On Summit

Thanks to the generosity of my friends Laela and Rob I was able to attend Game Three of the National Legaue Division Series last night at Great American Ballpark (GABP) in Cincinnati. Sadly, the home team lost the game, effectively ending both the series and the season for our beloved Reds. It was still an enjoyable evening, featuring great travel companions and friends old and new. It was also my first trip to GABP. While I've thought every year since the park opened in 2003 that I should, "get down to a game", it never seemed to happen. As it turned out, my first game at GABP was also the first post-season game ever at GABP. The club also set an attendance record for the park, marking what we can assume is the first time they pushed 44,599 paid attendees through the turnstiles. I snapped a few pics to give a sense of the place. It was crowded, loud, and fun. We cheered for the Reds, called Chase Utley a cheater, and threw peanut shells on the ground! Thanks again to Rob...

This week we embarked on a complete (and long overdue) bathroom renovation project. The contractors were scheduled to start Tuesday morning. I liked the idea of a little head start, so Monday I began the demolition portion of the work. I pulled down all the plaster and removed some of the lath before running out of steam. Tuesday AM the pros showed up and started their day by removing the rest. While they were at it I jokingly asked if they'd found a coffee can with $10,000.00 in it yet (Because everyone knows the real promise of any one-hundred year old house is the possibility that some batty Silas Marner type stuffed $10,000.00 into a coffee can and hid it in a wall). Obviously they hadn't, but we all had a good chuckle and then went back to work. Fifteen minutes later though, Ray, the project leader, called me over. He presented an old chisel - about eight inches long and one inch wide - and said "Look what we just found in the wall". Well, it's not $10,000.0...

I announced previously that the long dormant Patsys will be dusting off their gear and trekking north to Clintonville Academy for a special event on Saturday September 18th. It's a benefit of sorts, being organized by members of the school community to lend a hand to Rob Behler and his lovely family . I'll admit I don't have a lot of details to share, but here's what I do know: 1. It will be outside; the parking lot of Clintonville Academy to be exact (3916 Indianola Avenue). 2. The Patsys go on at 3:30 PM. 3. There will be children, possibly belly-dancers. 4. It's for a good cause. 5. You should come. I know it's a busy weekend, and I'm not normally one to beg, but if you only go to one Patsys show this year, make it this one. It would mean the world to us.

Chris Milk's just released experimental film "The Wilderness Downtown" combines Google mapping software with the Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait" to create a kind of multi-media (and customizable) music video. Viewers are invited to plug in the address where they grew up and watch as their childhood neighborhood is brought to life via Google's street view. The project seems to be something of a promotional effort for Google Chrome, though it functioned well enough in Firefox for me to get the gist. Michelle Castillo at Techland provides a few more details and hints a bit at the creep factor, but doesn't go quite far enough with it. I'm less concerned that the program can find/harvest where I grew up (I expect that's been done thousands of times already in much less explicit ways). I'm slightly more distressed at having my childhood memories reinterpreted through an Arcade Fire song. I get that Win, Regine, and the rest of the crew have a...

If you're even a casual art enthusiast you've probably been exposed to thousands and thousands masterpieces. History of art classes routinely focus on the most seminal and well-realized works. Art history books feature only the best of the best. Museums prominently display their most prized works and use their web sites to tout the same. While studying the masterworks certainly has value, the focus on great paintings can lead to the mistaken impression that all the old masters ever did was sit around churning out one masterpiece after another. As a painter, this artistic hit parade can be a fairly disheartening. I'm certainly not churning out one masterpiece after another. (...for that matter, I'm not sure I've even churned out one masterpiece). That's why I get a special thrill whenever I come face to face with a less than successful work by one of the old masters. The Art Institute of Chicago owns a couple paintings that perfectly capture the not always succ...

The Patsys have been on something of an extended hiatus the last year and a half. We haven't really been playing out, and truth be told that probably would have continued were it not for an invitation to do something really nice this summer. On Saturday September 18th The Patsys will be playing an event at Clintonville Academy to help out Rob Behler and his family. We hope you'll be able to join us.

As I look forward to Weezer's performance at the Ohio State Fair on Saturday, I find myself contemplating the nearly pathological ambivalence I've afforded them over the course of their 15 year career. Since their inception I've swung wildly between periods of crazed fan-boy OMG I CANT STOP LISTENING infatuation (Weezer (the blue album), Weezer (the green album), Maladroit) to stretches where I flat-out ignored whatever it was they did (Pinkerton, Weezer (the red album), Make Believe). It's a band/fan relationship that I'm not really accustomed to, but one I suppose I've learned to accept. I've noticed too (given their role as a fairly straight forward pop-rock combo) that I have an unusual propensity for over-analyzing their work. "What's the significance of three albums all called Weezer?". "Why do all the solos on Weezer (the green album) simply mimic the melody line?" "Does River's really want to live in Beverly Hills?...