The Big Green House

Snowpocalypse Now

As you may have heard, we’ve had a bit of weather lately. I loves me some snow, but this is just silly. We got about six or seven inches last Thursday, another seven (give or take) on Saturday, and maybe four on Sunday. It’s all light and fluffy powder. (Well, except for that bit of freezing rain we got Saturday night – that just made a thin crust of ice over what we’d already gotten. It was kinda like when you get one of those soft-serve ice cream cones that gets dipped in the crunchy chocolate coating, but with more dirt and dog pee.)

How’s traffic, you ask? Well, in a word, I’d have to say that it’s fucked. The roads are sheets of compressed snow with various layers of ice on top. Getting around by car is difficult, at best. Going by foot is easier, yet still treacherous. I know this for a fact, since the ice weasels got me while crossing an intersection yesterday. I slipped, fell, and spent the majority of my 48th birthday in the ER of the UW Medical Center. Not because I’m severely injured or anything, I hasten to add; it’s just a fairly mild sprain which I’m compressing and elevating even as we speak. (I’m getting the hang of the crutches, but they are not my friends.)

No, my extended stay was due to two things: the hospital was short-staffed, and there was no ground transportation to be had – no cabs, no busses that went anywhere near home. We were able to call a neighbor who was brave/foolhardy enough to fire up his Forester and come pick us up. If Science Girl didn’t work in another wing of the hospital, I might very well have been stranded there, since she’s the one who can remember phone numbers.

Anyway, yeah. Not really what I’d had in mind for birthday fun. And now I’m trapped here in the house, held prisoner by a sea of ice and slush. Whoo. On the other hand, it's kinda pretty outside. See my pre-carnage pictures here, if you're so inclined.

Pipe Wrench Fight!

It's hard enough being born in the first place: who would want to be born again?

Oh hi! Remember when I said I wasn’t gonna have a lot of screwing-around-online-time when I switched to day shift? Turns out I was mostly right.

Even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and again. (Although apparently there’s a little extra difficulty with that this year.)

So. Wutcha been up to?

Me? Not much. We went down to Portland last week for Science Girl’s birthday and spent way too much time & money at Powell’s. That was fun.

While we were there, I read (and was utterly charmed by) this little article. Man, I wish we’d had a club like that back in the day. Although we did have our own confused little music posse, having access to better equipment would have been nice. I want to buy one of their t-shirts so I can support their club, but it seems that you need to be on the myspace to do so and, well, I have enough trouble keeping this thing going.

Also, while we were down in Stumptown, I picked up a copy of the new Fucked Up CD. Holy cow, is it good! Although I keep seeing references to their being “hardcore”, which just leaves me scratching my head. Maybe it’s just due to the utter degradation of the term “punk rock”, but I’ve certainly heard my fill of hardcore in this life (and then some), and this ain’t anything like the strictly defined musical straitjacket that is/was hardcore. Or maybe things have just changed, I dunno, I’m older than dirt now & they say that the memory is the first thing to go…which, y’know, is probably a good thing. If I had to put a label on the Fucked Up sound (and I don’t but people seem to like that sort of thing, so…), I’d probably go with something stupid like “progcore”, but really it’s just glorious noise of the rockin’ sort that we so love here at TBGH. You should check it out.

Choose or lose

Eat the rich

The Rainier Valley Food Bank ran out of canned goods recently. When we heard about it, we went out to Costco, got some stuff, and made a small donation – not because we’re super-groovy people (although there is that to consider), but because it needed to be done. A small drop in a very big ocean, to be sure. Then again: from each, according to his abilities; to each (hopefully), according to his needs. Or something like that.

There was an interesting piece by Michael Pollan in the New York Times magazine this weekend, regarding some of the food-related issues the next president should address. Oddly enough, I’ve recently been thinking about some of this stuff myself. While I don't know that I'm onboard with everything Pollan asks for (the barcode idea seems especially dippy, for example), on the whole I think he's on target.

The idea of intentionally making food more expensive is going to be a tough sell, given the way things are going at the moment. (And may well continue going, as far as I can tell. Given all the expert economist bullshit we’ve been fed all our lives about the market being self-regulating, I don’t think anybody really knows where the economy is headed at the moment.) While I agree that the prices are being artificially propped up, seeing the food bank running out of good this early in “The Crisis” makes me wonder how those props can be removed without creating more economic stress for folks who aren't really getting by as is. Also, it's going to be a task to convince a generation (or two) raised on McDonald's that that good whole food is just as tasty as the processed stuff.

On the other hand, it is really exciting to think that we are on the brink of having an administration in power that won't necessarily dismiss this sort of thing out of hand. I can’t imagine a Bush government addressing… well, anything Pollan mentions, really, and I have no reason to believe that a McCain White House would be any different on that score. On the other hand, I could totally see Barack Obama pushing the idea of, say, Victory Gardens.

One of the things about last week’s presidential debate was when Obama mentioned wanting to deal with the search for alternative energy sources as we did the race to the moon. If he could tie some of Pollan's ideas into that, I'd be pretty damn happy.

Further Adventures in Sound

Here’s another perspective on that Nick Cave show.

You’ll note that the reviewer didn’t mention the sound problem. I talked to Science Girl about it this morning; she said that she’d noticed it a little, but not enough to have it dampen her enjoyment of the show.

This leaves me sounding like a bitter old crank. That’s not an inaccurate assessment at all, but what I would point out is that I’m not a bitter old audiophile crank. I don’t really mind crappy sound, as long as I can hear what’s going on. At this particular show, I couldn’t.

Might this be due to the earplugs? It might well be. There was no corresponding problem during Earth’s set, though (which was a lot less loud than I was expecting). Also, as I noted in my review, Mr. Cave did not seem at all pleased by what he was hearing from his monitor. Something wasn’t right, and I’m guessing that it was exacerbated by my earplugs.

Frankly, I hate the damned things. I know that I’m missing part of any show I go to now. On the other hand, going to shows was actually becoming painful, so it’s not entirely a bad trade-off.

Adventures In Sound

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Earth, The Showbox at SoDo, 9/23/08

I’d really been looking forward to seeing this show since Science Girl told me she’d gotten the tickets. The last couple of Bad Seeds albums have been really strong, of course, and I’d always heard that Cave puts on a hell of a show. When I found out yesterday afternoon that Earth was opening I actually became somewhat giddy, seeing as The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull is one of my favorite albums this year. Win/win, right?

Well, sorta.

Surrealists for Obama

I'm not making this up. If I thought a dime of that money would go to Obama's campaign, you know I'd be all over this like a tornado on a trailer park. As it is, I just gave money the regular way. You should, too.

Not the right woman, by a long shot

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

PT Barnum said that, and I firmly believe that he was correct. And yet I still can’t wrap my little mind around the fact that there are former supporters of Hillary Clinton who believe that Sarah Palin is an acceptable substitute.

Why? Apparently, because she has a uterus.

It can’t be due to her stand on, um, damn near anything. Anti-choice, pro-NRA, supportive of the teaching of creationism in public schools, running with a candidate who voted against equal pay for equal work, and whose healthcare expert believes that all Americans are insured because there are emergency rooms – Governor Palin would seem to be the anti-Hillary. And yet, these dead-enders can’t seem to see any of that. She’s a woman – end of story.

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Say that Hillary had prevailed and won the nomination. Let’s further suppose that John McCain, in an attempt at wooing disgruntled Obama supporters, chose Alan Keyes as his running mate. How many people do you think would say, “He chose a black guy. He’s got my vote!”?

Sarah Palin is not the reformer she’d like you to believe she is. Her opposition to earmarks only came after it became politically expedient to shun them – until then, she’d had her snout in the trough like everybody else. Her foreign policy experience comes from… wait for it… living near Russia and Canada. And she (allegedly) had the state commssioner for public safety fired bcause he refused to fire a police officer who, coincidentally, was in the process of divorcing her sister*

But hey, she’s got ovaries. That makes her qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Look, if you truly believe that a McCain/Palin administration would be good for America, by all means vote for them. But if you’re planning on voting for them out of some bizarre gender solidarity thing, you are dumber than a sack of wet mice really need to reassess your priorities before November rolls around.

*Note to McCain staffers: pointing out the flaws of one of your candidates is not sexist, no matter how much you might want it to be. Palin was chosen in an embarrassingly transparent attempt at garnering some of the angry Hillary vote, just as your claims to the contrary are.

Added 9/3/08: Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

Sounds like fiction, right? Oh, hey, look – video!

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to the vice presidential debate.

Many rivers to cross

Speaking of labor (and I was – check the previous post), yesterday we went down to Georgetown to check out the Fantagraphics bookstore. As it turns out, they share a space with Georgetown Records – mostly vintage vinyl, and some really nice stuff at that. We didn’t buy anything there, since we don’t currently have a functioning turntable. This may change.

Science Girl said that the guy at the counter (I’m assuming he was the owner) reminder her of me. I know what she was getting at – we’re both of a similar age, we both were wearing flannel shirts over t-shirts and jeans, both wearing black-framed glasses, both graying at approximately the same rate. (I’ve got a bit more hair than he does, but I’ve also got a bit more gut.) The place was not exactly buzzing with customers while we were there, so he was spinning some tunes and chatting with the guy at the Fantagraphics counter – who, as it turns out, was Larry Reid.

It’s no fun to be working on a Sunday (no more than it is to be working on a holiday), and there are a whole bunch of drawbacks to being self-employed. That said, I want that guy’s job. Badly. Get up in the morning, throw on some comfortable clothes, hang out and listen to Jimmy Cliff. What’s not to like about that?