Balsa Wood Is Stupid

I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like to see "You're Welcome, America" (which actually got nominated for a Tony award), where my hero Will Ferrell plays George W. Bush interviewing, well, himself. Clip:

An Exercise in Sabermetrics

I'm betting that the following sabermetrics puzzle (sabermetrics, essentially, is the science of baseball statistics) is somewhere in the textbook at the right. A question popped into my head over the weekend, and I thought I'd take a little survey. Consider the following situation:

My fastball has finally earned me a spot on the roster of a major league club; let's say the Rangers. We're up 5-3 in the bottom of the 8th on the Damn Yankees, and we're in a tough spot: we're facing Mark Teixeira. The manager puts me in. Choking under the enormous pressure of a major league debut, I give up a solo home run to Tex on my first pitch. Frustrated, the manager yanks me right back out. Note that I didn't record a single out.

All one elaborate story that can be summed in the following statistic: 0 IP (innings pitched), 1 ER (earned run given up). The question is, what is my ERA? (ERA = earned run average per 9 innings)

Scenes from Big Whiskey

The jury is still out on my interpretation of Dave Matthews Band's new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, and how it stacks up against his body of work. One thing's for sure, any material written by this group of musicians is certainly in a class of its own, and the stories behind the album are worth telling.

Lucky for us, these stories were captured in the following documentary, "Scenes from Big Whiskey". You hear about the development of the album's hooks and harmonies, the origin of the elaborate album art, and the perseverance of the band as it lost its heart and soul last summer. GrooGrux is speculated to be a sort of renaissance from DMB's days past, which many deem the band's masterwork. Even Dave Matthews himself said of the album, "If this is my last album that I ever make, it's the only album that I hope people listen to."



Or, see it at Hulu.

Album Review #10: Popa Chubby

So it’s been four months since I’ve done an album review. I’ve gone on hiatus with these for no particular reason, other than they’re hard and I’m not what you would call musically gifted. My understanding of music, while heartfelt and sincere, just isn’t that deep when it comes to the technical stuff.

But, back by...er...unpopular demand...

Big Man, Big Guitar [Live] (2005), by Popa Chubby

We won’t talk about the subtle undertone of his stage name (which I didn’t even realize until reading it on Wikipedia). Let’s just leave it at: he’s a big guy. But one hell of a blues guitarist. This live cut from a show in France (you know how those French love the blues) ostentates (Hoorah, I just made up a word!) his technical guitar prowess as well as any of his -– count ‘em –- 19 albums. OK, so I’ve only listened to 2 of them, but hey, I’m a busy guy.

The album gets off to a raucous start with a cover of Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”. After a thunderous entrance, underscored by a persistent keyboardist and rolling percussion, he calls off the dogs and does a quiet little jam before finally bellowing the opening lyrics nearly 1:30 in. Five minutes later, you’ve heard a rendition of a classic that would surely make Jimi proud.

The showing off continues with his next track –- this time a Chubby original –- called “Dirty Lie”. More of the same: some first-class Stratting coupled with theatrically angry lyrics (“Your touch, like napalm / burning up my soul, like an atom bomb”), garnished with an infectious chorus, and topped off with one of the top 3 guitar solos I’ve ever heard in my life.

He keeps the party going with a much more playful “Back Door Man”, where he again quotes Hendrix, along with an array of classic rock hits from decades ago. Much slower and heartfelt “I Can’t See The Light Of Day” rounds out the front four.

It’s not all highlights, though. A dry spell in the middle breaks the momentum generated at the beginning of the album. I think more than anything, it’s a consequence of my musical taste, however, because truthfully I can only listen to blues for so long. The album gets a little redundant, as each song seems to follow similar patterns, especially noticeable once you hit the meat of the album.

You do get a curious surprise towards the end, with covers of “Hallelujah” and “Keep On The Sunny Side”. He finishes the show solo with the brief and emotional “How’d A White Boy Get The Blues”, with minimal (but equally excellent) guitar pickin’ and wailing that you can only get from an extremely chubby man.

I’ve saved a particular (and the best) track for last. Hearing this song is what sparked my interest in this under-the-radar performer to begin with. Track number 8 is an oddly upbeat ballad recalling September 11 called “Somebody Let The Devil Out”. Which, by the way, is the most poetic and simple account of that day that I’ve ever heard.

A Bronx resident himself, he recalls his experience: waking up late one morning to find his wife saying, “You wouldn’t believe what those bastards just did / took the whole thing down." The first two verses describe what many New Yorkers were feeling that morning as the towers “all came down like a house of cards.” In addition to the disaster, he does emphasize the solidarity of the city (“Saw a Hindu and a Brother and a Muslim and a Jew / Holdin’ hands cryin’, nothing they could do / nothin’ could be done.”) and ends on an encouraging note.

Big Man, Big Guitar is a very, very good listen. Especially if you're a big enough fan of blues that you can listen to it for almost 75 minutes straight.

Grade: B+

And, just so you can see that (1) “Somebody Let the Devil Out” is a great song, (2) Popa Chubby can play some guitar, and (3) he really is a big guy, check out this footage from a live show in, you guessed it, France:

Quotes

I was going through some long-forgotten stuff on my computer today and found something kinda cool: a bunch of old quotes I had collected throughout college. Quotes have always been appealing to me. Something about a proverbial truth or nugget of wisdom expressed in a sentence or two really strikes a chord with me. Probably because a sentence or two is as much as I can read in one sitting. I bequeath some of my favorites to your eyes:

The surest sign that intelligent live exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
- Bill Watterson

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.
- Blaise Pascal

As the poet said, “Only God can make a tree” – probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
- Woody Allen

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.
- Pat Paulsen

If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.
- Dick Cavett

It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should get too fond of it.
- Robert E. Lee

Tongue: a variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.
- Bob Ekstrom

Be a fountain, not a drain.
- Rex Hudler

Duct tape is like the Force: it has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
- Carl Zwanzig

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.
- Groucho Marx

And my favorite:

Once the game is over, the King and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian proverb