Remember: my current email address is jake@kuci.org.

Hey, if you see my brother around today, wish him a happy birthday. He's turning 26 and he continues to be a fantastic sibling... Too bad I'll be in Seattle for any sort of celebration... but I'll bring back a present.

So: this is a gentle reminder (in case you've bookmarked this page and not the main page): please do not use the jake@kuci.org email address anymore: instead, use jake@kuci.org. I know, it's not nearly as exciting, but it's never a bad thing to give KUCI a little free publicity. Also, we're moving the Tape Mountain site over to DSL Northwest--go to www.tapemountain.com and update your bookmarks with the new addresses!

Geo Metro Update! Everyone is fascinated, I'm sure, by the continuing saga of the 1996 blue eggplant. Most recently, we noted that it did not have headlights. Well, the dimwits at Wentworth were unable to diagnose this problem correctly, but the smart electricians at ABE at 15th and Hawthorne were totally on it. $45 later I am ready for night-time driving. It was kind of weird to get back in the little go-kart after rumbling in the monster-truck Isuzu for a week, but it was kind of nice not to feel like a bully for a while.

This weekend I go up to Seattle to get trained for the GRE--teaching courses about it, thank you very much, I took it already, and kicked ass, back when I still thought grad school was cool, back in 1995. Ugh. Anyway, it should be fun, and my nice employer is going to give me a very generous per-diem, plus mileage: my gosh it will be nice to eat unabashedly at the fine eating establishments of the Seattle area. How on earth could I possibly spend $40 per day on food? This is crazy crazy.

I don't think I've mentioned the guitar I got this weekend at the Twilight Rummage Sale. It's a cheesy "Audition", definitely made in Japan before they knew how to make guitars, with a neck like a telephone pole and tuners that are a little uncooperative. But it sounds cool--very fat-sounding while still being treble-heavy, very unique--and it cost me $10. Sure, somebody did a very poor repair to the headstock, but so long as it holds together, I'm happy. Check out the crazy body style and pickguard!

I'm back from tour and whoa was it exciting. I drew up a cartoon tour diary (as opposed to lugging around the trusty TRS-80 laptop) and that will be up here or on the Bronwyn site soon enough, but for now the Minor Thirds' observations are accurate and amusing. You should check them out.

I'm still feeling completely limaceous from the experience of driving 3000 miles in a week, plus playing a total of, hmm, only 9 sets, plus many guest appearances, plus not sleeping: coffee is still percolating through my bloodstream, my god I did not sleep! But it felt good to be out rocking with such a stellar bunch, roaring in the rental Isuzu Trooper through the uninhabited wastes of Nevada, dancing like a maniac to Books on Tape, crashing on Rose for Bohdan's and Ned's and Mike Landucci's floors, and so forth.

Joanie and I went down to the folks' place yesterday, ostensibly to watch that big football game, but the perennial underdogs were doing their thing (bully for them) so we decided to play board games and play with Fred the dog: and let me tell you, there is something kind of cruel about pointing a laser pointer at a weiner dog, but man is it fun. He chases the red spot as if it were laser vermin, the red-glowing badgers he was bred to destroy, there is much yipping and I suppose it's a little mean, but he was nice and worn out and cuddly for the drive back to Portland. So it wasn't all bad.

Bronwyn and the Minor Thirds are going to be driving a sport utility vehicle! Yes, we are selling out and destroying the universe, but at least it's medium-sized (as opposed to some behemoth Suburban or something) and it has more cargo room than the folded-down-seat nightmare that would be a rental Pontiac Montana (or equivalent). So yeah, that will be me (25 or above, clean driving record) behind the wheel of the Chevy Blazer (or equivalent: Jordan tells me it is now the "Trail Blazer", ooh). This tour is going to be fun, and hey, propping up corrupt regimes in the Middle East is always a real hoot.

Peanut-butter-and-sauerkraut sandwiches? You bet!

Bronwyn update! We played a show at Disjecta last night and what a weird space: apparently it's a former church (with stained-glass-window-with-cross) and it is big and echoey and cold. I think Richel's guitar didn't like the cold weather; it seemed to go out of tune, and the sound wasn't ideal, so I couldn't hear the vocal cues that I usually go off of, but despite these little snares, it was a fun show: the cold made it feel like we were U2 at Red Rocks, and the fact that I was wearing a leather vest and leather pants made that seem even more true. Okay, the leather part was a lie.

The Minor Thirds played after us, Chris P. coming off the same horrific coughing-sickness that hit me, and man alive! He was able to pull it off! Of course, Charlotte's stage presence was easily able to occupy the whole room, what a performer, and what a ham. Oh yeah: everyone who performed, Bronwyn and tM3 alike, was wearing a scarf. Glamorous! I played guitar on a couple tracks, ultra-wanky lead guitar, and it was nice. I'll learn how to de-wank it a little, or at least make it a little more coherent, but it was nice to feel things cohering.

Digital Knife went on last, and though I can't necessarily see myself listening to their CD, they're a fun fun live band. Their singer/trumpeter went off on this soliloquy while the rhythm guitarist (Eric?) was switching guitars after breaking a string, and this soliloquy went everywhere from the avoidability of the war with Iraq through pan-Arab solidarity against Saddam Hussein (!) to the nutritional benefits of kale. Instantly I knew that I liked this man. As soon as he took the leaf of kale out of its Ziploc bag (!) I threw my fists into the air in kale solidarity: too bad that bathtub was right behind me, and I hit it with my hand, so my hand kind of hurts, but it's getting better, and anyway I've broken enough bones (5!) to know what a broken bone feels like. They played their rocky-rock and their songs ranged from ridiculous to political (!) and it was nice, and even Dan seemed okay with it, and Dan is very much the music purist. Being nice and being gently political are great, great things, and Digital Knife did well on both counts.

Being back on the Internet is very, very nice: the temptation to stay on it all day, however, is also strong, and I have outstanding Tape Mtn. orders that I must fill. That's it, it's time for me to burn some CD's. Virtue!

Happiness! We are back online and it's weird: it's like coming back to a dorm room after winter break, everything's still there exactly where you left it, there's ramen wrappers on the floor, my guitar is still figuratively leaning against my figurative amplifier, and in real terms my Internet browser shows me what I was looking at almost a month ago (last thing looked at before plug was pulled: Jippi Comics, home of Norwegian comics silence expert Jason and some sad penguins), and there's something kind of sad and yet hopeful about it.

Now available! The Tape Mtn. 2003 Activity Calendar is available now that most bookstores are marking their calendars down to 30% off. Oh well. Send me a stamp or a compelling discussion of your current state of poverty: Jacob Anderson, 1803 SE Washington #2, Portland, OR 97214. Or you can Paypal me a buck or something.

There are plenty of updates below (yes, talk about hopeless, I was still writing journal entries even when I wasn't connected to the Internet) so read on for the story of my disconnected month.

The good folks at DSL Northwest (not to be confused with the nimroddish monopolists at Qwest) have given me a due date for DSL reconnection and it is tomorrow. Much rejoicing, much rejoicing!

A full day for me today: I went down to the good old Union Gospel Mission thrift store in Tigard with Richel and she and I got something like 30 t-shirts between the two of us to screen-print with the Bronwyn or Tape Mtn. name. Sad thing: the UGM's seemingly perpetual 50%-off-everything policy is coming to an end next week. Now I'll have to pay 60 cents for my t-shirts instead of 30! How lame is that? I hope they reprice things or reconsider their policy; a good and cheap thrift store is hard to find, and a joy. After that, there was Bronwyn practice, and man but we sound good, and then tonight, I played on Jennifer Robin's show on KBOO. My car is giving me troubles again (with the lights, and the "service engine soon" light, the latter coming on just days before I have to renew the registration and put it through the DEQ, arrggh) so I walked down to KBOO, heavy-ass Memphis guitar crammed into my acoustic-guitar gig-bag along with my Zube Tube and my Electro-Harmonix Mini-Synth, boy was I laden down! and my tiny Electra amp in my right hand and my taishokoto in my left. As I walked, the Zube Tube (spring-in-a-cardboard-tube) played cosmic spring sounds along with my gait. I can only imagine what the invisible homeless people or the homeowners on Oak and Ash thought. We played droney psych music, and it was kind of a nice change of pace; when I got back, Joanie told me she was listening, and it was kind of nice: "No-one went off on tangents this time." Hmm...

Oh man, what a nightmare this DSL thing is: I've been waiting for nearly a month for Qwest to get its act together and in the meantime I'm off using other people's computers. To be fair, this moochy thing has gotten me out of the house and broken me of some horrible habits (scanning certain bulletin boards multiple times daily, etc.) and brought down my electricity bill and has probably been good for my back, but it's also impeded Tape Mountain action and that's no fun. They've given me a reconnect date of January 7th and we'll see if that ends up meaning January of next year... Grr!

Wow! The Tape Mountain 2003 Activity Calendar is now available! Send a couple stamps or order a couple CD-R's from Tape Mountain and you will receive this fabulous calendar, mimeographed on a Print-O-Matic for your smudgy pleasure! Email me at jake@kuci.org for more details.

So to recap the last month:

Christmas! Jordan and Joanie and I went down to the Tualatin Stomping Grounds of Yore, hung out with the folks. There was lentil soup, many fabulous cookies were consumed, little dogs were played with, presents were opened. Some nice stuff! Jordan got me a scanner and that's going to see some serious Tape Mtn. use. The evening of the 25th, after Jordan had taken off for Sunriver with Sarah B, my folks and Joanie and Fred the dachshund all piled onto the loveseat and basked in the questionable glory of the "Trading Spaces" marathon--many episodes!--while I hung out in the folks' massage-recliner and tore through the last chapter-and-a-half of The Botany of Desire, pretty well written and definitely more appealing than the rooms that were created on that show. I've decided to paint my walls as if they were a giant rooster and to put a giant comb on top of my house to complete the illusion of chickenhood.

New Year's Eve! A big party at Joanie's, Melissa's and James', with a potluck that was beyond belief, oh man, Joanie's cheesy potatoes were only the beginning of a spectacular spread that also included vegetarian pasties, bruschetta, soba noodles, every kind of cheese, pesto, man I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Booze was also consumed. I discussed the finer points of ouzo vs. yeni raki with Portland's most unassuming rock royalty (not to be confused with the assuming ones, who were apparently cloistered at La Cruda with John Mulvey), and English majors were all around, and fireworks went off at midnight, my first "midnight kiss" ever (not bad, at age 29), and then Charlotte's vaselopita. Who would get the slice with the quarter? After midnight, Jordan, Sarah and Jan showed up; conveniently there were three slices of vaselopita left and one of them had the quarter. So happy new year to you, Jan, and hope the lucky quarter is indeed lucky. The Minor Thirds played a fine and spontaneous set around 2 am, their secret theme song was unveiled, plus a newly modified paean to boozing, and then Chris and I played a Celesteville set that was marked by me being extremely sick with a cough and only slightly less drunk; I was coughing when I wasn't missing notes or forgetting lyrics. For most people it would be like hell on earth, but I persevered; that is what I am all about.

New Year's Day!Joanie and I (here he goes again, "Joanie and I, Joanie, Joanie, Joanie") went out to Sandy (Sandy!) to see her brother and his wife and son, way out to Sandy, which for those unfamiliar with Oregon geography is out on Highway 26 past Gresham, way the hell out there toward Mt. Hood, and so anyway we drove forever. I missed a turn and suddenly I was out in inky blackness in farmland; things were suddenly very far apart. I figured I'd missed something, so I turned around. There it was: a new housing development, all dense and boxy in the middle of all this emptiness, a new subdivision hewn out of nothing. Wow. We picked Casey's house out of several similar-looking ones, and his son Arlo was peeking out the window. Well, you will probably believe me when I tell you this, but Arlo is possibly the sweetest kid I've met in years; he was smiling the whole time I was there, just completely gentle, way into trains and robots, and Casey and Cheyenne were sweet as well. We talked, saw the new house (which looked, well, like a new house in Sandy), played Scrabble (Cheyenne came close, as did Joanie, but I wasn't exactly playing cutthroat Scrabble, hmmph!), etc. It was nice.

Bowling update! Monday, December 30, 2002: My highest score ever, 210. If it was not as thrilling as the first time I hit 200 (what ever could) it still kicked serious ass. Strikes or spares in every frame except for the third throw in the tenth frame, and by that point I was already in disbelief. I am to be feared as an athlete!

Last night! I never thought I'd be doing this, but I played a little bit of Dungeons and Dragons with Jennifer Robin, Brian Christopher, and Aerick and Dominica (down from Olympia). We spent more time talking about dorky middle-school experiences and drawing the characters than we did on the game, but that was okay. Brian is actually a pretty fine "DM", for Dungeon Master, not to be confused with the store-brand Robitussin DM (for DextroMethorphan) that I was downing. I was Gluggburn, a priest of Dionysus, and I made a healing wine for an injured bear, and here is a picture:

Thanks for reading! We'll be posting more soon once I'm back at the DSL teat.

Total number of unused index cards currently in Tape Mtn. House: 1,700. However, I intend to do something with these fabulous garage-sale finds, and soon.

This evening I finished up Shenmue 2 on the Dreamcast, truly an astounding piece of work, beyond belief, completely gorgeous especially on the final disc, where it ventures out of urban Hong Kong and Kowloon and into rural Guilin. Any game which puts so much effort into rendering dandelion seeds and falling leaves is okay by me, especially when it's such a rich experience as this one. I will miss having more plot to unravel; it's that sort of thing. Oh well; time to wait a few years and buy a Playstation 15 or whatever they're on by then...

I also finished the tutorial I was doing with the Princeton Review and received my final unemployment check (and many, many curses on the nimrods in the US government for not continuing temporary unemployment extensions... glad that money is going where it's really needed, to the corporate patrons of the current administration, and to the war machine, come to think of it, they're not such dissimilar entities... grrr...)

Off to take a frosty walk and pick up my old Olivetti typewriter for a very special project--perhaps the one alluded to in the first paragraph of this entry? Time will tell!

I never thought it would happen! But I have touched it! Something fabulous and obscure and fabulously obscure! It is the Cannanes' The Cannanes Come Across With The Goods, their 1985 (!) cassette and it resides in the possession of John B., and Joanie and I went to visit John and Casey this evening and talk about things like dishwashing and guitar solos, and drink cheap beer, and it was fun, and then bang, I was looking through John's 7" box and there it was, in a 7" sleeve. Oh, what a circuitous route you have made, from Australia to Olympia to San Francisco to Portland to, soon, my ears! I will listen to you, cassette, lovingly transfer you to digital, then return it to its proud and proper owner! On the way home I remarked to Joanie that finding that cassette is like going out into Portland blindfolded and finding your brother just by your sense of smell. Which would understandably be easier for me than for her, being as her brother lives way out in Sandy and mine lives in the same house as I do...

Lots and lots of walking this weekend, crisp and Decembery but unexpectedly dry skies, plenty of walking. On Friday we went to the "Twilight Rummage Sale", a neat little hipster get-together with lots of hipster garb and paraphernalia available fairly cheaply; I bought a pair of corduroy pants, oh man, you can't go wrong with "Plain Pockets" earth-tone and narrow-wale, even if they are three or four inches too long, plus a couple books, and then I got some myrtlewood and some cute/creepy Chinese dolls foisted upon me as things were closing. It's always good to have myrtlewood, right? Right? I'll put it under the macrame owls! I ran into former Olympia resident Mel, who I met through good olde Aerick Duckhugger and who is now living in Portland; this is always nice, she's a fun kid. I saw some kid buying Amphigorey Two for 50 cents ahead of me, ooh that chaps me, and then DJ Cheap decided not to play his Young Marble Giants LP (he was selling all the records he was playing for 25 cents each!) Oh well... We walked to Movie Madness on Saturday and rented In The Mood For Love, which I mentioned back in the first month of this journal, but which is always worth seeing again and again for its luster, its beauty. We were both pretty knocked out. Some great extras on the Criterion Collection DVD, too. And I played music with Eric from the Taken Girls (worthwhile! he's got a quick musical mind!) and ate Lebanese food and I'm listing events here but seriously: this life is full of vigor and it rules and soon, may I point out, soon, I will hear The Cannanes Come Across With The Goods, oh fate! you are so kind!

Making some lentils for Thanksgiving dinner, Jordan was watching the Pats-Lions game and it was halftime and I was in the kitchen listening to Ethiopiques 1, that amazing and sad first song by Muluqen Mellesse, he sounds like he's 15 and on the verge of crying, probably because he is 15 and on the verge of crying, and then I look into the other room and there's this syrupy halftime extravaganza with some darling lipsynching K103 soft-rock, you know, one of those songs that I couldn't avoid during my days as a human resources specialist, and it is a happy celebration of the United Way, words like "Dynamic" all photoshopped into a backdrop, and a little girl brings the darling lipsyncher flowers, and Muluqen Mellesse is still warbling in the background, water is boiling, I look back and Joanie is giving the most amazing this-is-sickening face to the TV screen, and Muluqen Mellesse ends and Bon Jovi begins, and what's more, the Lions are down like 17-6; but these lentils will be good.

I cleaned out my car in preparation for taking Joanie and Chris and maybe Charlotte down to Tualatin, and some of the things I uncovered:
1) Receipts from "Pic 'n' Save" in Buena Park, CA, carbon-dated to be at least two years old;
2) About a hundred cassettes, or at least it felt like it;
3) My cherished big 'n' clunky Panasonic tapedeck;
4) Some broken glass from when my car got broken into (getting near a year now, I think...)
As you can see, keeping the Metro looking shipshape is a big priority around Tape Mtn. HQ.

Today I bought a new pair of shoes and I plan to do a lot of walking in them. It was kind of sad because I bought them at super-discounted prices from the Vegan Shoe Store, which just closed after a few months in business--but at the same time they picked a sad time to open a business, offer sweet leather-free dream shoes to the poor and unemployed non-animal-wearing Portland crowd. Anyway, they are brown, "Wombat" by Vegetarian Shoes, and they are possibly the swankiest sneakers I have ever had, and the first sneakers in probably fifteen years that are not made out of some kind of canvas. Quality construction, too, and non-sweatshop labor; what a delight!

I bought these while on a trip in the back of John and Casey's van, me and Joanie and Chris P. lounging in beanbags, craning our necks to look upward. We ate nice breakfast at the J & M Cafe--and one should never discount the joys of lingering over breakfast with friends--went to good old SCRAP and got some nice CD cover materials, lingered afterwards at my place over the Crabstick LP Stud or Houseboy?, a fantastic and overlooked record from the David Nichols (Huon, Cannanes, etc.) media empire. Then we played Samba de Amigo and you know what that will do to people.

Last night we had a little get-together with the Sad Penguin folks; we drank lots of ouzo and other booze-o, played drunken Minor Thirds and Celesteville request party in the basement. I finally got to play "Old Shopping Lists Found in Pocket of Winter Coat" in front of other people, and I also got to up the ante on the Raunchy Young Lepers cover derby, doing a medley of four songs in extremely poor taste (email me if you're curious), etc. etc. Charlotte sang "Yes" off the soon-to-be-released Minor Thirds EP, and it was pretty great, and then we played Trivial Pursuit, and the opposing team, featuring my dear significant other and Mr. Piuma, just barely squeaked by to a victory despite some great, great trivializing on my part (if I do say so myself). Still, even losing at Trivial Pursuit is fun, even if Genus IV is not up to the standards of the original.

Bronwyn Update! We played a show on KPSU which was almost good, except Sarah's recently-recovered-from-permaloan bass amp cut out in the middle of "In June Minus Moon", which, of course, did not really fluster me (I'm used to amps, guitars, microphones, etc. cutting out at any and all times) but it seemed to make us a little nervous as a group, and the in-studio sound was a little weird, so it wasn't our best show ever, but I'll bet the tape will sound good; Matt is a fine fine engineer and I have faith in his audio wizardry. We're playing again on Dec. 11 at Berbati's Pan and I'm sure that will be amazing and big-rock-in-big-venue style. After that ended, I had to jet over to the Princeton Review yearly-meeting, and I have to say: any company that gives me raises and brings nice microbrews to their staff meeting is a company that I'm okay with working for. The Seattle staff came down for the meeting and they're all pretty sweet, and what a fascinating bunch of co-workers I have! It's nice to know that, even if I were to get a job that sucks as my main gig, I would still have this, and the smart and creative co-workers I have, to fall back on.

You have not heard much from me lately because I have been sucked into the life of Ryo Hazuki yet again, in the time-suck morass called SHENMUE II, for the Sega Dreamcast. Amazing, amazing stuff; just a vast visual landscape to explore, and walk around--note that I said walk; most of this game is just walking from place to place, but oh how fun it is. And it is also sweet and sentimental. Unfortunately, in this game, unlike the first, there is not a cute kitty to take care of, but you do get to say goodbye to everyone you met on the first few discs... so that's sappy enough for me. Totally engrossing.

So yeah, I should probably talk about bowling, because I finally hit:

200!

Farther back in my saga: on Thursday, 11/14, the Taken Girls played a show with Solo Dos en Tijuana and the new, reformed Minmae. Minmae opened it up; it was weird to see someone behind the drumkit who was not me. It was like those out-of-body experiences I used to have while playing drums... Well, not really, but you know what I mean: it was weird. Getting back to the subject, Ben is quite a good drummer, way tight, which is something I never was, especially on the high-hat, an invention that still kinda baffles me. Sean and Josh, as always, had a good rapport, and the three came off as a little dryer than in the wild days of Sean/Jake/Jeff Fisher thrashing and screaming, but that's probably for the best. Jordan and I were talking about how different that was... but we both dig the new Minmae.

The Taken Girls set was pretty disastophonic; Dan was in one of those moods after talking to a girl and he went into wild catharsis mode, which I guess was necessary for him, and it was kind of thrilling, but it cleared the room fast and I don't know if I need to be in a room-clearing situation these days. Somebody from the audience called out the usual "Free Bird" request, and then Dan started screaming the lyrics of "Free Bird" into the pickups of his guitar (his guitar picks up everything), and then he broke a string, and then all the strings (this time intentionally) and put a rhythm-stick through the pickguard... and then it was just piano and guitar and drums. Drummer Eric seemed pretty miffed, and I guess I was pretty miffed, but everyone has a disastrous show once or twice, I guess... We'll see.

The same cannot be said about the Taken Girls show on KPSU on Nov. 8: this was dreamy and droney and all-around pretty great. Everyone was listening to each other, and the sounds were pretty wonderful. You'll hear them when the Taken Girls album Easier than Hope comes out...

Eric and I played again last Sunday, at the Spare Room winter get-together. Some fascinating poetry was read, plenty of nog was poured, and the atmosphere was warm and congenial. I read one brief poem ("Cloud Light", from memory, maybe not my finest but I didn't bring anything, so it was up to what I had stored in my brain) and played an evanescent little piece with Eric on his hand drums, which were still in their storage bag. Leave it to Eric to sound great without even unzipping his tote bag!

Some pictures, taken by Joanie, of Celesteville at Casey's birthday party (that's her to the right in the first picture, watching Chris play the accordion): (and note the veins in my neck):

We went bowling last night, and it was popular, oodles of people showed up. I was bowling as if I knew how (167!), as was John Barrios (166!); apparently he used to have a job caring for some challenged individuals and they went bowling all the time. Who knew? At one point we were each bowling two lanes at once, which meant that there was the intriguing problem of having "real Jake" (the one who was throwing a lot of strikes) and "fake Jake" (the one who was picking up his spares, but just barely). Was "real Jake" more real? I certainly hope so, because real Jake was kicking ass.

Tired of hearing about my bowling adventures? Email me! Want to come along on Monday nights (Grand Central Bowl, SE 9th and Morrison, Portland, Oregon)? Email me!

Yesterday Joanie and I went down to the folks' place and stopped at the ever-popular Grocery Outlet King City on the way. I was very pleased to see that yet another food-on-a-stick concept has been tossed into the rubbish heap of history, this time the "Go Stick", which offers some new sort of variation on the atrocious meat-and-cheese-in-corndoggish-coating genre. Anyway: We baked cookies and played with a little dog and watched Lawrence Welk. It was Lawrence's "salute to the ladies" episode and this meant that the suave men went out and serenaded embarrassed females in the audience (one of whom, the most embarrassed of all, was pretty cute, and surely my Lawrence Welk-loving grandfather would agree), meant that the kind of creepy Lennon Sisters sang (lip-synched) with eerie grins, meant that, for some reason, everyone was outfitted in a fantastic shade of orange, the sort of suits that I would actually wear, and that is saying something considering that they are, you know, suits.

Today was the big Peace Words benefit at Pacific Crest Community School, which is apparently one of those Portland hippie-ish schools where they talk about Gaia a lot, because a large percentage of the Pacific Crest kids talked about it in their wonderfully high-schooly poems. But most of the readers were pretty good, the show opened up with some very nice North Indian classical stuff from Michael Stirling and David Abel, and the Minor Thirds played a short and delightful set that featured, much to my surprise, a sweet-hearted rendition of the Celesteville classic "I Have Not Spoken All Day". We volunteered--I did sound, Joanie sold books and cookies, and we ended up getting yummy Old Wives' Tales Hungarian mushroom soup for the trouble, and rolls and Stumptown coffee and cookies and good poetry and friends, so we ended up throwing some money in the cashbox to benefit Oregon Food Bank and Oxfam, and this turned out to be a good investment, because we ended up going back to Sad Penguin House, where Charlotte cooked a very nice meal and served plenty of wine. And we played endless Samba de Amigo on my Dreamcast (Chris is becoming obsessed) and talked until midnight. It is never a bad idea to give generously (and I would give more if I actually had any money) because it will all come back and give nice things to you.

It's one of those rainy November days where I feel a little sluggish, a little gray, and in the shower this morning I felt compelled to drag out the Verlaines' Some Disenchanted Evening, which is playing now. What a great record, and what a despondent record; every song is about drunkenness, depression, or failure, and yet it treats it in such a more appealing manner than, say, I dunno, the Cure's Pornography or Bob Mould's Black Sheets of Rain; in none of these records is there really all that much hope (although Cure or Mould fans are welcome to disagree), but at least Some Disenchanted Evening is very, very funny, and the music's surface perkiness just does that much more to enhance its listenability. Incidentally, it seems like I only listen to this record during November. Weird.

If you are not feeling depressed, but just want a great album to listen to, may I recommend the Verlaines' entire (pre-Slash Records) catalog? No-one that I know has really taken up that way way literate hyperstrum torch, although I've certainly tried to do so myself...

So the end of the world is happening again (i.e. Republican control of pretty much everything) and I'm not too pleased about it, although we have to give Walter Mondale plenty of credit for his fantastic sense of humor--c.f. about the "age question", his being 74: "I've looked into it and there's not much I can do about it." Brilliant! For some reason the Walter Mondale story--and his fine self-deprecating punchlines--remind me of Charles Schulz...

I'm listening to what I believe is the final mix of the self-indulgent and toxic Celesteville live album Vast and Sad, featuring some fantastic performances by S. Brooxx, Grace Lee, and Rob and Mark Creepy Crawly Claw. It will scorch the cones out of your speakers. Available today because I am so pissed off and energized! I'll update the website once I've finished making the covers.

Slacka slacka slacka; I'm eating Fred Meyer-brand fake-Wheat Thins and half-observing election returns; I haven't updated this thing in weeks. Horrible.

Have you voted yet? If you are in Minnesota, you get to vote for Walter Mondale, which is a sweet and delightful privilege; hopefully you can right the wrongs of the first presidential campaign for which I was aware of my surroundings and the differences between the two parties, namely the 1984 campaign, where everything Walter Mondale had to say made sense: hey, he was honest about the fact that he was going to raise taxes! Everything about him seemed so honest, so direct, so Midwestern, so much the opposite of Ronald Reagan, whom I saw through even then. Kids can see through that kind of thing. Anyway, we here in Oregon get to vote for some pretty interesting ballot measures and I'll be glued to the TV set, or at least my computer. If the Republicans take the Senate, I will scream.

So a lot of things have taken place since I last wrote. I went down to the great city of San Francisco with Sarah and Chris of Bronwyn, plus Joanie; Richel meant to go but had a lot of homework to do--too bad for her. It was entertaining. We listened to the Mountain Goats almost the entire way down, with one brief and inexplicable pause to listen to, I believe, S & C's hometown pal Mike playing songs that sounded kind of like a rootsier, um, Mountain Goats. We arrived in San Francisco in good time (unlike any time when I'm driving, where things are enormously late). We took the longest route ever (somehow getting at Aquarius Records, where I've never been, but which yielded lots of unhip bands from the early-to-mid-90's that I dig in the bargain bins--Diskothi-Q, Pram, Refrigerator, Bailter Space. Ate Indian food with strict vegans who snuck in strawberries and some sort of health juice. Saw the Mtn. Goats--after putting up with two loud opening bands who could never measure up. You know, now that I think about it, it's kind of weird that the Mountain Goats are this huge phenomenon, and, say, Diskothi-Q aren't. John's stuff is amazing, but did he ever do a 2-CD set about the National Football League, with every team represented? No! But he played a sterling set, thoroughly amusing; I'm sure that a million people have already written amazing things about said set so I'll let it go. Very fun, though, especially when I realized: whoa, I'm in San Francisco. We stayed the night at fellow Mountain Goatsite Erin's place in Oakland, and I made a pilgrimage to the fantastic East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, where I went completely bonkers with delight gazing at the selection of Chartpak rub-off lettering, especially at 25 cents a pop. Oh man. I felt like Scrooge MacDuck, bathing in mammon, except it wasn't gold, it was obsolete design material. Still...

Then last week I drove up to Seattle to visit old pal Marc Chernoff, who is visiting the city in anticipation of his moving here from Chicago. A pretty nice job, too, it sounds like. Lucky! We walked all over town, got lost en route to eating Japanese food with Jessica S. due to Seattle's bizarre street-address system, got to experience the loveliest late October skies and air ever, etc. etc. It was nice and I finally felt like I got Seattle; still, after driving home to Portland, idling while waiting for a green light at SE Stark and Grand, I knew that I wouldn't want to live in Seattle.

More bowling: I'm consistently scoring in the mid-120's or so, but Charlotte was able to vanquish me last night in all three games. Darn! But it was fun and Joanie did better than usual and there were seven people bowling in one lane; this is crazy, all this socializing.

Tomorrow it will rain and hopefully that will mean that I will finally get some stuff done. Well, that's not true: today I turned in my ballot and sent some Tape Mtn. stuff off. I think it's time to start doing some writing and some mimeographing, though, since I have had a severe deficit of both. Oh yeah, perhaps I should get a job. I keep forgetting about that one!

Big long walk this morning in sunny Indian-summer Portland, OR, fine Stumptown coffee and cavity-wrenchingly sweet and good Bowers caramel rolls consumed, way good, as was the walk, and it is nice to be seeing someone who can keep up the pace on these monster walks. Oh it's delicious. The other day I drove some stuff over to Chris and Charlotte's and Ann said "I didn't know you drove!" I would like to keep the fact that I drive under my hat.

Remind me not to sell any more guitars on that large auction site: shipping a guitar is a pain in the ass and I won't make that mistake again. Bleah.

Tomorrow morning bright and early, all four members of Bronwyn with special guest passenger Joanie are going to make a ridiculous pilgrimage to my natal grounds of San Francisco, CA to see the Mountain Goats; 12 hours driving each way (or so) to see a total of what, two hours? 90 minutes? of Darnielle action, but it will be fun and Joanie has never ever seen California! So she will see it now, if mainly at 70 mph or so.

Great link of the day: you can download great and free mp3's at beautiful Quixotic Records, including fantastic records by Bugskull (the False Alarm 10", immortalized in Companion Piece), and Lid's intriguing Ivy 7", which is one of those records I can listen to over and over again without sucking out its soul, since its soul sticks so strongly to its curved spine, if that makes any sense, but this record has scoliosis in the most sort of charming way. And it is free for you to download; crank up the DSL!

If you're wondering where the rest of this huge page went, check here; things were getting untidy.

I'm listening to RYL's Bastards of Democracy, possibly the Raunchy Young Lepers' most ambitious effort, oh, who am I kidding, but anyway, this stuff is melting my mind, especially the way that "Charlie Don't Surf" starts off with this totally rocking cheap-Japanese-guitar-cranked-through-tape-deck riff and then it begins to suck so thoroughly that you could never have guessed that it was the same song. So great. The best-of collection will come out soon.

And in more underage-luvin news: we are getting that much closer to releasing Underage Luvin, the Tape Mountain underage luvin compilation. No, there's no kiddie smut here, it's just recordings that Tape Mtn. affiliates and friends made as young people, and some of the stuff will DESTROY you: e.g. Alice in Hanes' "Sexually Disturbed Kitchen Appliances Who Worship the Devil", anything by Chaotic Noise Anarchy, Trinket, Toyzone, the Cruise Missiles Named Bob, it's all so good and so pure and so adolescent. You'll love it. Save your nickels.

Oh yeah: Last night I saw Ross and the Hellpets and the Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory at the trusty Mississippi and it was a sweet dose of pop greatness. Both bands played as full-rocking trios, both bands gave us sweet dual-vocal-harmony versions of their sweet hits, and there was fantastic (vegan!) birthday cake for the Hellpets' bassist and the good times abounded. Pop is nice and these bands made me tap my toes with gorgeous informality. Ross and the Hellpets are going on tour in California--I'm sure it's up at Ross's website or it will be soon. Both bands are definitely worth checking out, and the SIMRF and the Celesteville (CV) will be doing a show together soon, hopefully. What a nut, but what a great nut.

The car problems? Weird! I decided to get the car back from the Chevrolet dealership and guess what: my lights worked. $580 my ass! In any case I'm sure something will be weird soon in any case, so watch this space. But at least I can drive at night now, not that I have any particular need to do so.

Yesterday the folks and Joanie and I went out to Hood River for our annual apple-gorging ceremony--we went to Mountain View Orchards, ate a slice of every kind of apple they had, even the "mystery apples", quaffed nice cider, rode on a hayride, gazed at lovely Mt. Hood, said hello to nice dogs (Calvin the dingleberry retriever who was nevertheless very nice, and Buddy the dachshund, keeping up with the tractor on his short legs.) Very fun and I'm full of apples, and fine Full Sail beer, and blue skies over dormant volcanoes. A great state we live in, all right.

I would like to state for the record that I am officially poor, though not as poor as some friends of mine. I am now officially living paycheck-to-paycheck and this is not so good. I think I might need to get a somewhat-full-time job. It's weird; I wonder what sort of circumstances I'd be living in if I'd just gotten a job straight out of college instead of slackerly tilting at linguistic windmills. Probably more comfortable circumstances, although who knows; perhaps my dot-com 401(k) would have tanked and I would have had to sell my Saab or something and discover about poverty later rather than sooner. Better to be used to it, better to be used to it.

Joanie got new glasses and I can't believe how cute she looks in them. We were watching a certain video this morning and I noticed just how into the whole nerdy-bespectacled-girl-with-brunette-curls archetype I am. Weird. I guess that's a pretty healthy fantasy, though, being as I've got nothing but good things to say about nerd girls, and they tend to be pretty stable and be into great nerdy things like reading and crossword puzzles. And I have to admit that Joanie's cuteness radiates from within, out through lenses, oh here I go again I'll stop now.

So the car is having problems. Details listed below, from my Palm Pilot:

10/9/02: Last night while driving co-instructor Stephanie home from Lewis & Clark I think, boy is Boones Ferry Road dark. Then, when turning right onto NW Trinity Pl, a pedestrian shouts "Lights!" at me. Oh crap: my lights ARE out. Both of them. And they work in hi-beam mode. The expensive folks @ Wentworth Chevrolet quote me $580 to replace my fusebox. Argh! Perhaps it's time to go carless for a while-I get the feeling this car is entering the paid-for-but-expensive phase of its life...

On the bright side of things, my bowling game is better than ever-171 in an inebriated game of speed-bowling! Joanie, as always, impressed in a non-obvious way by scoring 66 in three games straight. Just try to accomplish that yourself!

Angels list: my student David, who drove me to L&C (where I'm sitting now); Charlotte Wells, who will pick me up from class so I can play the Bronwyn show tonight. Great!

Bright news after Charlotte picked me up: she was a little late (traffic, totally understandable) and we flew down I-5 to the Mississippi. I jump in during the middle of "In Front Of", which is really fun, especially since Sarah's guitar was in tune. I'm getting used to the walk-around-the-Mississippi-with-unamplified-acoustic-instrument thing, which is especially fun if you're playing the accordion, since it's such a romantic instrument. I convinced one of Sarah's friends to drink some of the red wine he had sitting in front of him by pointing at the accordion, then at the red wine. He understood. A fun set.

Bronwyn update! We played a show (yes, we are playing frequently) at Sarah's photography show at Neon and it was my delight to discover that proprietor Adrian is not only a former Tualatin resident but an upright bassist as well. So I got to play his (3-stringed) upright bass for the Bronwyn set, and for one song (a bizarre calypso bass/accordion rendition of "RA Montgomery") in my impromptu Celesteville set. That Celesteville set went quite well, I thought--it was in a dark room and I played dark songs to match, staying in one place, singing as if the songs meant something. Nice. Sarah showed up from her job off at the ocean at around 9 or so (we'd planned on beginning at 7!) and we played, me on upright bass, accordion, guitar, flute, glockenspiel, bass guitar (new record!) and Sarah and Richel singing sweetly together as always, some acquaintance of Richel's clanking bottlecaps together in a fairly poor semblance of rhythm, very beautiful and it was fun to hear "The Rain Song" with actual rain outside. On "In June..." which says "anything could happen here" in the lyrics, as they were singing that, a torrent of beer came spilling down from the stairs, drenching dulcimerist Sean (sp?) and making clank-clank glass sounds; we kept singing and playing, flashing glances at each other and around the room. Music is special.

Taken Girls Update! Charm Bracelet was having the kick-off event for its massive project "You" at the Kelly Haus, and the Taken Girls played along with Amy Annelle and S. Brooxx. Both of the two singer-songwriter types were quite lovely; Sean's songs are always a joy to behold, and Ms. Annelle had a voice to get lost in and a sweet blue-eyed puppy that thrashed around the room to her placid and robust songs. She played a Palace song--when she announced that she'd be playing a Will Oldham song I was a little dubious, but then she played "All is Grace" and I'm a sucker for that one. So the Taken Girls: We played in the basement whereas everyone else had played in the living room, Dan was schnockered and made many clang and drag sounds with his guitar, metal bars, my poor beleaguered "round-bells". Eric played his unknowable but in-retrospect perfect rhythms on various small percussion instruments, and I did my dwaaaooommm thing with the low E string, played some little melodies, stuck the headstock of my guitar down this hole in the basement for full Freudian effect, although I claimed I was playing "for the spiders" that live in that hole. I saw one of them.

My Princ*ton Re*iew job is ending soon and I'll miss it--these kids have been lots of fun, even the smartass ones, and they've worked hard, and having my days free is a spectacularly nice way to live my life. My god, I haven't had a real job in seven months. Seven months! Maybe it's time to spend my days indoors, someplace other than Skypad. We will see, we will see.

I'm wearing long pants.

The cooler weather and stuff are making me a little goofy, a little withdrawn, which is actually not so bad; it just makes me want to walk more and listen to luv(sic) more, since they always make me happy, and it is a good idea to listen to luv(sic). So not so bad.

Let's see: what has gone on? 1) Bronwyn played a show on Thursday at the Mississippi (again) that was fantastic in many ways, not least of which was because Minor Thirds Charlotte's godson Finn (2 or 3 years old) was dancing to us, fascinated by my flute, all that stuff. There are few things better than playing to thrilled toddlers. The Minor Thirds played a surprisingly loud set--Chris was screaming and his acoustic guitar was fuzzing out--kind of different than their usual sound, way more assaultive, but kind of refreshing. And when Sarah and Richel joined them for "Lesbian on Skis," gosh! Then Celesteville played our big hits, at least once we finished playing "Ephrata Cloister". It was fun and people seemed to appreciate it, and I finished the show by playing my electric guitar unplugged, wandering through the audience.

(2)Joanie and I went to look at eyeglass frames (for her) yesterday. Looking for eyeglass frames for someone else is very different from looking for frames for oneself--you can actually see how that person looks, whereas when I'm trying on eyeglass frames I kind of have to go by intuition, what with my vision being so questionable... But it was kind of romantic in a dorky myopic sort of way--the story of our life!