So earlier today I planned a vitriolic (and even violent) post against Kobe Bryant but I was kindly reminded I have a seriously warped sense of sportsmanship. I will have to wait to see if he actually wants to be traded or be a "Laker for Life" and instead I retreated to youtube to watch relaxing videos. My favorites today come from damienfilms, who has decided to subscribe to my stupid videos. What I like most about his/her videos are the titles. I present to you "Adorable Cutest Doggy" (featuring a near-catatonic husky and funny whispering) and "Hamsters - Wheel of Death Too Much Fast" (nine seconds of bliss). Let's just say I'm much calmed down now.
30 May 2007
28 May 2007
Kimmy P: I just want to tell you how I'm feeling... gotta make you understand
KP: I know you got mad at me for recycling pics, but there are a lot of majorly talented people who recycle material. I provide video evidence below. Two performances separated by twenty years, and yet the song has still "got it." So does Rick Astley. He is set to go through puberty any day now. Can we set Peabo aside for a moment and make it the summer of Rick?
25 May 2007
1 Year and 100 Posts!
oh, and probably only 1 reader!I would ask for a prize, but procrastination is gift enough itself.
19 May 2007
From the LA Times today...
In the wake of his tragic death, friends remember 'a true artist' who loved to explore new sounds.
By Greg Burk
Special to The Times
May 19, 2007
Guitarist Jim McAuley had no trouble this week recalling his first meeting with fellow guitarist Rod Poole. It was at the home of Nels Cline, well before the three recorded their "Acoustic Guitar Trio" album.
"I was standing in Nels' kitchen, sipping coffee, when these amazing crystalline tones emerged from the living room," McAuley said. "Rod Poole was just tuning up, and already I was mesmerized by his sound."
Cline, a key player in L.A.'s experimental music scene and now a member of Wilco, described Poole as "a true artist, probably a genius" in a note on his website, posted after Poole was stabbed to death on Sunday in the parking lot of Mel's Drive-In.
His wife, Lisa Ladaw-Poole, was there when it happened.
The couple was walking toward the restaurant, after attending a concert at the Dangerous Curve art gallery downtown, when a car nearly struck them and other pedestrians. The musician spoke up; the vehicle's driver and passenger both got out, the latter allegedly with a knife, according to police. A half hour later, Poole died.
A security camera provided images that led to the quick arrest of Michael and Angela Sheridan. They were arraigned Wednesday.
Ladaw-Poole fielded a lot of phone calls this week, many of them from the parents of Poole's guitar students who hadn't gotten the news and were wondering why he didn't show up for their children's guitar lessons.
"These children loved Rod," Ladaw-Poole said Wednesday. "He was really kind with them."
Poole was a highly unusual guitarist, equally drawn to the distorted sound bombs of Jimi Hendrix and the spontaneous microcosmic tracings of Derek Bailey.
"I never could quite figure out how one man with one guitar could generate such an all-enveloping aural space," said Devin Sarno, an electronic drone artist who recorded Poole twice for Sarno's W.I.N. label.
Having left his native England in 1989 to find a more exploratory climate, Poole fell in with a devoted cloister of Los Angeles pathfinders that included Kraig Grady, Brad Laner and Motor Totemist Guild.
Grady, who composes in microtonal scales that employ the frequencies between Western music's traditional 12 tones, introduced Poole to his own mentor, Erv Wilson. Wilson is a pioneer in microtonal music and "just" intonation, which tunes to vibrations' natural mathematical ratios rather than the tempered scales used in orchestras.
Never one to take halfway measures, Poole lived in Wilson's house for more than five years and emerged with his own way of hearing.
He had a Martin guitar re-fretted to 17 tones and, using his already precise, shaded finger-picking technique, began improvising trance-bound variations on spacious arpeggios that could extend until time vanished.
Poole's solo, group and bowed-guitar recordings have appeared on the W.I.N., Transparency and Incus labels (the last being Bailey's imprint).
Poole's music was the first and last thing heard Wednesday on KXLU-FM's (88.9) "Trilogy" show, this night hosted by old Motor Totemist friends Emily Hay and Lynn Johnston.
Pinging and plucking, gently contracting and expanding, with "just" harmonies fluttering their intangible physicality throughout, the improvisation exuded an uncanny sense of peace. In contrast to its quiet beauty, it was titled "The Death Adder."
Earlier in the day, Johnston described Poole as "a low-key guy — he was only in your face about music."
Two words that surfaced repeatedly when people talked about Poole's artistic temperament were "passion" and "intensity."
Experimental guitarist Jeremy Drake, a curator of the "Sound" concerts at Schindler House in West Hollywood, wrote on a Poole tribute site: "Rod was always fully present. Good mood or bad, you got the full Rod Poole experience whenever he was in the room."
Cindy Bernard, a primary "Sound" series organizer, said Poole was extremely meticulous about the many recordings he engineered for the series' archive: "It's rare to know someone whose enthusiasm for music is so pure."
Instrumentalist and composer Vinny Golia, long the most pervasive influence in this city's edge-music community, agreed. Poole once recorded a performance Golia had done with German bassist Peter Kowald. When Golia wanted a copy, Poole broke down his equipment, carried it over to Golia's house and made the transfer there, not wanting to take any chances that the copy wouldn't be perfectly compatible with Golia's system.
Guitarist Carey Fosse, who knew Poole mainly in Poole's transitional period of the early '90s, called him "a wonderful improviser, very disciplined, and with beautiful articulation. I think his technique led him to areas he hadn't imagined."
Poole had been disappointed by the lack of opportunities to play forward-thinking music in Los Angeles. Though he had made few live appearances for several years, Bailey's death in late 2005 inspired him to help fill what he felt to be an artistic gap.
Poole's wife said he had been working on "just"-intonated interpretations of Irish folk songs, and that the noted film sound mixer Giovanni Di Simone had made new recordings of him.
Grady recently received an invitation to perform at a microtonal festival in Germany and was asked if he could help extend the offer to Poole.
He will be there in spirit.
Ladaw-Poole said she will take her husband's ashes back to England. A memorial service is being planned.
By Greg Burk
Special to The Times
May 19, 2007
Guitarist Jim McAuley had no trouble this week recalling his first meeting with fellow guitarist Rod Poole. It was at the home of Nels Cline, well before the three recorded their "Acoustic Guitar Trio" album.
"I was standing in Nels' kitchen, sipping coffee, when these amazing crystalline tones emerged from the living room," McAuley said. "Rod Poole was just tuning up, and already I was mesmerized by his sound."
Cline, a key player in L.A.'s experimental music scene and now a member of Wilco, described Poole as "a true artist, probably a genius" in a note on his website, posted after Poole was stabbed to death on Sunday in the parking lot of Mel's Drive-In.
His wife, Lisa Ladaw-Poole, was there when it happened.
The couple was walking toward the restaurant, after attending a concert at the Dangerous Curve art gallery downtown, when a car nearly struck them and other pedestrians. The musician spoke up; the vehicle's driver and passenger both got out, the latter allegedly with a knife, according to police. A half hour later, Poole died.
A security camera provided images that led to the quick arrest of Michael and Angela Sheridan. They were arraigned Wednesday.
Ladaw-Poole fielded a lot of phone calls this week, many of them from the parents of Poole's guitar students who hadn't gotten the news and were wondering why he didn't show up for their children's guitar lessons.
"These children loved Rod," Ladaw-Poole said Wednesday. "He was really kind with them."
Poole was a highly unusual guitarist, equally drawn to the distorted sound bombs of Jimi Hendrix and the spontaneous microcosmic tracings of Derek Bailey.
"I never could quite figure out how one man with one guitar could generate such an all-enveloping aural space," said Devin Sarno, an electronic drone artist who recorded Poole twice for Sarno's W.I.N. label.
Having left his native England in 1989 to find a more exploratory climate, Poole fell in with a devoted cloister of Los Angeles pathfinders that included Kraig Grady, Brad Laner and Motor Totemist Guild.
Grady, who composes in microtonal scales that employ the frequencies between Western music's traditional 12 tones, introduced Poole to his own mentor, Erv Wilson. Wilson is a pioneer in microtonal music and "just" intonation, which tunes to vibrations' natural mathematical ratios rather than the tempered scales used in orchestras.
Never one to take halfway measures, Poole lived in Wilson's house for more than five years and emerged with his own way of hearing.
He had a Martin guitar re-fretted to 17 tones and, using his already precise, shaded finger-picking technique, began improvising trance-bound variations on spacious arpeggios that could extend until time vanished.
Poole's solo, group and bowed-guitar recordings have appeared on the W.I.N., Transparency and Incus labels (the last being Bailey's imprint).
Poole's music was the first and last thing heard Wednesday on KXLU-FM's (88.9) "Trilogy" show, this night hosted by old Motor Totemist friends Emily Hay and Lynn Johnston.
Pinging and plucking, gently contracting and expanding, with "just" harmonies fluttering their intangible physicality throughout, the improvisation exuded an uncanny sense of peace. In contrast to its quiet beauty, it was titled "The Death Adder."
Earlier in the day, Johnston described Poole as "a low-key guy — he was only in your face about music."
Two words that surfaced repeatedly when people talked about Poole's artistic temperament were "passion" and "intensity."
Experimental guitarist Jeremy Drake, a curator of the "Sound" concerts at Schindler House in West Hollywood, wrote on a Poole tribute site: "Rod was always fully present. Good mood or bad, you got the full Rod Poole experience whenever he was in the room."
Cindy Bernard, a primary "Sound" series organizer, said Poole was extremely meticulous about the many recordings he engineered for the series' archive: "It's rare to know someone whose enthusiasm for music is so pure."
Instrumentalist and composer Vinny Golia, long the most pervasive influence in this city's edge-music community, agreed. Poole once recorded a performance Golia had done with German bassist Peter Kowald. When Golia wanted a copy, Poole broke down his equipment, carried it over to Golia's house and made the transfer there, not wanting to take any chances that the copy wouldn't be perfectly compatible with Golia's system.
Guitarist Carey Fosse, who knew Poole mainly in Poole's transitional period of the early '90s, called him "a wonderful improviser, very disciplined, and with beautiful articulation. I think his technique led him to areas he hadn't imagined."
Poole had been disappointed by the lack of opportunities to play forward-thinking music in Los Angeles. Though he had made few live appearances for several years, Bailey's death in late 2005 inspired him to help fill what he felt to be an artistic gap.
Poole's wife said he had been working on "just"-intonated interpretations of Irish folk songs, and that the noted film sound mixer Giovanni Di Simone had made new recordings of him.
Grady recently received an invitation to perform at a microtonal festival in Germany and was asked if he could help extend the offer to Poole.
He will be there in spirit.
Ladaw-Poole said she will take her husband's ashes back to England. A memorial service is being planned.
14 May 2007
Rod Poole, 1962-2007
This afternoon we got a phone call telling us that our friend Rod Poole was stabbed to death last night in Hollywood - I think we're still having a hard time believing that it's true. Rod moved from England to LA in 1989 and met my family shortly afterwards - I first met him when I was eleven or twelve when he was helping my grandparents around the house (amongst other odd jobs) to support himself while he was trying to work on his music. Later on, when I moved down to LA and started going out to live shows pretty much every musician I ever talked to about Rod agreed that he was one of the most amazing improvisational guitar players they had ever heard. I have a lot of really funny memories of Rod but what I remember the most about him is how impassioned he was about politics and his sense of justice, especially for those who had less (both economically and socially) in society.
13 May 2007
NBA Player Hater Playoffs Edition: San Antonio Spurs, you're mean!
On Friday the NBA League Office reviewed the tapes of Wednesday's Suns-Spurs match up and determined that no action was necessary against Bruce Bowen for sharply kicking Amare Stoudemire in his Achilles tendon. Even though Stoudemire joins a long list of players who have come out against Bowen for being a flagrantly physical player, the office just dropped it. Note I didn't use the term "allegedly" in describing the incident- in the video I have seen, Bowen fully creeps up behind Stoudemire and clearly looks down to aim his foot so he can quickly kick Stoudemire as he's shooting. Check it out:
After the incident, Stoudemire told reporters on Thursday that Bowen intentionally tried to hurt him, called Manu Ginobili out for his behaviour during the regular season, and suggested that, overall, the Spurs are a "dirty team." Here's the thing: he's right. When I'm not so bored to tears by the Spurs and I actually take the time to watch them playing basketball it's like watching high school drama practice. In a single game you can see Ginobili and others trying to draw fouls by flopping over the stage, err I mean court, more times than in a Shakespearean tragedy. The frustrating thing is that for some reason most sports critics refuse to call out the Spurs for the way they behave on court. There was some minor backlash against them last season for their questionable behavior and a few bloggers calling for the end of the patented Ginobili flop that - in trying to draw attention and amplify a fake foul, has actually hurt other players in the process.
Maddeningly, in this recent Stoudemire-Bowen incident (especially after the NBA review on Friday), most sports bloggers and writers have turned against Stoudemire calling him "young" and immature for making comments against the Spurs in the media. You know what? I disagree. The Spurs do play dirty and I'm starting to suspect that Greg Popovich was the inspiration for the Evil Sensei character in The Karate Kid.
After the incident, Stoudemire told reporters on Thursday that Bowen intentionally tried to hurt him, called Manu Ginobili out for his behaviour during the regular season, and suggested that, overall, the Spurs are a "dirty team." Here's the thing: he's right. When I'm not so bored to tears by the Spurs and I actually take the time to watch them playing basketball it's like watching high school drama practice. In a single game you can see Ginobili and others trying to draw fouls by flopping over the stage, err I mean court, more times than in a Shakespearean tragedy. The frustrating thing is that for some reason most sports critics refuse to call out the Spurs for the way they behave on court. There was some minor backlash against them last season for their questionable behavior and a few bloggers calling for the end of the patented Ginobili flop that - in trying to draw attention and amplify a fake foul, has actually hurt other players in the process.
Maddeningly, in this recent Stoudemire-Bowen incident (especially after the NBA review on Friday), most sports bloggers and writers have turned against Stoudemire calling him "young" and immature for making comments against the Spurs in the media. You know what? I disagree. The Spurs do play dirty and I'm starting to suspect that Greg Popovich was the inspiration for the Evil Sensei character in The Karate Kid.
11 May 2007
we rescued a bird!
bird! don't be afraid - you're too small for fried chicken
we will be friends bird!
but you must learn how to fly!
10 May 2007
these are a few of my favorite things...
For all my complaining about the heat and other worries the last few days, it is nice to take a moment to appreciate the ephemeral joys outside and on the court. My grandma had more orchids bloom this year than any year before and - even though I'm here only a few weeks earlier than I was last year when I took s
ome pics - they seem more vibrant. Her flower garden in the springtime has always made me so happy - I love the way it smells right after watering every little pot and the ground (especially right by the blossoming lemon tree and the rosemary).Speaking of vibrancy, Derek Fisher always seems to pull a clutch play (dagger even? ugh, that term is so overused) during playoffs every couple of years just to remind me of what a subtly awesome player he has been. He gets on the court last night in the middle of the third quarter - after seeing his ten-month-old daughter through dangerous surgery - and reminded the Warriors why dropping him this past season might not have been the best idea. I miss the sweatband though D. If the NBA were to have additional awards each year, D-Fish would totally get the MBTB award (Most Believable as a Teddy Bear) and Mr. Congeniality.
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