Motes '08

My dog's nickname is The Motes. My dog should be the next president of the United States.





Motes '08. True vision for the future.

Rule of thumb for modern living:

If your friend wears a pink shirt the same day you wear a pink shirt don't be friends for that day, not forever, but for that day.





I came across those two gentlemen on the j train this morning at Bowery. Fortunately they got off at Broad St. because I was prepared to follow them anywhere in order to take that picture.


Vegas this weekend, YFBFB has returned.

Dylan at Prospect Park

The twilight of Bob Dylan’s career would be better served if he was less like a rolling stone and more like a Rolling Stone. As Martin Scorsese’s recent Shine a Light documentary proved (and from what I’ve heard all of their concerts still prove) the Stones have been around for a long, long year but haven’t really lost a step. The same cannot be said for Mr. Dylan.

Last night’s show at Prospect Park was an extremely hot ticket in New York. Released in early July, YFBFB and YFBFBGF were online for a combined three hours attempting to get tickets with no luck. Fortunately YFBFBGF spent some time refreshing Craigslist yesterday until the right post showed and she pounced.

$55 a head and 5 hours later we were standing on the beer line at PP Theater waiting for a chance to pay $6 for a Budweiser. The theater is like a natural forming amphitheater with the venue gradually rising as you move further from the stage. We were quite far from the stage and couldn’t see very clearly but the rain had stopped an hour or two earlier and our spirits could not be dampened.

Dylan came out with Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 which was neat but turned disappointing. His backing band sounded folksy and the crowd droned out much of Dylan’s singing (either that or he actually was only singing about one in every four words which is also a possibility).

After RDW #12 & 35 I headed to the port-a-potty to heed Dylan’s demands. Cops were out in force but there really wasn’t much tension in the crowd which ran the spectrum age wise but was almost entirely white.

He second song was lay, lady lay, reworked to sound like an Eagles reunion tour song. And therein lies the heart of the problem. If Dylan is going to rework his classics with the same lyrics but different music he has to actually sing the lyrics. Otherwise the effect is plain confusing.

There were a couple highlights, Masters of War was very good and Dylan seemed enthused by the song, also whenever he broke out the harmonica it seemed particularly special. All in all it was an experience to get to see Bob Dylan perform, but had a complete unknown 67 year old man played the same exact music, $55 could have purchased a lot more $6 beers.

New Blog

I'm posting here on a daily basis for the time being.

A Little Bit of Shut the Fuck Up

How much luck is required to never encounter a little bit of luck ad, ever again? However much it is I hope all New Yorkers encounter it in the near future.

Couple links:

Interesting story about Japan taking extremely aggressive steps to curb obesity that includes this line: "I don’t think the campaign will have any positive effect. Now if you did this in the United States, there would be benefits," ah America, land of the free and home of the broad.

Attempting to understand the anger people have over Budweiser being sold to a European company is really confounding. Check the comments section.

Interesting New York Magazine article about male infidelity. Although I'm perplexed as to how Weiss doesn't include an exploration of male concern for the infidelity of women at some point, seems relevent.

The article does include this gem: ""Recent analyses of genetic databases reveal that fully 10 percent of people have different biological fathers from the men they name as their fathers." Wow.

Random thoughts:

Florida is a curious mix of strip malls, trailer parks, palm trees, and tourist destinations. There is nothing else.

There's more to people raising their sunglasses to see things more clearly than simply better vision.

I don't believe in opening mail because I think it deserves its privacy.

If only we could control-f our lives.

The British: Funnier than US

I was getting a good chuckle at the first couple paragraphs of this article when I read the line "You're a public figure now, they would say." So I decided to look up who the author, Boris Johnson, is. It turns out Boris Johnson is the mayor of London and probably funnier than anyone Michael Bloomberg even knows.

It's really strange and oddly disconcerting that British pols are capable of such superior humor in public arenas that Americans.

Want to Know How Happy you are?

Ask yourself this question:

If you could fast forward parts of your existence with the results of that time being exactly the same as if you enacted that period in real time (ie. your work production would be the same) how much of your life would you fast forward?

That's the answer to how happy you are, and that's the answer to what you need to change in your life.