Currently Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) By The Rolling Stones, Rolling Stones see related

My X-Mas Tradition

For the past 10 years now, I have established a annual Christmas tradition as a way of basically staying in the spirit every year. I love this time of year, but my family (parents and siblings) have never really been that into it. We don't even celebrate Thanksgiving together. This has been due to money issues for as long as I can remember. I am okay with it, but I still needed something to get me through the holidays and still feel like I didn't miss out.

Enter, Exile On Kettner. This is an annual free concert at my favorite club iun San Diego, The Casbah on Christmas eve. It's a gritty indie rock club that rivals established (WhiskeyA-GoGo ) and extinct(CBGBs) indie clubs around the country. (I don't mean it's better than those...I just mean in this city it's the place to be).  Now, Exile on Kettner  opened my eyes to the wonder that is the music of The Rolling Stones. The entire album Exile On Main Street is played plus many more songs The Stones in a marathon set of perfectly performed tunes with a collection of the best San Diego indie-rock musicians. It is lead by a Mexican Mick Jagger, Mario Escovedo (Former Dragons frontman, Uncle of Sheila E, brother of Alejandro Escovedo and Zeros member Xavier Excovedo.) The rest of the band rotates every year. Two bass players, multiple guitarists, keys, sometimes additional percussion (in good year), drummer, and three female back up singers. It's a rich sound coming from such a small stage.

I started going more than ten years ago when the core of the group was the whole Dragons lineup plus some. I introduced whoever I could to this show and through the years many have enjoyed and never returned, but I keep the tradition alive. My wife has dug it ever since I introduced her to it four years ago. We introduced her younger brother to it (he's planning on going again with his wife) and this year, my kid sister will tag along (unless she flakes out). This makes the whole season worth it for me. Going broke every year to make others happy knowing that my return won't even be close (who's is really?). At least I will always have Exile On Kettner to look forward to. Oh, and tamales. You Latinos know what I'm talking about. (I gotta help make tamales at my brother-in-law's with his huge family before I can enjoy the tunes).

Overheard at the office

So, I was minding my own bidness today, walking by the shared cubicle of of my more conservative co-workers when I overheard the following conversation:

"Before congress passes some sort of public healthcare option, they should really experiment with this idea on themselves (congress)."

Now, to me, this is a completely moronic statement. Two reasons, one: do we even need to test a model that has worked so well in ALL of the civilized western world except for the USA? and two: People who work directly for the government get...wait for it..wait for it...PUBLIC HEALTHCARE!!!! Even two of their beloved Republicans Darrell Issa and Jack Kingston have pushed heavily (probably all talk) for Medicare for everyone. Or as they put it, the same healthcare that THEY get now.

Stop disliking an idea just because the man in the little AM box tells you to.

Turkey Day and some of Black Friday

I went out Thursday evening to my wife's cousins' house. They live in an insane house with multiple balconies, a huge master bedroom, and the rest  (6) are average sized bedrooms...each with it's own bathroom though. They were going to have all of my wife's side of the family (their Mother's side) and their father's side. All the families of size were to bring some sort of side dish or dessert or sodas. We totally chose the latter since the smaller families can just bring soda. (I don't mention this a lot, but I do not like soda...soda's the enemy when it comes to eating out somewhere ...really 2.99? and for some reason I have just becomed way turned off to it...another rant for another time). I also brought two growlers (2 liter or half gallon refillable bottles) from two local brewing companies (Stone and Port brewing).[by dinner, I was hammered]

The main course(s) were to consist of one turkey, one ham, and a giant prime rib brisket. The turkey got burned on the skin, so my wife's cousin, who is the food and bev director at a country club and was working that day, brought a back up turkey just in case. His girlfriend was left alone in the house to finish preparing the dinner he had started. Tables were set with linen tablecloths and napkins, beautiful centerpieces, and fine stemware for water and wine. This was an event now and it would not disappoint.

When our group arrived, it was still light out, the first bird had been singed on the skin. We assured our busy hostess that it would be okay and my wife's uncle carved that burned turkey and we sampled it....best turkey I have EVER had. We told April (she has a name...she's the hostess and girlfriend of my wife's cousin) that it would all be fine....now tell us what to do. She freaked out a bit as the kitchen became crowded with professional eaters eager to help out while she went upstairs and made herself pretty (she didn't really need the help though). She came back downstairs nearly an hour later looking......um.....kinda inappropriately sexy in a shortsuit.

Families arrived 5 to a car and the dishes came flying through the door as our dinner was almost ready. We just waited for the aforementioned cousin, who I will just refer to as cousin 1, to finishes cutting the prime rib and ham...and eventually that second turkey. We all formed a line and loaded out plates. I grabbed turkey from the secons turkey, ham, and prime rib, which I have never really had the pleasure of having outside of Vegas. I also got all the proper acoutrements of Thanksgiving mashed taters, stuffing, real cranberries, and gravy. I dug in (after thankfully nobody decided to say grace or do that tv family thing and ask what everybody is thankful for...I would have choked had that happened). The turkey ..good....the ham...all right....the prime rib.....OMG!!! Yeah I said that. It was so good. The turkey I had was from the backup so it wasn't marinated the same way. It was just okay. The turkey that burned, I actually didn't get to taste till I filled up my tupperware containers I knew I would need...and took a few nibbles yesterday. THe rest of dinner was cool. We all had a blast. There had to have been 30 or more people there. Could have been 50. We played pool and watched tv and chit chatted into the night.

My stomach wrecked and my eyes barely staying open, I made it clear to the wife that I wanted nee needed to go home. (I won't drop a deuce in someone's house if I'm not comfortable.) We got home, slept and I had an early dentist appointment the next morning.

Went to that..got bored at home....went back out to see the "deals" at Target and Best Buy. THey should have called the sales the "Don't fucking bother....this shit was the same price last week" sales. I later went to Walmart. If I didn't suddenly need jumper cables, that would have been a failure of a sale too. All of the stuff that was supposed to be on sale must have been gone.....which is unlike Target....but the Target did have on sale sucked anyway. Last year was so much better.

Off The Cuff...10-23-09

1. Is it possible that they could do away with all these ads on every internet site that show some shirtless dude telling me how he got ripped? It's like an advertisement for a gay escort service. How would I know? Come on....the local entertainment rags in my hometown have gay escort ads and they totally look just like that.

2. The latest conspiracy theory: flu shots and/or H1N1 shots. The fact that these are interchangeable to the wacko righty means the arguments against both are invalid. One says that the flu shot is laced with mercury. The other says that H1N1 is laced with mercury. Dude, which one is it that has the mercury? Are you sure? It's funny how the conpiracy theorist thinks. With the advent of the internet, you'd think that one could easaily find out if something were true or not or at least you could build enough bullshit to support your bullshit based on blogs. The funniest bit of misinformation that I heard was a lady not getting the flu shot because they use a (meaning one) live virus. Nice try. Now, when they tell you every year what goes into a flu shot, listen to the details. It's made up of several dead viruses that the CDC has predicted will be the best for combating the flu. It is a guessing game, yes, but harmful? Only to people who have extreme egg allergies.

3. Balloon boy. Can we stop calling the kid who wasn't in the balloon "Balloon Boy"? Wait, that was a week ago...next scandal.

4. Lindsey Lohan looks old. Closer to looking 40 then the early 20s. She was just recently in court for her DUI and she was late to court. Then she asked for permission to leave the state of California. Apparently, somebody is willing to risk the integrity of their film set by casting her in their movie. I was beginning to wonder what she did for a living when they reminded me that she USED to be that cute ginger girl in a handful of teen movies.

5. Jodie Fucking Sweetin...turns out this waste spent her sobriety on drugs. In fact, while she was making money making the motivational speaking circuit about overcoming her meth addiction.....she was addicted to meth and cocaine. In fact, right before she went out to face an eager crowd of fans/students/freaks who know who Jodie Sweetin is she would use a little nosecandy to get UP for the gig. What a fucking bitch. She wrote a book detailing how she screwed over the throngs of idiots willing to pay to see JODIE FUCKING SWEETIN speak.

Currently Don't Push Me Around By The Zeros Don't Push Me Around see related

The weekend that was.

I did what I could to ignore the news this weekend. I managed to this with the annual distraction fest that is the Adams Avenue Street Fair. Since moving to my neighborhood over a year ago, I have felt so lucky to be so close to everything closeby. I am close to downtown, the zoo, the part of town where most of the gay people live (not gay myself, but for pure people watching, Hillcrest is a great neighborhood...you can even play a drinking game called "tank top/muscle shirt in winter" you can head to the Alibi and  count the tank tops while doing shots. I don't suggest you do more than five minutes of this game as I warn you, they love their tank tops in Hillcrest.) So, about the fair, yeah it's free and lots of good bands play there. The food is all right and the vendors are purely there to overcharge for their goods. But, I am still in love with my neighborhood's charm and look forward to spending a long time here.

Our first stop was at Lestat's coffee house, where Murrugan the Mystic was set to perform. Murrugun is a busker (street performer) and he doesn't do magic. He is a fire eater, sword swallower, wire stabber through his arms, and he also lays on a bed of nails with four large guys standing on top of him ( I know..I was one of them). He is swallowing a sword in this photo.

We went to the apartment to rest for a few hours and came back out to check out The Buzzbombs, a local rockabilly act. They have original material, but chose not to play it today. They just played a bunch of old rock and roll hits. They did it very well and pulled off some stunts involving this here bass.

Then were the Creepy Creeps, who pretty much play the song over and over again. If you wanna hear them, they have a myspace page with all their music. They let people download it for free. Anyway, the music is like zombie surf music. Kind of like b-52s in sound. Typically, they sport masks on stage and have uber hot go go dancers. I didn't get the greatest pictures though.

See?

  and yet again. They also had a guy running around with a wrestling mask and a Fez on urging people to dance. Sir Grave-ee. I didn't get pics though.

But, I did get okay shots of The Zeros, a 70's punk band that spawned El Vez (the Mexican Elvis).

It also features a part of the music business dynasty, the Escovedos. This is Sheila E's uncle Xavier Escovedo. The Zeros put on a great show and their version of Little Latin Loopy loo is top notch. Makes the Righteous Brothers version totally unrecognizeable..and that's a good thing.

The rest of the weekend, me and the wife just chilled out. We left the house a couple of times to check out this band of 13 year old kids called Oculus Sinister (left eye). They were just okay. Musically, they were very talented, but song writing was as to be expected and the kid who was the lead singer had the most annoying voice. On top of that, the crowd consisted of family members and friends. Man, these kids don't need that. They need a real crowd. The remainder of the day was set aside for Charger football (we won) and back to the street fair to watch Cash'd Out.

They are a Johnny Cash tribute band, complete with their own June Carter (they had an adorable little kid on stage pretending to play). They were really good at playing the songs and at the banter between Doug and Julie (the Johnny and June of the band). My wife and I enjoyed the 90- minute set and headed back home. I couldn't help notice though, that there are a lot of lesbian couples in the area and a lot of them are ridiculously pretty..even some of the butch ones...or chapstick ones. All in all, fun was had. Lots of people partayed and the wife and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.