Jonathan Richman’s always on tour.

I found this video of NYC bike messengers a while back, and the same day I wanted to post it, brl beat me to it! Ever since watching it I’ve wanted to run my hand across some bus as I was passing it. But I resist the temptation.

The ride last weekend went well, if not rather short. There’s pictures up somewhere on the inernet, but seeing as I look kinda bad in them, I’m not gonna post them here. Just know that I was wearing my old-school Mariners long sleeve shirt, pining for the days of 2001, where I was barely into baseball and they kicked ass.

But anyways, the ride: despite overhearing (or being told by someone I passed on a hill), “No way in hell!” it was great. The training made it feel like nothing at all, and the surroundings were very pretty. Beaverton wine country. Spectacular. Also, my mom visited and we had fun eating at Thien Hong in NE Portland, where the calamari is amazing.

So, what’s next?

This file is huge, and about 15 minutes, but it’s a great history of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Sarah Vowell with help from the Transatlantic Orchestra. Get it while you can, and hope I don’t go over my bandwidth limit.

This is from Bumbershoot 2005; the event was a benefit for 826 Seattle.

UPDATE: I took the file down. If you really want it, drop me a line and we’ll work something out.

Less than two weeks to the big ride, which doesn’t seem all that big anymore. This weekend I went for two rides; one short, one long. The ride yesterday wasn’t terribly agonizing; it was approximately 36 miles in 3 hours. My neck hurts from all that extra craning I had to do when riding back on the Burke-Gilman Trail in the dark. Tonight we must get bike lights. Other than that soreness and some slight leg tiredness, I’m fine, and feel particularly good about my cardiovascular preparedness.

I took the fixed gear to Recycled Cycles on Saturday and had them take a look at the wheel that I built. They told me that I did a pretty good job, only that it should have a lot more tension in the spokes. Being that I only used Sheldon Brown’s site to learn how to build the wheel, I’m proud of myself. I re-tensioned the tires Saturday night and will fiddle with chainline a bit today; then perhaps I’ll take it out and give it a try, though I’d certainly prefer to have some toe clips before I really try spinning.

Nathan Smithe (the “e” is silent) here, I have hacked the mainframe and am hijacking Tim’s blog. WORD. I came up from my hidey-hole in peetown to attend Jesse Johanesen’s wedding. He got married to this cool girl he met in my neck of the woods named Libbi. She’s really cool, well she’d have to be to put up with Jesse. Whats up with everyone getting married? Tim was gracious enough to let me crash at his apartment and I am paying him back by posting rambling diatribe to his blog. What are friends for huh? Crap crap crap. Seattle- as always- has been tons of fun. Tim and I went out to the old U tavern and played darts last night. If you ever come up to visit Tim (which I highly reccomend) you might find that he’s a little short on furniture but he makes up for it with his assorted array of crippity-crap little gadgets and wifi. And a tomato plant. I dunno, maybe he could check out fedex furniture. Who needs furniture anyway, right? Can I get a what-what? So anyway. I’ll thank tim for being such a gracious host, and I hope all of y’all are doin ok. I’m doing alright myself, I’m a tad bit of a recluse these days, and I work graveyards at this convienence store downtown, but hey, its a slacker job. To all the people I haven’t talked to in a while, hey dudes and duddettes. Wassup. So I grow tired of this and I will leave you all with a very enlightening quicktime video (click me).

A ton of stuff happened in the past few days, what with the long weekend and pretty eventful end of last week. I’ll drop a list on your asses, in chronological order:

• Last Thursday I went down to my car after work to go drive over to Owl’s house and found my window wedged open a little and the trunk cracked open a little. I thought, “Crap, did I leave my trunk open?” Turns out, someone broke in with a slim jim and stole my stereo out of the car. I blame it on the shady neighborhood and the broken light fixture above my carport. Nothing else was taken, I don’t think, but my car remains music-less for the time being. I hope to remedy that someday in the future.
• The same day, I received a letter from the IRS saying that my CP2000 (audit) was being reversed; it looks like my letter explaining identity theft was successful, although I haven’t heard anything from the other two parties involved. Probably should give them a call.
• Also the same day: I bought a new (old) bike. It’s a Motobecane Grand Touring bike that was a single gear. The back rim was dinged and I ended up giving the singlespeed hub and cog to some ungrateful punker at Recycled Cycles. The bike was 20 dollars. Now making the foray into wheel building, knowing absolutely nothing about it nor having a truing stand or dishing tool. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
• Friday, I saw John Vanderslice at Easy Street Records for a free in-store. He was great and it was crowded, and I get the odd feeling that Easy Street isn’t just selling music; it’s marketing culture. It gives me the creeps. Another plus, though, riding down the northwestern slope of Queen Anne at sunset is stunning.
• You know, actually, the bike was the first thing I’ve ever bought off of craigslist. On Saturday, we ended up buying two more things: a vacuum and a couple 4-day passes to Bumbershoot, which brings us to…
• Saturday night we went to Bumbershoot to see Dave Eggers, Sarah Vowell, Mike Doughty, and the Transatlantic Orchestra.

  Actual conversation:
  A: Are there people playing, or is it just a reading?
  T: I think Mike Doughty’s playing.
  A: Who’s The Transatlantic Orchestra?
  T: I dunno, Death Cab?

  It was Death Cab, and everyone there was great. Daniel Handler was the perfect host, Dave Eggers and Sarah Vowell were inspiring and hilarious, Death Cab played versions of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Mike Doughty played his song off the Future Soundtrack of America album, which gave me the chills. I took video of it, and will post it later when I can.

  The whole thing was a benefit for 826 Seattle, the Seattle Branch of the whole 826 Valencia project. They need volunteers and money, we dropped some cash on them at the show, I will likely be sending in application to volunteer soon. More on the new Death Cab album later, although I only have good things to say about it.

• Sunday I subscribed to McSweeney’s, bought a crapload of posters from Flatstock, watched The Headphones play from the screen outside the EMP.
• Monday was Ted Leo, and boy was it crowded.

I’m absolutely obsessing over Sufjan Steven’s “Come on Feel the Illinoise” right now. I heard it a few weeks ago and feel pretty lame for not having heard it long before then and knowing what it was; I ended up buying Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy thinking I’d be hearing some crazy piano and hot trumpets, but instead found some disturbed dude singing disturbing but suprisingly catchy (and boy do The Killers sound like him sometimes, too) songs.

In any case, “Come on Feel the Illinoise” has a spectacular tic-tac beat and the breakdown near the middle of the song is superb. Right when the piano comes in that is padded by the bass guitar at a “Bum-bum-bum” then the piano floats on up; staccato guitars, everything just makes me want to run around and not stop. Two thumbs up.

There are moments of The Cure in there, it seems, specifically from “Close to Me” with a familiar bounce, and also, lots of interesting snippets and facts about Chicago and the 1893 World’s Fair – he even mentions a devil and the White City.