55 Push Ups ...

Thai Kickboxing Midnight Blue Belt Graduation ...

I wobbled but pulled through ... nearing Black Belt #2 ...

Summer School Art (Part 3)

At the start of the day we give the kids free time. I am trying to show them how to add depth and borders to add to the pictures they draw, regardless of how simple the object seems to be.

Tour de Terrace Parade 2008

For My Birthday I Got A Duck

Kelly: "I don't have an explanation. I just got you a duck."

XLI

Where's Jefferson?

Woodinville Weekly
July 7, 2008
Page 1

See if you can locate Me and Sam ... I'll wait ...

and now I will never ...

The Police at The Gorge ....

I had hoped to write a review about finally seeing The Police ... and then I missed both their treks through the area the last two years ... crap ...

And this time it appears official ... The Police will be breaking up for real ...

Yes, I have seen Sting ...

But, I really wanted to see The Police ...

And, since I missed their recent trip to The Gorge ...

It appears that I never will ...

M's versus Tigers ...

M's versus Tigers ...

Seattle Mariners 1
Detroit Tigers 2
15 Innings ...

I have all sorts of things I could say about this ... but in the end it was a lot of bad baseball ... too many walks ... no clutch hitting ... a backup catcher throwing a wild pitch ... seagulls swarming the field during extra innings ...

Happy 4th ...

This flag fell off of my daughter's parade decorations ...

The gold sticker ... (sighs) ...

Dear Formerly New Sonics Ownership Group (#8)

And the 1st moral of the story is that liars win ...

Clay Bennet, Aubrey McClendon, and their entire group lied from the get go. They lied to everyone about darn near every thing and yet still won. It is time for a sculpture contest. Whoever can make the best Clay Bennet sculpture out of dog crap should win free season tickets for life to ... wait ... never mind ... we won't ever get another NBA team ... but the dog crap sculpture contest should happen anyways ...

And the 2nd moral of the story is that Seattle is truly a "can't do" city ...

Nick Licata is the sort of politician that embodies Seattle in the 21st Century. We can't do anything. This used to be a town where things got done. Not any more. I really thought that Safeco Field and Qwest Field were of questionable value, yet they are being paid off ahead of schedule because they are used for so much more than what they were - strictly speaking - built for.

And the 3rd moral of the story is that everyone is at fault ...

Howard Schultz knew that Clay Bennet was lying and sold him the team anyways. The State of Washington and City of Seattle are so paralyzed politically by virtually every issue that it is hardly surprising any more. David Stern is perhaps the most stubborn and arrogant prick in the world of sports. The fans really didn't do much to show support for the Sonics until very late in the game; I remember looking for people to break out their old Sonics stuff over the last couple years and it really wasn't until recently that I saw much of it. Where was the rally the day after the sale in 2006? I was even more upset by the news that the Lynnwood Hooters closed the same week and that I didn't have a place to go for pro wrestling pay per views any more ...

Oklahoma City is probably a decent place to live. I imagine the people there nice, much like in places like Des Moines or Little Rock; places that no major league is really wanting to expand to. Major League Soccer turned down Oklahoma City as being too small in recent expansion over a city like ... yes ... Seattle ...

There will be a nice little honeymoon period where the locals will buy a ton of merchandise and the tickets will be a hot commodity for a while ...

And then Kevin Durant will be eligible for free agency in three seasons and will leave to go be a Knick or Laker.

And then those years in the draft lottery will become habitual ...

And then the sell outs will end ...

And then ... your team will be much like the Clippers, another perennially bad NBA team ...

Good bye and good riddance ...

Oh ... and drink Tully's ...

Hacking off the beard ...

Well ... for going on two months now I have not actually seen my face ... until last night ...

Hacking off the beard is one of those things you put off because it is so much trouble ... or that you get so pissed off at that you drop everything to finally do ... or it just gets hot and needs to go ...

So ... after a day when I nearly got hit by a driver on his cell phone at lunch on the first day of the cell phone ban ... I had finally had enough ...

Out came Dasher's shears (it's true)...

Out came the razors (more than one needed for the task) ...

Finally ... that's what I look like ...

Oh ... My Shoulders ...

For two weeks now I have been getting back into the martial arts after nearly a year ...

A year where I needed to rest an injured shoulder ...

A year where I gained 14 pounds ...

And now after two weeks I find myself nearly doing the 55 push ups I will need to be able to do for my Midnight Blue Belt Test on July 31 ...

For a few days my shoulders really rebelled against me.

But, it is clear that taking the time off to finally allow the left shoulder to heal after my rollover was the right thing to do. I had been hurting myself and giving myself the bad kind of pain. Now, I have a month to be ready for the exam and it feels like the rest of the weight and the shoulder strength should be there ...

A Soccer Double Header?

Wow.

It was days like yesterday that led me to write Oxymoron ...

It is also why I have added the subtitle From Pele to Beckham aka From Novelty to Profitability ...

Yes ... ABC showed two soccer matches back to back on a Sunday ... and neither of them were World Cup matches ...

DC United 4 - Los Angeles Galaxy 1 and Spain 1 - Germany 0

ABC did not dumb down their broadcasts. They assumed it was a soccer watching group and allowed their British announcers to announce and had retired US Men's and Women's National Team players doing various forms of commentary.

The days of searching for soccer on TV and hoping to hear something feel like a long, long time ago.

The Notion of Effort

The M's should not panic ... there is a lot to work with here ... A season first sweep should not be taken as too much proof, but it is clear that the talent on the roster we all thought was there is in fact actually there ...

I do believe that the M's ought to consider making some moves. Firing the Manager and General Manager almost had to happen due to their awful start, but there are reasons why so many people thought that the M's would be good.

The notion of effort has always bugged me. At the major league level a player plays for his job and million dollar livelihood every day. One should never mistake a lack of success for a lack of effort. They often are trying too hard or are pressing. They often are simply frustrated. Effort is rarely ever the cause ...

An Evening With Krist Novoselic

EMP - JBL Theatre June 27, 2008 - 7PM


An interesting and laid back conversation about music and politics with the bass player of Flipper ... and Nirvana ...

Summer School Art #2 ...

Evergreen Speedway 6-20-08 Friday Night Drags

A little post about my first opportunity to assist as a volunteer track official for the weekly Friday Night Drags at Evergreen Speedway in Monroe. This was a last minute change of plans that turned into a very, very cool evening. After all, when else does someone get to stand on the track itself during races??? Walking the track at 11 helping put away the equipment was actually something I never really expected to have an opportunity to do. I also learned an entirely new definition for "break out" ... It was the latest sunset of the year and the view of the sunset over the grandstand while the drags took place and came around the corner to our station was definitely a high point for 2008 ...

Jefferson's Duran Duran Confession (with notes from Jason)

This is a repost of my earlier Duran Duran post. In this instance, I have the notes from Jason to add. Look for this to probably also end up on Paul's Basement ...


***



"Jeff, it took me forever, but I finally added some comments to your article, which I loved. Feel free to use, edit, or discard as you wish."

Okay.

***


Jefferson's Duran Duran Confession ...

I am the Anti-Jason (or, How did I get here?): The Duran Duran Reunion Tour 2005 (March 9, 2005)

I feel like I need to confess it like a testimonial at an AA meeting.

My name is Jefferson, and I listen to the music of Duran Duran.

That's nothing. My name is Jason, and I own Go West's Greatest Hits CD. "We close our eyes..."



I do not believe that my selection as the Anti-Jason was entirely random. See, I have always believed that Jason hated me in high school. (I have in fact spoken to Jason about this and we did in fact dislike each other very much. Now we party together and he manages to get photos and videos of me singing karaoke online. Come to think of it, this is his way of showing that he still holds a grudge ...)

And you have fallen into my trap ONCE AGAIN!



Amongst other things, what really stands out is an incident during rehearsals for the Mountlake Terrace High School production of Ten Little Indians. I was bored, tired, going through the motions at rehearsal one day and our director was getting frustrated. I was sitting in a chair and having a hard time staying awake, which even though I was playing an old fart was not method acting. Jason got upset with me and decided to show me how my part should be done. He was right, but it was clearly obvious after that in A.P.E.S. class that Jason no like Jefferson. It wasn't anything either of us spent a lot of time contemplating and is more obvious in retrospect, but I am pretty certain that it was so.

I absolutely do not remember this. What I DO remember is whispering something in Matt Hughes' ear, offstage during a dress rehearsal, after which he recoiled in mock horror and shouted, "No, I will NOT suck your c***!" That episode, I will always remember, each time with a sharp, sick feeling of shame. But this alleged incident where I made someone ELSE feel like a fool...? Nope. Doesn't ring a bell.



Years passed. I bumped into Jason on occasion at A.P.E.S. and MTHS reunions and the occasional other occasion like a Paul's Basement event. We even had coffee once a few years ago. Times change and it appears that whatever was there had passed with time.

Honestly, what was that about? I have no idea why I decided I didn't like you. You even sold me a Toto LP once, at a reasonable price; a thing that normally counts for much in my book. Such are the vagaries of youth, or whatever. I have a sneaking suspicion that my dislike of you was in direct proportion to your sports proficiency. Damn jocks. Wait, now I hate you again.



Two years ago after and A.P.E.S. reunion several of us decided to go and see another reunion, Duran Duran.

Unlike the Summer 04 reunion of Judas Priest, this tour would not be a part of Ozzfest.

See, this is where the confessional part comes in ... I wanted to go and see Duran Duran in high school in 1984 but, wouldn't and couldn't admit it, so I did not go and quietly endured the stories of how "amazing" it was the next day from people I was not going to admit I was jealous of.

Thank God I was already firmly ensconced in the "Drama Fag" role, so I had no such qualms. Otherwise, I would likely have missed the Thompson Twins, with opening act Re-Flex! "The politics of dancing... The politics of mmm mmm feelin' good..."


I guess I was just not strong enough in 84 to admit I wanted to go ... There was apprehension about seeing a band that was so image oriented 20 years after their popular peak ... they had a new album that was not too bad, but they could never really expect to be relevant the way they were in 1983 ever again ... pop music will allow for the comeback and the retro nostalgia thing, but getting back to being actually influential just does not seem to happen ...

Yeah, you rarely hear the hipsters at local music stores saying, "hey, dude, have you heard that new Wang Chung album?" these days. Sad, really. They don't know what they're missing.



My tastes have always been varied; but high school, especially our high school, was clearly cut into groups defined by our respective tastes ... 20 years later I wish I had told people to piss off and had gone, but I cannot change the past ...

Well, I wish I had gone to see that legendary Ted Nugent show back in 1980 or so where he swung down from the balcony wearing only a loincloth, and one of my Auto Shop compatriots came to school the next day in a vomit-stained XXL Nugent t-shirt and claimed he couldn't remember a thing but that he had woken up naked in bed with his older brother's girlfriend. Sadly, that was not to be, and I had to content myself with the slightly-less-debauched antics of Bryan Adams.



So, we had dinner as a group, caught up on what our kids are up to, and got ready to go ... But, the girls tix were across the EEC from ours so we were not all sitting together ... although we could see them when we gave the place a good once over ...

If the ladies had sat with us, the people in the row behind probably would have been less convinced you and I were partners. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, just noticing. Gosh, we've come a long way, haven't we? First you sold me a Toto LP, then we hated each other, then we were life partners at a Duran Duran concert. Who could have foreseen that?



To review the show ... I think I was more impressed with them as a band than Jason was. to tell you the truth I had not really thought about them musically and artistically until then so maybe the bar was not real high ... It was a first class production and they were still obviously used to being "stars". Simon had a very good rapport with the audience ... I was expecting to enjoy it, just not as much as I did ... they played a much longer set than I had anticipated, mixing in new songs with the old ... I left very glad I had gone ...

Nick Rhodes is just as cool as ever. Didja ever see his coffee table book of photos? 200 pages of Polaroids of hotel room television sets.



Duran Duran is many things ... and one of them was always that they were a marketing machine ... their use of elaborate videos and sense of style propelled them past musically more gifted acts and gave them a cultural staying power beyond the one hit wonders and clones that their success spawned ... For instance, the tour program went way beyond cool with pop ups and cards and photos, and they had concert tees that were actually worth getting ... hardly something common any more ...

I remember their concert video "Sing Blue Silver," in which it seemed they were aghast at their rabid Japanese fans' behavior, mobbing the stage and crushing children in their desperation to touch John Taylor's stylish shoes. There was a whole sequence devoted to the emergency room where mascara'd, dehydrated Duran Duran fans gasped for air and wept, clutching their autographed tour books.



The crowd was a diverse mix of young and old ... the ladies in our row thought we were "together" and we kind of milked that, or at least Jason did when he kept bellowing "Simon! ... Simon!" over and over ... We missed the opening act (apparently to Max's dismay). I tend to see at least a part of most opening acts, just on General Principle, but in this instance the people watching and merchandise lines were more interesting to me ...

I have relayed this lesson to my kids, hoping to show them that their own tastes matter more than any perceptions others have about those tastes ... That way they won't miss out on something and have to wait for the reunion tour in 2028 ...

We can all learn something from Simon LeBon: "Fear hangs a plane of gunsmoke / Drifting in our room / So easy to disturb / With a thought / With a whisper / With a CARELESS MEMORY"



In case you haven't figured it out and still managed to read this far ... Jason's notes are in italics ... Thanks man.

Summer School Art ...

Doodles with the kids during down time the first week of Summer School ...

Unfinished Business (Part Two) ...

Back to Thai Kickboxing class tonight !!!

it has been almost a year ... which is way too long ...

Tae Kwon Do will follow at some point. For now, it is nice to be able to finish my blue belt and to keep working towards my second black belt.

It is NOT OKAY for Sonics fans to root for Portland ...

Proposed KISW Men's Room Rule (in honor of Sonics vs. Seattle lease trial beginning today)

In the event the Sonics leave (or any other team leaves) :

*** Under no circumstances is it acceptable for a Sonics fan to ever root for Portland.

It is okay to choose a new NBA team to root for. However, given the manner in which the Sonics will have relocated it is no longer acceptable to root for the relocated team itself. It is also not acceptable to root for one of the Sonics' closest former rivals. This means that under no circumstances can Sonics fans become Trailblazers, Lakers, or Jazz fans. The rivalries and emotions regarding those particular teams make up an NBA Axis of Evil and it is unacceptable to move in that direction, in spite of everything. It is otherwise acceptable to root for other Western teams like the Warriors, Kings, or Suns; teams for which there is little emotional baggage. The Nuggets are a 50/50 proposition in this matter.

** The one caveat is that Seattle fans may root for a local player or former Sonic to do well such as Brandon Roy, but not to the extent that they actually root for Portland.

(This rule is in some ways adapted from Bill Simmons' sports fans rules on ESPN.com to apply to Seattle and Sonics fans.)

Should this rule be adopted an update to this post will be added.

Father's Day Flowers ...