#33 - cmj at 33.

the annual cmj music marathon returned to nyc this past week, with its thousands of music peeps & their badges & bands & occasional film/other art events taking over the city from tuesday to saturday.

my first cmj was back in 2005, when i was overseeing the advertising for ny press' music section & doing some writing for it as well. i had me a badge that allowed me entry to any venue in the city for any show. it was the year of clap your hands say yeah. remember them? for the shawn circa 05 curious, my blog ramblings about the 2005 cmj festival can be found here & my ny press ramblings can be found via here.

when cmj came back round the next year, i was no longer with ny press & badgeless. same deal in 2007. both years, i caught a show or two. this year, after being slightly anti-social & slightly broke & relatively concert-free for the past few months & after being inspired again about live music because of a couple of shows by the albertans in the weeks leading up to cmj, i decided to try making it to a few cmj events this year.

on tuesday night, i met up with a friend at the paste magazine party at the red bull space...gotta love indie rock shows sponsored like football stadiums. when i got to the door, i was asked for my name...a list. didn't know that, but talked my way in aided by the ny press sweatshirt i happened to be wearing. apparently, it made me look like press. missed gringo star but caught sets by wild light, cheeseburger and the vivian girls. turns out wild light is from nh. they were ok. through the years, i've seen cheeseburger more times than i can count, often at random parties & art galleries & crap & they're pretty much the same thing every time--bad-ass party rock riffs, a few tossed beers & guaranteed ass crack. the vivian girls were pretty much what i expected--quick, solid rock songs...probably better suited for a non-red bull inspired space. i will say one thing for paste magazine...they pull indie rock hotties.

on wednesday, i planned to head to gallery bar to see the stone throw records showcase, featuring arabian prince (yeah n.w.a.!), peanut butter wolf & madlib. before i even made it to the train to go to the show, i was warned of a three to four person deep line wrapping around the block. i'm way too old for that magnitude of a line. pass.

thursday night was a no-go due to other obligations.

on friday, i attended a shalloween party at the village lantern, on bleecker. everyone was so thin & had the most awesomest clothes & sunglasses! omg! it wasn't officially a cmj event, but i went there to see a concert by the missing teens, a band who i had heard much about but never seen live & whose live show is definitely interesting & whose songs are full of saucy lyrics.

on saturday afternoon, i was on tha intrawebz checking out the gothamist website. as part of cmj, gothamist had transformed the bell house (a sweet-looking venue that i had no idea existed although it's a mere 15 blocks north of my house near the gowanus canal) into "gothamist house." every day, they had 6-7 bands play from early in the afternoon to early in the evening, pretty much during the time i was doing things like working. i noticed that the saturday lineup included the forms, a band who had coincidentally been recommended to me by the sister of girlfriend of a friend a few days earlier, so i decided to make my way down there for their 6pm set. when i arrived at 6:05, the forms had either gone on early or decided not to play (boo), so i stuck around to watch the next performer, sharon van etten. she's your average singer songwriter type with some emotion most of the time (eh). she had to deal with a loud conversational girl at the bar stage left, so props for that. on the way out, i grabbed a schwag bag, all environmentally sound & donated by whole foods & containing a tin of embittermints.

so that was my 2008 cmj. on a totally unrelated note, i turn 34 in three weeks.

#33 - cmj at 33.
snack: sensible portions pizzetta italiano pita bites
drink: 4c white iced tea antioxidant blueberry flavor

so last night, i was pooped beyond belief from the week & stayed in my apartment for the most part, consuming everything that wasn't nailed down & watching the final episode of the first season of breaking bad (check out that link if you have a few moments & sound...oh & bryan cranston is so deserving of the emmy he won for best actor...sorry jon hamm). i finished off the rest of a box of sensible portions pizzetta italiano pita bites. they're pretty good with a weird & slightly pizzalike aftertaste & the box suggests putting cheese & cucumber slices & herbs & junk on them. whatever, rockefeller.

i also drank a ton of 4c white tea during the eve. as mentioned in my first ever blog entry, iced tea's been the beverage i've had the longest-standing relationship with & 4c's been the powdered iced tea of choice for a lot of it. in recent years, the powder flavors have branched out from the standard lemon fare to include flavors such as the white & red teas. i enjoy the white tea for the most part, although the sweetness can be a bit much at times. it also goes well with white wine. i've yet to try the red tea, as it goes for something like $7 a can. i'll get that some day, rockefeller.

#32 - boobs.

tonight was a night of chillin' at home & catching up on a few of my fave tv shows--true blood, mad men, dexter and the life & times of tim. these shows occupy various pleasure zones in my brain for varied reasons--crazy twists, social commentaries, crude humor--and all of them share one dominant trait, a favorite of heterosexual males worldwide...boobs.

i've been pleasantly surprised by true blood. other than the unarguably awesometacular film that was lost boys, i've never been the biggest fan of stories about the undead. i never watched buffy, read anne rice or cared for bram stoker, but i enjoy true blood so far. one of the reasons is anna paquin's boobs & her sun dresses/louisiana wardrobe (apparently designed by a friend of a friend!). she's just amazingly cute is all...and as both last sunday & this sunday's episodes clearly show, she is comfortable with nudity. boobs...oh & lizzy caplan (of cloverfield fame) joined the cast during this week's episode & is apparently also comfortable with, well...boobs.

i've also started watching hbo's new show the life & times of tim, brought to you by the same guy who brought you the budweiser lizards. remember how much we all loved those lizards & their hilariously dry wit? after a while, we didn't even remember the budweiser frogs. well, the life & times of tim is soaking in the same hilariously dry wit as those commercials. how witty is it? let's just say that last sunday's episode featured a scenario where tim ends up squeezing his girlfriend's grandmother's boobs...boobs.

mad men features many conical 1960s boobs & perhaps the largest boobs in television today, owned by actress christina hendricks, who is quite the sassy badass as the character of joan holloway, the ad agency's office manager...boobs.

i hate all the female characters on dexter. boobs unimportant. the end.

#32 - boobs.

snack: ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry
drink: canada dry sparkling green tea ginger ale

as i watched these shows & thoughts of boobs floated through my head, i snacked on a few pieces of ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry. after living through a childhood that included the wonders of tidal wave gum & gushers & and adulthood that has brought both jalapeno poppers & salmon roe to my pallette, i've always been a sucker for foods that squirt junk when you bite into them. the ghirardelli don't exactly squirt junk, but they have an inner mushiness that is accented by what i hope are raspberry seeds.

at the atlantic center target earlier today, i was determined to find a good sized bottle of some unique beverage to enjoy over the next few days. for those who know this place, it often resembles a soviet-era grocery store, with its long lines & empty shelves. today, the soda aisle was stripped fairly bare on one side, but when i looked up, the top shelf featured a bottle of pepsi & some relatively clear foreign soda whose label was facing away from me. i reached for it & to my surprise, discovered a new soda invention...canada dry sparkling green tea ginger ale. this soda has antioxidants & is yummy. the green tea flavor goes well with the ginger ale & they both work nicely with the chocolate & raspberry. well done, canada...for once.

in conclusion...boobs.

#31 - asian rim of terror.

please note that for the duration of this entry, all uses & offshoots of the word terror should probably have quotes around them. you can thank dubya for that.

hey, remember his 2002 state of the union address? it was his first one, four months after 911, the one where he took occasion to throw down the gauntlet to iraq, iran & north korea. AXIS OF EVIL BITCHES!!! Y'ALL ARE GOING ON THE TERROR LIST!!!

we all know what happened to iraq & well, if w just had a little more time, he'd get to iran (fingers crossed for mick & the pale in a few weeks! maybe mccain can co-opt more beach boys songs for the cause!). as for north korea, when we began dragging our feet again about removing them from the terror list & began trying to change our negotiated terms, they raised a stink that eventually led to them deploying missiles to their west coast last thursday. as a result, we up & took em off the terror list two days later, just before your beloved college football squads took the field for their saturday competitions.

you see, back to june, north korea very publicly destroyed a water cooling tower at their nuclear facility in yongbyon & in exchange, it was expected that they'd be taken off our terror list, leaving iran as the lone remainder in the axis. you may remember that in recent years, we removed libya from the list after they made "amends" for some of their terrorist actions, which included blowing up a pan am flight over scotland.

as for north korea, they kidnapped anywhere from 16-80 japanese citizens in the late 70s & early 80s & used them to teach north korean spies how to be japanese. in 2002, after denying for a long time that they had done so, north korea eventually admitted to & apologized for kidnapping 13 japanese. they've abducted south korean citizens as well & their more notable act of terror was in 1987, when north korean agents blew up a korean air flight, the largest act of terror ever against south korea. pretty sure they never had to apologize for that though...& then there's the whole nuclear proliferation thing.

...so north korea, congrats. you're off the list. that's how it works round here. themz dubya rules.

#31 - asian rim of terror.
snack: newton's naturals wasabi blazing peas
drink: 22 oz. sapporo reserve

whew, boy do i love wasabi peas. these ones are made in malaysia, which means they might have been made with love by a 10-year old...although "newton's naturals" does seem like a pretty harmless company, at least in name, so i should probably avoid the needless slander. wasabi peas are awesome at clearing you up. i need to learn how to apply moderation to them though. many a time, i've found myself continuing to shove pea after pea into my mouth even though i'm past the point where my eyes & nose are leaking in unison.

luckily, i have a tall can of sapporo reserve to wash them down with. the sapporo can & its inordinate weightiness intrigues me to no end. it makes it so that you think there's a bunch more beer left down there in the can & then out of nowhere, you've got no more beer, sucker. sapporo was the first japanese beer i ever tried, back in my freshman year of college, when a few of us discovered a sushi restaurant in kenmore square that would serve us plucky 18 & 19 year olds. it was also the first time i tried sushi. it's probably a mall now. i mean, kenmore's pretty much one big mall now anyhow.

#30 - la isla bon eatah.

as of just under two weeks ago, there's now a trader joe's in brooklyn, at the dividing line between downtown & bococa, right at the corner of court and atlantic. it's an interesting area of brooklyn.

to the south, there's red hook and its box store expansion, with ikea & in due time, a bj's wholesale club (which led to the inevitable headline "after ikea's success, red hook to get bj's") and the current filming of mtv's the real world: brooklyn.

to the east is the pending construction of the barclay's center (soon to be home to the new jersey brooklyn nets). this monstrosity (will somebody please take away frank gehry's license? i mean, really ) is part of a larger project, the atlantic yards project, which will drastically transform the intersection of two of brooklyn's largest streets--flatbush ave & atlantic ave--with the arena & towers & such.

4th ave, the street i live on, starts at the same intersection & runs six lanes all the way south through brooklyn to the bottom of the island, where it ends at the intersection of the verrazano bridge to staten island & jersey and the belt parkway, which runs along the bottom of brooklyn all the way east past jamaica bay & jfk airport into long island. i'm about 30 blocks down from the atlantic yards area & all down 4th ave to my apartment, tall apartment buildings are sprouting up thanks to rezoning fallout from the project. my landlord's putting in an 8 story one next door...& so there's now a trader joe's up the street. map here. scan around.

in my life, i've had a good deal of exposure to trader joe's. there's that one in coolidge corner that i definitely went to on a number of occasions but don't recall all that well. it's apparently one of 16 in massachusetts. then there's the union square trader joes, divided into a wine store & a grocery store because of liquor laws (i assume). i usually only go to the wine section when i need a bottle of wine for some reason & can't spend more than $3. i've gone in the grocery section twice & the cramped, crowded aisles infested with nyu students drive me into panic attack mode. i hate going into the union square trader joe's grocery store. hate it.

the other day, i paid my first visit to the brooklyn trader joe's. when you initially enter, you can't help but notice the long ass line to your right. when i returned today, it was still there. i can only assume that it's there in perpetuity. usually, their lines move fast, but it's still intimidating. on that visit i just scoped the joint out. the combination of the signage, the shelf layout, the way the store is divided up & some other factors really rubbed me the wrong way. i vowed to give it a second chance though.

#30 - la isla bon eatah.

snack: spanish olive mix
drink: garnacha de fuego 2007

overall, i know a minimal amount about wine. i usually at least have good luck at picking out a decent wine. i'm not entirely blind. as an example, i can tell the difference between trader joe's brand wine (not available in brooklyn) & well, actual wine. there's a wine store in my neighborhood, adam's wine and liquors, that is owned by a cute couple in their 50s(?). they are wonderful at suggesting wines, obviously knowledgeable & usually offering samples. it is the only place i go in brooklyn to buy real wine. they have one of those frequent buyer cards, where you get your 13th bottle of wine free.

my number came up the other day & i decided that tonight i'd try out that unlucky bottle of wine, a garnacha de fuego 2007. it's from spain. "fuego" means fire en espanol. it's pretty good & tastes a bit fruity & a bit spicy. read the wine weekly review i link to. i'm pretty sure they actually know what they're talking about.

i also decided that i'd head back to trader joe's tonight to pick up some fresh mixed olives to snack on with the wine. turns out trader joe's brooklyn doesn't have fresh mixed olives either. some girl even went & checked for me. sadly, she never returned. i can only assume she is dead. i know a lot of people, my own sister included, who swear by trader joe's, but really, i hate it. i don't care how many dang mangoes they put in their salsas.

instead, i just went a block down court street to pacific green gourmet food, where i found myself an olive bar with an entire bin devoted to "spanish olives." there are some dark red ones with pits, some less-dark-red ones with pits, some big-ass green ones & some smaller ones with pimentos. they're in an oil with a bunch of minced garlic. during the course of writing this, i've eaten about 50 of em. they're pretty friggin' good, although during the course of writing this, i've also made my way through 250ml 300ml 350ml of the wine, so that could just be the fuego talking for my taste buds.

#29 - fluffycreamycreepysmooth.

tonight i'm watching the second vice presidential debate, featuring questions from myspace. take that facebook. the debate also features rules, which are to be wantonly flaunted in tom brokaw's face. he just keeps bringing them rules up & the candidates just keep giving him the ol' "don't make us oust you again, tom."

when obama speaks, he's always composed. he answers questions intelligently. this is probably a plus. i mean, it worked out really well for both gore & kerry. wait a second. mccain just replied to something obama said with something about nailing jello to the wall? did he just accuse senator obama of wasting dessert? oh, never mind. budget metaphor. obama not evil. jello safe. he's still not getting my vote though.

john mccain wants to sit down & reach across the table. bad table manners, senator. i really wish he would stop calling me his friend & chopping at me. i attended a taping of the daily show a year or so back & he was the guest, promoting a book or something. he was definitely charming then. now he just creeps me out. tonight, he keeps shuffling forward toward the audience like a mummy as he answers their questions. i bet you he's breathing his pharaohvian breath on the people in the front row. maybe he could throw silver dollars at the good people of america from high atop a building. i'm pretty sure he'd get the lenny vote.

here is the question i would have asked:

as a male in his mid-thirties who is so spectacularly disenchanted with the political system that i am considering going back to the green party & voting for cynthia mckinney just to say that i participated in the process, why should anything either of you say not sound like it is coming from the mouth of an adult in a peanuts cartoon?

i would reserve the right to fully emphasize the words "spectacularly disenchanted" and sing these words loudly whilst making hammering or baseball bat-swinging motions to emphasize my point.

the last question was from amherst, nh:

q: what don't you know & how would you learn it?
a: well, what i do know is that at the end of this question, you still won't know what i don't know.

#29 - fluffycreamycreepysmooth.
snack: smart ones chocolate eclair
drink: silk 11 fl oz chocolate soymilk

in honor of tonight's debate, i'm having myself a smart ones chocolate eclair. it is a perfect metaphor for the debate, except for the "smart ones" part. it is fluffy. it is creamy. it won't make me feel guilty about eating it. it needs to be taken out of the freezer & thawed out for an hour before consuming. it goes really good with silk soy milk, especially when it is the chocolate kind drank out of a wasteful american single serving sized bottle. perfect. metaphor. oh & they're both not very good.