the luckiest girl in the world...

By Venice Bayrd 08 Nov 2004

…was me for a span of time earlier today. at least in the following respect:

after tea in the sun on the back porch this morning i decided that it would be worthwhile to scope out -dead to fall-‘s list of tour dates, if any. i really wasn’t expecting much. i was both pleased and frustrated however to find that not only were they playing pennsylvania, Lemoyne to be exact, they were playing this very day. ‘where is lemoyne?’ and ‘how the hell am i going to get there?’ simultaneously coursed through my head. i’ll spare you the detail here and just say that a little creative problem solving can go a long way. (anyone who’s ever lived in a quasi-rural area without a car and without public transport in the near vicinity will understand the quandary…) after jumping a few fences and passing a fair amount of time traveling i finally found myself in a rental car and on my way to the lemoyne area of harrisburg (about 2hrs away).

this was all well and good except for the fact that it had taken so long to pull everything together that it was now 6:30, the time the doors were scheduled to open. i didn’t care. i felt so ingenious for procuring myself a car without having to bike 30 miles that i was full of hope right up to my eyebrows. really though, knowing the way these shows typically work, i figured that the opening bands would be taking up my travel time and that hopefully i’d arrive before dead to fall took stage. luck and traffic were on my side i guess, because i arrived at 8:30 just as the penultimate band took stage. i never really caught their name, but they were decent. i guess it was their last show though.

here i should take a moment to describe the venue and the crowd. considering how high on my inspirational listening list -dtf- is right now, i was expecting beatific crowds just dying to see them. instead i found the champion ship venue (located next to machine head tattoos,) barely alive with a very young group of what appeared to be mostly hardcore kids. i thought maybe the masses were just waiting somewhere else before crawling out of the woodwork, but no, that was just all there was when dtf took stage.

and just one more side note about the crowd. i guess i haven’t been to many hardcore shows, but this was one of the more curious groups i’ve yet seen. the mosh pit was less like a pit than a line dance. people had their own little spaces where they kicked the shit out of the air, but that heavy-hitting contact that’s so lovely and quintessentially mosh-like was totally lacking. it was odd.

the place itself was brick on one side and concrete block on the other. after getting slammed into the wall at one point i decided that the show venue of the future commune should maybe go more for the psycho-ward look instead of the garage feel. you know what commune i mean.

and then…the show began. they started off with torn self off the new album, and led into master exploder. i think. well, here’s what i remember anyhow: tu se morte, gates of hell, a cover of something (fire of the soul? fire and ice? i didn’t recognize it); and then closed with villainy and virtue off the new album. the set was only a half-hour, which was disappointing, but they were really fantastic. words are lacking here. at a few points the crowd rushed the stage, and the total lack of security allowed several people to jump up on the stage, grab the lead singer, and sing along. several others joined in, pig-piling on top of each other in front of the stage like mad. a couple of kids did running jumps onto the backs of the others, it was nuts. and everyone sang along.

and then it was over and i was sad. but as i was driving back two things happened/occurred/were noticed. 1st: listening to opeth on the way back through lancaster county, i heard the following words: “follow your instincts, they usually take you home;” and i thought, yeah, that really cinches it. 2nd: before finishing this thought, looking out the driver side window i saw what i thought at first were just some odd-looking city lights. here’s where the lancaster county ref. is relevant: lancaster opens up into huge wide fields with a correspondingly huge sky. the street lights kept getting in my way, but finally i had to pull over outside of town because i realized that yes, those lights were still there and the city wasn’t. it really was the northern lights! i was psyched. the crystalline shard characteristic is one of my favorite points, and the way they shift. a couple must’ve been at just the right angle, because they shot halfway up to cassiopeia. but anyhow, to finish that thought, it just kinda came together for me in that moment that throwing sensibility to the wind and instinctually and methodically pursuing last minute chances is where i live most happily. home.

VoterGate, the Movie

By emile 05 Nov 2004

If you haven’t already watched this, do so. It’s a documentary on DieBold Voting machines and their horrific track record, refusal to be audited, and possible roll in rigging the 2004 presidential election.
RELATED LINKS:
VoterGate.tv, the site for the documentary.
hotlink to the documentary on archive.org in case the above site goes (is taken) down
blackboxvoting.org, the group driving this action.
If you read any other link-blogs where this hasn’t been posted, pass it along. The group needs money for all the FOIA requests.

Gimme a F*

By jere 03 Nov 2004

Four more years of that smug, arrogant, self-righteous, narrow-minded, ignorant, manipulative, mendacious yahoo and his opportunistic, self-serving cronies. I weep for my country.

misadventures in mexico

By anders pearson 24 Oct 2004

here’s the full report on the trip to mexico with lani and anastasiya.

no one was killed or kidnapped and overall it was a good time. Copper Canyon and Mexico in general (outside the border towns and spring break type areas) are highly recommended for vacation spots. the main downside to the trip was that we spent a lot of time travelling.

lani’s mom is a flight attendent so we are able to fly pretty cheaply. the catch is that we have to fly standby and that means that things don’t always work out like planned.

the plan was for me to fly down to austin on friday afternoon (with connections in DC and atlanta) where lani and anastasiya were already waiting, then we would fly to El Paso on saturday morning and take a bus across the border to Juarez and then a 10 hour bus down to Creel. i managed to get on a 3:30 flight to DC. the last flight from atlanta to austin was at 10pm. to catch it, i had to get on a flight to atlanta that left DC before 7. didn’t get on the 5:00. didn’t get on the 6:00. didn’t get on the 7:00. the 8:00 was delayed till 8:30 but i finally got on it. since i’d missed the last flight out of atlanta, lani’s mom picked me up at the airport (she lives outside atlanta) and i spent the night giving her guitar lessons. first thing in the morning, i got on a flight to austin.

we spent saturday in austin while lani finished up stuff at her lab. there were 5:30 and 7:30 flights from austin to el paso (with a connection in dallas). we made it to the airport at about 5pm. one of the other catches with flying standby on the airline’s dime is that there is a dress code. no jeans. no open toe shoes. etc. lani and i have flown standby many times so we’re used to it. this was anastasiya’s first time though. since it had never affected lani or i before, we were unaware that lip rings are also against the dress code. to make a long story short, i had to extract it in the airport with some needle-nose pliers. by the time that was taken care of though, we’d missed the 5:30 flight. the ticket agent assured us that the 7:30 had plenty of empty seats though. 2 hours later, we discovered that there were exactly 2 empty seats on the plane (and 3 of us).

flights out of austin the next morning were all oversold (although the dallas to el paso leg was fine). so we had no choice but to rent a car and drive to dallas overnight. none of us had really slept more than a few hours in the last few days, but somehow we made it without killing ourselves (though the overnight drive through texas certainly had its share of David Lynch moments).

from there on it was pretty smooth sailing. we got to El Paso and got on the bus to cross the border. i had my first injury of the trip then. the bus had little TVs hanging down from the ceiling with nice sharp corners. one of which put a nice dent in my skull and some blood in my hair. but it didn’t hurt too much and we made it across the border and got onto a sweet bus to Chihuahua. probably the nicest bus i’ve ever been on. the seats were comfy, there was plenty of legroom, and LCD television screens (that were nowhere near my head).

we got into Chihuahua at about 6:30 at night only to find that there were no more buses to Creel until the next morning. so we found a dirty $10 hotel (the Lonely Planet guide recommended it as about the best in town) with no hot water, had some dinner and wandered around town for a bit (but it was sunday night and there wasn’t much open).

the bus to Creel wasn’t nearly as nice and turned out to be a local bus so it stopped at every little town on the way. it even stopped to pick up people on the side of the highway. 6 hours later, we finally made it to Creel. dropped off our stuff at the hotel (the same one that every other Lonely Planet reader in town was staying at). got some lunch. then decided to rent some mountain bikes and explore the sites around town.

it only took about 20 minutes for that to turn out to be a really bad idea. i was riding behind lani and anastasiya, we were going downhill at a pretty good clip. they stopped. i squeezed the brakes as hard as i could. the front brakes apparently worked really well–the front wheel stopped completely but the rest of the bike and my body continued on at full speed. after flying over my handlebars at full speed, according to lani, i did a pretty impressive aikido style roll on the pavement (tucker would be proud). the roll seemed to have prevented any kind of head injury which was good because they didn’t rent us helmets with our bikes. still though, a high speed somersault on pavement isn’t recommended. i left a nice amount of palm and knee skin on the pavement and couldn’t really move my arms through their full range.

adrenaline’s a hell of a drug though and i was feeling surprisingly spry after my little dive so we kept riding. unfortunately lani’s bike started having some mechanical issues so we didn’t make it too far. after a few hours though, i started feeling more and more pain in my wrists, elbows, and generally my entire body. it was starting to get dark, we had to ride a few miles back along a winding mountain road with no real visibility, our bikes didn’t seem to have any sort of reflectors (i started looking after that and never saw a single bicycle with a reflector for the entire trip) and i was wearing my usual “invisible pedestrian” costume (all black), so we turned around and headed back. my wrists and arms kept getting worse and by the time we were back in town, i couldn’t move my left arm at all or put any weight on it and my left wrist was massively swollen. my right arm was only a little better but i was able to use it to steer the bike (with some pain).

we got some bandages and antiseptic and cleaned my wounds up and immobilized my left arm the best we could. at dinner that night and all the next day, i could barely get the fork to my mouth and drinking the last half of a bottle of beer was painful (but i did it dammit!). on tuesday i was way too sore to go anywhere but anastasiya took a bus to Batopilas (a town at the bottom of the canyons; Creel is up near the top in the mountains). lani and i just stayed in Creel and had a nice siesta to catch up on the sleep we missed with all the traveling, walked around town a bit, and spent the evening at the town’s only bar drinking tequilla.

by wednesday my right arm had more or less returned to usefulness. lani and i went on a hike up to the hill above town, then we took a bus to Divisadero, which is a nice high point that you can see most of the canyons from. the bus there cost about $3 and was a 1 hour ride over twisting turning mountain roads. the view there was absolutely stunning. Copper Canyon is four times the size of the grand canyon and even deeper. from Divisadero, you can pretty much see it all at once.

unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the bus we came to Divisadero on was the last one going back to Creel for the day. so instead of taking the bus back, we had to wait about 2 and a half hours for the train that (luckily) was heading that way. the train took about 2 hours to cover the same distance and cost over $10.

thursday morning we took a bus back to Chihuahua (another annoying local bus) and spent the afternoon there wandering around the city taking pictures, eating street food and spent some time online. we tried a different hotel that night and it was even more special than the one before. this one had hot water but the toilet was missing a seat. after anastasiya reported seeing cockroaches in her room, lani was so freaked out that she insisted we sleep with the light on. somehow we survived the night without being eaten alive by killer cockroaches or anything and got on a bus back to Juarez and El Paso first thing in the morning. we didn’t even have any trouble crossing the border.

anastasiya had actually purchased a ticket out of El Paso, so she got right on a plane and out of texas. there were no more free seats on planes for lani and i though so we got a hotel room and explored the strip malls of El Paso on foot. not too exciting. we finally managed to escape El Paso the next morning and made it back to our respective cities.

i can more or less move my arms now but they still hurt like crazy if i try to put too much weight on them. i hope to someday be able to do pushups again. i’ve also still got some massive, ugly bruises on my elbows and the skin hasn’t fully grown back on my knee yet. but really, it was a fun vacation. i highly recommend it. the people were all really friendly and helpful, the scenery was gorgeous, and the food was fantastic (and even edible for a couple vegetarians). if you go, you may want to skip the mountain bikes though if you have my coordination and ability to injure yourself.

and, of course, pictures are here.

mexico update

By anders pearson 21 Oct 2004

in Chihuahua now. all members of the party are still alive and unkidnapped. back in the US tomorrow. mexico rocks but mexican pavement is unpleasant at high speeds. i’ll explain when i get back.

off to copper canyon

By anders pearson 16 Oct 2004

in austin right now. leaving in a few minutes for copper canyon with lani and her russian friend. we don’t really know how we’re getting there, what we’re doing when we get there and none of us speak any spanish. should be interesting.

there was a great tragedy today. lani and i went out to get some lunch. my camera was still in my bag so i didn’t bring it with me for once. naturally, on the way to lunch, we spotted a ninja on a bicycle. i’m totally serious. but no one will ever believe us because i have no photographic evidence.

oh, and yesterday while i was in airport limbo, i saw Jon Stewart (from the Daily Show) on CNN’s Crossfire up on the DC airport screens (with a weird lag of a few seconds between the audio and video. it was awesome. he just tore into the hosts for their part in the downfall of american TV journalism. if you missed it, the transcript is worth a read.

anyway, i’ll be back in a week if we don’t get kidnapped by banditos.

who wants to be president?

By anders pearson 05 Oct 2004

watching the presidential and vice-presidential debates with all the rules, time limits, lights, and buzzers, it occurs to me that our presidential election has been turned into a televised game show.

ruining my game

By lani 05 Oct 2004

anders knows that i have a rant involving the ivy league. and i’m not saying that they’re not excellent institutions with excellent funding…but there are other excellent institutions that aren’t ivy league too…my general rant was that to most people, the ivy league is an undefined higher entity of sorts…like god, happiness, love, and airplane peanuts. i promise you that if you poll random people on the street or even students, not many people will be able to name more than Harvard…poor Cornell…the forgotten ivy. i have asked ivy leaguers themselves who have come up with different answers. of course, some people do know all of them, but they’re usually ivy jumpers.

i see it as an interesting illustration of social hierarchy. and i know most of you don’t live in the middle of the country, like i do…but i bet that i can find a student who hasn’t heard of the ivy league. ok, so i’m going to spend the next couple days polling and will report back to you.

here’s what i’m suggesting for the poll.

information: age, gender, education, hometown/region/nomad.

questions: have you heard of the ivy league? how many are there? name as many as you can. are you attending or have you ever attended an ivy league school?

i think i should exclude people under 15. any suggestions on the poll?

also, it might be fun to try it on thraxil. you can post anonymously if you want and we’ll see what we get. no cheating and looking it up on the internet though because that wouldn’t be any fun.

graffiti hunting

By anders pearson 26 Sep 2004

today my friend julia dragged me out to queens to go look at graffiti. we ended up at 5points, which is an old factory whose owners have given it up to graffiti artists and turned it into a sort of living gallery. we were lucky enough to see a bunch of artists out painting, and on the roof there were some photographers and a model doing a fashion shoot.

it was a nice day and we saw some great art. my photos are here.