So, as I was planning my itinerary for this year’s Netroots Nation conference in Austin, I discovered that Tilly and the Wall are playing that Thursday at Emo’s, and quickly went to their MySpace page to look around. This video made me smile:

It’s times like these I wish I was apathetic.

Today’s Daily Grist was filled with bad news, the worst of which is this, from the NYT:

DENVER — Faced with a surge in the number of proposed solar power plants, the federal government has placed a moratorium on new solar projects on public land until it studies their environmental impact, which is expected to take about two years.

The Bureau of Land Management says an extensive environmental study is needed to determine how large solar plants might affect millions of acres it oversees in six Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

Two years!? You’ve got to be (insert expletive here) kidding me. It’s the same with this damn drilling thing - people are so concerned about how long it’s going to take for them to be able to drive their precious SUVs through bird’s nests and blast their air conditioning when it’s 75 degrees outside that they don’t realize that we’re wasting away our environment. Siiigh. So anyhow, if that wasn’t bad enough, then comes this:

Dominion’s Coal-Fired Electric Plant to Advance

Sorry to be such a downer. Eight more months until inauguration day, and things had better change. I’m hopeful.

Multiple friends have sent this to me the past few days. The action starts at about 1:08. Pretty awesome.

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

So, Samer incited my internet nerd and tagged me for a meme. Because it’s not time consuming, doesn’t threaten to give me 7 years of bad sex if I don’t respond, and turns out kinda fun, I’m doing it. The concept is, you pick up the nearest book, turn to page 123, go to the 5th sentence and write the next three sentences. Well, my nearest book was Kerouac’s Some of the Dharma, so they’re not quite “sentences,” but here they are:

“Devadatta, Gotama’s jealous cousin, set loose a mad drunken elephant in Rajagriha—’thinking only on the sorrow caused by (Devadatta’s) hate’ Buddha advances slowly on the elephant, only Ananda at his side,—’You! swallowed up on sorrow’s mud’ and pats the kneeling beast with lotus hand ‘even as the moon lights up a flying cloud.”

To continue, I’m tagging Adrian, Ben, Anna and Agata. Leave your response in the comments if you can resist banning this.

We’re just 15 minutes away from the hour when same-sex couples will officially be able to wed in California! I for one am elated that today the LGBT couples among us are finally allowed to express their love for each other like the rest of their fellow human beings. The New York Times has a fantastic feature where couples can submit their stories about their weddings, proposals, etc. It’s adorable and uplifting:

Your Stories: Gay Marriage in California

This is why I live in the Bay Area. Today we take a step toward a better future. Hurray and congratulations to all those getting married today!

As posted on KQED here >>

Port O’Brien, claimed by both the Bay Area and the Central Coast as their own, has been continuously growing in popularity as their music moves beyond the college radio curcuit and across the country. The band’s indie-infused folk tunes are painfully catchy, tugging at heart strings and boot straps alike.

Port O’Brien’s new album All We Could Do Was Sing (released Tuesday, May 13, 2008 ) is a fantastic collection of songs written while the band was living on a fishing boat in Alaska for the summer. The album is exhilarating and refreshing, yet cold and lonely at times, reflecting the idyllic setting in which it was written.

The opening track “I Woke Up Today” feels like a modern day “We Will Rock You,” only with a much less forceful message — the kind of tune that you and might sing (or yell) along to while cruising the sidewalks or jumping for joy. These anthemic group vocals have popped up many times in recent indie music, and while it’s not hard to see it getting old, Port O’Brien certainly does it best.

It takes a moment to get past some of the clearly out-of-tune (I suppose “dissonant” is a kinder word) vocals in songs like “In Vino Veritas,” but it’s evident that they’re trying to make that a style of sorts — slightly flawed recordings that feel real and not plastic. Listen to it a few times and the tinge of discomfort fades.

A highlight of the album is “Close the Lid,” a tune that builds from a simple, stripped-down melody to a danceable, guitar solo-injected rock tune. Some of the lyrics are heart-wrenchingly cute: “I’m not afraid to die / as long as you’re by my side / we can sleep the whole year through.” But this song is the perfect example of the somewhat ambiguous themes that pervade the album — switching between this familiar bliss and the isolation and conflict of being alone: “…we are on the brink / of a long civil war / between my heart and yours / we will fight by ourselves.”

This ambivalence is repeated many times throughout the album, with a recurring theme of true love conflicted with isolation, cold, and what goes through your mind when your mind is all you’ve got. The effecting melodies and lyrics are supplemented with simple string parts and lots of percussion. On the lighter side of the album is the stunning “Will You Be There,” the kind of achingly sweet song that sticks with you for days.

For the live shows, guitarist/vocalist Van Pierszalowski leads the band with an Elvis-like snarl and an excess of charisma. The band’s chemistry and love of the music comes out in full force. They will play their Bay Area record release show at the Rickshaw Stop this Wednesday, May 14, 2008. They will be joined by Missouri indie pop group Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. For tickets and information visit rickshawstop.com. For more on Port O’Brien, check out The Bay Bridged podcast.

Adrian and the ipickmynose blog will be presenting a great show at Annie’s Social Club this Wednesday, June 11. The show will feature three local bands - Geographer, Two Sheds, and Marabelle Pheonix - as well as Friday Mile from Seattle.

Appropriately, Geographer and Two Sheds have been getting a lot of love from the ipickmynose blog lately (among lots of other press). Geographer recently played an in-studio at KZSU, which Adrian promptly blogged about, and just a couple of weeks later, these events were repeated with Two Sheds. We also just featured Geographer in a Bay Bridged podcast episode.

This show comes at an exciting time for both bands. Geographer is gearing up to release their debut album Innocent Ghosts in late summer and Two Sheds just released a new five-song iTunes-only EP. Both bands are also gearing up for tours of the West this summer. Marabelle Phoenix, meanwhile, will be playing shows all around San Francisco for the rest of the summer.

For out of towners Friday Mile, this show is smack in the middle of their West coast tour, after which they’ll put the finishing touches on a new project. They’ve got some live video up on Snowghost here.

The show starts at 8pm and costs $7.

As published on The Bay Bridged here >>

The much talked about Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act failed to win the 60 votes needed to end delay tactics on the bill (such as sucking up about nine hours by demanding that clerks read the entire 492-page bill aloud), but came very close with 54 votes. But environmental organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife, are optimistic that the strong support shown for the cloture (including 10 senators who had consistently stood opposed to all cap-and-trade legislation) is a good sign for the progress that will hopefully be made when the Congress reconvenes.

There are lots of great resources on the bill online. While some environmental organizations oppose the bill, many see it as an important step in the right direction. The bill would put in place a cap-and-trade system for heavy emitters, as well as building regulations and efficiency standards for residential areas. Obviously the 500-page bill has more than just that, but that’s the centerpiece.

Defenders of Wildlife has also emphasized the important provisions that the bill includes for wildlife, conservation and habitat restoration, all of which are dramatically affected by climate change.

If you’d like to see how your senator voted, visit this Senate webpage. When there is new info, we will definitely have some more info and a petition you can sign to support the passing of this important bill!

It’s that time again! The Maker Faire is happening in a couple of weeks in San Mateo and I’m SO excited. We went last year, got free tickets from some guy on the street who had extras, and ended up staying until it closed and we still weren’t able to see everything.

It’s an amazing weekend full of fire-breathing robots, electric cars and motorcycles, an enormous room full of crafties (remember, crafties are hard core), a huge clothing swap, and tons more really interesting stuff. My favorites from last year: a knitting drummer, a plant that calls you on the telephone when it needs to be watered, a life-sized game of Mouse Trap and a handful of computerized instruments. GO!