I've been sitting in Kunming airport for like 3 hours wasting time now. I was here for like a day for work, and ended up coming to the airport super early. Luckily the wifi is pretty good, so I've just been hanging out in the lounge. But it's finally almost time to go, and before I do I'll play you The Gentle Roar, by Niki & The Dove. This is off their 2012 album Instinct. I'm not actually a huge fan of this band, but I was obsessed with this song when I first heard it, and for some reason it popped into my head the other day. I was sure I had it on my blog already, but it actually seems like I might not. So just in case, I'm putting it there now.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Monday, August 29, 2016
Aug 29 - Lake Jons / Nice As Fuck
I always forget to write over the weekend. And I totally had time last weekend, I just didn't think to do it. And now I'm actually super busy at work, so don't have time to write there either. I knew it would pick back up, and I'm glad it did, but it makes the writing much more difficult.
So I guess it's time to sum up what happened between my London trips, and then the next blog will be about London. The short answer is, not much. It was a pretty uneventful few weeks. Just stayed in Shanghai, didn't really go anywhere for an entire month. Which, for me, is pretty eventful, I guess, considering I'm usually all over the place.
During that month, my buddy Mike came back to visit, so we've decided to resume this tradition we started when he lived here and I'd come regularly. So now whenever he comes, we're gonna pick a nice, fancy, famous restaurant, and take ourselves out for a nice, fancy dinner, probably by someone famous. There's so many world famous chefs and outstanding restaurants here in Shanghai, but I can't justify spending like $150+ on a meal that often. But every couple of months, sure. So this time we went to Joel Robuchon's new restaurant here in Shanghai. Everything was very good, but nothing was amazing, sadly. And every dish felt like there was a way it could be better. Well, maybe with one exception, which was the steak with foie gras. How can you mess up that combo, though? But I'm very glad I tried it, and I'm looking forward to the next trip when I can try something else.
I also went to a Supper Club, which is always fun. And this time I actually met people. Normally you go to these things and have a nice chat, but never follow up with anyone. But this night's group was awesome, and I've made a couple new friends as a result. Something I'm actively working on doing. And I also went to a couple other parties (one of the house variety, one of the no-pants-in-a-chocolate-factory variety) where I also made more friends. And which I got a date out of. So things are looking up on the friend side, too!
And on the music side, I've got like 4 blogs lined up to share with you. 3 of them are new music, 1 is not. And there's blogs (like today's) which have multiple artists. Because I just can't catch up.
Today is all new, and we're starting with Lake Jons. They're a newish Finnish trio that I just found out about, with two EPs out, one called Explore and one called Explode. So here's a great, fun song for you off of Explode, called In Time.
Now, being from the cold northern land of Finland, it's no surprise that some of their songs may be influenced by other indie-famous cold northerners - Bon Iver. There's a big influence in some songs. Like Talks, off of the Explore EP.
Alright, now that I took you down, it's time to bring you back up with a fun little ditty by Nice As Fuck. This is a new supergroup, formed by Jenny Lewis with a few other ladies I've never heard of but are famous enough to qualify this as a supergroup. I'm not a huge fan of their eponymous debut album, but there is this song Door which is great. And a couple other good ones, but for me this is the only one I really liked.
So I guess it's time to sum up what happened between my London trips, and then the next blog will be about London. The short answer is, not much. It was a pretty uneventful few weeks. Just stayed in Shanghai, didn't really go anywhere for an entire month. Which, for me, is pretty eventful, I guess, considering I'm usually all over the place.
During that month, my buddy Mike came back to visit, so we've decided to resume this tradition we started when he lived here and I'd come regularly. So now whenever he comes, we're gonna pick a nice, fancy, famous restaurant, and take ourselves out for a nice, fancy dinner, probably by someone famous. There's so many world famous chefs and outstanding restaurants here in Shanghai, but I can't justify spending like $150+ on a meal that often. But every couple of months, sure. So this time we went to Joel Robuchon's new restaurant here in Shanghai. Everything was very good, but nothing was amazing, sadly. And every dish felt like there was a way it could be better. Well, maybe with one exception, which was the steak with foie gras. How can you mess up that combo, though? But I'm very glad I tried it, and I'm looking forward to the next trip when I can try something else.
I also went to a Supper Club, which is always fun. And this time I actually met people. Normally you go to these things and have a nice chat, but never follow up with anyone. But this night's group was awesome, and I've made a couple new friends as a result. Something I'm actively working on doing. And I also went to a couple other parties (one of the house variety, one of the no-pants-in-a-chocolate-factory variety) where I also made more friends. And which I got a date out of. So things are looking up on the friend side, too!
And on the music side, I've got like 4 blogs lined up to share with you. 3 of them are new music, 1 is not. And there's blogs (like today's) which have multiple artists. Because I just can't catch up.
Today is all new, and we're starting with Lake Jons. They're a newish Finnish trio that I just found out about, with two EPs out, one called Explore and one called Explode. So here's a great, fun song for you off of Explode, called In Time.
Now, being from the cold northern land of Finland, it's no surprise that some of their songs may be influenced by other indie-famous cold northerners - Bon Iver. There's a big influence in some songs. Like Talks, off of the Explore EP.
Alright, now that I took you down, it's time to bring you back up with a fun little ditty by Nice As Fuck. This is a new supergroup, formed by Jenny Lewis with a few other ladies I've never heard of but are famous enough to qualify this as a supergroup. I'm not a huge fan of their eponymous debut album, but there is this song Door which is great. And a couple other good ones, but for me this is the only one I really liked.
Friday, August 26, 2016
Pete Josef
I made it back to China the other day and am very tired. Too tired to spend time writing. So I'll just give you a couple songs for now. But it is the weekend, so I'll try to write something during the weekend.
Today's songs come from Pete Josef. He seems to be into quite a few musical projects, but put out his first solo album, Colour, last year. It's kind of like a more soulful version of Jose Gonzales. And the first two songs are the best and go really well right into each other, so I'll just play those two for you. So the first track is Sprint At Last, followed right away by Mistress. And don't worry, the first track takes a minute to start up. Just wait for it.
Today's songs come from Pete Josef. He seems to be into quite a few musical projects, but put out his first solo album, Colour, last year. It's kind of like a more soulful version of Jose Gonzales. And the first two songs are the best and go really well right into each other, so I'll just play those two for you. So the first track is Sprint At Last, followed right away by Mistress. And don't worry, the first track takes a minute to start up. Just wait for it.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Aug 18 - Florence + The Machine / Gordi
I'm about to head off to London for the weekend! Long weekend. And not just London, also Suffolk for a wedding. But before I go here's some music.
First up, a new song from Florence + The Machine!! You know I love them. Like the most. They recorded the theme song for the next Final Fantasy game (which I also love. Number XV by the way. Thinking of getting a PS4 just for that...). The theme song is actually a cover of Stand By Me, which is just ok, but then they put it out as a single along with this other new song, Too Much Is Never Enough, which is great. I don't know if it's in the game or not. There's also a third track which is mostly instrumental that was in a preview video for the game, so I'm thinking maybe this one is too somehow? Anyway, new Florence! Hooray!
And then as an added bonus I'll throw in a song from Gordi. She's an Australian artist who just put out her first EP in May. I heard this song, Can We Work It Out, a while ago somewhere, then it got lost somewhere. Actually, it was apparently in the blog last year. But anyway, totally forgot about her and now she has an EP and it's very nice, called Clever Disguise. Which is probably how she got signed to Jagjaguwar. The songs are all pretty simple, straightforward songs, but there's just really pretty, and I love her vocals. So since I already put Can We Work It Out on the blog last year, I can't do it again. So instead you'll get Nothing's As It Seems.
First up, a new song from Florence + The Machine!! You know I love them. Like the most. They recorded the theme song for the next Final Fantasy game (which I also love. Number XV by the way. Thinking of getting a PS4 just for that...). The theme song is actually a cover of Stand By Me, which is just ok, but then they put it out as a single along with this other new song, Too Much Is Never Enough, which is great. I don't know if it's in the game or not. There's also a third track which is mostly instrumental that was in a preview video for the game, so I'm thinking maybe this one is too somehow? Anyway, new Florence! Hooray!
And then as an added bonus I'll throw in a song from Gordi. She's an Australian artist who just put out her first EP in May. I heard this song, Can We Work It Out, a while ago somewhere, then it got lost somewhere. Actually, it was apparently in the blog last year. But anyway, totally forgot about her and now she has an EP and it's very nice, called Clever Disguise. Which is probably how she got signed to Jagjaguwar. The songs are all pretty simple, straightforward songs, but there's just really pretty, and I love her vocals. So since I already put Can We Work It Out on the blog last year, I can't do it again. So instead you'll get Nothing's As It Seems.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Aug 16 - Farao
Ok, now back to the real blogs. Last time we finished up America and talked about how I'm not sure I want to be there right now. Next up is London, another place I'd like to be, but maybe not right now. It's definitely better off than the US, but they've got their fair share of xenophobia and fear mongering and closed-mindedness going on at the moment as well, what with the Brexit and all. But despite that, I managed to have a fantastic long weekend there.
It was just like 4 day on the way back to China, but I stopped over for a wedding. It was a friend from Japan and her (now) husband, who we actually all met when he came to visit her in Japan years ago, and so have been friends with him for many years as well. They actually live in Vietnam now, but as they're both from the UK they came back for the summer and had their wedding there. We had about 8 people from JET who managed to make it to the wedding. It's been 2 years since I was in London, so hadn't seen the Brits since then, others who came from Canada maybe even longer than that. In fact, the most recent was probably James and Lauren who I saw last August in Philly. But otherwise it's been 2+ years since I'd seen most of them. And since it's been 2 years since I was in the UK, I was also busy trying to see other friends who live there.
The first couple days were pretty quiet. I was staying at my friend Joyce's place, but actually had it to myself because she and her boyfriend were in Shanghai. I have to admit, most mornings were spent laying in bed watching TV. You'd think I'd be running around trying to see everyone and to see London, and I kind of was, but most people were either working (the locals) or traveling around until the night before the wedding (the out-of-towners). So I spent my mornings catching up on lazy time being alone, something I'd missed for the last month and a half while the family was in China and I was home. I did do a bit of exploring also, but I've been to London a half a dozen times already so I wasn't that bothered with exploring just for the sake of exploring. I was much more interested in just relaxing. But then in the evenings I was able to meet up with people and see all my friends once they were off of work. The touristy thing I did do was go to the British Museum. And it was only for like 45 minutes because it was so packed with people I had to get out. I couldn't take it, I just was not able to enjoy it. But in my time there I did get to see the Rosetta Stone, which was pretty awesome. They also had a great section of ancient Assyrian carvings which were amazing and kind of made me want to go to Syria and Iraq, which I definitely won't be doing anytime soon, sadly. So for now the museum will have to suffice. Also that section was pretty empty, so I was actually able to enjoy it.
Non wedding friend time mostly consisted of eating and drinking, as you might guess. We had pints, we had curries, we had brunches... all the good things. Then there was the wedding time. The wedding was in Islington Town Hall, which was basically a city council building. It was really pretty though, and we were sort of sitting in the round, which was interesting. This was my first British wedding, and it was a totally secular one. To me the interesting part was how procedural it was. The women who came to officiate were sent by the local government, and they did a great job, but they had absolutely no connection to the couple at all. And there was a lot of "now it's time to do this, and now it's time to do that" going on. I guess even in other types of weddings I've been to, religious or otherwise, it's quite procedural, but this really felt like bureaucratic at some points. The women who were running it did manage to put some life into it though, and really did a great job. Then we were off to a super hipster micro brewery in a warehouse for the reception. It was much cooler than I am. Like really cool. The beer was great, the food was great (BBQ! Made me happy since I'd missed BBQ in the US), the friends, both new and old, were great. The speeches were really great. It was such a good time. I got to spend quite a good amount of time with this guy Rob, who's marrying my friend Emma this Saturday. I've met him before, and I'm actually headed back later this week for their wedding, but this was the first time I got to spend quality time with him. I also got to meet a bunch of the people I've been hearing about for years from these Brits but had never actually met. And this amazing guy Andy, who's a friend of the groom, and one of my new favorite people. There was much drinking, much dancing, and many good times had. I'm so glad I was able to make it. Also there was a heatwave and everyone was a sweaty mess. It was absolutely nuts for London. I was in all linen and still disgusting.
Then the next day it was just brunch, followed by the pub to say goodbye to everyone, and off to the airport. But I'm heading back on Thursday night so I'll see most of these friends again. And that was the end of the long trip! Then I came back to China and I've just stuck around here since then. Nothing too exciting. But I'll update you on the China events in the next blog.
Now it's music time, and today's music is Farao. I don't remember where I heard her, but I first heard her new single, The Hours (Rework), which I really enjoyed. I went to listen to more, and as it turns out that's the first single off of her forthcoming album, but she put out her debut album, Till It's All Forgotten, in 2015, and after a few listens I realized I really, really enjoy it. It's been on repeat for a couple weeks now, actually. There's a ton of great tracks on there, but Bodies is high up on the list for me.
So Farao is a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist who, as you can hear from Bodies, makes some really interesting music with all kinds of complex instrumentation and rhythm and tempos that are kind of all over the place. It's lovely. But then she's also got songs like Fragments, which are much more straightforward but just so great. This song is so chilled out. I absolutely love it. I am very much looking forward to the upcoming album. Also she's on Arts & Crafts, the same album as Broken Social Scene and Stars and Feist, which is always a good sign.
It was just like 4 day on the way back to China, but I stopped over for a wedding. It was a friend from Japan and her (now) husband, who we actually all met when he came to visit her in Japan years ago, and so have been friends with him for many years as well. They actually live in Vietnam now, but as they're both from the UK they came back for the summer and had their wedding there. We had about 8 people from JET who managed to make it to the wedding. It's been 2 years since I was in London, so hadn't seen the Brits since then, others who came from Canada maybe even longer than that. In fact, the most recent was probably James and Lauren who I saw last August in Philly. But otherwise it's been 2+ years since I'd seen most of them. And since it's been 2 years since I was in the UK, I was also busy trying to see other friends who live there.
The first couple days were pretty quiet. I was staying at my friend Joyce's place, but actually had it to myself because she and her boyfriend were in Shanghai. I have to admit, most mornings were spent laying in bed watching TV. You'd think I'd be running around trying to see everyone and to see London, and I kind of was, but most people were either working (the locals) or traveling around until the night before the wedding (the out-of-towners). So I spent my mornings catching up on lazy time being alone, something I'd missed for the last month and a half while the family was in China and I was home. I did do a bit of exploring also, but I've been to London a half a dozen times already so I wasn't that bothered with exploring just for the sake of exploring. I was much more interested in just relaxing. But then in the evenings I was able to meet up with people and see all my friends once they were off of work. The touristy thing I did do was go to the British Museum. And it was only for like 45 minutes because it was so packed with people I had to get out. I couldn't take it, I just was not able to enjoy it. But in my time there I did get to see the Rosetta Stone, which was pretty awesome. They also had a great section of ancient Assyrian carvings which were amazing and kind of made me want to go to Syria and Iraq, which I definitely won't be doing anytime soon, sadly. So for now the museum will have to suffice. Also that section was pretty empty, so I was actually able to enjoy it.
Non wedding friend time mostly consisted of eating and drinking, as you might guess. We had pints, we had curries, we had brunches... all the good things. Then there was the wedding time. The wedding was in Islington Town Hall, which was basically a city council building. It was really pretty though, and we were sort of sitting in the round, which was interesting. This was my first British wedding, and it was a totally secular one. To me the interesting part was how procedural it was. The women who came to officiate were sent by the local government, and they did a great job, but they had absolutely no connection to the couple at all. And there was a lot of "now it's time to do this, and now it's time to do that" going on. I guess even in other types of weddings I've been to, religious or otherwise, it's quite procedural, but this really felt like bureaucratic at some points. The women who were running it did manage to put some life into it though, and really did a great job. Then we were off to a super hipster micro brewery in a warehouse for the reception. It was much cooler than I am. Like really cool. The beer was great, the food was great (BBQ! Made me happy since I'd missed BBQ in the US), the friends, both new and old, were great. The speeches were really great. It was such a good time. I got to spend quite a good amount of time with this guy Rob, who's marrying my friend Emma this Saturday. I've met him before, and I'm actually headed back later this week for their wedding, but this was the first time I got to spend quality time with him. I also got to meet a bunch of the people I've been hearing about for years from these Brits but had never actually met. And this amazing guy Andy, who's a friend of the groom, and one of my new favorite people. There was much drinking, much dancing, and many good times had. I'm so glad I was able to make it. Also there was a heatwave and everyone was a sweaty mess. It was absolutely nuts for London. I was in all linen and still disgusting.
Then the next day it was just brunch, followed by the pub to say goodbye to everyone, and off to the airport. But I'm heading back on Thursday night so I'll see most of these friends again. And that was the end of the long trip! Then I came back to China and I've just stuck around here since then. Nothing too exciting. But I'll update you on the China events in the next blog.
Now it's music time, and today's music is Farao. I don't remember where I heard her, but I first heard her new single, The Hours (Rework), which I really enjoyed. I went to listen to more, and as it turns out that's the first single off of her forthcoming album, but she put out her debut album, Till It's All Forgotten, in 2015, and after a few listens I realized I really, really enjoy it. It's been on repeat for a couple weeks now, actually. There's a ton of great tracks on there, but Bodies is high up on the list for me.
So Farao is a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist who, as you can hear from Bodies, makes some really interesting music with all kinds of complex instrumentation and rhythm and tempos that are kind of all over the place. It's lovely. But then she's also got songs like Fragments, which are much more straightforward but just so great. This song is so chilled out. I absolutely love it. I am very much looking forward to the upcoming album. Also she's on Arts & Crafts, the same album as Broken Social Scene and Stars and Feist, which is always a good sign.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Aug 14 - Bat For Lashes
It is Sunday, and I do have time to write a long blog, but I don't feel like it. I'd rather do it at work when I'm not busy. But I also have a lot of music to share and my 2016 blog playlist is not long enough. So I'm going to start writing more blog like this, where it's just to share a song.
Today, that song is Sunday Love, off of Bat For Lashes's new album, The Bride. It's tough to follow up an album as spectacular as The Haunted Man, and maybe even harder to follow up a ridiculous side project like Sexwitch, but Bat For Lashes has managed to put out a strong album, all things considered. Not as good as those last two, but how could they be? Sunday Love is the standout track off the album, so here you go.
Today, that song is Sunday Love, off of Bat For Lashes's new album, The Bride. It's tough to follow up an album as spectacular as The Haunted Man, and maybe even harder to follow up a ridiculous side project like Sexwitch, but Bat For Lashes has managed to put out a strong album, all things considered. Not as good as those last two, but how could they be? Sunday Love is the standout track off the album, so here you go.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Aug 13 - Bon Iver
Something marvelous happened today. After hinting at something for 22 days, Bon Iver released new music. They put out a single, 22/10, which includes the first two tracks off of the album that was also announced today, 22, 1 Million, coming out in late September. So here are the first two songs, with strange names.
22 (OVER S∞∞N)
and
10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄
Aug 12 - Michael Kiwanuka
It's been a somewhat slow week at work. A couple really busy days, a couple days where I take my time catching up on things that I should probably have done a while ago. Today is the latter. And it's Friday so I definitely don't want to be here. I want to go home and play with the puppy that I'm puppysitting. And also try to get Harry Potter play tickets, because every Friday they release 40 tickets to each show the following week, and I want to try and get tickets for next Sunday. But for now I'm here so I'll write a blog.
After our big trip down the coast we made it back to Orange County, where I had about 3 days left. One of those days was spent at Disneyland, which Mathias had never been to. Anywhere in the world. Poor kid. I'm glad I could fix it. We were there on a weekday so it wasn't super packed, despite being summer break for all the schools, and we actually managed to get onto basically every big ride. We did a lot of single rider and lined up our fastpasses pretty well, which helped. The only things we actually had to wait for were Space Tours (which was like 30 minutes, so not too bad), and Star Tours (which was like an hour). Otherwise they were pretty short lines. Single rider is the way to go, really. In fact, I think we made all the big ones. There were parts of the park that we didn't see, like Toon Town, but we made it to the rides, so that was ok. For me, the exciting part was seeing the new video at Soarin'. It used to be Soarin' Over California, then they opened one in China which is Soarin' Over The World, and I was told that video would come to California in like 2 years. So I didn't wait in the 4-6 hour lines at Shanghai Disney to see it. Luckily for me, it took 2 months and not 2 years to get to California and so I got a fast pass and only waited 10 minutes. And I'm glad I did because it was actually kind of disappointing and I would not have been happy at all if I'd waited hours. Or even hour.
Other highlights of the week were just seeing family I guess. And we went to the Venice Canals, which I've wanted to go to for years. It's this neighborhood in LA that's built onto canals in Venice Beach, with super nice, expensive houses. I'm not sure if it's because of the drought or low tide, but the canals were really low when we went. It was still nice though, and there's some great houses. Also I continued the tradition of feeding my nieces weird food. Not weird, really, but rather stuff I love which they have never had and maybe wouldn't have. Last time it was Korean, this time Ethiopian. They did like it a lot (so did my brother, first for him as well), but they said they liked Korean food more! I'm very happy about this. Now I just need to figure out what to feed them next time.
I think that was pretty much it for the week. Saw a few more friends, dropped Mathias off at a hostel in LA where he was staying after I left America, spent some good family time, ate more In n Out and tacos... Yup, that's it. I may have said this before, but it was really nice having Mathias around because as I played tour guide I was reminded of how great of a place LA is and why I love it. There really is a ton of stuff to do there. And a lot of it free! In fact, even OC wasn't so bad when I'm not just there living my life, but when I'm trying to find the best of it. Not to say I'd go back to OC. No way. But it was fun. In fact, as great of a time I had at home this trip, and as much as I felt that urge to maybe think about heading back, I don't think now is the time. Because America is super fucked up at the moment.
We all know about that dickhead running for president, so no need to go into the details of that. I am in utter disbelief as to why people would vote for him. I had heard that one of my uncles is voting for him, simply because he's the Republican nominee and my uncle is a Republic, so yeah of course he needs to vote for Trump! Stupid. But I did actually have a conversation with a family friend about it, and she's voting for Trump as well. From her point of view as a small business owner, she made me understand why logically someone might want to vote for him in a very narrow set of circumstances. But the problem with her analysis, in my mind, is that it was so self-centered and really only considered what would be best for her personally. Not what would be best for America and the American people. And that man is definitely not it. I knew that these Trump supporters probably had their reasons, even if I didn't get them, but what this conversation made me realize is that there's probably a huge portion of Americans out there right now that may have their own reasons for voting for him, but the problem is the reasons are selfish. Trump will do nothing to create a better society, and without even being president is already dividing Americans and making the country a worse place. There are so many people out there right now whose vision of America is so far removed from my vision for America, and I think that even if Clinton (or anyone else) becomes president, there's still going to be so many upset people in the US who will not be working towards creating a country which I want to live in and which I can be proud of. So that makes me not want to be there. (I feel like that was a bit rambly. Sorry. It makes sense in my head).
I realized while I was home that this is perfectly embodied in the Black Lives Matter movement. It was only recently that I realized the problem with All Lives Matter and why it upset people. I was never against Black Lives Matter, but I definitely didn't understand it. And I'm not saying I do now, but understanding why All Lives Matter is not an appropriate response made me start to understand it. And for whatever reason it made me so angry to think about the fact that our society has come to the stage where black people have to feel this way about their life in our country. And that while they are basically screaming at the top of their lungs asking for help to solve issues, the other side is basically just ignoring them. The other side is taking their cry for help as an attack, and rather than listening and talking is getting offended and discounting the Black Lives Matter movement. Which is creating this toxic environment and a terrible culture of hate that's just turning the US into a shitty, shitty place. For now. Hopefully people will get their shit together and realize where we're headed, and that it's an ugly place. But I think that until they do, I'm going to be very hesitant about going back to the US.
OK. Rant over. Sorry to get political. Actually not, but I feel like that's what you're supposed to say after something like that. So yeah, the backlash against Black Lives Matter made me really angry while I was home. Probably angrier than any other social issue ever has. I definitely feel it less now that I've been gone for a month, but at the time it was not great. And a song that gets me thinking about it is Black Man In A White World, the first single off of Michael Kiwanuka's new album, Love & Hate. He put the single out earlier this year, and I was blown away by it. It's a fantastic song, even without listening to the lyrics or paying close attention. But once I started feeling strongly about Black Lives Matter and listened to this again, I found it even more interesting.
After our big trip down the coast we made it back to Orange County, where I had about 3 days left. One of those days was spent at Disneyland, which Mathias had never been to. Anywhere in the world. Poor kid. I'm glad I could fix it. We were there on a weekday so it wasn't super packed, despite being summer break for all the schools, and we actually managed to get onto basically every big ride. We did a lot of single rider and lined up our fastpasses pretty well, which helped. The only things we actually had to wait for were Space Tours (which was like 30 minutes, so not too bad), and Star Tours (which was like an hour). Otherwise they were pretty short lines. Single rider is the way to go, really. In fact, I think we made all the big ones. There were parts of the park that we didn't see, like Toon Town, but we made it to the rides, so that was ok. For me, the exciting part was seeing the new video at Soarin'. It used to be Soarin' Over California, then they opened one in China which is Soarin' Over The World, and I was told that video would come to California in like 2 years. So I didn't wait in the 4-6 hour lines at Shanghai Disney to see it. Luckily for me, it took 2 months and not 2 years to get to California and so I got a fast pass and only waited 10 minutes. And I'm glad I did because it was actually kind of disappointing and I would not have been happy at all if I'd waited hours. Or even hour.
Other highlights of the week were just seeing family I guess. And we went to the Venice Canals, which I've wanted to go to for years. It's this neighborhood in LA that's built onto canals in Venice Beach, with super nice, expensive houses. I'm not sure if it's because of the drought or low tide, but the canals were really low when we went. It was still nice though, and there's some great houses. Also I continued the tradition of feeding my nieces weird food. Not weird, really, but rather stuff I love which they have never had and maybe wouldn't have. Last time it was Korean, this time Ethiopian. They did like it a lot (so did my brother, first for him as well), but they said they liked Korean food more! I'm very happy about this. Now I just need to figure out what to feed them next time.
I think that was pretty much it for the week. Saw a few more friends, dropped Mathias off at a hostel in LA where he was staying after I left America, spent some good family time, ate more In n Out and tacos... Yup, that's it. I may have said this before, but it was really nice having Mathias around because as I played tour guide I was reminded of how great of a place LA is and why I love it. There really is a ton of stuff to do there. And a lot of it free! In fact, even OC wasn't so bad when I'm not just there living my life, but when I'm trying to find the best of it. Not to say I'd go back to OC. No way. But it was fun. In fact, as great of a time I had at home this trip, and as much as I felt that urge to maybe think about heading back, I don't think now is the time. Because America is super fucked up at the moment.
We all know about that dickhead running for president, so no need to go into the details of that. I am in utter disbelief as to why people would vote for him. I had heard that one of my uncles is voting for him, simply because he's the Republican nominee and my uncle is a Republic, so yeah of course he needs to vote for Trump! Stupid. But I did actually have a conversation with a family friend about it, and she's voting for Trump as well. From her point of view as a small business owner, she made me understand why logically someone might want to vote for him in a very narrow set of circumstances. But the problem with her analysis, in my mind, is that it was so self-centered and really only considered what would be best for her personally. Not what would be best for America and the American people. And that man is definitely not it. I knew that these Trump supporters probably had their reasons, even if I didn't get them, but what this conversation made me realize is that there's probably a huge portion of Americans out there right now that may have their own reasons for voting for him, but the problem is the reasons are selfish. Trump will do nothing to create a better society, and without even being president is already dividing Americans and making the country a worse place. There are so many people out there right now whose vision of America is so far removed from my vision for America, and I think that even if Clinton (or anyone else) becomes president, there's still going to be so many upset people in the US who will not be working towards creating a country which I want to live in and which I can be proud of. So that makes me not want to be there. (I feel like that was a bit rambly. Sorry. It makes sense in my head).
I realized while I was home that this is perfectly embodied in the Black Lives Matter movement. It was only recently that I realized the problem with All Lives Matter and why it upset people. I was never against Black Lives Matter, but I definitely didn't understand it. And I'm not saying I do now, but understanding why All Lives Matter is not an appropriate response made me start to understand it. And for whatever reason it made me so angry to think about the fact that our society has come to the stage where black people have to feel this way about their life in our country. And that while they are basically screaming at the top of their lungs asking for help to solve issues, the other side is basically just ignoring them. The other side is taking their cry for help as an attack, and rather than listening and talking is getting offended and discounting the Black Lives Matter movement. Which is creating this toxic environment and a terrible culture of hate that's just turning the US into a shitty, shitty place. For now. Hopefully people will get their shit together and realize where we're headed, and that it's an ugly place. But I think that until they do, I'm going to be very hesitant about going back to the US.
OK. Rant over. Sorry to get political. Actually not, but I feel like that's what you're supposed to say after something like that. So yeah, the backlash against Black Lives Matter made me really angry while I was home. Probably angrier than any other social issue ever has. I definitely feel it less now that I've been gone for a month, but at the time it was not great. And a song that gets me thinking about it is Black Man In A White World, the first single off of Michael Kiwanuka's new album, Love & Hate. He put the single out earlier this year, and I was blown away by it. It's a fantastic song, even without listening to the lyrics or paying close attention. But once I started feeling strongly about Black Lives Matter and listened to this again, I found it even more interesting.
Love & Hate is the follow up to 2012's Home Again, an album I was very excited about, due to the strong first single (Tell Me A Tale), but then very disappointed by when Tell Me A Tale was the only really great song on that album. Luckily this time that is not the case. I'd still say that Black Man In A White World is the best song on Love & Hate, but there are plenty of other great tracks. For example, the title track, Love & Hate (the other choice was Father's Child, but I can't find it on Soundcloud or YouTube).
Monday, August 8, 2016
Aug 8 - James Blake / Jarbird
Whoops. It's not Thurdsay or Friday of last week. Because Thursday I ended up not going into the office, but running around doing site visits. And on Friday, I got busy again. And today was busy too, but I feel bad about not having written, so I'm writing at home before going to dinner. And maybe finishing after. We'll see how long this is.
I think it should be a pretty ok one, though. Just gotta finish up America. I left off very drunk in Sonoma. And then I left Sonoma and spent the next 3 days driving south. Mathias wanted to do the famous drive down Higway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway or PCH because it runs like the entire length of the west coast along the Pacific Ocean. It was like top of the list of things for him to do if he came. I actually think it may have been a bucket list thing for him. So we got onto PCH as soon as possible, which meant instead of heading down the highway for an hour back to San Francisco and starting from there, we wound through the mountains for like 3 hours, going from dry brush and scrub up into forests that stretched all the way to the coast, dropping us off at a place called Stewarts Point. As it turns out, Stewarts Point is not a town. Which was not good for us because we had no gas. Like, I was sure we were going to get stranded. There is a little shop, and this woman with a crazy laugh told us which way to go for gas, and said we only had to drive like 15 minutes. Which was not true and led to more freaking out that we had maybe missed it and wouldn't find gas for another 50 miles or something. But that was not the case. We found it, and we were safe. But yeah, really nice mountains and woods and even some lakes and deer. So many trees, in fact, that as you come down the mountains and to the ocean you actually can't even see the ocean until you are on PCH.
Our first day driving took us from Stewarts Point down to Santa Cruz. Actually we stayed in Aptos, like a 10 minute drive past Santa Cruz. I don't remember the first day's drive being very exciting, actually. There are none of the big famous sites or anything. I mean, it was really nice on the coast, but this is not the famous part of the drive. We still enjoyed it, though, and stopped for a fish and chips in Bodega Bay on the way down. Felt appropriate. So yeah, nice drive, great coastline, with lots of those big, random rocks out in the water that I feel you see in the stereotypical PCH pictures, so it definitely felt like we were on PCH. And we stopped and saw a lighthouse, just to stretch our legs really. But mostly it was just a straight drive to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was pretty nice, though. It's a college town, so it's not very big but it seems like there's a lot going on. We went down to the Boardwalk to give Mathias a taste of stereotypical America. Sadly we did not go on any rides cause those lines were ridiculously long. It was kind of surprising, actually. Maybe there isn't as much to do in Santa Cruz as I imagined, so everyone just comes to the boardwalk every day. I don't know. But the boardwalk is also famous. And super stereotypically American. It's like a permanent county fair. They even have a food booth that just sells all kinds of crazy deep-fried things, like peanut butter and jelly or twinkies. We'd just had a massive dinner, though, so I couldn't convince Mathias to eat any. Then we walked over to look at some seals, and on the way got to see a topless (and also I think homeless) man, who was probably on drugs, holding on to the open passenger side door of a van that was driving down the road, then let go and yell "that's how you bail out! Fuck you!". It was pretty entertaining. So day 1 was pretty, but mostly uneventful until the evening.
Many more stops were made on day 2, though, which got us down to Moro Bay. Our first stop was Monterey, where we went to the Aquarium. Mathias really wanted to go, so we did, but holy shit that place is expensive. It's $50 for an adult! That's half the price of a day at Disneyland! We seriously considered not going, but it is world famous so we gave in and went. It was very nice, I will admit (I mean, I expected it to be, especially for that price), but it was still just an aquarium. And we were only able to spend like 2 hours there because we were on a time crunch. We had a little wander around Cannery Row and saw all the old buildings and stuff, then made a very necessary stop at In n Out. We hadn't been in like a week, and Mathias had been asking for it for days. So it was pretty necessary. Our next stop was just down the road, in Carmel, to see the Carmel Mission. California is dotted with these old church complexes that were set up by priests who were sent to the New World to convert Native Americans. We have to go to them in elementary school, but I think I probably haven't been to a Mission since like 5th grade. And it's a big party of California history, so we figured we'd stop. It was nice. Just an old church and the surrounding buildings really, but it was pretty cool. And there was this guy playing the organ in the church just as we were visiting, so that made also set the mood pretty well. Mathias's big things to see on the drive down were Big Sur, which is unavoidable, and also Redwoods. Most of the Redwoods are actually much further up north, but there is one little cluster at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, right in the middle of Big Sur. So we got out there and hiked around for a bit to check them out. They are definitely smaller than the ones way up north, and less numerous, but they're still pretty massive and awesome, so I think Mathias was probably satisfied. Right on the way out of the park there's a restaurant called Nepenthe that my dad told us about. He used to do a lot of road trips back in high school and college, and apparently stopped here a lot. Well now you have to wait forever if you want to stop here. And with good reason, because it's a nice restaurant with an absolutely stunning view. Luckily you don't have to wait to sit at the outdoor bar, which probably has the best view, so we just grabbed a snack and some beers and hung out for a bit. On the way out of Big Sur we made one more stop at McWay Falls. Don't let the name fool you, it's just a tiny waterfall. But it comes right out of the mountains and literally onto the beach. So it is actually pretty cool, but it's tiny. So don't expect too much if you go. Not only was Big Sur the place where we did the most, it was probably also the nicest part of the entire drive. Which I think is what everyone says, and now I agree. From there down to Moro Bay, it was one more quick (unplanned) stop, because we passed an elephant seal rookery, which is basically a beach literally covered in hundreds of elephant seals that you can see from really close up. So we watched them for a while, and then went to check in at our hotel.
Our last day got us all the way home. We were originally planning on 4 days for the drive, but agreed that depending on how far we made it on day 2 we would decide. And considering everything we did, I'm surprised we made it as far as we did. Our first stop on day 3 actually took us off of PCH for a bit. We went to Solvang, the weird Dutch town in the middle of nowhere. Apparently a bunch of Dutch families lived there and so they built all these Dutch style houses, and then they made it really touristy and put in a bunch of windmills and bakeries and other kitschy Dutch things, and now people love it. So we walked around for a bit and went to a bakery. That was it. People love this place. It was fine, I guess. More funny than anything else. And from there our next stop was Santa Barbara. We didn't plan too much, especially not in the cities we visited. We'd basically just go on Wikitravel on the way. Which is how we learned that apparently the courthouse is one of the things you're supposed to stop and see in Santa Barbara. And let me tell you. It is pretty spectacular. It's Mission style architecture, this beautiful structure with the entire interior made out of wood and covered in tiles. I was so surprised. It was a seriously amazing building. With some great views, since they also have a free lookout tower. We also went to the beach, because Mathias really wanted to go in the water. Then it was back in the car and driving down PCH until we hit Venice Beach, at which point we decided it was ok to get off of PCH and take normal freeways back to my parents' house. The great thing about this drive was that it took us straight through Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, a place I rarely venture, but I saw so many places and things that I've heard of a million times and basically never actually seen or been to. So that was great.
Oh man I wrote a lot more about these three days than I expected. I was also planning to finish up the week in California, but maybe I'll just combine that with London in my next blog. Which will hopefully come this week, unlike last week's absence.
But we do still need music. We'll get started with another one of the artists I love that I introduced Mathias to: James Blake. Mathias liked James Blake, not as much as Lord Huron, and not as much as I love James Blake (which is a lot. Like a lot a lot), but he did enjoy it. But I do still need to write about him because he has a new (now newish) album out called The Colour in Everything. Pretty solid album, and less of a grower than the last one, Overgrown (not that this won't grow on me as much, just that I more immediately liked this one than the last one). Although neither of these two albums lives up to his debut. That was still his best, I think. But there are some great tracks on there, like Choose Me.
And then, there's a song with Bon Iver! This is not the first time they've worked together, but it is still very exciting. And it is probably the best song on the album. And also the newest single. It's called I Need A Forest Fire.
And I also want to share new music, cause there's a lot of that, too. So I'm also sharing a song called Iona, by a band called Jarbird. For some reason I always pronounce it like Yarbird, but I think I must be wrong. They seem to be British and have one EP called Such Is The House. Some tracks are sung by the guy who sings Iona, and some are sung by this lady. So no idea who all is in the band or what their roles are. But Iona is a very pretty song, and the EP is pretty good overall.
I think it should be a pretty ok one, though. Just gotta finish up America. I left off very drunk in Sonoma. And then I left Sonoma and spent the next 3 days driving south. Mathias wanted to do the famous drive down Higway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway or PCH because it runs like the entire length of the west coast along the Pacific Ocean. It was like top of the list of things for him to do if he came. I actually think it may have been a bucket list thing for him. So we got onto PCH as soon as possible, which meant instead of heading down the highway for an hour back to San Francisco and starting from there, we wound through the mountains for like 3 hours, going from dry brush and scrub up into forests that stretched all the way to the coast, dropping us off at a place called Stewarts Point. As it turns out, Stewarts Point is not a town. Which was not good for us because we had no gas. Like, I was sure we were going to get stranded. There is a little shop, and this woman with a crazy laugh told us which way to go for gas, and said we only had to drive like 15 minutes. Which was not true and led to more freaking out that we had maybe missed it and wouldn't find gas for another 50 miles or something. But that was not the case. We found it, and we were safe. But yeah, really nice mountains and woods and even some lakes and deer. So many trees, in fact, that as you come down the mountains and to the ocean you actually can't even see the ocean until you are on PCH.
Our first day driving took us from Stewarts Point down to Santa Cruz. Actually we stayed in Aptos, like a 10 minute drive past Santa Cruz. I don't remember the first day's drive being very exciting, actually. There are none of the big famous sites or anything. I mean, it was really nice on the coast, but this is not the famous part of the drive. We still enjoyed it, though, and stopped for a fish and chips in Bodega Bay on the way down. Felt appropriate. So yeah, nice drive, great coastline, with lots of those big, random rocks out in the water that I feel you see in the stereotypical PCH pictures, so it definitely felt like we were on PCH. And we stopped and saw a lighthouse, just to stretch our legs really. But mostly it was just a straight drive to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was pretty nice, though. It's a college town, so it's not very big but it seems like there's a lot going on. We went down to the Boardwalk to give Mathias a taste of stereotypical America. Sadly we did not go on any rides cause those lines were ridiculously long. It was kind of surprising, actually. Maybe there isn't as much to do in Santa Cruz as I imagined, so everyone just comes to the boardwalk every day. I don't know. But the boardwalk is also famous. And super stereotypically American. It's like a permanent county fair. They even have a food booth that just sells all kinds of crazy deep-fried things, like peanut butter and jelly or twinkies. We'd just had a massive dinner, though, so I couldn't convince Mathias to eat any. Then we walked over to look at some seals, and on the way got to see a topless (and also I think homeless) man, who was probably on drugs, holding on to the open passenger side door of a van that was driving down the road, then let go and yell "that's how you bail out! Fuck you!". It was pretty entertaining. So day 1 was pretty, but mostly uneventful until the evening.
Many more stops were made on day 2, though, which got us down to Moro Bay. Our first stop was Monterey, where we went to the Aquarium. Mathias really wanted to go, so we did, but holy shit that place is expensive. It's $50 for an adult! That's half the price of a day at Disneyland! We seriously considered not going, but it is world famous so we gave in and went. It was very nice, I will admit (I mean, I expected it to be, especially for that price), but it was still just an aquarium. And we were only able to spend like 2 hours there because we were on a time crunch. We had a little wander around Cannery Row and saw all the old buildings and stuff, then made a very necessary stop at In n Out. We hadn't been in like a week, and Mathias had been asking for it for days. So it was pretty necessary. Our next stop was just down the road, in Carmel, to see the Carmel Mission. California is dotted with these old church complexes that were set up by priests who were sent to the New World to convert Native Americans. We have to go to them in elementary school, but I think I probably haven't been to a Mission since like 5th grade. And it's a big party of California history, so we figured we'd stop. It was nice. Just an old church and the surrounding buildings really, but it was pretty cool. And there was this guy playing the organ in the church just as we were visiting, so that made also set the mood pretty well. Mathias's big things to see on the drive down were Big Sur, which is unavoidable, and also Redwoods. Most of the Redwoods are actually much further up north, but there is one little cluster at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, right in the middle of Big Sur. So we got out there and hiked around for a bit to check them out. They are definitely smaller than the ones way up north, and less numerous, but they're still pretty massive and awesome, so I think Mathias was probably satisfied. Right on the way out of the park there's a restaurant called Nepenthe that my dad told us about. He used to do a lot of road trips back in high school and college, and apparently stopped here a lot. Well now you have to wait forever if you want to stop here. And with good reason, because it's a nice restaurant with an absolutely stunning view. Luckily you don't have to wait to sit at the outdoor bar, which probably has the best view, so we just grabbed a snack and some beers and hung out for a bit. On the way out of Big Sur we made one more stop at McWay Falls. Don't let the name fool you, it's just a tiny waterfall. But it comes right out of the mountains and literally onto the beach. So it is actually pretty cool, but it's tiny. So don't expect too much if you go. Not only was Big Sur the place where we did the most, it was probably also the nicest part of the entire drive. Which I think is what everyone says, and now I agree. From there down to Moro Bay, it was one more quick (unplanned) stop, because we passed an elephant seal rookery, which is basically a beach literally covered in hundreds of elephant seals that you can see from really close up. So we watched them for a while, and then went to check in at our hotel.
Our last day got us all the way home. We were originally planning on 4 days for the drive, but agreed that depending on how far we made it on day 2 we would decide. And considering everything we did, I'm surprised we made it as far as we did. Our first stop on day 3 actually took us off of PCH for a bit. We went to Solvang, the weird Dutch town in the middle of nowhere. Apparently a bunch of Dutch families lived there and so they built all these Dutch style houses, and then they made it really touristy and put in a bunch of windmills and bakeries and other kitschy Dutch things, and now people love it. So we walked around for a bit and went to a bakery. That was it. People love this place. It was fine, I guess. More funny than anything else. And from there our next stop was Santa Barbara. We didn't plan too much, especially not in the cities we visited. We'd basically just go on Wikitravel on the way. Which is how we learned that apparently the courthouse is one of the things you're supposed to stop and see in Santa Barbara. And let me tell you. It is pretty spectacular. It's Mission style architecture, this beautiful structure with the entire interior made out of wood and covered in tiles. I was so surprised. It was a seriously amazing building. With some great views, since they also have a free lookout tower. We also went to the beach, because Mathias really wanted to go in the water. Then it was back in the car and driving down PCH until we hit Venice Beach, at which point we decided it was ok to get off of PCH and take normal freeways back to my parents' house. The great thing about this drive was that it took us straight through Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, a place I rarely venture, but I saw so many places and things that I've heard of a million times and basically never actually seen or been to. So that was great.
Oh man I wrote a lot more about these three days than I expected. I was also planning to finish up the week in California, but maybe I'll just combine that with London in my next blog. Which will hopefully come this week, unlike last week's absence.
But we do still need music. We'll get started with another one of the artists I love that I introduced Mathias to: James Blake. Mathias liked James Blake, not as much as Lord Huron, and not as much as I love James Blake (which is a lot. Like a lot a lot), but he did enjoy it. But I do still need to write about him because he has a new (now newish) album out called The Colour in Everything. Pretty solid album, and less of a grower than the last one, Overgrown (not that this won't grow on me as much, just that I more immediately liked this one than the last one). Although neither of these two albums lives up to his debut. That was still his best, I think. But there are some great tracks on there, like Choose Me.
And then, there's a song with Bon Iver! This is not the first time they've worked together, but it is still very exciting. And it is probably the best song on the album. And also the newest single. It's called I Need A Forest Fire.
And I also want to share new music, cause there's a lot of that, too. So I'm also sharing a song called Iona, by a band called Jarbird. For some reason I always pronounce it like Yarbird, but I think I must be wrong. They seem to be British and have one EP called Such Is The House. Some tracks are sung by the guy who sings Iona, and some are sung by this lady. So no idea who all is in the band or what their roles are. But Iona is a very pretty song, and the EP is pretty good overall.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Aug 3 - Lord Huron / Shura
I'm not really in the mood to write at the moment, but I feel guilty cause I haven't written in almost a week. Now that I can write at work I didn't intend to write over the weekend. But then I also didn't write on Monday or Tuesday. And I'm almost out of time to write today, so better get to it.
We left Vegas on July 3rd because the idea was to drive to San Francisco and spend the 4th there. This is a drive that could take about 7-8 hours, but we decided to go the long way around, through Yosemite. It's definitely a better drive than the "quick" route, which takes you back into California and then up the 5, where there is nothing to do or see. And we figured we may as well see something. Also, Mathias really really really wanted to go to Yosemite but we didn't have time to properly go and spend time there, so we figured we might as well drive through. It ended up taking 14 hours. But it was a damn good 14 hours. The drive out of Vegas is kind of boring, just a lot of long stretches of desert and small towns (one of which we stopped in at this fantastic, middle-of-nowhere diner that was everything you want a middle-of-nowhere diner to be, and also the food was not terrible!). We did have to make one stop at an empty desert road so Mathias could take a picture walking down the road in the middle of nowhere, on a road that just stretched onwards in a straight line into the horizon. And eventually, as we got to the California border, things got a little more exciting. We got some hills and national forests and lakes and stuff, so we did occasionally pull over to the side of the road for pictures. Really the closer we got to Yosemite the nicer it got. And then we did get to Yosemite, finally, and that's where it really got good. That place is really fucking beautiful. Like I said, we didn't have time to actually stop and see the park, but we entered through the east gate and drove across the park to the west gate to continue on to San Francisco. We did get caught in some traffic thanks to a stupid women who parked too close to the side of the road which led to her car falling off the road and into a small ravine then having to be towed out blocking traffic for about an hour, but other than that we were mostly on the move, enjoying the scenery. We did get out a few times to go look at rivers or trees or whatever, which got Mathias super excited. Like more excited than I've ever seen him. And he's not a very outwardly excitable person. But sadly no time for a proper hike or anything. As we got the west gate, we did also loop back to go and see the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, so at least I can say I've seen those, too. Then once we were out, it was getting dark, so pretty much the only stop we made between Yosemite and SF was at Taco Bell for dinner. Yum. And 14 hours after having left Vegas, we finally made it! I did not expect it to take that long, but it was a great drive.
We spent the next 2 days exploring SF. On the 4th we walked across the entire city in the morning, from the Golden Gate bridge on the west side down to the piers on the east side, just along the waterfront the whole time. This allowed us to take in like every necessary site in the city in about 6 hours, without having to pay for much of anything. A real feat in a city as expensive as San Francisco. The best part of the walk was probably the dog beach. Obvs. So we made it to the wharfs in the afternoon, where we hopped on a boat for a bay cruise. Sadly Alcatraz was booked out for like 2 months, but we were able to at least take a boat around the island and then down along the coast over to the Golden Gate Bridge and get a close up view, plus great views of the city. It was actually a pretty awesome boat ride. You should do it if you go to San Francisco. I'm sure Alcatraz is awesome too, but I am not at all upset we didn't make it cause this boat ride was great. So until this point it had just been Mathias and I, but then we went up to meet my friend Zabrina to sit in a park and eat a drink. Zabrina is like the best picnic planner I've ever seen, so she prepared like 3 bottles of wine and all kinds of cheese and dips and chips and veggies and stuff, then took us to Dolores Park, which is a park where all kinds of people just go sit outside, listen to music, drink and smoke, and be social. If it weren't so cold it would have been perfect. But yeah, it was like 50 degrees. Mathias said Stockholm was warmer than San Francisco. So ridiculous. We got about 2 hours in the park before it really got too cold, and so then we headed across the bay to a house party in Berkeley to celebrate. It was a really great house party, and theoretically we should have had fantastic views of all the fireworks along the peninsula, but thanks to San Francisco's infamously terrible weather, we did not. We could see across to the other side, but the clouds were way too low and so mostly we just saw something shoot up into the sky and then disappear into the clouds. Sometimes we'd get like the bottom half of a big one or something, but generally nothing. Well done, San Francisco. Still fun, though. Since our first day in SF consisted of way too much walking, we kind of took it easy on day 2. We hung out with my friend Candice, drove around instead of walking around, and then once everyone was done with work we met up for drinks with Zabrina and my friends Jason and Heather whose place we were staying at, but who had gone to Sacramento to see her family for the long weekend. I really can't remember what else we did that day, except drink coffee. The 4th was really the big one.
I also don't really remember what we did on the 6th, but that's because we went up to Sonoma and drank a bunch of wine all day. We both intended to not get wasted, and then we both got wasted. Go us. I couldn't even tell you which wineries we went to. But also because it's been like a month. What I do remember is that I now know about "old vine" wines and am a fan of Zinfandels.
And the next day we started the drive down the coast. But that will be a story for either tomorrow or Friday. So now we move on to music, one old and one new.
The old one is Lord Huron. We obviously listened to a lot of music in the car. And while Mathias does listen to a lot of good music and does know a lot of what I listen to, he did not know Lord Huron. So I played him Lord Huron at some point, and it ended up being his favorite new artist of the trip to California. With good reason. Lord Huron is fantastic. They've been on the blog in the past, so maybe you know them (although Mathias reads the blog sometimes and listens to the playlists and missed them). Mathias's favorite song (and one of my favorites by them) was The Stranger, off of their first album Lonesome Dreams (Actually it's older than that. It's off of their Mighty EP, and was probably the only song I really liked by them before Lonesome Dreams came out, but then it was put onto Lonesome Dreams as a bonus track and I never listen to Mighty so it might as well be off of Lonesome Dreams. Well that's a long enough digression). So that's the old song for today.
We left Vegas on July 3rd because the idea was to drive to San Francisco and spend the 4th there. This is a drive that could take about 7-8 hours, but we decided to go the long way around, through Yosemite. It's definitely a better drive than the "quick" route, which takes you back into California and then up the 5, where there is nothing to do or see. And we figured we may as well see something. Also, Mathias really really really wanted to go to Yosemite but we didn't have time to properly go and spend time there, so we figured we might as well drive through. It ended up taking 14 hours. But it was a damn good 14 hours. The drive out of Vegas is kind of boring, just a lot of long stretches of desert and small towns (one of which we stopped in at this fantastic, middle-of-nowhere diner that was everything you want a middle-of-nowhere diner to be, and also the food was not terrible!). We did have to make one stop at an empty desert road so Mathias could take a picture walking down the road in the middle of nowhere, on a road that just stretched onwards in a straight line into the horizon. And eventually, as we got to the California border, things got a little more exciting. We got some hills and national forests and lakes and stuff, so we did occasionally pull over to the side of the road for pictures. Really the closer we got to Yosemite the nicer it got. And then we did get to Yosemite, finally, and that's where it really got good. That place is really fucking beautiful. Like I said, we didn't have time to actually stop and see the park, but we entered through the east gate and drove across the park to the west gate to continue on to San Francisco. We did get caught in some traffic thanks to a stupid women who parked too close to the side of the road which led to her car falling off the road and into a small ravine then having to be towed out blocking traffic for about an hour, but other than that we were mostly on the move, enjoying the scenery. We did get out a few times to go look at rivers or trees or whatever, which got Mathias super excited. Like more excited than I've ever seen him. And he's not a very outwardly excitable person. But sadly no time for a proper hike or anything. As we got the west gate, we did also loop back to go and see the Yosemite Valley and Half Dome, so at least I can say I've seen those, too. Then once we were out, it was getting dark, so pretty much the only stop we made between Yosemite and SF was at Taco Bell for dinner. Yum. And 14 hours after having left Vegas, we finally made it! I did not expect it to take that long, but it was a great drive.
We spent the next 2 days exploring SF. On the 4th we walked across the entire city in the morning, from the Golden Gate bridge on the west side down to the piers on the east side, just along the waterfront the whole time. This allowed us to take in like every necessary site in the city in about 6 hours, without having to pay for much of anything. A real feat in a city as expensive as San Francisco. The best part of the walk was probably the dog beach. Obvs. So we made it to the wharfs in the afternoon, where we hopped on a boat for a bay cruise. Sadly Alcatraz was booked out for like 2 months, but we were able to at least take a boat around the island and then down along the coast over to the Golden Gate Bridge and get a close up view, plus great views of the city. It was actually a pretty awesome boat ride. You should do it if you go to San Francisco. I'm sure Alcatraz is awesome too, but I am not at all upset we didn't make it cause this boat ride was great. So until this point it had just been Mathias and I, but then we went up to meet my friend Zabrina to sit in a park and eat a drink. Zabrina is like the best picnic planner I've ever seen, so she prepared like 3 bottles of wine and all kinds of cheese and dips and chips and veggies and stuff, then took us to Dolores Park, which is a park where all kinds of people just go sit outside, listen to music, drink and smoke, and be social. If it weren't so cold it would have been perfect. But yeah, it was like 50 degrees. Mathias said Stockholm was warmer than San Francisco. So ridiculous. We got about 2 hours in the park before it really got too cold, and so then we headed across the bay to a house party in Berkeley to celebrate. It was a really great house party, and theoretically we should have had fantastic views of all the fireworks along the peninsula, but thanks to San Francisco's infamously terrible weather, we did not. We could see across to the other side, but the clouds were way too low and so mostly we just saw something shoot up into the sky and then disappear into the clouds. Sometimes we'd get like the bottom half of a big one or something, but generally nothing. Well done, San Francisco. Still fun, though. Since our first day in SF consisted of way too much walking, we kind of took it easy on day 2. We hung out with my friend Candice, drove around instead of walking around, and then once everyone was done with work we met up for drinks with Zabrina and my friends Jason and Heather whose place we were staying at, but who had gone to Sacramento to see her family for the long weekend. I really can't remember what else we did that day, except drink coffee. The 4th was really the big one.
I also don't really remember what we did on the 6th, but that's because we went up to Sonoma and drank a bunch of wine all day. We both intended to not get wasted, and then we both got wasted. Go us. I couldn't even tell you which wineries we went to. But also because it's been like a month. What I do remember is that I now know about "old vine" wines and am a fan of Zinfandels.
And the next day we started the drive down the coast. But that will be a story for either tomorrow or Friday. So now we move on to music, one old and one new.
The old one is Lord Huron. We obviously listened to a lot of music in the car. And while Mathias does listen to a lot of good music and does know a lot of what I listen to, he did not know Lord Huron. So I played him Lord Huron at some point, and it ended up being his favorite new artist of the trip to California. With good reason. Lord Huron is fantastic. They've been on the blog in the past, so maybe you know them (although Mathias reads the blog sometimes and listens to the playlists and missed them). Mathias's favorite song (and one of my favorites by them) was The Stranger, off of their first album Lonesome Dreams (Actually it's older than that. It's off of their Mighty EP, and was probably the only song I really liked by them before Lonesome Dreams came out, but then it was put onto Lonesome Dreams as a bonus track and I never listen to Mighty so it might as well be off of Lonesome Dreams. Well that's a long enough digression). So that's the old song for today.
And then the new one is Shura. She put out her debut album, Nothing's Real, this year. I listened to it because for some reason I thought she was associated with SBTRKT, which she's not. Now I realize it's because she was associated with Mura Masa, whose sound I associate with the sound of SBTRKT, and all these marginally tangential connections must have snapped somewhere. So I listened to the album and wasn't crazy about it. And then at the end I heard a track I knew, White Light. And that track is a good track. Lots of fun. And I want it preserved on my annual playlist for posterity's sake, so it's making the blog even though I didn't like the album very much. The sound is somewhere between Janet Jackson and 80's Madonna, which when I say out loud makes me think I shouldn't like it, but I do. A lot.
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