band feuds are good for publicity, and all publicity is good. Why Backpack, you may ask? They don't seem to be a very strategic target; given that they only have 80 Myspace friends and we have over 1500, they will surely gain more from this feud than we will, right? Well I'll tell you why Backpack:

Friday night we arrived at the House Of Shields at precisely the time we were told to. We got straight to work setting up our equipment, because we are a band that values professionalism and punctuality. As soon as I had gotten my bass set up and properly tuned, a guy in a dress walked up to me. This being San Francisco, I didn't give it a second thought. He said he was in the opening band and asked if he could use my bass amp. Nor did this sound like an unusual request; bands share amps all the time, although normally this is planned out in advance, not 1/2 an hour before the show. Naturally I said yes, you can use my amp, no problem. Then he asked if he could borrow my bass. Sharing amps is common and expected, asking to play someone's instrument is almost taboo, especially among strangers. It's like sharing a bowl of soup with someone you don't know and using the same spoon. It's just not done. However, as I am a magnanimous bass player, in the spirit of communal music I *reluctantly* agreed.

So they played their set - nothing special, the same bland tuneless indie rock you can hear in any bar in San Francisco on any given night. They had 5 or 6 friends there pretending to enjoy themselves. The rest of us politely listened and clapped at the appropriate points. Afterward I went up to the bass player and said "hey man, nice job" as one does in those situations. Since all of us in the Corner Laughers had sat through their set and been supportive, it seemed that Backpack would afford us the same degree of respect, especially since they had shown up INSTRUMENTLESS and expected to use ours, without ever asking us in advance. You would think that, but NO. They all LEFT THE BAR as soon as they were done, and took their 5 friends with them. Rarely in my life have I seen such measure of rampant douchiness, and I've met (and probably played in) many, many douchey bands.

The rest of the night went so brilliantly that I almost forgot about Backpack's massive insult to us all. We got the dance party going and threw in some Michael Jackson tributes and moonwalks, as promised. I almost feel sorry for Backpack's 5 friends. They missed out on a good time. So there you go, the feud is ON.

This year marks my 15th anniversary of moving to the Bay Area. It was 1994 and I was 23, which seemed very old to me at the time. It had been the 90s before, slightly, but 1994 was the onset of the mega-super 90s. The internet was just catching on. A program called Mosaic enabled computer users in one part of the world to view "pages" from other parts of the world, all of which had grey backgrounds and blue lettering. Grunge had gone mainstream, dragging along with it all manner of un-listenable music that should not have been played on the radio outside of hipster college towns, but was. There was a lot of good music too, which could only be discovered by means that seem downright antiquated today. We 1994-ians had buildings called "record stores"* with "listening stations" that required you to physically leave your house and put headphones on your head that had probably been worn by hundreds of filthy flannel-clad heroin addicts. Then, get this, if you found music you liked you had to buy an entire piece of plastic (with an extra paper and plastic covering), take it to a cashier who would put it in a redundant plastic bag, and you couldn't even listen to it until you got home unless you were very wealthy and had a machine in your vehicle that could play the plastic discs without them skipping.

I was not one of those types. I arrived with around $1500 in my bank account (after being laid off at the Grand Rapids Label Factory), enough to cover 3 months in a studio apartment at the time, barely enough for 1 month in half of an apartment now. (You do the math.) To survive the first summer I worked odd jobs and scavenged whatever I could. Through a temp agency I was lucky enough to land a position as an apartment inspector. It only paid about $200 a week but it involved cleaning out people's apartments after they moved; a scavenging bonanza. In the early Clinton years in Silicon Valley a lot of people assumed that prosperity was endless and when they moved to a bigger place they wouldn't bother to clean out their old refrigerators and cupboards, they'd just get new food later. I ate second-hand food for several months. I also scavenged clothes and household items including towels, kitchen appliances, tables and chairs, a stereo, a tv and vcr and even a bike. The citizens of 1994 threw out perfectly usable items left and right with nary a care.

I acquired a second night job at Shoreline Amphitheater, directing traffic in their vast parking lots. It didn't pay much either but I got to go to the concerts for free. I saw Elvis Costello's reunion tour with the Attractions, Depeche Mode, Lollapalooza, The Beastie Boys, The Eagles and many more. There was good scavenging at Shoreline too; I managed to find free dinner at every show I worked. You can learn a lot about humanity and how it relates to musical taste by working in a parking lot. Lollapalooza concert-goers were the nicest people in the world. They treated the parking lot attendants like real people and even invited us to hang out with them. At the other end of the spectrum, a lot of country music fans were drunken jerks who thought it was hilarious to try to run over us with their trucks.

I lived in an attic above a garage, next door to a convenience store and a car repair place. It was walking distance to the library, the train station, several coffee houses and the best Vietnamese restaurant in the world (sadly no longer existent), so life was good. I biked 12 miles to work and back every day and spent much of my work day walking from building to building. I got into such good shape that I would wake up every morning at 7 with no alarm and be ready to go conquer the world. On my days off I'd take the train up to San Francisco, wander around The Haight or Chinatown and just watch the 90s unfold, or I'd bike out to the bay and look at birds - all at minimal cost. I was there for the discovery of Black Skimmers in the San Francisco Bay. If you look at bird books from pre-1994, you won't see them listed as living here.

*In the Mountain View / Palo Alto area alone we had Tower, Blockbuster Music, CD Land and Record Heaven. All 4 are now out of business. The old ways of music distribution were inefficient and clunky so from a business and ecological standpoint the demise of record stores is good and right. Still, I miss the atmosphere of late night CD browsing and in a way I miss the caste system of the old business model. In the 90s if you could record a CD and get a store to sell it you really were somebody. Now anyone with a guitar and a USB converter can make an album and sell it on iTunes. I suppose this makes this makes the business more democratic, but no one really believes in democracy unless their side is winning.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, everyone. I put up a photo gallery of the weekend. goldenmoonbear's mom built us a little water garden. It's almost like having a pond and fulfills the final requirement of backyard habitat certification, which we'll be doing soon. There's already a small black squirrel named Beuford who hangs out with the chickens whenever they're free ranging. He follows them everywhere and they don't seem to mind.

*Condor Magazine from 1914, a birthday gift from goldenmoonbear.

*Cats caught in a rare moment of hand holding.

*Summer Solstice at Little Stonehenge in Mountain View.

*A cucumber, and and explosion of radishes.

As you can see by the camera photojournalism, we've been harvesting salads from the garden for the past few weeks. (Or is that a scale model of Pangea?) There are 4 or 5 different lettuces, parsley, basil and a pepper. If anyone tells you they're going to grow their own food to save money, you should laugh in their face. We've put over $100 into gardening supplies, starter plants, seeds, water, etc. and we'll probably end up producing about as much food as we could have bought at the farmer's market for $25, most of which will be stolen by squirrels and snails. It's kind of like being in a band; you put way more money into it than you could ever expect to get out of it but it's totally worth it because you get to show people a picture of something you did and tell them about it.

Speaking of which, stop by the Hemlock Tavern tonight and pay us a visit.

We've been watching The 1940s House on DVD, because, you know, we're trying to live in a 1940s house even though our house is clearly post-war.... but I digest. Anyway, the show tries to make you realize the hardships of living in England in the 40s with the rationing and wardens and what-not. I kind of love it though; the strict English discipline and order is strangely appealing.

Fuel Warden: Apparently one person in every household was appointed to this position. They made sure no extra appliances were on and that no one used more than 5 inches of water in the bathtub, etc. I ALREADY DO THIS ALL THE TIME! That's why our entire energy bill is usually under $40 a month. Electric clothes dryer use is strictly forbidden, no lights can be on in a room that we're not currently using, we can take one shower every two days and the excess shower warm-up water is to be saved in bowls and used to water the garden, food that we don't grow ourselves is monitored for carbon footprint and water input before being brought into the house, nothing is to be thrown away if it can be fixed or used again, food scraps are composted and used on the (victory) garden, all clothing and other products are to be bought 2nd hand if possible, disposable items are strongly discouraged, the car (which gets 48 mpg) is NOT to be used for commuting to work, only for transporting heavy equipment. Dude, I would have been an awesome British 40s fuel warden.

Air Raid Warden: This was the person who came to your house and made sure there was no light showing through your windows at night, inspiring the hilariously racist George Formby classic "Mr. Wu's An Air Raid Warden Now", one of several Mr. Wu songs. (Sample lyric: "If you've got a chink in your window, you'll have another one at your door.") I would totally love to do this - find safety violations and write people up. In fact, I spend most of my work day keeping an eye on the fire extinguishers and making sure no one leaves anything in front of them (which everyone does) and obsessively guarding the blue handicapped path to keep it free of obstacles. This isn't even part of my job, I just do it for fun. I can't get through the day without finding hundred of safety violations. When I see something like this my first thought is "oh good, she's riding a bike, no excess fossil fuels being used there" and my second thought is "Sweet Jesus, no helmet, no handbrakes?" Oh well, keep calm and carry on.

Congratulations to zimbra1006 and the_ass_doctor! I remember the first day you two met; I think I even have it on video. Remind me to post that sometime for the embarrassment factor. I can't believe that was almost 9 years ago. In my world this is like a huge celebrity engagement. (the_ass_doctor was my best friend in high school and songwriting partner for many years, ditto for zimbra1006 {SAT analogy question} = goldenmoonbear. Also, I believe the_ass_doctor is in 3rd place all time for number of songs written about him, behind only Jesus and Yoko Ono.)

We have working internet in our house now. The guy from AT&T never showed up so I had to wire the phone lines myself, which I don't know how to do, but somehow I did it and it works. Don't ask me how, I just went out to the phone box and started detaching and attaching wires until the little green light came on. Saved myself $125 to boot. I couldn't repeat it if I tried and I'm sure I'm eventually going to find out that I un-wired something really crucial and Dick Cheney is going to send someone to my house to find out why he isn't able to spy on me over the phone lines anymore.

I hooked up the Mac Mini and discovered that the last time I checked my mail on it was August 24th, 2008. That may not seem like that long ago, but consider that my last message was from Joe Biden asking me to vote for him. The Mini has awoken to a whole new world that it can barely comprehend.

Homestead update:

*The chickens have gotten much bigger and more dinosaur-like, as you can see.

*Lettuce on May 9th. Lettuce yesterday.

*Radishes on May 30th. Radishes yesterday.

*Corn, beans and squash on May 9th. C,B & S yesterday

*Thai Basil & Cucumbers on May 9th (green box in the back). TB & C yesterday.

*Cilantro on May 23rd. Cilantro yesterday.

June has busted out all over my monthly yard almanac.

I tagged the raspberry bush in January, March and again in June so you can witness its amazing transformation. You'll probably have to do "all sizes" to see it in its full glory. Here's a close-up from May 30th, which incidentally was my 6 year LJ anniversary. As is the custom, here's a link to my first post.

As is also the custom, I shall discuss everything that has changed since then, with special regard to the items I posted about that day. The Underwater Robots post mentions that Karla & I recorded Liz Phair's "Polyester Bride". A few weeks ago we unearthed that tape and re-learned the song so we could play it at a coffee house show in Redwood City, where we now live. As you know. The book post mentions that I lived in a garage; I have moved twice since then but still miss the old garage sometimes. I go back to that neighborhood whenever I need a haircut or bagel. I did eventually finish the 1000 page RFK book and it wasn't as boring as I thought it would be. The Bayleaf Cafe closed in 2006, sadly. I gave up on 100 Years.

Lettuce on May 9th
Lettuce yesterday
Not bad!

More updated photos here.

Channeling jimmi_vacant...

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Modesto Trip Recap:

*Ran into Mexican rock band Destino’s tour van at a gas station in Tracy.

*Wandered into a building for air conditioning and bathrooms and discovered a 15th anniversary dance spectacular featuring middle-aged Modesto dads doing a sexy dance to “Ice Ice Baby”. Snuck in and stayed for several numbers.

*Arrived at the Queen Bean to find that there was no indication of Claude’s show, instead there was a poster promoting a night of five solo bass players. What? One solo bass player I could sit through, maybe even three, but five?

*The QB was nice enough to give us all free blended mochas even though it wasn’t clear that we were even supposed to be there. We suspected another Ghost Mansion and were prepared to run away.

*Claude arrived and negotiated with the bass players. They weren’t going anywhere. It appeared we were double booked. We could either; play in the front room with no drums or electricity, play in the park until the gangs come out and jump us or arrange a house party in Patterson.

*Someone came up with the brilliant idea of moving our show to Papachino’s, which I assumed would be another coffee house but was actually a Mediterranean restaurant.

*Visited George Lucas Plaza with Charlie. It sucks.

*The show went on as planned, except at Papachino’s Mediterranean restaurant. The soundman introduced us as “The Colorful Laughs” and several other erroneous names.

*We totally rocked. Everyone was clapping and singing along to “Ignition”, even the people who were just there for the falafel.

*Was it worth the two hour road trip? Yes, definitely.

Today is Bike To Work Day, an annoying once a year event like Earth Day or Election Day in which everyone suddenly pretends to be excited about something that they could care less about the rest of the year. The free muffins and fruit are appreciated, but I've been riding my bike to work since 1994 and the ride itself is its own reward.

This is the route I've been taking since we moved to Redwood City. It's about 7.5 miles. The real starting and ending points are cleverly not included in the public map. Here are some things I see along the way:

Caffe Sportivo Coffee House & Charm's Chocolate Chip Cookies (formerly known as Joy Meadow restaurant). Sportivo is a nice little independent coffee house that serves organic and fair trade stuff and has occasional live music. Charm's is exactly what it sounds like it would be.

Giant mansions of Atherton. The one in this aerial view is my favorite. It has a 100 foot tall tower with tables and chairs at the top, the sole purpose of which appears to be breakfast.

Horse show grounds. Atherton is a nice town to bike through. It's green and leafy and filthy rich. The mansions are mostly real Old California, not ostentatious eyesores that have been built in the past 20 years for software millionaires. There's never any traffic except for gardeners and housekeepers and people like me who are looking for the safest bike route between Redwood City and Stanford.

The bridge over the creek. Only bikes and pedestrians can use it. Sometimes I see Stellar's Jays there. I never see them in town or anywhere else at Stanford. Possibly the Scrub Jays don't allow them to overlap ranges, or else they just prefer wooded areas.

On the way home, if it's recycling night, there are always gangs of kids on bikes scavenging through the rich people's garbage. It's actually a pretty good idea and I'm tempted to do it myself, but I'm afraid to encroach on some other person's territory, much like a Stellar's Jay.

Over the weekend, with help from Karla's parents, we did a plethora of gardening. Redwood City gave us new recycling bins when we moved in, which we didn't need because we still had 3 left over from the old guy. They have found a second life as tomato planters. A full gallery is here. I'll update it throughout the summer with tales of our plants' growth and food production, or more likely, untimely demise.

In chicken news, the chickens are now free-ranging in the backyard (under adult supervision) and taking dust baths.

I've been trying to bike to work more often, especially after discovering that my boss, who is 5 years older than me and 4 inches taller... is also 20 pounds lighter than me. That does not seem acceptable.

The chickens are growing up right before our eyes. This morning I suddenly woke up at 6 and was compelled to go outside and hang out with them even though I didn't get to sleep until 2 the previous night due to The Corner Laughers playing a gig in North Beach, the land of impossible parking. Guad seems to have won the pecking order, for now.

While at the club I tried a sip of the recently legalized absinthe just to see what the big deal was. I can almost guarantee you that it is nothing but Nyquil in a fancy bottle.

And can I just say enough of the Caltrain suicides? If you want to kill yourself in the privacy of your own home, that's your choice, but don't implicate hundreds of innocent bystanders, especially ones who are trying to be good citizens by not driving. I missed the most recent one by only a few minutes. I say Caltrain should have a zero tolerance policy; the train keeps going no matter what, and no one mentions it to the passengers. People need to get to their jobs, or home to take care of their pets and kids and if they're delayed by a couple of hours all hell could break loose. In fact, that could be in the PSA: a guy is 2 hours late to work because of a Caltrain suicide so he gets fired, then on his way back home there's another one and he doesn't get home on time his kids and pets all die of starvation. The next scene is he himself sitting on the tracks with a stupid slogan like "Don't Get Derailed, Train Suicides Are Choo-Choo....ah, whatever, just don't do it."

Almanac: May

We've been talking about getting some backyard chickens since we moved to Redwood City, and this weekend we finally took the first step and bought a coop. It's an Eglu, in fact, the world's most stylish and easy to clean chicken coop. Karla found one for sale in the East Bay on Craigslist and she and Charlie went to pick it up yesterday.

Now, you might notice that Charlie is dressed like a cowboy. I think he heard the words "chicken coop" and assumed he'd be going to the house of some slack jawed, teabagging, "God hates fags" type who wants to kick all of our Belle & Sebastian loving asses. In actuality it turned out to be a perfectly nice Asian lesbian couple.

The instruction booklet said it assembled easily in under 20 minutes. That's about right, plus or minus 2 HOURS. Here's how it turned out. We were planning to get a couple of chickens after we got back from Mexico in 2 weeks, but it looks like we probably won't be going at all now so maybe we'll have some chickens as soon as this weekend. Oh, and Charlie gets free eggs for life.