Beirut

Beirut… making the boys at band camp seem cool.

Last week I watched Beirut rock Philly’s Electric Factory with their awesome little brass ensemble, accordion sounds and nerdy school boy hair dos. I was never all that into the boys from band camp but there is something so awesome about the real live sounds of trumpets and tubas and trombones mixed with electric guitars and drums and a good ol’ fashion egg shake that makes jazz band boys seem cool… or maybe it was just their shaggy hairdos, I’ve always been a sucker for those.

But yeah, the music…I’d heard a little bit of Beirut prior to show and all that but live music has that magical sort of way of bringing together the hallowness of recorded sound and well, umm, making it alive while simultaneously changing your experience with the original recording. Maybe it’s just me but after seeing the show and the constant swapping of instruments and sounds I can suddenly hear the tuba and the accordion and can see Zach Condon strumming his teeny tiny ukelele singing “The Penalty” which is all sorts of cool in my book.

 

Anyway….yay for live music and the boys in band.

xoxo t

Philly

city hall…occupied and smelling like stale piss.

I spent the last couple of days wandering around Philly doing all sorts of nothing-esque activities; café chillin, chai drinking, people watching, architecture scoping and what not. Maybe it was the balmy t-shirt weather in mid November or the general awesomeness of feeling like you’re discovering a new place that’s been right next door the whole time…but either way, Philly is pretty much my new favorite spot. With its historic buildings and bells and statues and its cute little neighborhood spots Philly’s got a lot to love. Not to mention a way chiller pace of life compared to the hustley bustleyness of its nearby cities…I mean, New York,  you’re great, I heart you, but waiting 30minutes to be seated at a wiggley woggley table crammed in between a couple other wiggley woggley tables shouting over the commotion of breakfast chaos while dealing with an ambivalent waitstaff day after day gets a little old….just sayin.

So yeah, put Philly on your new urban spots to meander about and be on the look out for all things Ben Franklin…he’s kind of like a big deal in those parts. PS….that’s George Washington, tricorne hat and all but I swear Ben’s on every other street corner.

xoxo t

NYC Marathoning

I’m in….and officially stressing. A few days from today (Sunday to be exact), I’ll be running or more likely doing some crawl/stagger thing through the big apple with about 40,000 or so other wing nuts who’ve sign up to run the New York City Marathon. Now, I’m no marathon runner or runner at all for that matter but some how some way I got myself into this mess. Good cause, good friends, good exercise or what have you. But with one week to go this suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea. I mean 26.2 miles is a long ass way to go on foot or in a car for that matter and as the story goes the first guy who ran the marathon (from Marathon to Athens) collapsed and died upon arrival. NBD.

But…I’m in and I’ve been pounding the pavement, icing, stretching (kind of) and doing all sorts of other nerdy athlete stuff I swore I’d never do (ie; goo shots, power gels, heart rate monitors, training plans) to get ready for this daunting little adventure. So let the games…err and stress begin and let’s hope I don’t collapse on arrival.

If you’re in town or have nothing better to do on Sunday you can follow me as I creep my way through all 5 boroughs on this fancy app http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ing-new-york-city-marathon/id468522480 I’m bib 53-133 and check out our good cause at www.stokedmentoring.org

xoxo t

Santa Cruz

Steamer Lane.

I just spent a week in Santa Cruz watching whales breach, sea otters frolic and tattoo clad cali dude bros with pit bulls and bad tattoos stroll the point. It seems that bad lower leg tattoos, flat brims, exposed biceps and pit bulls are kind of a package deal in those parts just like surf contests and 2ft waves. Not that I’m an expert on surf or waves or much for that matter but Greeny and I were down there producing the O’neill Cold Water Classic surf event at Steamer Lane, a spot notorious for big barreling waves but come contest time there was hardly a ripple. wave watching.

We spent most days staring at the horizon with the rest of the O’neill peeps looking for waves or ripples or any sort of wave like movement from the ocean while trying to predict future.  Hemming and hawing over scenarios, shuttling ourselves up and down the coast and back again chasing mini waves and eventually conceding to the fact that the epic spot wasn’t so epic at high tide with no waves unless of course you came for the whales…which I did. Seriously, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of seeing those massive mysterious creatures bob along the coast line. Anyway, after all that speculating and chart reading and swell guessing we ended up at Waddell’s little beach break watching some pretty talented dudes make mushy white wash look good and the internet worked so everybody won.boardwalk.

xoxo t

Conundrum

It’s fall in these parts or in actuality it might be the beginning of winter. The sky is filled with threatening snow clouds and that cold damp air filled with the smell of decaying leaves has settled in for good. So, Tess and I decided to make one more long journey into the woods before the leaves fall off and winter drops in. We hiked the 8 or so miles up to Conundrum hot springs, one of those perfect little hot springs nestled in a majestic basin of mountainy peaks….you know the one you always imagine having to yourself but when you roll up to it after 3 hours of hiking to soak your weary legs it’s inevitably filled with a bunch of dirty backpackers and that token naked dude and the awkward “so, where are you from?” conversation begins…a moment of solitude between dirty backpackers and naked dudes.Aspens & Pines

golden leaves and tess.

After an hour or so of getting our soak on we decided to head back before those daunting looking clouds did something daunting…like rain or snow. Which, of course, they did about a mile in. So, we walked the rest of those 8 miles home in the rain, six of which we felt all noble and peaceful and stuff admiring the sound of rain and then spent the last two soaking wet, covered in mud, in near silence trying to guess which meandering meadow we parked near….aaah the great outdoors.foliage.

xoxo t

Premiere Season

The Meeting 7

It’s premiere season and truth be told I’m not the hugest fan of sitting around watching shred flicks and fanning out on every epic pow turn, back country booter and gnarly rail section ridden last year. In fact half the time I sit in these dark theaters with my eyes glazed over, thinking about god knows what with my mind desensitized to what should in actuality be blowing it…super steep, sketchy as shit chutes of death, gnarly crevasse gaps, triple corks, double corks, out running avalanches and on and on. And yet I’m like an ADD, gnat sized attention span holding, over stimulated teenage, who after ten minutes of banger clips is like “yeah, seen it”. It feels sort of sacrilegious to even mention it and maybe I’m just jaded and bitter or something but sometimes seeing too much of a good thing makes it feel kind of…average.  TRice and the boys of flight.

Not to take anything away from these above average shredders because let’s face it, they’re killing it and pushing it to points where they very well could be killing themselves (a la Mark Landvik in Art of Flight) And when you look at what’s going on in this year’s batch of flicks they’re filled with next level riding, national geographic cinematography and hollywood scores….but I guess I just want more and less. Less 70+ minute flicks, more story lines, less samesies, more personality and less mega slow mo….we get it, you’re artsy and stuff but at some point slow mo coffee pouring shots just feels like overkill. Anyway, I’ve said too much (as usual) but gold stars and super duper high fives go out to Kazu, Mark Sollors and Mikey Rencz in Standing Sideways and Scotty (minus the agonizing jawbreaking bit), Travis, Jonesy and those crazy ass heli pilots in The Art of Flight and Kimmy Fasani for doubling down in TB20.  Oh, yeah and an honorable mention for skier Seth Morrison’s The Ordinary Skier…. I love documentaries especially well done ones that make you think, laugh and learn a thing or two about stuff you thought you already knew.

happy viewing…

xoxo t

Hitched

My new bestie and her beau of a decade or so decided to tie the knot this last weekend at a perfect little Colorado ranch complete with a saloon and real live shit kickin cowboys. We played lawn games, drank mason jar bevies and dance all night with old people and little people too …which as far as I’m concern makes for a lovely affair even if the older sect did cringe slightly when I requested Miley Cyrus’s Party in the USA, but hey, the flower girls were down.

flowers & flowergirls.anna & dale all hitched and stuff.saloon shindiggiant jenga.

This photo was taken moments before I pushed all the blocks on top of her head and yelled “Jenga” in her face…good thing I’m not competitive with 5 year olds. But yeah, giant jega rules.

bocce.twirling anna.

So, here’s to Anna and Dale and western weddings with all the trimmings.

xoxo t

Crested Butte and back…

Last week a few of us hiked from Aspen to Crested Butte. It’s one of those iconic late summer/early fall trips that everyone talks about; raving about the wildflowers and the foliage and all that mountainy wilderness stuff. But since winter came early in these parts, our adventure was a little less frolicking through acres and acres of colorful, poppy flowers and a little more navigating snowy, muddy switchbacks. There is something so cool about walking from one town to the next; along rivers, through meadows and over mountain passes …it feels all VonTrapp family Sound of Music and shit…minus the escaping Nazi Austria and the whole singing nun thing. But yeah, it’s always awesome to remember that your feet can actually take you places and back again.snowy peaks.back of the bells.

And Crested Butte is pretty awesome destination to trod along to, with a couple of quaint downtown blocks filled with fun little eateries, saloons and bars and all sorts of cowboy, ski bum shenanigans…oh, and my new favorite fancy drink spot….Montanya. Silverton’s rum distillery recently made Crested Butte its home and is serving up a bunch of delicious hand crafted cocktails that made me realize rum is good for more than just Mojitos and Caribbean vacation umbrella drinks. cardamon, ginger and rum goodness in the Maharaja Martini.and back again.
it’s beginning to look like autumn in these parts.

so yeah, wildflowers or no wildflowers this little walk through the woods is totally worth it…especially when you know there’s a comfy bed, good friends and good times on the other side.

xoxo t

DeVotchKa

My new favorite band came to town this weekend and I’ll spare you all the gooey details of DeVotchKa’s musical awesomenss, because trying to describe music is really just an act in futility. You either end up comparing the band to a couple other bands that are kinda sorta just like it except it’s a little more like this or a little more like that or you end up sounding like some pompous ass describing the emotional essence of the music…man. So yeah, let’s just say that any band of wine swilling gypsies that can mix and match guitars with a mandolin, tuba, trumpet, violin and an accordion while singing in foreign tongues without being some cheesy eclectic fusion thingy are kinda awesome in my book.  So before I start gushing a whole bunch of inspired by amazing music emotional crap, I’ll just say check ‘em out and see ‘em live because we just don’t see enough tubas an accordions at rock shows these days…. belly up.

Who knew the Tuba could be so cool…

xoxo t

Another Northwest Jaunt…

Multnomah.

Portland. I know, I know I go on and on about this place and the amazing people and food and what not and then some friends come to town from Scotland and England and Boston and ask what does one do in Portland and I’m literally stumped. Like, what do you mean, what does one do? One eats, drinks, chills and ponders the meaning of life while looking vintagey cool at some uber hip coffee shop sipping a perfectly made, locally roasted, handcrafted Latte with that cute little fern leaf in the foam, that’s what one does. But they had other ideas, like sights and stuff. So, here are some snaps of things to do other than chill and people watch in my favorite little city.

sherowski.

I guess it’s called the city of roses for a reason….the Rose Garden.powell’s…used books and all.

Powell’s is pretty mind blowing…not only is it the largest flippin’ bookstore on the planet but well, it’s a bookstore that still exists on the planet.  Last time I checked,  bookstores were a thing of the past… but then again, Portland lives forever trapped in time, firmly planted in 1996…used books, record stores and all.

Oh yeah, and I fell in love on this trip. Meet Lefty, my new fav.  I’m generally not a fan of picking up steaming hot piles of shit but this little critter wormed his way into my cold heart with his cute puppy ways…and well, I can almost understand how people happily scurry around after their beloved pooches picking up every nasty ass mess they make. Seriously…just look at the guy.

xoxo t