"being with you" that dog
"young adult friction" the pains of being pure at heart
"re:stacks" bon iver
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
I woke you up to say goodbye.
The Lucksmiths, my favorite band that's still together, have decided to break up. I've seen them play four times, and the last time I saw them, when they closed with "The Year of Driving Langourously" I knew I might never see them again.
Also, Motopizza, home of the $5 pizza on 82nd in Portland, has closed.
I'm not sure how I can carry on.
Here are the lyrics to "the year of driving langourously:"
Darling roll the window down
I can't breathe
And I want to feel the northerly down my sleeve
I love a sunburnt elbow pointing to the sea
And, darling, can't you find us something on the radio?
A song to pass the time
Sweet and slow
Conversation was forsaken long ago
It's getting worse
You've hardly said a word
Since you set eyes on the horizon
But I've seen the other side of that ocean there
And it can't compare
Has it really been a year?
How did those days just disappear?
We held our breath across each bridge
Til we were blue
But I wonder if I wished the same as you
Like a ten-year-old pretending
Summer isn't really ending
It's getting worse
You've hardly said a word
Since you set eyes on the horizon
But I've seen the other side of that ocean there
And it can't compare to this
So I'll steal another kiss
Before the sun goes down on this fibrotown
And we give chase
Like all those other days
I suppose it's no surprise
We drive, time flies
Has it really been a year?
Where the hell do we go from here?
Also, Motopizza, home of the $5 pizza on 82nd in Portland, has closed.
I'm not sure how I can carry on.
Here are the lyrics to "the year of driving langourously:"
Darling roll the window down
I can't breathe
And I want to feel the northerly down my sleeve
I love a sunburnt elbow pointing to the sea
And, darling, can't you find us something on the radio?
A song to pass the time
Sweet and slow
Conversation was forsaken long ago
It's getting worse
You've hardly said a word
Since you set eyes on the horizon
But I've seen the other side of that ocean there
And it can't compare
Has it really been a year?
How did those days just disappear?
We held our breath across each bridge
Til we were blue
But I wonder if I wished the same as you
Like a ten-year-old pretending
Summer isn't really ending
It's getting worse
You've hardly said a word
Since you set eyes on the horizon
But I've seen the other side of that ocean there
And it can't compare to this
So I'll steal another kiss
Before the sun goes down on this fibrotown
And we give chase
Like all those other days
I suppose it's no surprise
We drive, time flies
Has it really been a year?
Where the hell do we go from here?
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Car of the Month: DEFENDER NINETY
Today I saw a tan Defender 90 on the street. It had no roof, padded rollbars, and four dudes living their lives riding in it. I was very jealous, and thus this month's Car of the Month is the Land Rover Defender 90. Pictured above is one of the same color of my VW Bus.
I've been spending a lot of time lately riding around in a Chevy Silverado, which just makes me love trucks. Of course, most my main ride is a 1971 VW Bus, which I consider more of a truck itself. I love the big roof rack I recently acquired for my VW Bus, and roof racks are a standard Land Rover tradition. I am a sucker for long lived industrial designs, and the Land Rover Defender (as it was finally named in the 1990s) is mostly the same as the original Land Rover designed in 1948.
I would love to drive one sometime. I love that they're all boxy. I love that all the lights are round. I love that they were designed to be completely disassembled and put together using only hand tools. I love the vents that open under the windshield and that the door hinges are on the outside.
The Defender 90 was imported in small batches to the United States in 1994 and 1995. They still sell for well over $20,000 on the used market, unlike its sibling the Land Rover Discovery, which can be had for less than a nice Vespa. There are a few of them here in Portland and I upon seeing one I always shout "THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE LAND ROVER EMPIRE!"
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
I'll go mainstream without kicking nor screaming.
I played a show on Friday May 1, 2009 and this is what I played:
Intellectual Sweetie (the tennies, my old band, cover)
Syncronised Sinking (the Lucksmiths cover)
Do you love coffee? (braid cover)
Clover (newish song)
Kiss Me Thru The Phone (Soldja Boy cover, abandoned quite soonish)
Frost (newish song)
I love this song by Soulja Boy.
Intellectual Sweetie (the tennies, my old band, cover)
Syncronised Sinking (the Lucksmiths cover)
Do you love coffee? (braid cover)
Clover (newish song)
Kiss Me Thru The Phone (Soldja Boy cover, abandoned quite soonish)
Frost (newish song)
I love this song by Soulja Boy.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
The Story of My Honda Elite 50.
Like many people who are so deep in something that they forget just where it started, I have to remind myself exactly how I first started riding scooters. After working in the summer of 2002 at my dad's warehouse, I became the first kid in my college town to have a scooter. I bought a 50cc Honda Elite from Christman's Honda in Palantine Bridge, New York. It cost me $460 out the door, and I also bought a white 3/4 helmet.
I rode it home pretty scared of it, being my first time on the road. I didn't tell my mom I was buying a scooter, but my dad brought me there to pick it up. It was so light to ride - much lighter and smaller than the Vespa that replaced it. It accelerated quickly and was really nice to ride, especially through the rural areas where I lived.
It was a 1987 model, which was kind of a one-year-only type of deal for Elites. It had electric start, a broken odometer, and a plastic top case trunk. I think I had one new tire on the back, but I think both were that old-fashioned type of tread, not the nice style ones that we have now that offer a really smooth ride. Like all Hondas, the suspension was really soft, but since I had nothing to compare it to, it was great. It always started and never broke down. I didn't do any maintenance on it ever.
I brought it with me to Geneseo in the fall and locked it to a tree outside with a big cable lock. The first night I was there some drunk girls were sitting on it, and in the morning it was all knocked over. Its cover was strewn about 10 feet away. I was really upset about it, and got up early to take it to Dunkin Donuts. I added a few stickers to the trunk - Lookout Records, and one that said "R2 is my Co-Pilot."
The campus people gave me tons of trouble for having it on campus and not paying for a parking permit, so in a few weeks I had to move it to a bike storage that Mahoney told me about over by his apartments. Luckily, no one ever bothered it there, except for one day I came back and it had its trunk filled with leaves. I was really upset about this until a few months later when my roommate Greg eventually confessed to it.
In the summer of 2003, I stayed in Geneseo, living off campus. I kept it in a weird closet under the steps to the above apartment at our cheapest-in-town duplex. I found out about mail-order performance parts and got a Proma brand expansion chamber and some Malossi variator weights from a site called VT Cycles in Hawaii. I brought the bike to a Moto Guzzi shop in Avon for them to fix it. They called me halfway through the operation and said "Hey we found this weird part - do you want this back in?" I said "No! That's the restrictor! Leave that out!" Riding it back from that shop, I was scared because it was going so fast! It now did 45 MPH in the flats!
Different people had different nicknames for the scooter, my favorites being "T-REX" and "The Red Menace." I rode all over on that thing, including numerous 50+ mile sojourns from Geneseo to Rochester and back. The first one of such trips was a wednesday night when I met up with the Negative Image Scooter Club and rode with them. That was also the first time I ever passed a car on a scooter, even though I was at the back of their pack. We rode in a pack to Mendon Ponds State Park, where it started to rain and we broke up. I overshot and missed a few turns on the way home and I think I ended up in Hemlock at one point.
After that I rode to Conesus Lake a bunch of times. I rode in the cold but did put it in storage in my uncle's basement for the winters. I rode with people on the back even though it was never designed for that. Pretty much all my friends rode on the back of it at some point or other. Geneseo never really had any place to go, so mostly I just went to Dunkin Donuts or Wegmans, or just rode around in the countryside outside of town. I never rode the scooter to go to class or anything. Geneseo was just too small for that.
The scooter had its only break toward superstardom when it was featured in my friend Dhaval's short film "Catharsis." The film also featured my band, The Castawaves. The film really combined those two major forces in my life. I had brought back a drum kit in the fall of 2002 and started the band. I had the idea to make a music video for a Castawaves song involving me riding around on the Honda randomly giving out flowers to girls, but we never filmed it.
I can't remember exactly when I sold it, but I think it might have been just right when I came back from England; probably January 2004. I sold it to a friend of a friend in Rochester, who never registered it, and who had it stolen and impounded. Dan took me to get it out of impound, but by the time I heard of this the cost to get it out was $330 and it reportedly had a lot of damage to the front end, so we had to walk away.
I took the money from the sale of the scooter and put it toward my white Vespa. The Honda was one of the best purchases I ever made.
Friday, March 13, 2009
A few songs I love, right now.
Pretty much any time Christianity and alcoholism are mixed in a song, it's a winning combination. That is why I like this song by The Hold Steady entitled "212-MARGARITA."
This is my current favorite for listening while driving the VW. "Ghost Town" by The Specials. Please, if anyone would like to buy me a gift, purchase me the "Ghost Town" shirt from Supreme.
I found this video a few weeks ago (and by a few weeks ago I mean Valentine's Day). It puts original footage of Busby Berkeley's shows with the great Magnetic Fields song.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Cold Weather Challenge
Today's scooter ride home qualifies for the 2strokebuzz.com Cold Weather Challenge.
Name: Michael Morrissey
Temperature: 28°F
Distance: 10.3 miles
Location: Portland Oregon
Date: January 26, 2009
Time: 6:30 PM to 7:40 PM
Scooter: 1979 Vespa P150
Your CWC story: I was getting kind of bored with my breadloaf bus, so today I rode the rickety yet trusty old Vespa to work. I wasn’t even thinking it would be cold, but this evening was really chilly. I work in deep SE portland, and live in NE Portland. I went about 4 and a half miles out of my way on the ride home to run in and get some hippy food at New Seasons at 33rd and Alberta. There was ice and some snow outside still. I saw a red motorcycle at one point also riding, which made me happy. The food was worth the extra distance traveled on the old putt putt.
Route: Deep SE, up 82nd to Fremont, New Seasons at Alberta and 33rd. Back out Killingsworth to my house in NE.
Name: Michael Morrissey
Temperature: 28°F
Distance: 10.3 miles
Location: Portland Oregon
Date: January 26, 2009
Time: 6:30 PM to 7:40 PM
Scooter: 1979 Vespa P150
Your CWC story: I was getting kind of bored with my breadloaf bus, so today I rode the rickety yet trusty old Vespa to work. I wasn’t even thinking it would be cold, but this evening was really chilly. I work in deep SE portland, and live in NE Portland. I went about 4 and a half miles out of my way on the ride home to run in and get some hippy food at New Seasons at 33rd and Alberta. There was ice and some snow outside still. I saw a red motorcycle at one point also riding, which made me happy. The food was worth the extra distance traveled on the old putt putt.
Route: Deep SE, up 82nd to Fremont, New Seasons at Alberta and 33rd. Back out Killingsworth to my house in NE.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Giorgio Bettinelli
This is the Wikipedia entry for Giorgio Bettinelli, as translated from Italian via Altavista Babelfish:
Giorgio Bettinelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Bettinelli
You go to: Navigation, tries
Nothing sources!
This voice or section of biographies not filler sources or references.
You can improve this voice adding citations from reliable sources, second the lines guides on the use of the sources.
George Bettinelli (Cream, 15 May 1955 - China, 16 september 2008) has been a journalist, writer and Italian traveller. Graduated in letters near the university of Rome, it is famous for its long four completed travels to edge of a Vespa. In fact during its permanence in Indonesia, like payment of a series of debits, he comes to it given a Vespa of which he falls in love himself immediately.
Its first travel leaves from Mentana, dov'era resident, in province of Rome, 1992 with Saigon destination, where it will arrive nine months after - March 1993 - having covered 24,000 kilometers. According to part from Anchorage in order to arrive to the Earth of the hard Fire and from 1994 to 1995 along a distance of 36.000 kilometers. The third party joins Melbourne to Capetown, for a total of 52.000 km covered between 1995 and 1996. The last quarter and, called Worldwide Odyssey, is a real turn of the world, hard more than three years, from the October of 1997 to the May of 2001: the departure place is the Earth of the Fire and that one of arrival is the Tasmania. It covers 144,000 km passing for Alaska, the Siberia, entering in Africa through the strait of Gibilterra, and costeggiandola all till Gibuti passing an other time for Capetown, in order then to costeggiare all southern Asia from the Yemen to Indonesia, till the arrival in the last continent, Australia, and to the final destination, the Tasmania. During this last travel George Bettinelli it has been also kidnapped from a group of guerrillas in the Congo, in order then to be released after little time, derubato of all but with the life it saves. By now the expert pilot-traveller has decided not to stop itself, and therefore has carried out an other travel in the only great country from up to now not covered he: the China (where then it has been moved and married), to which the escape of its last book is continuation China in Vespa.
George Bettinelli is died in China, 16 september 2008, to the age of 53 years for an unexpected malore. There he lived from four years, on the rivers of the Mekong, with its Yapei wife. He was preparing an other book, this time on Tibet.
Bibliography [modification]
* In Vespa. From Rome to Saigon (Feltrinelli 1997), that it narrates the first travel
* In Vespa beyond the horizon (- Rusconi- 2002), 400 photos intensely lived during the 110,000 km of its first three travels
* Brum Brum. 254,000 kilometers in Vespa (Feltrinelli 2002): the others travels till the rapimento in the Congo
* Rhapsody In Black. In Vespa from Angola to the Yemen (Feltrinelli 2005)
* China in Vespa
Giorgio Bettinelli
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Bettinelli
You go to: Navigation, tries
Nothing sources!
This voice or section of biographies not filler sources or references.
You can improve this voice adding citations from reliable sources, second the lines guides on the use of the sources.
George Bettinelli (Cream, 15 May 1955 - China, 16 september 2008) has been a journalist, writer and Italian traveller. Graduated in letters near the university of Rome, it is famous for its long four completed travels to edge of a Vespa. In fact during its permanence in Indonesia, like payment of a series of debits, he comes to it given a Vespa of which he falls in love himself immediately.
Its first travel leaves from Mentana, dov'era resident, in province of Rome, 1992 with Saigon destination, where it will arrive nine months after - March 1993 - having covered 24,000 kilometers. According to part from Anchorage in order to arrive to the Earth of the hard Fire and from 1994 to 1995 along a distance of 36.000 kilometers. The third party joins Melbourne to Capetown, for a total of 52.000 km covered between 1995 and 1996. The last quarter and, called Worldwide Odyssey, is a real turn of the world, hard more than three years, from the October of 1997 to the May of 2001: the departure place is the Earth of the Fire and that one of arrival is the Tasmania. It covers 144,000 km passing for Alaska, the Siberia, entering in Africa through the strait of Gibilterra, and costeggiandola all till Gibuti passing an other time for Capetown, in order then to costeggiare all southern Asia from the Yemen to Indonesia, till the arrival in the last continent, Australia, and to the final destination, the Tasmania. During this last travel George Bettinelli it has been also kidnapped from a group of guerrillas in the Congo, in order then to be released after little time, derubato of all but with the life it saves. By now the expert pilot-traveller has decided not to stop itself, and therefore has carried out an other travel in the only great country from up to now not covered he: the China (where then it has been moved and married), to which the escape of its last book is continuation China in Vespa.
George Bettinelli is died in China, 16 september 2008, to the age of 53 years for an unexpected malore. There he lived from four years, on the rivers of the Mekong, with its Yapei wife. He was preparing an other book, this time on Tibet.
Bibliography [modification]
* In Vespa. From Rome to Saigon (Feltrinelli 1997), that it narrates the first travel
* In Vespa beyond the horizon (- Rusconi- 2002), 400 photos intensely lived during the 110,000 km of its first three travels
* Brum Brum. 254,000 kilometers in Vespa (Feltrinelli 2002): the others travels till the rapimento in the Congo
* Rhapsody In Black. In Vespa from Angola to the Yemen (Feltrinelli 2005)
* China in Vespa
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Polar Bear Club
Polar Bear Club is my favorite band from Rochester! Dan and I saw them a few months ago in Portland and totally surprised our friend Chris, the guitarist, who didn't even know we live here. Their sound is awesome sing along punk/hardcore. I just found this video of them playing The Get Up Kids' song "Ten Minutes" and another video of them doing their own song that I love, "To The Engravers."
Polar Bear Club - "Ten Minutes" (Get Up Kids cover) from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.
Polar Bear Club - "To The Engravers" from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.
Polar Bear Club - "Ten Minutes" (Get Up Kids cover) from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.
Polar Bear Club - "To The Engravers" from Brandon Finnegan on Vimeo.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas song: Vermont "Santa Claws"
http://www.joanfrc.com/albums/santaclaws.mp3
Vermont - a side project of The Promise Ring, before Davey started Maritime - recorded this Christmas song, that I just found scouring Joan of Arc's website.
There are a lot of other mp3s on this site - you just have to go through the discography section.
Vermont - a side project of The Promise Ring, before Davey started Maritime - recorded this Christmas song, that I just found scouring Joan of Arc's website.
There are a lot of other mp3s on this site - you just have to go through the discography section.
Monday, December 15, 2008
THE END OF 2008.
I wanted to come up with some all-encompassing top ten list, covering the year in music and the year in everything else, but I don't think I can truly do 2008 justice. This was the year where I found out anything could happen at any moment.
There's only one song that sums this up and this is it: THE ESCAPIST by The Streets.
All these walls were never really there, nor the ceiling or the chair.
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach.
I see the breezes weave the trees,
these walls you find - they’re yours and mine
confined not by them I
I am in times that lie behind my eyelids,
the sunsets steal the rising silence,
I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here
Theres no rain on roof that grates and beats me
my favorite tree breaking lights to pieces
sprinkling, sharded light on me
throw a stone as high as you can and hearing with hand not hear it land
nothing taxing, dusting sand
my window and world spins and twirls,
the walls then fall, i recall the sore
white clouds white wash faded spotless
the weighty shadows, ranges of rocks
the cold is all illusion thought up
the stroll on the shore, snooze and explore
all possibilities in each new morning,
until satisfied reaching out, yawning
fish in a big dish, some rice and spice,
Salt over shoulder, never salt in soaked eye
the truth I’ve told was silence sometimes
but who soul does not hide any crimes
wrapped in walls, encircled by work
the walls fall - this story occurs
no barrier, no boundary, all hours I please
the freedom to stay all stray
be fiend or friend, cause no harm but charm - the peaceful end
I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here
Pale ancient woods, strewn white sandy bays
this ugly room pales away today
I am swimming, in the ocean
I sink slow motion, fingers, toes floating
every year til yesterday
seeing the eternal setting sea
I compare all this to me,
little fleeting momentary me
I blink my eyes, this is reminding me
life lies in the blink of an eye
the old die for reasons, new tide, four seasons
new life born is like changing
all these walls were really never there
nor the ceiling or the chair
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach
I see the breezes weave the trees
I am not here at all,
you dearly fooled,
I see busheling trees, the shush at the sea
the mischievous
fluttering seagulls
No!
I’m not trapped in a box, I’m glancing at rocks
I am dancing off docks
since this dance began - that's where i am
I’m not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near
There's only one song that sums this up and this is it: THE ESCAPIST by The Streets.
All these walls were never really there, nor the ceiling or the chair.
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach.
I see the breezes weave the trees,
these walls you find - they’re yours and mine
confined not by them I
I am in times that lie behind my eyelids,
the sunsets steal the rising silence,
I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here
Theres no rain on roof that grates and beats me
my favorite tree breaking lights to pieces
sprinkling, sharded light on me
throw a stone as high as you can and hearing with hand not hear it land
nothing taxing, dusting sand
my window and world spins and twirls,
the walls then fall, i recall the sore
white clouds white wash faded spotless
the weighty shadows, ranges of rocks
the cold is all illusion thought up
the stroll on the shore, snooze and explore
all possibilities in each new morning,
until satisfied reaching out, yawning
fish in a big dish, some rice and spice,
Salt over shoulder, never salt in soaked eye
the truth I’ve told was silence sometimes
but who soul does not hide any crimes
wrapped in walls, encircled by work
the walls fall - this story occurs
no barrier, no boundary, all hours I please
the freedom to stay all stray
be fiend or friend, cause no harm but charm - the peaceful end
I’ll not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near here
Pale ancient woods, strewn white sandy bays
this ugly room pales away today
I am swimming, in the ocean
I sink slow motion, fingers, toes floating
every year til yesterday
seeing the eternal setting sea
I compare all this to me,
little fleeting momentary me
I blink my eyes, this is reminding me
life lies in the blink of an eye
the old die for reasons, new tide, four seasons
new life born is like changing
all these walls were really never there
nor the ceiling or the chair
I am eking weeks of peace on a beach
I see the breezes weave the trees
I am not here at all,
you dearly fooled,
I see busheling trees, the shush at the sea
the mischievous
fluttering seagulls
No!
I’m not trapped in a box, I’m glancing at rocks
I am dancing off docks
since this dance began - that's where i am
I’m not feel no fear, cause I’m not really here
I’m nowhere near
Sunday, November 30, 2008
New Ride: Lemond Poprad
I bought a new bicycle a few weeks ago. I had been wanting a steel-framed road bike for a while, and have decided my bicycle is the one thing I will keep new-ish in my life filled with broken, vintage, and deteriorating whatnot.
I bought a 2004 Lemond Poprad off of some guy on craigslist. It was made in the USA of Reynolds 853 steel, presumably by one of Trek's bicycle factories in Wisconsin.
I really love this bike. Here are some of the parts:
Drivetrain: Shimano 105 2x9
Front Wheel: Bontrager Race Lite
Rear Wheel: Mavic Aksium
Tires: Continental Touring 28
Stem: Salsa
Brakes: Paul Neo-Retro
Fenders: Planet Bike plastic full fenders
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Punk's Not Dead
Oh wow! Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil frontman and CUNY literature professor Blake Schwarzenbach has teamed with the Kerouac of Punk, Aaron Cometbus of Pinhead Gunpowder to form a new band called Thorns of Life.
This has made my day / week. Their sound is superpop/punk with the trademark Jawbreaker heavy / introspective break sections.
Alternative Press Videos on Youtube
Click for hi res image of them playing
This has made my day / week. Their sound is superpop/punk with the trademark Jawbreaker heavy / introspective break sections.
Alternative Press Videos on Youtube
Click for hi res image of them playing
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