This rather snuck up on me.  But it's day after tomorrow, and I'll be spinning something besides mash-ups!  Current plans are for a semi-industrial set of windstorm favorites.  Come on by.  Shake your thing.  Get your book signed.  Only $5 if you decide not to buy the book.  That said, the book is pretty entertaining.  (If I do say so myself, given my humble contributions here and there.)



More info on Laughing Squid:

http://laughingsquid.com/piss-clear-book-release-party/

or here:

http://www.pissclear.org/party.html

Steve

These are the details for my DJ gig in New York on Friday:


www.bootienyc.com/ 

Taking off for the Big Apple at 10am.  We're getting Bicoastal with it.

Steve

For whomever isn't on the Fandango List....

How I spent my Saturday morning, by Steve Courtney.  Backstory:  You know the light-up Saturday Night Fever dancefloors we built for Burning Man, and that my old housemate Tom had in his living room?  They somehow ended up in a warehouse in Oakland, and I went to get them this morning, so we can take them back to the desert.

---------------

 

Short version:  We got the dancefloors back.  They will need a little TLC to get them fully operational again, as the wiring looks stomped-on and one of them has the plexiglass halfway popped off.  Oh, and the other one looks like it fell off the back of a truck.
 

Long version:  I tracked the dancefloors to a warehouse full of Burning Man crap on Treasure Island.  My trusty helper-monkey Kristian had sworn up and down he'd help me with the heavy lifting today, but the last time I saw him he had a bottle of whiskey in his hand and he was at a party in the Mission and it was 2am.  This morning he failed to respond to texts and phone calls.  So I went out there on my own, trusting my luck that the warehouse dude would help me load them into the truck.  (Oh, big thanks to Joho for lending us her pickup for the adventure.)  I get there, and it turns out the warehouse is shared by Peter Hudson, (http://www.hudzo.com/), the guy who did "the swimmers" and "the divers" and that awesome thing last year with the swinging monkeys.  (I think they're called zoetropes?)  So he helped me find the dancefloors and load them into the truck.  There are a bunch of artists sharing the space out there, and none of them even knew what the dancefloors were.  When Peter found out, he began rhapsodizing about the Church of Funk and the stained glass windows of James Brown and how great it was as an alternative to all the "oontz oontz" music out there.  So that was all well and good.

Have you ever gotten back onto 80 from Treasure Island?  You basically go from a stop sign on an on-ramp, bang, right into traffic.  You've kinda gotta jump on it, or risk never getting into your lane.  You see where this is going, right?  I didn't tie the dancefloors down, as I figured they were plenty heavy and wouldn't be sliding around.  And they were *just* too long to shut the tailgate.  

Plexiglass is kinda slippery.  That's all I'm saying.

So I go shooting off into traffic and hear "kathump" and look back and the smaller of the dancefloors is sitting in the middle of the lane on the Bay Bridge.  Traffic is blazing around me at 60mph, and the thought of backing up to get it briefly crossed my mind.  But it's like a 1/4 mile back, and reversing just seems suicidal.  So I do the six-mile long u-turn, where you have to drive into downtown SF before you can whip around and come back the other way on the bridge, and by the time I get back to Treasure Island again, somebody has thrown the dancefloor over the side of the on-ramp, out of the way.  I can see it, but there is no way I can move it myself, as I would have to park on the on-ramp and then haul it, solo, a couple hundred feet.
 

So I drive into town and go to Cory's.  (Big thanks to Cory for offering to store the dancefloorsuntil Burn-time.  And bigger thanks to him for dropping whatever he was doing to come see if the two of us could save the one that had fallen off the truck.)  Cory and I drive back out to Treasure Island, and go dashing on foot across the on-ramp and along the side of the bridge for a bit, and manage to wrestle the (really quite heavy) dancefloor back onto the highway and back into the truck.  (It's got a crack in the plexiglass now, about six inches long.  It might have been there before, or it might not.  You just can't get good help these days...)  I eased into traffic at a leisurely pace, and we deposited the second dancefloor into Cory's garage without further incident.

This all seemed like a microcosmic version of Burning Man to me.  "Hey, I think I'll go run a quick errand" turned into a couple of wasted hours, and a bit of casual self-endangerment, and a lot of "goddamnit, this is a pain in the ass!"  But it's done.  Cory and I will probably repair the floors this summer, as the event grows closer.  (For his part, Cory is doing the sensible thing and going to m*therf*cking Cancun instead of Burning Man.)

Anyway.  Just thought you'd enjoy knowing that one of the dancefloors spent a little time in the middle of a lane on the Bay Bridge today.

Steve

 

2 mile run in Noe Valley.  I think I managed a run on Wednesday, too.

 

There is a fundraiser (against cancer) this evening at the Anon-Salon Gallery.  Full details behind the cut.  (The short version is that I'm DJing at 11:30, and again at 2am.  I'm expecting the other "real" "tech-house" DJs to look on my humble mashups with scorn and derision.  But I'm hoping the lingerie-clad crowd cares more about bootie-shaking than about DJ "credibility".)

Steve

( Lots and lots of info, including Freedom Bus shuttle details: )

 

2 mile run in Noe Valley.  My f*cking craigslist iPod decided to konk out at exactly the furthest point of my run.



This is a "teaser trailer" for the Audi spot my agency did for this weekend's Superbowl.  There's a long annoying story about dipsh!ts "leaking" advance rough-cuts of the finished spot, so my agency hastily cobbled this together in an effort to minimize the damage.  It's a little hokey, but it's better than having unfinished work out there.  The actual spot won't go live until Sunday.

It's better if you click the "Watch in HD" button, above the number of hits.  The low-rez version is low-rez indeed.

Steve

 

2 mile run in Noe Valley.

Perusing the pages of Terrorizer magazine continues to yield unintentional hilarity.  This month's case in point: a band called "Irate Architect".  I stumbled across their name buried at the bottom of the lineup for some multi-day heavy metal festival in Germany.  

(Please use your best "Sunday-Sunday-Sunday, Monster-Truck-Madness" voice to read the following list...)

Other bands on the bill include:  Bloodbath, Bolt Thrower, Obituary, General Surgery, Purgatory, Dismember, Facebreaker, Hail of Bullets, and good old Impaled Nazarene.  Oh, and "Irate Architect".  Next to this bunch, the name "Irate Architect" strikes me as a particularly flaccid effort.  It's may as well be "Disgruntled Civil-Servant" for all the menace and "bad-assitude" it conveys.  Or "Slightly-Annoyed Mathematician".  By comparison, the next lamest band-name on the bill is "Imperious Malevolence", which I think we can agree pisses all over "Irate Architect" from a very great height indeed.

"Irate Architect".  Hee.

Steve

 
Yesterday:  2 mile run in Noe Valley.  Today:  2 mile run in Noe Valley.




"Trespass" (1992) was Walter Hill's re-take on the themes of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre."  I had all but forgotten about the movie, but Amazon suggested it based on my recent purchase of "Escape from L.A."  It was something I saw in theatres, and I vaguely remembered it being worthy, so I decided to give it a whirl.  Starring Ice T, Ice Cube, Bill Paxton, and William Sadler, (you had to be named "Ice" or "Bill" to be in the cast, apparently) it's considerably better than you might imagine.  While not truly rising to the ranks of "lost classic", it is a worthwhile way to spend a drizzly Saturday afternoon, especially as the plot winds tighter and tighter, and the protagonists get in deeper and deeper.  While the end is visible from a great way off, (must everyone get exactly what they deserve?) it was still well worth the $5 it cost me on Amazon.  

Also of note:  The gangsters have the advantage over the protagonists throughout the film because they have all adopted a new-for-the-time technology:  cellular telephones.  It's amusing to cast a glance back at the era of non-cell ubiquity.  

For some reason this film also made me want to revisit "Judgment Night",  a film I don't recall being any good at all.  That'll be coming up soon on "B-Movie Reappraisals With Steve."

Steve

Yesterday:  1.5 mile run in Noe Valley.  



Rhino Records have compiled a box-set of Jesus & Mary Chain b-sides and rarities that I've been actively coveting for several months now.  (Check out the product video on Amazon to see the impressive job they've done with the packaging and bonus features.)  I went ahead and ordered it today, finally, as a reward for beginning to get my taxes in order.

Of course I already own roughly 75% of the material in the set, since they had previously put out three other b-sides compilations.  ("Barbed Wire Kisses", "The Sound of Speed", and "Hate Rock & Roll".)  But I own some of those on vinyl, and blah blah blah.  I would have bought it weeks ago if it had been more "essential".

Some folks have asked me if I've abandoned Livejournal.  This is not the case, although I have let it lie fallow for several months.  The reasons for this are several.  One is that Facebook provides a much speedier, lower-involvement method of checking in with your friends over the course of the day.  (I was resistant to Facebook for ages, but I've given up.  At least it's not MySpace.)

The other reason is that I think it's the job of an online journal to entertain.  If I'm not posting something that is conceivably of-interest to another human being, I don't believe I should be writing.  (Yes, I know, you can do whatever you want with your own journal.  Knock yourself out.)  And as boring as I know it reads, my life has been consumed by work as of late.  And I'd rather not write about being slammed at work unless I have something interesting to say about it.  There's not much I can think of that is as dull as reading other people whine about how busy their jobs are, except perhaps listening to people expound at length about their medical procedures.  (Or their taxes.  See above.)  So I have been dormant on the Livejournal front.

Work is easing up, somewhat, so perhaps this will lead to a new era of postiness.  We'll see.

Steve

Oh, hey, I went to the kickboxing gym yesterday.  


We're taking over the upstairs lounge at Bootie again.

-----------------------------------------------

I might add that I'll be playing a (much) longer set than I did on the main floor a couple of months ago. I'll probably tag-team some with Adrian and D, too. Also, we will be debuting some brand-spanking new "Bootie Exclusive" mashups, put together by CW and John-John.

Steve

2 mile run in Noe Valley.  Work has been taking most of my time (and many of my weekends) and I seem to have lost my discipline for working out.  It's been almost a month since I did anything at all. This delights not me.

Recently the band "Hatebeak" came to my attention.  It's a death metal/grindcore band, fronted by a parrot:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=68459563

Yes, seriously, a bird.  (Am I the last one on the internet to see this?)

And, in the same vein, here's a (militant vegan) grindcore band fronted by a pair of rescued pitbulls.

http://www.myspace.com/caninus

or

http://www.pitbullgrindcore.com/

While neither of these bands would qualify as "good", it is interesting that they're out there.  And I wonder if they would be there if there was not an internet to offer them a potential audience?


Steve

2 mile run in Noe Valley.  (I've been failing to log my miles lately.  Not that there have been all that many...)

Should you be unfortunate enough to leave your cell phone in a taxicab, it's worth noting that Yellow Cab's official policy, (as posted on bulletins all over their main office) is that their drivers are not to answer any phones they find abandoned and ringing in their cabs.  They are to turn them off, and hand them in to Yellow's lost-and-found department at the end of their shift.  (Apparently there is a law requiring them to turn in any found items at the end of their daily tour of duty.)  The reason for this, (as opposed to say, answering the damn thing and driving around the block to return the thing to its rightful owner, for a healthy tip) is that "we've had some problems with driver's trying to return the items on their own."

?!?!?  What kind of trouble could they have had?  And, if some cab driver ran up a few charges calling the numbers in your phone looking for you, would you really make a big deal about it if you got it back and didn't have to buy a new one?  "Oh, no, you called my mom in Des Moines, and it cost me seventy-five cents.  I'm calling your dispatcher to complain.  Wah."  Are people really that douchey?

In any event...if you lose your phone in a cab, you need to call the cab company and ask for the lost-and-found department.  (Or, in my case, a number of probable companies that it might have been...)  Don't expect anybody to call you first, or for the driver to pick up when you're desperately calling him a couple hours after you notice it's gone.  Trust me on this one.  

(All that said, hurray for Yellow Cab for returning my cell phone to me.  It only took them four days to call me back, but in these troubled times, not having to replace my handset is pretty awesome.)

For what it's worth, the Yellow Cab Co-Op offices have all the warmth and charm of a bail-bondsmen's office, or maybe a check-cashing place in a particularly derelict ghetto/junkyard.  But they got me my damn phone back, so hurray for them.

Steve
 

2 mile run in Noe Valley.

Pedal Monster 08′

September 26, 2008

7:15 pm

September 27, 2008

5:00 pm

Cyclecide unleashes it’s fourth annual PEDAL MONSTER weekend event.

 

( Read more... )

Steve

Mon:  2 mile run in Noe Valley.  Weds:  2.2 mile run in Noe Valley.

My new-to-me iPod loves Spacemen 3.  Seriously, anytime it's on shuffle, you can guaran-damn-tee that Spacemen 3 will come up at some point.  Its "random" setting is weird that way.  My last iPod loved the Pietasters, to the point I had to remove their mediocre third-wave ska albums from my hard-disk. 

I assume this problem is epidemic.  Is there a band your iPod plays all the frickin' time?

Steve

2 mile run in Noe Valley.



This is amusing.

http://www.bmticketbuyback.com/

I wonder what happens to your name and email address?

Steve

2 mile run in Noe Valley.

This is the flyer for this year's Bootie: Black Rock City. (I've been upgraded to "resident DJ", btw.) We're doing it Thursday night in Fandango, for the people who know what's what, and then again on Friday on the Esplanade, for people who are ambling by and didn't realize how sick they were of trance and techno.

Steve

Yesterday: 2 mile run in Noe Valley. Today: 2.5 mile run in Noe Valley.



This is on for tonight, as I have no doubt reminded most of you time and again. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'll be debuting at least one new track of my own, if I finish it. (And if I then decide it doesn't totally suck, which at this point is a 50/50 call.)

Steve

Guitar Hero III, Online version.


1,2,3,4,5 on the keyboard, Enter to strum.

Yesterday:  2 mile run.  Today:  7am kickboxing class.  This was my first class in seven (!) months, and it was as grim and plodding as one might theorize.

There are lots of things afoot, and I've been shockingly busy, so here's a kung-fu movie review:

The One Armed Swordman vs. Nine Killers

Synopsis: This is a late-entry in the "One-Armed Swordsman" series, and the filmmakers assume you've seen all the previous films.  Therefore they spend exactly zero time telling you where you are, what's going on, or why this guy only has one arm.  They just launch into the action, and you get to guess at what might be the backstory.  (My guess:  the guy was seeking revenge against the people who chopped off his arm, but, heck, maybe he was just gassy.)  It starts off with a dark fight on a dark street where the one-armed guy, who, it must be noted IS NOT CARRYING A SWORD, kills some other dude.  (Number One of the "Nine Killers" in the title.)  The next day(?) he wanders into a clearing where an old white-bearded dude, (played by an actual old dude, unlike so many of these "old" people) is playing chess with human chess pieces.  As you do.  It's made clear that Old Guy is not one of the "Nine", so One-Arm has no quarrel with him.  But somehow they end up playing "chess", which is really more like kung-fu mahjong, but still with human pieces.  One-Arm beats the old man, and leaves.  Old Dude, shamed in front of his chess-pieces, picks up a sharp stick and commits suicide with it.  Then One-Arm rescues a prostitute, (I think) who was tied up in the sun for reasons unclear.  Then somebody shoots him with a poisoned-dart, so he and the prostitute go to a chemist, who tells him the poison is deadly, which it isn't, and gives him an "antidote" which is actually a much deadlier poison.  One-Arm convulses, but uses his amazing kung-fu skills to spit the deadly-poison pellet into the chemist's mouth, and the chemist expires immediately.  One-Arm then goes to a temple and fights a hermaphrodite, I guess, for some reason.  Uh...at this point you can see a linear plot-summary is impossible.

The Big Bad Guy is just some voice-from-a-tube, dispatching his minions to fight the One-Armed Guy, who is moving inexorably closer.  One-Arm keeps whupping-ass.  It was somewhere along here that my ($3 Hong Kong bootleg) DVD seized up, and skipped an entire chapter.  I don't feel as though I missed out on much.  We returned to the action with One-Arm tossing some guy off a cliff into the ocean.  (Oh, bonus points for having outdoor-locations, as opposed to the sound-stages used in so many of these cheap old HK flicks.  If only they'd spent some money on a script.  Exposition, such as it is, comes rarely and is usually so deadly-dull that I use it to refresh my beer.  There are also lots of shots of One-Arm walking up and down staircases.  This is a common mistake with inexperienced editors.  "If we don't see him walk up the stairs to the temple, how will the audience know how he got there?"  Cue endless shots of people walking to and fro.)  At some point One-Arm picks up a smiley-friend who works for the Big Bad Guy, but really just wants to be One-Arm's friend, and smile a lot.  Okay, we meander to the end-scene, with some pretty decent pre-wire kung-fu.  Apparently the Big Bad Guy behind the speaking-tube is actually that Old Guy who committed suicide back in Scene Two.  So he and One-Arm go at it, and Old Guy hacks off One-Arm's one-remaining-arm.  (Oh, I forgot to mention.  The "One-Armed Swordsman" has never used a sword the entire movie, and would more accurately be called "The One-Armed Boxer.")  So One-Arm is now No-Arms...Or is he?!?  There's a bit more gimpy kung-fu, and suddenly No-Arms pulls his remaining Other Arm out from behind his back, where he's been hiding it the ENTIRE MOVIE, for no reason.  And stabs Old-Dude in the gut in a move best described to Western eyes as "sneaky".  One-Arm walks out of the temple and down a long path...The end.

Review: You may not be able to discern this from this synopsis, but I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.  It made no sense, but in the glorious way of the best 70's kung-fu extravaganzas.  It also moves very quickly, so you're not bored.  Except when they're walking up and down the stairs.

Steve

2 mile run in Noe Valley.


Tron 2 trailer, via an amazingly rubbish bootleg (presumably from the San Diego comicon):

http://gizmodo.com/5029479/tron-2-trailer-video-makes-pants-wet-worldwide

As one of my coworkers said:  That may be the most excited I've ever been about a video that crappy.

Steve