Manu Chao at The Greek

Picture a huge bowl filled with thousands of people. That's what the Manu Chao concert looked like. Getting there was easy. I took Bart and walked through campus. However I hesitated getting off of the train at the Berkeley station, because on the maps and schedules it is called the "Downtown Berkeley" station. No biggie, but you think they might be more detail-oriented with things like that.

It was pleasant to be on a college campus again, although I can't pinpoint why. Once on campus I noticed that most of the people I heard spoke with accents. There was the french guy at the map. The english guy by the porta-potee. The hispanic girls in front of me in line. Another french guy asking someone if he spoke greek (he didn't).

I got in line at 6:30, and was seated on the 5th cement slab row within 15 minutes, free cliff bar in hand, and water cap off. My friend Roque from work met up with me moments later. He is pictured below, certain that he is having a good time so far. The woman behind him is not so sure:
The theater filled up pretty fast. We tried to save a space on the cement for Roque's friends, but two hippyish people sat there anyway, I guess questioning our authority to tell them what to do. Appropriate behavior for a Manu Chao concert, I suppose.

The opening band was Kiki from Mexico. They spoke and sang the first few songs in english. The lead singer wore black converse and jumped around a lot. The bass player wore a cowboy hat and did a modified Chuck Berry thing, kinda looking like he was on point in "the Nam" and gonna shoot somebody with his bass. He apparently suffered from repetive motion injury judging by the elbow and wrist supports he wore. Their songs were a bit repetitive, but I took a picture of them:

The picture came out so poorly that I decided it wasn't worth taking a picture of Manu Chao. I have the oldest digital camera in the world, with a whopping 1.3 megapixel resolution.

So after Kiki we got some beers for $7 each, and I went to the rest room. The women's line was so long that women started coming into the men's bathroom. That's the kind of crazy thing that happens at Manu Chao concerts.

It seemed like a long time before Manu Chao finally came out. People kept seeing the roadies doing sound check things and getting excited. If a guy came on stage with a hat, they started clapping. But when the towel guy lays the towels out, you know it's on.

The band members came on stage, one by one. First the drummer came out and played for a while, then the percussionist joined him, then the bass, then guitar, then finally the man himself. He looked to be about 5'2" or 5'3," unless his bandmates were short, then he could have been smaller. The first few songs had a heavy dub/reggae sound, which was a nice surprise. I was familiar with a lot of the songs, some I wasn't, but they were all good.

He played a lot of off Manu Chao and some earlier stuff like "Monkey." Towards the end of the concert I noticed that they were in the habit of playing a slow song, and then speeding it up really fast to get the people whipped up into a frenzy. I didn't feel like being whipped up into a frenzy the last couple of times, but other than that it was all good.

During the last song a couple of people (or should I call them jack-asses) climbed on stage and sang along with Manu Chao into the microphone . Much to everyone's delight he didn't kick them off stage right away. He put his arm around one guy and let him sing along. Then it got old and the bouncer dragged the guy off. The other person, sensing imminent doom, slunk away.

Fearing I would miss the last Bart transfer train and be stuck at the Bayfair station all night, I left after the last song, but before the encore. It sounded good though as I walked towards Bart.

Manu Chao

I'm listening to South American recording artist Manu Chao in preparation for his concert tomorrow evening at the Greek Theater in Berkeley (note manuchao.com is owned by some bastard domain name pirate, so you can find his site at manuchao.net). My friend Jim Kay turned me on to him a year or so ago. Don't know how he first heard him, but it was a damn good find. I can't understand the lyrics for the most part, as he sings primarily in Espanol (you'd think as a Web designer I could code the curly spanish n thing, but no, haven't had much reason to).

My friends, including Jim Kay, all opted out of going to the show. Prior or other engagements, or in other words, wives. I've been there, so I understand. I'm meeting a friend from work there, so I won't be totally solo, not that I would mind. Anyway, should be a good show and I'm interested in seeing who shows up.

Drum Party

Went to the most interesting party I've been to in a while. My friend Jim Kay was having a combined birthday party with a guy named Rick. Rick was in the Peace Corps in Mali (Africa) with Jim's wife Gina. There he took lessons in playing African drums, and has kept it up over the years.

When we arrived at Rick's house (party phase two) there were three drums on the backyard lawn. The invitation mentioned bringing drums, but I had no idea what that meant. The other guests were a mix of suburbanites like myself, people with a more "hippie" style, and some African looking gentlemen in traditional attire.

After the buffet a few of my friends and I went to the neighborhood pool (an adventure in itself, but I won't go there) and stayed for an hour or two to cool off. Did I mention we were in Sacramento in the middle of a heat wave? As we returned I became aware of drumming sounds coming from the party house. Sounds of the jungle (or at least the jungle sounds as depicted in movies I've seen). The entire living room was lined with drummers (maybe a dozen) banging with their hands on these big drums to a beat, apparently lead by one of them, however I couldn't figure out who. They were all doing something slightly different. Some more complex than others, some more "into it" than others. The most impressive moment was when they all stopped exactly at the same time.

The drumming sessions lasted about a half hour each and I think they played three all together. Between sets the drummers would come out all sweaty in search of beverages. I spent the party with my friends sitting on the ice chests (ice chest dwellers), but we were happy to get up and serve the drummers in return for the fabulous entertainment they provided.

Dell Still Sucks

By way of explanation, I purchased a laptop computer from my part-time employer, ADP Probusiness. They are selling their old Dell Latitude laptops for $100 each. Unfortunately they don't come with a wireless network card installed, which is important if you want to actually take advantage of the laptop's portability.

I figured Dell would be the best place to purchase said wireless network card, and it seemed that way until I actually received the part (in 2 days) and found that it was missing a critical element. A small jumper cable, called a mini-coax in the manual, is required to attach the card to the computer's antenna. I didn't have one. Only two out of the approximately ten people at Dell I talked to on the phone would confirm that this was a requirement for the operation of the part I purchased. The others could not be bothered with such details and transferred me to another department as soon as the level of complexity surpassed their comfort level.

So there was no way that Dell's organization could help me. I decided to send the part back. Even this plan was thwarted, because although they conceded that the blame was their's, they still required I pay for shipping back to them using a tracked shipping service. Not acceptable.

Just finished ordering the required jumper, or mini-coax from discountechnology.com. Hope it works. Since I am helping other ADP employess set up their systems too, a lot is riding on this.

We Got Swords

My son recently found $85 of Christmas money that he had lost. What was his immediate reaction? He wanted to buy a sword. My nephew had gone to Chinatown with his dad a couple of weeks before and they supposedly saw a sword there for sale for $20.

I'd been through Chinatown a few times, but never really stopped to look into the shops, so I figured a sword for sale was kind of an oddity and, if they had a sword for $20 it was probably already sold. He was all excited though, so he, my daughter and I jumped on BART and headed over to San Francisco.

Once in SF it was only about a mile walk from the BART station to Chinatown. We just bumped into Grant street and followed it uphill until we saw the ornate Chinatown welcome gate. I figured we'd walk around looking into stores for an hour, then head back. Well, about 5 minutes into our Chinatown tour we hit this store -

From SF Gate:

Jefer Trading Co.: If you're finding yourself in need of a sword, Jefer Trading Co. is the place to shop. A wall of swords encased in dragon-head sheaths is at the ready. The shop also offers marble chess sets, wall hangings, and other knickknacks. 535 Grant Ave., (415) 397-8791.

Yes, a wall full of swords indeed. He purchased a set of 3, with display stand, for $30, plus a commando murder knife for $25, and had money to spare. We did a bit more shopping, my daughter buying some cool knickknacks for cheap, and then we were out of there.

So if you come visit us, there is a slight chance you'll get your head chopped off. Probably not though.

Don't mess with my nephew and son.

Dell Sucks

Or at least their sales, customer care, and technical support do. Wasted 2 hrs talking to 10 confused offshore phone people and am exactly where I started. Stuck with a non-working part.

Beer Review: Labatt Blue Imported

With the red Canadian leaf on the label I was a little hesitant to purchase this brew. Why? Hockey and hosers - not my cups of tea. I don't remember ever drinking Labatt for my entire beer drinking history, so how could it be good? It was imported and on sale though, and that's enough for me.

I expected something bitter or bland, and was pleasantly surprised by this nice pilsner. LIke Budweiser, but with some flavor. No bitterness. I'll probably buy Labatt again. Even if it isn't on sale.

Movie Review - The Benchwarmers (2006)

As soon as I saw the trailers for this movie, I wanted to see it. I'll see anything with David Spade in it, and Rob Schneider and John Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) were bonus. It looked like a delightful mix of physical comedy and sarcasm.

The movie dove right into a lot of booger, fart and feces jokes, which I don't really find too funny. It is a Happy Madison production (Adam Sandler) so I shouldn't have been too surprised. David Spade had some good lines. Rob Schneider was the "leading man" so apparently was not allowed to be funny. Napolean was sophomore slumping hard. Nick Swardson gave the sleeper performance of the movie as Howie, the phobic albino super-freak.

In the movie Schneider, Spade and Heder help nerd kids get vicarious revenge on their jock antangonizers by beating them at their own game -baseball. With the only athletic ability in the trio, Schneider single-handedly defeats a host of kid's baseball teams in a tournament set up by an billionaire ex-nerd played by John Lovitz. Because Schneider is short and compassionate, everyone assumes he is also and ex-nerd, but he is actually a guilt-ridden ex-bully, supplying the plot twist and dramatic tension.

The central problem with this movie is that it seems to have been executed by non-nerds who have little understanding of the nerd psyche and lifestyle (of which I know a little something). It tries to be uplifting, but ends up being patronizing. Real nerds are more than happy to let the dumb jocks go play their baseball out in the field by themselves without feeling the need to become entangled (revenge or no). Of course the plot was probably aimed more at political correctness than actually trying to champion or understand nerds, geeks, freaks, or losers in general. Still, I rented the DVD after seeing it in the theater, so the raw laughs must have overcome the lameness of the basic premise.