Bubble Toes

Last week's Josh Rouse show was only the start to an amazing summer of music that will be hitting San Francisco. Better than Ezra this Sunday at Slim's, Coldplay this Wednesday night at The Fillmore (a 1,500 person venue), Wilco at The Greek in Berkeley in mid-June, Fountain of Wayne - acoustic - later this month, Madeleine Peyroux at the SF Jazz Fest in late-May, The Black Crowes (5 straight shows) at The Fillmore, Jack Johnson at The Greek in August ... the list goes on and on. I'm pissed that I missed Glen Phillips (former lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket) at Slim's a few weeks back. If you're in LA later this week, he's opening for Aimee Mann.

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This was the last weekend of the Tahoe season for most cabins, including ours. Sad to see the season come to an end, but I think most of us got our fill of snow. Expected Tahoe City to be much more livelier and crowded, but it was pretty much tumbleweed city all weekend. Didn't stop a few of us from enjoying the fresh air, patches of sunshine and several warm adult beverages by the lake ... until the skies opened up late Saturday. Can't say I'm going to miss the actual cabin, though. The set-up - as some of you have already heard me bitch about - was less than ideal. The woman who owns the house (and her live-in boyfriend) actually lived there throughout the season. Made for some uncomfortable situations. Never really felt 100% at-home, per se. Anyhow, will definitely be looking for a more *traditional* situation next year. Still trying to figure out if I'm up for renting a place this summer and what time of the season would be best. Rented the last week of August in 2004 and the weather had pretty much turned *right* before we got there. A bit too chilly for my blood.

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Finally saw Napoleon Dynamite over the weekend. As expected, I was pretty underwhelmed, especially after all the "Oh my god! You haven't seen it yet! It's sooooo funny!" word of mouth I was catching. Yes, Napoleon's character was quirky/off-beat and had some funny mannerisms, but the idea of a socially awkward, geeky adolescent who struggles through school as a freak is so incredibly trite at this point that it's so hard to illustrate it in a fresh, intelligent way.

Also saw the Enron documentary, which I definitely recommend checking out. The flick gives the viewer great insight (more so than the mainstream media) into what specifically brought Enron to its knees and the characters that were responsible for it. The funniest "character" was Lou Pi. This guy divorced his wife (and 2 kids) cashed out $270mm of Enron stock and lives among his various houses in Hawaii, New Mexico, Colorado, etc with his new wife, one of the strippers he met at the local Houston club where he used to spend most of his free time. Gotta read this article to get the full flavor.