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.
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!
"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!"
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!
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:
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.
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.
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!
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.)"
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?
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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:
"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."
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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!
You couldn't pick two more disparate destinations: the peacefulness of orderly Germany and the bustle of the most populous West African city.
There was certainly some mayhem in the gigantic beer tents of the Bavarian Oktoberfest. Just imagine 9000 happy drunken chanting revelers under one tent hoisting huge liter mugs of delicious oktoberfest beer. And the beaches and living compounds in Lagos were islands of tranquility.
But overall I was very impressed with the serenity of Munich, even though its metropolitan area is home to 2.7 million people. There are public parks and outstanding playgrounds everywhere. Fields of fruits, vegetables and flowers have unattented deposit boxes for payment after you've helped yourself. My brother and his wife feel that time goes by slower there.
Lagos on the other hand was an exhilarating ride. With all its internet phising scams and frequent alarming mentions in the news, Nigeria has an unfairly rotten reputation. I did see naked corpses by the side of the road, just lying there, ignored. And I also found a rich vibrant culture with friendly people. I picked up some priceless old 70's LPs from the heyday of the High Life Nigerian music scene. I got to witness legendary Afro Beat founder Fela Kuti's son, Femi, proudly carry his father's torch in twice weekly concerts at his New Africa Shrine nightclub. My sister took me through the mazes of colossal markets where we haggled over wonderful pieces of art and crafts.
A dear friend just did a tour of Togo, Burkina et Bénin. And she put it simply: "Bénin was the poorest and also the one with the most liveliness."
In Nigeria, arguably the world's most corrupt country, you always have to be savvy and on your guard. Which of course wasn't too hard when i had the privilege of an armed patrol car escort in the evenings. All in all it was a memorable trip and I very much look forward to getting back there and exploring the country and the culture beyond Lagos.
Click on the pix above for some narrated photos. The picasaweb slideshow works great.
In an sound and offbeat study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers have determined that regular playing of a didgeridoo can help alleviate chronic snoring and sleep apnea.
Spurred by anecdotal evidence that rocking out the didg reduced snoring in new students of the instrument, a Swiss team of doctors successfully tested out the resounding hypothesis.
They found that since playing the didgeridoo requires a controlled breathing pattern, practicing to play it strenghens the muscles of the upper airways which control airway dilation and wall stiffening. As a result, regular playing of a didgeridoo reduced daytimesleepiness and snoring in people with moderate obstructive sleepapnoea syndrome, not to mention improving the sleep quality of their bed partners.
SoFB is a nationally sanctioned homebrew competition,
