Real Quick Like

We have a show next Saturday, September 5th at The Brainwash Cafe and Laundromat. All ages. Free. Here is the quick and dirty flyer I slapped together (don't pretend that didn't give you a little thrill when I said that).

Show Review: Hotel Utah August 11th

The Hotel Utah show went well in a few ways. Ok, maybe it wasn't our strongest performance, but there was a proper sound system and everyone was there. If you weren't there, you're nobody... or you had something better to do maybe... whatever. Anyway, my point is, the joint was filled with people so I feel that all of my marketing efforts are starting to pay off. When you start getting all your friends out to a show and it feels like a good party, chances are people want to come to that party again. The Heated throws a good party!

You know who else knows how to party, musically speaking? Everyone else that played that night, that's who. The Grownup Noise was on tour from Boston and their members were all quite nice and such great musicians. I had a good conversation with one of them about how our music scenes (San Francisco v. Boston) are quite similar. Competitive but we pretend like they aren't. It seemed as though we both reached the stage in life where one realizes that Together Everyone Achieves More and have started to form small collectives, little groupings of bands we know we can work together with.

Audrey Howard and the Misters killed it. They rock. Not like how you say somebody rocks but really they're poppy or hippie. Like they really rock. The show they put on had such great energy and that violin solo at the end? You know what I'm talking about if you were there. Killer. Then Leilujh took the stage. They're a little dark and really complemented each other, instrumentation and vocal-wise. Man, that woman can sing. Overall, a good night. Damn good night. Oh, and somebody (thank you, Christina) finally took pictures. Check it.

Work It Out

I'd never wanted to join a gym. Why would I? I can lift free weights at home and I can't lift more than 20 pounds anyway so no need to go somewhere else to do it. But I've had these pains that started in my shoulders and have worked their way around my neck and back for over a year now. I've been to acupuncture, pilates and the physical therapist. I've done stretches, iced it and had ribs pushed back into place and while all have helped transform what was searing pain into dull, occasional pain, it still hurts and I get new pains all the time. So when my physical therapist told me that the reason I keep getting injured every time I do anything that requires muscles is because I am weak. I'm weak as a kitten and she said I need to join a gym.

It's not that I've avoided the gym because I don't like working out. Mostly it's because I'm scared of new things and of looking like I don't know what I'm doing, especially in front of other people. The gym has other people in it! But screw being scared, or rather, screw letting fear get in the way of me getting totally buff.

I hired a personal trainer for a few sessions so that I could learn what I'm doing and get a plan together. He's actually a physical therapist too, which is why I choose him. So, I met him at my gym and he did something that my Kaiser therapist had not done. He looked at my back. Thoroughly. We talked about my scoliosis, which I knew I had. He wanted to know whether it was structural so he did something the doctor who first diagnosed the scoliosis at fourteen years old did not. He measured me. Turns out, my right leg is shorter than my left by a quarter of an inch and everything has desperately been trying to compensate for the leg's glaring inadequacies. "Somebody should have caught this a long time ago," he said. Indeed. But he claims I can be fixed. Huzzah.

We started with the basics. He told me I need to do cardio four times a week along with some other exercises to strengthen my back and some yoga stretches to strengthen my inner hippie. But he forgot to show me how the elliptical machine works. When I went back to the gym alone, I did my yoga poses and my dead-lifts then considered skipping the elliptical because of the aforementioned fear of not being perfect at everything right away. But then, when I looked over at the cardio section there was this woman, probably in her late fifties on one of the machines, pumping her legs like crazy while completely hunched over the front of the machine in a pose that is certainly causing her back to twist in completely unhealthy ways. I looked and looked at her then went to the front desk and said, "hey, I'm new. Can you show me how this machine works?"

Unit

This project has been in the back of my mind for a while. There's so much vertical space but a free-standing shelving unit would be too wobbly. This back room has been a mess for weeks. It's on its way to becoming a workshop for my wood working. Furniture class (and javascript class) will be starting back up again soon and I want to be able to do some work at home, especially since this is the last time I can take the class. Anyway, I get a little shiver every time I see how everything is clean and lined up all neatly.



What's that? Does it dispense gasoline?: I went to the Mission to flyer tonight. I live on a far edge of the Mission. People still poop on the street but there's less gun-play. Anyway, the Mission District of San Francisco is notorious for having the highest concentration of the city's hipsters, which is true. On my way home from getting those flyers up in various bookstores, cafes and record stores... oh, and the lesbian bar (ladies), I stopped on the sidewalk to shove tape and flyers back in my bag and caught the tail end of a conversation between a hipster, who was locking up his bicycle (of course he was) and a gentleman who I thought was asking for directions. The reason I thought that was because I heard the hipster say, "Sorry, I don't know. I've never driven a car in this city." Of course he hasn't.

I almost just kept going but instead I turned around and said, "Did you need directions?" but the first gentleman was too far away and didn't hear me. The hipster did though and said, "oh, he wanted to know if he still has to pay the parking meter."

Ok, I understand not having driven in the city, but certainly the hipster is familiar with the concept of parking meters. The first gentleman appeared to be visiting from another country and has an actual excuse to not know that the hours of operation of a parking meter are posted on the meter. I took the gentleman over and showed him that as it was after 6:00 pm, he did not need to put money in the meter. Jackass hipster.