Namibia and Cape Town

Our NamibiMobile
Notice the rooftop tent, unfolded and ready in minutes.


Hoba Meteorite.
At 60 tons, the largest known meteorite.


Elephants at Halali water hole, Etosha National Park


Twyfelfontein Petroglyphs
With over 2,000 figures, it's one of the largest collections
of rock engravings in Africa dating from the Late Stone Age.
Also Namibia's first UNESCO World Heritage site, declared in 2007.


Keepin' cool


Dune Playing in the Skeleton Coast


Dune Topper near Walvis Bay


Desert critter


Dead Vlei, Sossusvlei


Whale watching in Hermanus, South Africa


Ciao


Slideshow (all 164 pictures)

Quote of the Day: Eunuchs

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how its done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves."

Brendan Francis Behan (1929-1964), Irish Poet

National Toast for Beer Writer Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson passed away in his London home last month.
The world of craft beer mourns and celebrates its single greatest advocate.

His beer tasting sessions were always insightfully illuminating
and thoroughly entertaining. With his impressive knowledge of
the complete universe of beer, he was a masterful orator,
frequently digressing with countless anecdotes but always somehow
getting back to expertly showcasing the wonderful beers.

He often promoted the sense of place.
He would tell us about the place where the beer was brewed:
the actual room, the building, the town, the region, the country.
He regaled his appreciative audiences with stories about the people who made the beer, about the complex history behind the different styles of beers.

There were also some pretty good stories about the master storyteller himself. My single favorite one was relayed by fellow BURPer Tim Artz. He first posted it on our local beer discussion group and it was then reprinted in this months' BURP (Brewers United for Real Potables) newsletter. Here it is, shamefuly without any express permission of any kind:

"Many years ago when the AHA Conference was in Manchester, NH, I found myself in the hotel elevator with Michael Jackson. He inserted a key card to go to the penthouse level of the hotel and mentioned that it was nice to have such things paid for by the Discovery Channel folks.

I asked him about some of the unusual homebrews he had tried during the week. He mentioned that he really expected in New England to see more homebrews made with maple syrup, and he wanted to try some maple syrup beers. I replied that I had some Maple Syrup Old Ale in my room, and I would fetch a bottle and meet him back in the ballroom. I tracked him down with my bottle, and his eyes widened when he tasted the beer. He commented on the sherry notes and then was swamped by others getting him to try their brews. Several times throughout the evening, I would turn around, and there he was with glass extended looking for another sip.

The Manchester conference hotel did not permit us to have hospitality suites, parties in rooms, or even consume alcohol outside of the ballroom. Each evening was a ritual of shuttling beer from rooms to the ballroom. One night, my future wife and I ended up staying up til sunrise with the Chicago Beer Society guys, Kinney Baughmann, and Greg Noonan. When I finally went to turn in, two young women in hot pants, hip boots, and halter tops jumped in my elevator to go up. They produced a key card for the penthouse suite, and rode up. I thought, "Hmm....Discovery Channel account." The next day, we barely made it out of bed for the luncheon where Michael Jackson was the keynote speaker. I nearly fell off my chair when his first words were, "Just a few hours ago, I learned that lust is much better than love!"

Brew-pub'in' Montréal

Here is the much delayed account of our jaunt up to
gorgeous and lively Montréal. Even the daily downpours
could not possibly tame the Québécois vivaciousness.

Things started off superbly when I spotted Le Cheval Blanc
brewpub as we were pulling into the bus terminal coming
from the airport. Beers were all clean and solid.
The friendly waitress was a doll and even bought us a round.
The hefeweizen with a lime! was admirably thirst quenching.


Over the following days I got to visit with a dear ol'
friend and even randomly bumped into an even older friend
I had last seen 16 years ago on a different continent.
T.A. will forever be that cool cat that lent me a tape
with Led Zeppelin I on one side and Led Zeppelin II on the
other. As a 14-year old living in North Africa, that just
blew my mind. I wore out that tape non-stop for weeks until
he finally made me my own copy from his dad's LPs.

While up there we of course visited a plethora of brewpubs
and beer bars. They ranged from quaint unassuming little jewels
such as Montréal's oldest bar Le Vieux Dublin to sparkly
soul-less mega-chains.

I was delighted to revisit old favorites such
as the impressive patio at St Elisabeth Pub.
And it was exciting to see some newcomers such as
Brasserie Bénélux which had a terrific porter.

A good place to stock up is Super Marché Rahman,
Le Paradis de la Bière, 151 Laurier West,
it's just a couple blocks west of Dieu du Ciel.
We also hit up Brutopia, Le Réservoir, and L'Amère à Boire.



We rented a couple bikes for the pleasant 40 mile
roundtrip ride to picturesque Chamblis for a pilgrimage
to Unibroue's must-visit Fourquet Fourchette restaurant.




We checked out the wonderful Atwater Market to load up on
fresh fruits and a wondrous selection of Québec cheeses.

Scrumptious mussels and gourmet pizzas were on the menu (not pictured...) at Le Sergent Récruteur and Bières et Compagnie.





All in all this was a fantastic trip. We did stay away from
cheese and beers for a little while after getting back...
Montréal is as fun place to visit as ever and the jazz fest
was outstanding as always.

Happy Independence Day

As with almost every year around this time
I'll be heading up to Montréal during the holidays
for the fantastic Jazz Festival and to bask
in the city's fun multicultural vibe and cool hipness.


So happy 4th of July y'all,
don't let little dubya and his pals ruin the country

any more while I'm gone.

God Bless America!

Triple Double Medalists

yeah baby! we gots homebrewing medals!!!!

"Where my troopers at?"

Wyclef, Shaggy and the Ska-Talites are doing a free
outdoors show in DC, so I've been listening to ol' Wyclef.

There's a fantastic sample at the start of the
"Hollywood to Hollywood" track off his 2000 "Ecleftic" album.

I finally found out what song that came from:
Super Cat "Dolly my Baby" (Bad Boy Extended Mix, 1993)
Featuring Third Eye, Notorious B.I.G and Sean "Puffy" Combs
propelled by Herbie Hancock and the Headhunter's "Watermelon Man"

Ginger, Guinness, Guava, Lychee... Ice Cream

York's Tropical Ice Cream in Silver Spring
is a Jamaican family-run quaint piece of heaven.

The crystallized ginger and coconut/pineapple
ice creams were fantastic, fresh and not overly sweet.

www.yorkcastleicecream.com
9324 Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20910
301-589-1616

Iritis Band is Alive

Take a sneek peak out our myspace page under construction!
http://www.myspace.com/iritis

Spirit of Free Beer

The results are in for this year's Spirit of Free Beer.
My first ever homebrewing prize!

Click for full results:

SoFB is a nationally sanctioned homebrew competition,
open to anyone, and organized by my local homebrewing Club,
the Brewers United for Real Potables (BURP).

Yes I have been a proud BURPer for a good 6 years or so now.
I've been sporadically and lackadaisically brewing beer for
about 10 years now, yet i had never won or even placed in any
of the 5 or 6 competitions I had entered.

This time I benefited from the direct help of the famed Wendell,
it was Beth's lucky first brew and we got some kick-ass
yeast slurry from a local professional brewer.

Not only did we win the 3rd prize in the hotly disputed
Robust Porter category, but we won the top honor
for Extract Brewing.

Yeeeehaw!
Cheers

Life Imitates Art or The PinkEye Cometh

Taken a few hours after my first personal trip to the ER.
At least it would make a good album cover
and perhaps even gave us a name for the band:
Iritis.

..where the first "i" is the most High.
Jah, Rastafari!

Blenheim Ginger Ale

Oh this is so incredibly delicious.

It stings, it burns and it uplifts.

Brewed in South Carolina since 1903,

it's a classic true to its roots.

I praise the blessed land
that also brought us James Brown.


Blenheim Old #3 Hot for me, baby!

Little Peapod

In a stroke of pure nerdy genius,
my coworker Chris and his wife lovingly
dressed up their poor kiddo for a special event..

Here's from their blog:

"Andrea and Gabe at the opening for the National Museum of Health and Medicine's new exhibit, "Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics." When he starts dating, mom will proudly pull out this picture and he'll be totally mortified. All the scientists (and others who attended the event commented, "Oh, he's the green, smooth variety!" What a cutie!"

Soccer final

Yeehaw!
We're in the final!!!

After a great 3-2 victory in the first leg of the play-offs
last night, the MDA Federales won a spot in the finals.

The game will be next wednesday evening,
here's the full score sheet.

Pinkeye

Here's our latest song with François and Binesh.

I just got done reworking it...
"remixing" and "mastering" are too big words for
something so raw that we laid down in just a couple of takes.

Music and lyrics are all from Francie's tainted soul,
some snippets:

"Sail the ship with no name"
"..backwards walking in
to love dressed up as sin
the cure for your purpose"
"chasing piece of mind
will soon be left behind"

Maybe he's been listening to too much Mars Volta lately.

Francie was going for the Pink Floyd melded vocals sound.
I tried to embellish (read "bury") our voices with effects.
But we just might need a real singer.

This song is radically different from our first, Houroub which
is more of the east-west fusion i really love.

Speaking of which, i recently discovered an amazing Iranian-American
singer/songwriter. Her name is Haale. This is what the NY Times wrote about her:
"Percussionists provided driving rhythms...over which Haale's warm, supple voice unfurled like a curlicue of smoke. Her band's amplified rumble served as a reminder of the extent to which rock bands like the Doors and the Velvet Underground turned to the East for their most hypnotic efforts; here their borrowlings were reclaimed with interest."

There are numerous uncanny parallels with my Iranian-Spanish friend Atisu and our jazz-folky band during my student year of living in Toulouse, France. I'll try to dig up some of the tapes from a couple radio shows we played and post them up here for you to check out.

Ok, enough digressing, here's our latest, Pinkeye!
Let me know what you think!

Soccer Team Work

Our indoor soccer team is dragging along this season.
The league screwed us up so consistently it
looks intentional. First they caused us to miss
an entire season and then they stuck us in the last
division on a different day that we had requested.

For our game last night, 5 players (out of 10)
didn't show up, some with good reason but most
just didn't turn up, leaving the team severely depleted.
The ragtag team still managed a win but it wasn't pretty.

At least there is still is some inspirational soccer
out there: selfless and flawless. Enjoy:

10 Year College Reunion

Old Friends, Many Beers and Old Bay Crabs

SoCal Trip

A week-long jaunt around Southern California started on a
great note we scored a free upgrade to a convertible red mustang.




In LA, we toured the sights such as
the Frank Gehry designed Disney Concert Hall:




The Getty Center with its views of LA and somptuously
designed grounds was not to be missed either:




I had to take the obligatory picture on Hollywood's Walk of Fame
and pay my respects:




What's a trip to Cali without nice long walks on the beach...




We visited several beer locales, the original Pizza Port
of Solana Beach was terrific and not only because I
rocked the pinball machine there ;-)
The best was hands down Stone Brewing in Escondido
for its expansive tap and bottle beer menu, great food
and a fantastic outdoor rock garden.



Check out a few more pix here:

200704 SoCal Trip

Houroub

After months of delays, here finally is a song we recorded with a bunch of friends. I had been waiting to re-record and mix it better but it seems we never can find the time or when we do, we end up going off on tangents and playing other stuff.

This particular song is inspired by a personal fave, the group Niyaz.
This was our second take with one mic in the middle of the room.
No post-processing, the reverb comes courtesy of my brother's basement.

François on bass, is from South Carolina. As our resident philosopher and muslim scholar, he anchors the band with most of the writing when we're not just making stuff up as we go.

Binesh is our guitar shredder who can pulls off any Satriani, Vai and David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) licks you can think off. You can see why I gladly deferred the guitar duties to him. He brings peace and balance to us through his Nepalese Buddhist infused hair metal acrobatics.

Ahmed hails from Morocco. He's the only one who's actually classically trained, in middle eastern music theory. He plays the beautiful oud, pictured below.

Cheers and let me know what you think of it.

Globetrotterettes

My darling little nieces aged 8 and 10, including my spunky godchild - i'll let you guess which one of the two she is- are seasoned travellers. They have been to every single major continent and great little spots like the Galapagos and the Caribbean.
At their current pace, they are going to catch up with me real fast on number of countries visited. I better get back out there fast!

Enjoy these pix from their latest adventure.

NG POD: Mono Lake

Sweet pix today on the National Geographic Picture of the Day


Mono Lake, California, 1982
Photograph by James P. Blair

"Spires of limestone tufa rise from the shores of California’s Mono Lake. Tufa form when underwater springs rich in calcium meet lake water rich in carbonates, forming calcium carbonate, or limestone. The limestone precipitates in layers over time and can grow more than 30 feet (9 meters) high. Mono Lake’s tufa are particularly dramatic because water diversions have significantly lowered the lake’s level, exposing more of the columns.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, the National Geographic special publication, Our Threatened Inheritance, 1982.)"

Song of the Day: Nina Simone

Lilac Wine taken from
Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips Collection box set.

Also included is the remix version from Verve Remixed 3.
The last bonus song by Astrud Gilberto is also from that album.

A Small World

Thank you all so much for visiting this page!

With hits from Iceland, Alaska, the Hudson Bay (Ness!), Ascunción in Paraguay, Wellington in New Zealand, the Canary Islands, Jo-burg in South Africa, Dubayy in the UAE, Krung Thep in Thailand, Lagos in Nigeria... we all live in a small world indeed.
Big props to the home island Mauritius and Morocco for showing up.
Who's there in Singapore lighting up their part of the world?

Many thanks again and be well.

Kafka's Revenge

These two rockin' tracks are from my bud MT's old defunct band: Maladjusted Butler. They unleashed their Civil Disobedience CD sometime around the turn of the millenium. "Bad Like Jessie James" is a wickedly reworked cover of the John Lee Hooker slow burner.
These are ultra rare gems.

Mali Festival au Désert

One day i hope to make it to this annual event.
Here's a sweet slideshow of someone's journey to the festival.
And click on any of the pix below to check out the BBC's
audio slideshow of the event.