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Well, for all he’s become in the last couple of decades, at least Paul still spends some time in the heart of the country.
Sounds like our kind of road trip.
MP3: Paul McCartney - Heart of the Country (Outtake)
(c.s.p.s. – we promise we’ll chill on the paul posts for a little while)
Shall we gather at the river,Where bright angel feet have trod,With its crystal tide foreverFlowing by the throne of God?
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,The beautiful, the beautiful river;Gather with the saints at the riverThat flows by the throne of God.
Ere we reach the shining river,Lay we every burden down;Grace our spirits will deliver,And provide a robe and crown.Here.MP3: Willie Nelson - Whiskey RiverYoutube: "Too bad the guy's name wasn't Melvin or something, ya know?"
There's a great article in the New York Times about the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. We've never been, but it's on the top of a long list. In time. In time.MP3: Art Garfunkel - I Shall Sing MP3: Glenn Miller - On, Wisconsin! (For Heidi Bird)
Their first singles after The Beatles. Interesting to see how they saw themselves (or wanted to be seen): John the one-man revolutionary army; George contemplating holier things; Paul absorbed in silly love songs to Linda; and Ringo in a cowboy hat and leather trousers, struggling with them darn first position chords.
Most people would probably disagree with me, but the best Jayhawks record around is called Sound Of Lies. It's one of a handful albums that I became completely obsessed with while living in Colorado, so in honor of the Rocky Mountain vacation that I'm taking in two weeks, here's a little sugar for your tea.Blasting these in a Volvo station wagon while driving to Savers on Table Mesa and Broadway in Boulder is probably the best place to hear em. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.MP3: Jayhawks - TroubleMP3: Jayhawks - Stick In The MudMP3: Jayhawks - Big Star
We've always been suckers for Eddie Vedder. Dude somehow did a bunch of things right, because let's be honest, he shouldn't be significant anymore. And maybe he's not, but holy fuck is he cool. Hate him? Well, if you've ever seen Pearl Jam live, you wouldn't. That band puts on an effortless rock show, every song's a hit, and Eddie Vedder doesn't miss a goddamn step.Last night we saw Eddie and Laird Hamilton's Iconoclasts on The Sundance Channel for the second time. The first time we saw it, we were overwhelmed by how annoyingly IN YOUR FACE Laird Hamilton seemed. But after watching it again, we think we have it all wrong. There's some real cheese in the fifty minute long program, but there's a moment where Eddie Vedder is painting a picture of Laird and he's talking about how he's the first guy to put in real perspective how big an ocean wave is. "He's adding a human element to it, he's giving it scale." The point might be simple, and Riding Giants tries to make it over and over, but because of Eddie's lack of drama and his extreme simplicity, you can't help but to finally "get" why Laird is the way he is. Seems obvious, and I guess it's ironic that we're the idiots, not Laird, but if Laird wasn't the way he is, he wouldn't do the things he did. Seems like it's the only personality you could possibly have to ride the waves he does.Point: Those two together are way cooler than the sum of their parts.MP3: Pearl Jam - Given To Fly (Clearly the producer's favorite Pearl Jam song)MP3: Pearl Jam - Grievance
Last week was a real let down. God decided to test my pain threshold by giving me his/her special "Why haven't you called in 3 weeks???" concoction of viral meningitis. I was pretty convinced the little alien from Spaceballs was going to pop out of my head and start singing ragtime while I waited three hours in the ER for a doctor to come talk to me. It took almost five for them to give me the morphine that would ease the pain of my brain swelling. Luckily for me, there was no alien and my fever finally went down after a few days of hell. Special thanks to everyone who coached me along to a full recovery. A very special thanks to all those who had to help me urinate. Good times.MP3: Paul McCartney - Get On The Right ThingMP3: Phosphorescent - And The Swimming (Castanets Cover)MP3: Aretha Franklin - Precious Lord, Take My Hand/You've Got A FriendMP3: Entrance - Tommy Thumb's Summertime Blues MP3: Bob Dylan - Dirge (Thank You Music Warship)MP3: Castanets - This Is The Early Game (From Daytrotter)
No clue why today is the first day this jam found us. Goddamn shame.MP3: Paul Simon - Think Too Much (A)
Nicholas Ozgunay lives out in Brooklyn by way of small town Missouri. He rarely uses more than ink and water to create landscapes that look like the cross section of distant planets and their moons. It's haunting and beautiful, like someone who has spent their lives in the cosmos and was asked to paint what they saw when they closed their eyes at night. It's not of this world, not of this time, and certainly not of the streets of Brooklyn. Thank God.Nicholas Ozgunay's WebsiteMP3: Philip Glass - Opening (Thank You Indie Muse)MP3: Michael Jackson - PYT (Pretty Young Thing)
That’s a sunrise in a place where the opportunity to see a real sunrise is quite a commodity…even if it’s just blocks away. Thankfully, for people like us, those folks at the Discovery channel figured out a way to make it a little bit easier to ease into a day that demands a sunrise.
It’s called Sunrise Earth, and it only really makes sense if you turn on your TV tomorrow morning and meet the day with a backdrop of fishermen on a lake in China, or Polar Bears crossing icebergs or a fire-rimmed peak in the Alps. It just works. The imagination can do wonders.
Maybe it’s a sad commentary on the life of a city-dweller – turning to TV for a sunrise. But hey, whatever gets you up in the morning.
MP3: Neil Young - Till the Morning Comes
"Nobody really great ever slept in dirt.""Ever see a picture of Da Vinci pitching a tent? No.""My choice: No camping."Here. MP3: Leonard Cohen - MemoriesMP3: Dennis Wilson - River Song
If the rain comesThey run and hide their headsThey might as well be deadIf the rain comesIf the rain comesHere
This is wonderful:
The aim of the Mannahatta Project is to reconstruct the ecology of Manhattan when Henry Hudson first sailed by in 1609 and compare it to what we know of the island today. The Mannahatta Project will help us to understand, down to the level of one city block, where in Manhattan streams once flowed or where American Chestnuts may have grown, where black bears once marked territories, and where the Lenape fished and hunted. Most history books dispense of the pre-European history of New York in only a few pages. However, with new methods in geographic analysis and the help of a remarkable 18th-century map, we will discover a new aspect of New York culture, the environmental foundation of the city.
Great pictures here
Several years back, McSweeney’s held a contest asking people to write a note offering advice, to the first-term GWB. A friend of ours won that first contest with a plea for principle and reason, especially concerning our environment. When we stumbled onto that letter in a conversation last week, we thought it might be worth re-reading and passing along to our future Mr. President. Here’s hoping that this one will be the letter reading type.McSweeney’s Dear Mr. President Letters (the first one, signed a concerned citizen). MP3: Talking Heads - Born Under Punches
Many years ago I spent a summer driving around British Columbia in a big white van with a bunch of soon to be high schoolers with names like Robo and Rufus and Mary Apple. I called my mom from a supermarket parking lot after I had stuffed myself with Corn Nuts and Coca Cola and, as I put the phone to my K.D. Lang haircut, she hung up when she didn't recognize the voice that had so embarrassingly dropped the night before.We were on our way to some place with a name I can't remember and a marmot that liked the way we smelled. On the first night, we got scared there was a bear near our tents so we screamed the Fresh Prince theme song at the top of our lungs until we felt safe. The ten of us came back five days later and I burned a piece of twine around my wrist and made a fancy bracelet out of blues and yellows while people barked a funny noise at an RV Camp that would be the last place I ever slept in Canada. For a whole summer my only options were Bob Marley Live and Paul Simon's Rhythm Of The Saints and it just dawned on me how wonderful it is that "Obvious Child" is the name of the song that I remember most from being a fourteen year old going through puberty on a camping trip.MP3: Paul Simon - Obvious Child
The north fork of Long Island is a real jewel of a place. Farmland, vineyards, diners, thrift shops, mansions, shacks, cattails, prickly pear cactus, and some mighty warm ocean water. Don't let the proximity to the Hamptons cloud your mind. Apples and oranges, my friends. Yes, there's a lot of money. Yes, there are big houses. But there ain't no glitz and glam. It's wine, beets, and fresh cut lavender.At the end of the North Fork is Orient Beach State Park, which boasts 45,000 feet of frontage on the bay. The forest along the beaches are beautiful, filled with cedar and cactus and piping plovers. And getting to the beach? It's as good as it gets. Endless amounts of fresh food being sold on the highway that was picked forty feet away.It's a little bit of a hike to get out there but well worth it. Take the LIRR early in the morning to Greenport with your bike. Don't forget your permit. When you get off at Greenport, poke your head around a little bit. When your belly's full, go north on Main Street to 25 and head east until you can't head east no longer. The ride is about five miles, but if you don't want to go the whole distance, take a left or a right just about anywhere and you'll find small mazes of aromatic back roads that will eventually lead you somewhere you won't want to leave.MP3 - Youngbloods - Sugar Babe (Thank Your Rising Storm)Youtube: Johnny Cash + Joni Mitchell - Girl Of The North Country
