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.

Galvanize

Q-Tip aka Kamaal Ibn John Fareed rips it up with the Chemical Brothers.

Behold the Tonguila

Bring together a Colombian and some Cuervo,
and then before d'ju know.....
Out comes the TONGUILA, menh!
On all attendees befalls a sudden hush.
Children are sent away. Women blush.
A swirl of thoughts... we're in stitches!
The party-meter cranks up a few notches.
The TONGUILA has struck, again.

Cluster F***

Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch: "As a comparison in the war in Iraq in 2003, the United States over three weeks dropped 2 million cluster sub-munitions. Israel in the war in Lebanon dropped 4 million in three days. It dwarfs any use of cluster bombs prior. You can take Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo and put them together and you’re not going to come close to what happened in southern Lebanon."

Song of the Day: Blood Witch

Melvins ROCK

buybuybuy

Blood Witch

RIP Alice Coltrane

Journey in Satchidananda

The Low End Quest

François and I have been looking for a new bass, something that would mesh better with our world/ethnic fusion aspirations. At first we were looking at an acoustic fretless like the Michael Kelly Dragonfly.









It comes in 4 or 5 strings and exists as a fretless...seemed perfect! It's a gorgeous instrument and the very first time we tried one we were both blown away by the warm organic acoustic fretless tone. But after doing more research and going back to hear it again it seemed rather poorly made. It buzzed, it sounded tiny and we saw a bunch of bad reviews online.

Then we found out about double stringed electric basses...
John Paul Jones uses an Alembic Series I Triple Omega 8-string in the epic Achilles Last Stand.

















Alembic made a gorgeous re-interpretation of that monster. But it's safe to assume it's a little out of our price range.

Well, the quest continues. In the meantime we can drool at the fantastic musicianship of John McLaughlin and Jonas Hellborg getting the best of both the fretted and fretless worlds with this double necked beauty.

Tones For Jones

Now here's one heck of a dream team doing a pretty radical interpretation of my favorite song off John McLaughlin's phenomenal 1994 After the Rain album which featured The Irrepressible Jazz Machine Elvin Jones in person.

John McLaughlin, Dennis Chambers and Zakir Hussain at the June 2004 Crossroads Festival in Dallas, TX:

The Ramen King

Momofuku Ando, 96, passed away this weekend in Japan.
He invented the instant noodle in 1957 after seeing long lines for fresh noodles. He founded the company Nissin, who brought us Cup Noodle and Top Ramen, spawning many imitators.

Thanks and Farewell Momo!

Iritis Set List

The Godfather Of Soul Passes On

The Heavens got one Hell of a Christmas gift this morning.
James Joseph Brown, Jr. passed away in Atlanta, he was 73.

I had the privilege of witnessing him at the outstanding
DC 9:30 club last December. The Band was stellar and
he was as consummate a showman as ever.
Here's a pix from that show:


I've been listening to him all day and checking out
YouTube vids. Found some terrific ones, enjoy.

Live at the Olympia, 1967:


On a lighter note, Eddie Murphy's classic SNL Hot Tub skit:



RIP JB

Tribal Bellydancing: Rachel Brice

Arts & Crafts Shopping with a Global Conscience

in time for the holidays

"In association with National Geographic, Novica today serves as an online arts agent for more than 1,700 artists in countries around the world. Visitors to the Novica Web site can read about the artists, explore their cultures, view photographs of their work and select from more than 8,500 handcrafted works. Novica arts and technology teams (staffing Novica offices in El Salvador, Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe) interview each artist, photograph their artwork, post the interviews and photographs online, and handle all packing and shipping on behalf of the artist. International couriers deliver the artwork directly to customers, eliminating numerous middlemen and transferring the savings to creator and customer alike."

Indoor Soccer Fall 2006 Season Wrap-Up

We ended my 6th campaign with our Indoor Soccer team with a record of 3-2-1 (Win-Loss-Tie) in the regular season and in 4th place out of 7 teams after the play-offs.

Our last game this past monday was quite a fiasco.
3 players could not make it, 1 was serving a red card suspension, 2 players were 15 minutes late and another quit the team. We were short 2 players at kick-off so we had to forfeit the game. They then allowed us to bring on guest players for a good friendly game with no ref.

It was somewhat of a meaningless game for most since with the previous week's tie we had missed a chance to go for the top spot and this game was then only for 3rd place.

What personally troubled me greatly was the resignation of one of our players with only one more game to go in the season. I had given him very little or no playing time in many of the season's matches that had been hard fights. He got plenty of playing time for the easier games. This was particularly difficult since he is a very dear and old friend. But he was also the least experienced or solid player of our batch.

These are certainly the inevitable growing pains of a team that started rag-tagging it for fun on our office's back parking lot but which now consistently gets chances to win trophies. These are the unfortunate and grueling choices that set apart friendliness and competitiveness.

Ariel Levy. Can Ladies Go Wild Too?

She's attractive, sensual, she can really write,
and she has an affinity for sexy topics.


Do it like a pro. like Barry Bonds.


Her fine article "Dispaches from Girls Gone Wild" is as delightful to read as it is to watch those late night GGW commercials.
Yet like a delicious vitamin-enhanced gummy bear, it is also good for you with its engagingly astute examination of the pervasive societal atmosphere she calls "the Raunch Culture." Read it here.

NG POD

The National Geographic Photo Of the Day
















"A garbage truck dumps its load at a U.S. landfill. More than 70 percent of the 180 million tons of refuse Americans throw away each year ends up in landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Compacted repeatedly by bulldozers, the inner recesses of landfills receive no light, air, or moisture, making biodegradation impossible. Scientists have even found hotdogs buried in 1974 still intact 15 years later."

In Memoriam. Erasmo Ramos

Orgasmo & Jorge

The crazy energetic whirlwind of a man we like to call Orgasmo has left us. Tragically and shockingly he is not physically with us any more.
A old and dear friend of my co-worker Jorge, he had diligently embraced me with his typical ebullience. Despite having only met a handful of times, he had generously invited me to his upcoming thanksgiving wedding.
I find some solace in having had the privilege of knowing him and in the certitude that wherever he is now reunited with his father, the Orgas-man is still bouncing around, getting up excitedly to tell his stories and spreading laughter around him.
My warmest thoughts go to S., their families and all of his impressively numerous friends.

A Day of Silence and Remembrance

The Quickest Way to Get it ON!

Pronto Condoms!

Halloween Be Thy Name

For the most frightfully rambunctious event of the year, about 40 courageous souls ventured up to the Wheystone mansion for a terrifyingly titillating time.

Despite many fantastic costumes of all stripes, our gracious hostess with the most was the crowd favorite. Since there were so many great characters, it could also be that the throngs were just stroking her large egos, both of them, in the hope they might be invited again next year for a repeat.

DJ Kam spun his bone-rattling tunes and my laptop finally worked properly so i was also able to lay down some grooves. There was some serious shakin' goin' on!

Check out the pix!