Stupid Rossi at one of Stratton's best not-so-secret secrets.

This past weekend turned out to be much better than last weekend. On Friday night Michael and myself drove to RPI and got properly wasted. We stayed at the house, drank some beers, and played some guitar downstairs with Tito, Seth and Spins. On Saturday we went to Stratton, and forgot to wake up the Beardsworth. This is partially his fault, because he actually woke up earlier than we did, found that we were still sleeping, and then went back to bed, content with his expectation that we would awake him from his long winter's nap. He could not have been more wrong. I was still wasted and confused in the morning, totally forgot about Beardsworth, and left for Stratton with Michael and the terrible Tom Fiskus. I took about 5 runs at Stratton before my ankle took me out of the game. It is now swollen and large again, and this sucks.

Saturday night was awesome, with three hours of free beer at the Ruck in celebration of Goldman living to the age of 25. At around 10 Tripp, myself, Beardo Mercaldi and Richard the Drifter went back to the house. We played some awful sounding music down stairs, with no one actually paying attention to what anyone else was playing. It also didn't help that the drums were being played by a wasted Michael, Tripp, and Beardo simultaneously. After this, Michael and Tripp went back to the Ruck while Beardo, myself and Richard had a great time at the house throwing around huge ice sickels and provoking Russ into furiously berating anyone who got close to him. Grand times indeed.

In other news, my amplifier parts came in the mail on Friday, so look for construction updates here.

This weekend kind of sucked. Lots of stuff went wrong, such as:

1. Glovebox getting inexplicablly locked shut with cell phone charger inside. Today I cut the latch with a saws-all, and my glove box is now held shut with "Extreme Velcro". Totally.
2. Spraining my ankle towards the end of the day snowboarding on Saturday, right before the "Blizzard of '05", which meant that there was no riding on Sunday in the best conditions of the year.
3. Brendan's house filling with natural gas due to a leak. As far as I know, he did not get blown up.
4. The Boyd furnace ceasing to work on Saturday. This wasn't too bad, but sort of just added to my run of bad luck.

I think that's about it. I didn't get in a car accident, which was good, and I also saw Kendra, which was very good. I suppose that things can only improve next weekend. It was also cool to play some guitar through a real amp. Kendra's friends have a giant (i'm thinking like 100 watts) amp on top of a cab with 4 12" speakers, and it sounds unbelievable. Anyway, look for more good shit in a couple of days. Hopefully the "kankle" will be back in business for Stratton and The Ruck. Holler, or maybee don't.

Well friends, it looks like popular music is about to become more homogenous than ever. This is why the "underground" is soooo important, and seems to be becoming more so as the years go by. From movies to music to software, some of the best stuff always seems to come from under the radar, and I'm convinced that the world is a much better place because of it.

Anyway, this weekend was nice, as Kendra came home and we hung out a lot and had a pretty low-key time. It was needed. I am now sick, and hoping that it's not the flu. It is time for me to sleep, and hopefully go to work tomorrow. Blymee.

It's been a long time since the last post, and I blame the Holiday season and all of it's weirdly stressful glory. All in all, things went well. I went snowboarding a couple of times, got some cool shit for Christmas, saw the family, spent time with the Lady in sweet bliss, and spent a lot of time wailing on the old axe. The Great Richard James Brown even came to Groveland for a night, which was awesome. This past weekend was also great, as it snowed a lot and Kendra and I went to Haystack, which is right next to Mount Snow. There were no lift lines, and there was a ton of powder. On Saturday night Kendra and I ate sushi while Abbie and the long lost Liza made their way out to Westfield. We had a good time at the Orange Street house that night, complete with ridiculous jam session (Kendra's friends are really good) and far too much beer. I had to retire to the porch for a while to keep from booting while Kendra got punched incredibly hard in the arm. Great times. And now for the traditional music reccomendations:

Taj Mahal: Taj Mahal: Awesome sort-of-jammy blues from the late 60's, played and sung by a Master. Taj rips at harmonica and slide guitar, and the rest of his band are very skilled as well.

The Buena Vista Social Club: This is an album, a "band" and a documentry. I heard some of the album this weekend, and was very impressed. The Buena Vista Social Club is a group of 5 or 6 elderly Cuban gentlemen (one or two of which is into his 90's) who all used to be local legends in Cuba before Castro came to power. In the late 90s, Ry Cooder went to Cuba, found them living in near-poverty, brought them together, and they recorded an album. A documentary was also made, and they went on to play some shows and win a grammy or two. The music, however, is amazing, and you should check it out.