Let's Get Physical

For you fans of Tift Merritt, this is a good reason to get a turntable:



I couldn't resist the combination of the beautiful packaging, book, postcards, vinyl records, and Tift Merritt. I just ordered this from the Amoeba Records website for the measly price of $31 (15% off sale through this Sunday with free shipping). Go for it!

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The Decoliner

From a Make article about Randy Grubb, custom car creator: 

"His latest creation, the Decoliner, mashes up a 1973 GMC motorhome and a 1955 White Motor Company cabover truck with Buck Rogers styling cues. With its polished aluminum finish, nautical portholes, and rooftop fly bridge for land-yachting, the Decoliner is a truly unique ride."

Rex, this would be perfect for your trips to Betty Danger's Country Club.

Not Deep Blues

What's the opposite of Deep Blues? Shallow pop? Heck yeah, we're talking an Air Supply concert. No troubling, life-threatening storms here. Just bright California sunshine and sweet, sweet, saccharine music. I couldn't tell if the crowd was getting into the concert or going into insulin shock. I didn't have a chance to find out. Ol' rocky was escorted out by security for wearing an ironic smirk during the show. Definitely a no-no at an Air Supply concert.

(Despite the lameness of this post, it did its job of getting my mug off the top of the page.)

Go, go, Yuichiro!

Japanese mountain climber Yuichiro Miura, who has had four heart surgeries, reached the top of Mount Everest on May 23 becoming the oldest person, at 80-years-old, to conquer the world's highest mountain. (He also successfully climbed it at ages 70 and 75.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a scooter-riding man circles the block for a third time, searching desperately for an open parking spot near the Wienery.

America's Uphill is Feral Boy's Sufferfest

On Friday, an hour before the close of its registration, Friday and I decided to enter the America's Uphill, a race from the bottom to the top of Aspen's Ajax mountain, taking place the next morning. For me, at least, it was a spur-of-the-moment indiscretion - a decision to rage, rage, against the dying light. Or, at the very least, rebel against the apathy that had taken over my life during the last year.

From the organizer's site:

Course Description
The America's Uphill begins at the base of Little Nell and climbs 3267 feet up the Aspen Mountain ski area finishing at  the Sundeck Restaurant at an elevation of 11,212 feet... The long steep climb up Spar continues to the base of Ajax Express (Lift 3). From here, there's a small reprieve on Tortilla Flats before the climb begins again in earnest... finally topping out at the Sundeck. Inspection of the course prior to race day is recommended.

Participants in the race are categorized by their choice of footwear: I registered in the "Heavy Metal" category, because I would be using my randonnée equipment - heavy skis (their bottoms covered in artificial seal skin, for traction) and heavy boots, like those for alpine downhill skiing, but with a hinged toe binding and releasable heel. Friday would race in the "Telemark" category, because that is the style of ski boot and binding she uses, and it's somewhat lighter than randonnée. The race course is on firmly-packed snow, so other racers choose to use light hiking boots or snowshoes - they are in the "Open" category.

My only "training" for this event was a short hike the previous weekend. It was during that jaunt that I was reminded - by foot pain and blisters - that I had major holes in each of my boot liners, liners that I've intended to replace for the last two years, or so. So after paying my entry fee, it was off to the mountaineering shop for new thermal-formed liners. I wouldn't have an opportunity to "break in" the liners - or my feet, for that matter - but the purchase was in keeping with the spirit of the day - nothing would be very well thought out.

The starting line

The next morning, upon the 7am twilight start, I began skinning up the hill at an ambling pace. The weather was warm - in the mid-30s - and there was a light snow falling. It wasn't long before the friction between skin and new liners heated my heels until half-dollar size blisters formed. Friday, of course, had quickly disappeared from sight, a testament to her daily Crossfit training. At about the halfway point the wind picked up, and it became significantly colder. My heel blisters ruptured. A 75-year-old woman in hiking boots had been pacing me since the get-go, and it was here she made her move, disappearing into the mist ahead of me. The remainder of the course was a miserable, seemingly endless, slog.

A septuagenarian racer, just before passing Feral Boy

Somehow I managed to reach the finish line, after a long two hours. Friday was fifteen minutes ahead of me. My one-legged friend, Vince, was just ahead of her. (The overall winner was done in 44:22!)

My heels were beyond touchable; luckily I'd brought clogs for the dreary gondola ride down.

Ouch!

Let's Go Surfin'!

Garrett McNamara rides a wave off Praia do Norte beach in Nazare, Portugal on January 28, 2013.
McNamara is said to have broken his own world record for the largest wave surfed when
he caught this wave reported to be around 100ft.(To Mane/Nazare Qualifica/Associated Press)

Zapata Racing - Watersport Insanity

America Is Deranged; America Is Beautiful (Colorado edition)

Feral Boy finds it hard to believe that the residents of Livermore could outdo those of Denver, at least in matters of winter "holiday" lighting. The Denver Post recently published an article about a few notable displays in the metro area, and the vandalism they invite ("Little buggers placed all of the animals in sexual positions"), including one house, pictured above, boasting 30,000 lights. Online, the Post offer a Google map with links to 86 such displays.

Yes,  these neon abominations are wasteful - and perhaps silly - but Feral Boy finds the passion behind them heartening. Don't be such a Grinch, rocky - "lighten" up!

Season's Greetings from Crazy Town

If rocky were more ambitious, he'd start a project called "America Is Deranged; America Is Beautiful". These are scenes from my town. Believe me, it's only the tip of the iceberg--a bunch of lunatics screaming "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" on their front lawns. 

Not Gangnam Style

There's an old Korean saying that goes something like this: "If you're feeling down, put your crazy uncle behind a drum set."

rocky dedicates this to the members of the clock.

BMX Carnage

Indie | An Unlikely Coincidence

From n+1 magazine, a great piece on the rise of Pitchfork and the decline of "indie" rock; can the two really be this closely linked?
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In London and Paris, Rocky was often spotted relaxin' with a copy of Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon's collection of essays on the pleasures of genre fiction and comic books. That's right, Rocky -- not Stoner, who was stuck with the ill-considered choice of Moby-Dick. (Rex Otto filled his down time with The Mentalist.) It seemed an unlikely choice of reading for Rocky. Then I saw the following in the Onion AV Club:

…Little has been revealed about (Michael Chabon’s forthcoming novel) Telegraph Avenue, which follows two families around the San Francisco Bay area, where Chabon lives, but he’s remarked in interviews that the book was just an excuse to spend a lot of time researching in record stores. The author of The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay taking on the world of music and obsessive music collectors seems like a natural match. (Fall 2012)

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Flight of the (Very Impatient) Bumblebee

Bonus guitar porn:

Six-hands



No-hands



No-arms


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Huge Falls That weren't Fatal

from WIRED (June 2011).

220 feet: Leap Off a Bridge
While on a class trip this past March, 17-year-old Luhe Vilagomez jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge—just for kicks. Unlike 98 percent of those who make that plunge, he lived (to brag about it). A surfer picked him up, and they paddled to shore together.

9,500 feet: Parachute Fail
In 1991, skydiver Jill Shields fell to earth when her parachute failed to deploy. She landed on wet ground, where rescuers found her conscious and able to talk. She left a foot-deep impression in the mud.

12,000 feet: Double Parachute Fail
Michael Holmes, a resident of Jersey, England, was skydiving in New Zealand in 2006 when both his main chute and backup failed to deploy. He crashed into a dense thicket of blackberry bushes, sustaining only a punctured lung and a broken ankle.

22,000 feet: Fighter Plane Ditch
In 1943, Alan Magee, a WWII Air Force gunner, jumped out of his plunging B-17 without a chute. Losing consciousness, he crashed through the skylight of France’s St. Nazaire train station. He had a broken leg and ankle, a nearly severed right arm, and 28 wounds from the glass.

33,330 feet: Commercial Jet Crash
Vesna Vulović, a Serbian flight attendant, holds the Guinness world record for the longest fall. She plummeted in a piece of fuselage when a 1972 flight she was on exploded in midair. Vulović suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs, three broken vertebrae, and a broken pelvis but eventually recovered fully.

Post #950

Your parents audiophile friends are right, modern music is getting louder and more repetitive

Adam Sherwin, The Independent, Saturday, 17 December 2011

Hit songs are getting louder and rhythmically more repetitive, according to a scientific study of chart music, which concludes that pop's golden era was actually the often-maligned 1980s.

A research team from the University of Bristol's Intelligent Systems Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering set out to predict the popularity of a song by using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms.

The team examined the UK Top 40 Singles Chart over the past 50 years and sought to identify the distinguishing features of songs which made the top five, compared to those which stumbled outside the top 30.

The researchers used musical features such as tempo, time signature, song duration and loudness. They also computed detailed summaries of the songs such as harmonic simplicity, how simple the chord sequence is, and "non-harmonicity" – how "noisy" a song is.

By weighting the most significant 23 audio features, the team, led by Dr Tijl de Bie, produced a catchy equation for a potential hit: (w1 x f1) + (w2 X f2) + ... + (w23 X f23). How good is this equation? They claim it can predict with an accuracy of 60 per cent if a song will make it to the top 5, or if it will never reach above position 30 on the UK Top 40 Singles Chart.

The team discovered several trends which may explain why the singles chart, dominated today by R&B/dance collaborations, has been described as the least diverse it has ever been.

(cont. in Comments)

"Forever Marilyn"

I bet Joe DiMaggio never wore a gas mask.



From the Denver Post:

Nick Valenza helps to put some finishing touches on ''Forever Marilyn'', a sculpture by Seward Johnson, on July 14, 2011 in Chicago, Illinois. The stainless steel and aluminum sculpture which stands 26 feet tall and weighs 34,000 pounds will be unveiled tomorrow and remain on display in Chicago through the spring of 2012. The sculpture was inspired by Marilyn Monroe's iconic scene in the 1955 movie Seven Year Itch. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Special Offer for Clock Members

When I first heard of Kurt Vile, I totally dismissed him as a poseur based on his name, a cutesy play on the name of the German composer. Later I discovered it was his birth name. I then felt sorry for him and decided to give him a chance. You can too. For a free download of his latest album go to www.matadorrecords.com/mp3promotion.php

UPC: 744861093817
Secret Code: SMOKEV8T7RR58

There are 2 free downloads left with the above code. You can check out the sample below, as well as others found on YouTube, to see if you want to download the album. It's slackerrific!

Big Freedia

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Best Coast?

Blue Ribbon Bacon Tour! In Keystone, CO, June 24-26

Cancel your other plans and book a flight to Colorado for "access to over 3,000 pounds of delicious bacon and bacon inspired treats from a variety of bacon purveyors. The weekend-long event will also feature the BRBF’s famous bacon lecture series delivered by some of the nation’s most brilliant bacon minds."

Mark Mathews, Executive Director of KNC, explains, “The Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival is highly regarded as the leader in providing bacon enthusiasts with the opportunity to explore and express their love for bacon in a fun, imaginative and supportive atmosphere. We’re excited about this new partnership and can’t wait to play host to thousands of bacon lovers from across the mountain states.”

Brooks Reynolds, co-founder of the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, adds, “As far as I’m concerned, if you haven’t sampled a variety of bacon at 9,000 feet above sea level, you haven’t lived.”

In response to the announcement, bacon aficionado Neil Pederson of Golden, CO was overwhelmed with emotion, “If words could only describe how I’m feeling right now. As a native Iowan, I miss the many different types of bacon available at local meat lockers and pig farms. At times, I long for an applewood smoked bacon from a pure bred Duroc pig. Or a few slices of dry-cured bacon from a true Berkshire breed. A tear comes to my eye, just thinking about the opportunity that lies before me. OHHHH, BACON!”

A limited number of Blue Ribbon Bacon Packages are available for $30 online now, while supplies last. Click here to buy your tickets. The package entitles the holder to admission to the three-day event, a commemorative hat, a free beer, a beer koozie, bacon samples at the Bacon Showcase, live music, and bacon educational lectures.
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