People often ask me about my scooter… how many miles it gets, how fast, etc. So I’ve decided to start a new site to do the talking for me: Scooter Buying Guide.com. 

Be more prepared than that guy.

Check out the Vespa and Buddy scooters. At 70-95 miles per gallon, $5 gas will seem like $1.50 again.

The Cave Singers put on an inspired show last night at Neumos. It was a benefit for Governor Gregoire, and the atmosphere was charged. And so was my recorder. Here are three of my favorites, with ‘Helen’ opening the show, followed by ‘Cold Eye’ at the halfway point, then the iconic ‘Dancing On Our Graves’ closing the set. Whatever you do, never, ever, miss this band if you have a chance to see them. And get hold of their CD. Best $15 you’ll ever spend. Besides a ticket to their show :).

[You can download the above mp3s to your computer (and help save replay bandwidth) by right-clicking (or control-click-hold on Mac) on the 'download' links. Enjoy!]

Few more pics while I’m at it:

** Special thanks to Jennifer for helping out with recording the audio while I snapped a few pics! **

For the past few months, around 3 am I can hear a Nightingale parked out in the back of my apartment building doing it’s bird calling. The other night I couldn’t sleep, so got up and recorded a bit of audio.

If you haven’t already heard, there’s been a battle waging in Seattle for the last few months over whether a cowardly, out-of-town redneck, riding on the coat-tails of his wife’s riches can steal another city’s pro basketball team. A team with 40+ years of history I might add.

At the Sonics last home game of the season the entire crowd was chanting “Save Our Sonics!” at various points in the game. Towards the final closing seconds, with the home team up by a few points and a rare victory within grasp, the chat filled the entire arena. Here’s the audio from the upper level:

Here’s the article on ESPN
Seattle Times 
Seattle PI 

 
Save Our Sonics.org
SonicsCentral.com
SupersonicSoul.com

Here’s an audio recording I made of the The Cave Singers on a Zoom H4. Didn’t have a windscreen so the levels are off a bit (under my glove):

Water Tower String Band plays at FolkLife 2008 at the Seattle Center.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of joining several friends to see the last day of Sasquatch at the Gorge in central Washington. It’s one of the best places to see an outdoor show, so long you don’t mind spending $30, $40, $50, $60 in gas for the round-trip ~300 mile round trip (via Seattle).

The Flaming Lips was Monday’s headliner, and put on a very good show. I guess also as long as you don’t mind seeing pounds of junk being discarded into the environment. After opening with a ‘UFO’ coming down and the lead singer rolling around the crowd in a giant ball for a few minutes, the party atmosphere was kicked up a notch with hordes of confetti, streamers and giant balloons being pumped out into the crowd.

The problem, as anyone who has ever been to the Gorge, is that there’s pretty much always a decent breeze. And Monday night it was more of a mild wind. Wind blowing buckets and buckets of useless scraps of paper (that nobody is going to recycle) right over the crowd and all over the Gorge. The confetti didn’t stop at the early goings either; towards the end of the show I was seeing how many scraps I could snatch from the air–from my lawn spot about 200 feet from the stage.

Probably worse than the confetti were the giant balloons, that from the moment they were launched on the stage, took flight away from crowd, with many appearing to bounce out of the amphitheater and into the Gorge valley below. I wonder if 50 years from now people will still be finding those things scattered over the rocks below.

Now, I’m sure they’ve paid extra money to have someone clean-up all that junk. The problem here is that, The Lips made a point of reminding us throughout the show how we’re supposed to be such do-gooders, vote only for democrats, and if you’re not against the war you’re for it. All good points indeed. But what about the little idea of NOT POLLUTING?

Note to The Flaming Lips: next time you put on another one of your trashy shows, do it in an indoors arena where people can clean up after you. An outdoor amphitheater with high wind? You should know better.

Good night and good luck.

There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon – in five, 10 or 30 years – the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world – and where they are leading us.
…
Johann Hari: Why bananas are a parable for our times