best christmas ever

• grandpa's question to the anti-immigrant crowd: "what do we do with the 12 million undocumented? do we load them on a train in the middle of the night, or do we shoot them?"


• running my dad's train in the front yard to the delight of kids, parents and UPS drivers


• having various loud, obnoxious conversations in cafes, mostly with dort. the Chronicle, she said, recommended wrapping presents in newspaper to be more environmentally minded. first of all, that is blatant self promotion, and second of all, it's a terrible idea. the point of wrapping paper is that it is pretty, or fun i.e. not pedestrian and everyday (like newspaper).
  
  
• pretty much I yell at my little sister a lot when i go home. maybe i should try a more relaxed approach.


• thinking about Zeitgeist the movie, which says Christians are first rate sun worshippers. i should work on my tan.


• i saw the Oakland ballet's Nutcracker, a lighter, sexier, more diverse take on the old Nut.


• seeing micah go for my present (a rabbit-head shaped mug, Skittles and a cigar) at his white elephant party made my night. hearing Mike Park, also at the party, sing Jingle Bells might just have made my month.

weekend schmeekend

brian and corinna got married at SF City Hall on Friday. they came by my work and made a splash. one of my coworkers said they look like they belong on TV (in a good way).

saturday i went to the free legal clinic, hoping for word on my violin. that night i went to a party in a tent in Civic Center Plaza with a bunch of ex-49ers. Open bar, good times. I felt a little weird drinking and carousing as Harris Barton talked about the meaning of his brain tumor foundation.

The Color Purple at the Orpheum Theater afterwards. well done show. plenty of uncomfortable moments, namely the lesbian scenes. James and Tina and my family and brother + wife all went.

Sunday I practiced on my new rental violin. I'm starting to like it more, but I hate how the case smells.

Brian and Corinna cooked dinner for a bunch of folks Sunday night:
-tomato and spinach salad
-veggie three cheese lasagna with broccoli
-chocolate mousse, ever so good (rum, though perhaps not enough)
-champagne

Corinna seems to want to move into my apartment, though Brian seems to have reservations. Anyway I will check out a place in the Sunset soon.

saturday morning constitutional

i went a-searching for a violin
what i found to my chagrin
was 12 ladies howlin'
11 fluourescents glowing
10 men conniving
9 volunteers helping
8 chairs grinding
7 smiles grinning
6 students learning
5 actions pending
4 ladies pregnant
3 languages spoken
2 stalls filthy
and a cockateel in the man's jacket next to me.

I went to the main library for a free once-a-month legal clinic, held in the Latino Community Room i.e. the basement. i wanted to get the ATM video to see who took my violin. My lawyer said my only options are to "harass the police," to check pawn shops, and the DA, to get the video.

The lawyer told me her sob story - her mother's empty home was "hot robbed" after her death and an important ring and other things taken.

Other tales from the underground:

• A guy next to me, sixty-something, with a big white goatee, black leather paperboy-type cap pulled low, and heavy use of slang, will fight for himself "on constitutional grounds" after he violated parole by going to Las Vegas.



• a black lady says her house is so moldy her new suit got moldy a month after she bought it. she's trying to get out but the landlord won't give her the deposit until she moves, which she can't do until she has money to move.



• another older woman, inspired by the first ever class action lawsuit for sexual harassment depicted by the movie North Country, is seeing her options to get a man to delete the inaccurate information about her on his website. He says she still works at a university in SF where she no longer does, and mentioned something about a plagiarism allegation.

So it goes.

search for the bomb - update

Dort reports: "Dick called and said it was not a grenade, but a mortar."

We had looked for a grenade in her basement, a WWII relic her brother dutifully brought back from the front. It turns out we were looking for the wrong thing.

"I think I've seen it," Dort says, of the mortar, a ball with two long things coming out of it.

Will we find the missing mortar, before it destroys the house? Stay tuned....

we heart thanksgiving

so it's a little late but i put up some shots from my Montana Thanksgiving. In between puking and freezing I had a good time. I'm better now.

carol had a fun pre-Thanksgiving bash replete with Guitar Hero (3?) and Keith T. came out that same weekend to hash out the We Heart Owen song and lay the groundwork for a possible move to the Bay Area.

check out realgoodbuddies.blogspot.com for my latest review, She's the Man (baby).

Trying to write lyrics to MP+TC songs, which is fun. I'm trying for something more tasteful than Invicta's power ballads ("Hardcore addiction to softcore porn"), yet still as true ("Hearts don't beat the same). We opened for them at C+J's the other night. It went well, despite Micah and Tre's forgetting my effects pedals and cables and guitar strap. Props to Invicta's lead guitarist for changing my Floyd Rose string so quickly. Gotta get me a different backup guitar, one whose strings I can actually change.

the coca leaf and the inflatable globe

a Bolivia-based journalism group sent this video question to the Republicans, who evidently are having a debate with YouTube questions. my study abroad teacher sent this to our class. i like how they frame the shot.

brainy fun

think you know geography? check out geosense.net. it's better with a friend.

mptc

mptc
Originally uploaded by Monster Pete

happier times.

loss and renewal

i left my violin in front of an ATM the other night, and walked away without it. i returned a little more than five minutes later and it was gone. let's hope this turns out as well as the lost computer incident, though without the danger and knife and pissed off motel owner. i am despairing. my violin teacher gave me a semi-playful punch on the arm.

to find it, i put an ad on the lost and found on Craigslist, filed a police report and called the cops' "property office" or something where all the lost property goes. also called the B of A. i'm considering asking to access their ATM security video records to find the perp. i gave my biz card to the building i left it outside of.

sorry to mope. in better news, i heart owen is reviving itself, this time as we heart owen. be warned.

mptc at twister's gym

hey we played last night. we rocked the crowd. it was a great show. wesley willis would have been proud and written a song like this:

monster pete and the chiefs
monster pete and the chiefs
they are a great rock band
monster pete and the chiefs

i saw them at Twister's gym. it was a gymnastics room full of foam blocks and trampolines. NVS and the Muckruckers played too. the crowd got sweaty in a mosh pit.

monster pete and the chiefs
monster pete and the chiefs
they are a great rock band
monster pete and the chiefs



our set includes mostly MPTC songs, two of them "new", and some covers: "Hocus Pocus" by Focus, done Gary Hoey style; Phantom of the Opera theme by Andrew Lloyd Webber; Hawaii Five-O; Misirlou done Dick Dale style; "No Sleep 'til Brooklyn", Beastie Boys; and we're working on Pipeline.

no quake

i didn't feel the earthquake last night,
but dreamt about one. it woke me up. i did know know whether it was an aftershock or just a dream. weird.

and what's the deal with california? earthquakes, fires. Ahnold. what's next?

whistleblower weekend

• Drinks at the Public in SOMA on Friday night with coworkers Elena and newly published Nation writer Amanda


• Shopping! Me and Dort went to Macy's, getting hooked up with Lab Series freebies, then Target, to find a somewhat belated but still legitimate wedding present for James and Tina. I searched for Bumble and Bumble hair paste and ended up at a salon where Dort knows the purveyor. She loves a man who uses Bumble and Bumble, the owner Leticia said, and promised freebies in the future.


• Skipped between the World Series and Scary Movie on TV, after watching Without a Trace. Nice love story there.


• Practiced violin, currently playing Vivaldi's Concerto in A Minor and a Chinese song translated as "Happy New Year."
  
• Menlo Park on Sunday. Wine -- two buck Chuck -- and trains!!

workin' for the weekend

• workin' late on Friday, planning a comp day to make up for it
  
• MPTC played a party at the Ninja Cottage, where Brian Crotty lives, along with former NU student Chris Olsen. it rawked dude.
  
• deep dish pizza at Little Star with James, Tina and Carol
  
• CSI: Miami
  
• apartment hunting on Craigslist
  
• Armenian church festival with Dort and Brian on Sunday. much buttery, old world good food - lamb shishkabob, pilaf, sou boereg (crispy filo dough between layers of spinach/cheese), greek type salad, Armenian beer (Kotayk) and flaky, syrupy pastries for dessert. talked about the Genocide Resolution with a guy from the Arm. Nat'l Comte. of America (ANCA). yay.
  
• food coma
  

radio somewhere

weekend in review

• Friday night swimming, then saw The Civil War at the Red Devil Lounge. They were good with a good crowd too, if I do say so. My friends Tom and Matt B. are in the down home alt-country rock band.


• Saturday breakfast on Clement with Matt B. and friends from The Civil War, then to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival all day.


• Nighttime went with Agnes to hang out with a Mexican friend of hers. Had beers at La Peña near Ashby Bart station in Oakland then went to a co-op in Berkeley, where people were playing SMB2 projected on a wall. Then watched some movie with zombies and John Leguizamo pirated from a Japanese site.


• Sunday watched Blue Angels with Dort then had a family dinner in Menlo Park.

life digest

weekend update:

• In the Valley of Elah (movie)
  
• Talladega Nights (movie)
  
• blowing balloons for kids at Sunset Community Festival
  
• walking around Laurel Heights
  
• reading Never Eat Alone
  
• setting up guitar effects pedal board
  
• eating lunch at Starbucks, alone
  

Digest Life with Peruvian Comet Soup

This Peruvian journalist we hosted last week as part of an exchange asked me how to download and save youTube vids. any good way to capture Flash? I told him it wasn't possible. He looked disappointed.

i switched my Blogger back end language to Spanish. Evidently "bold" is negrita in Spanish. That's kind of like saying "blackened." That was a pretty good Metallica song. They're playing acoustic at the Bridge School benefit this year. If anyone wants to buy me a ticket that's great. Mall Security was denied a spot, despite submitting this video for consideration.

I saw Ryan Auffenberg the other night at the Make Out Room in SF. We did not make out, though he is a sexy singing machine.

In other now-they're-famous news, Dan Hoyle's latest one-man play Tings Dey Happen got extended in Manhattan and a nice review in the NYTimes. Check it out. I think his dad might be acting in a circus in SF too.

Northwestern Univ. grad Jeffrey Newburg was on TV the other night, playing a lower-class lover scorned by the woman he loved in a Cold Case episode. She went for the rich guy who bought her loads of flowers. Newburg looks skinnier, and with more hair than the time he shaved every little hair off his body, but less than I remember him having. And I thought TV added 10 pounds.

In tonight's news, I went to the SF symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas. He's an alright narrator, he spent minutes telling the crowd about the various pieces. It was the yearly "all concert," a $10 affair for the non-traditional symphony-going crowd, which chimed in throughout the performance with cell phone ringtones, snoring, crinkly candy wrappers, offensive smells and various other entertainment. The program (below) was a bit too "gorgeous," as MTT put it. Something to drown out the random noise might be more appropriate, or they could hand out noisemakers to the crowd to employ at certain points. Like whoopee cushions.

(the links below do not work, sorry)
PROGRAM
Copland Fanfare for the Common Man
Crawford Seeger Andante for Strings
John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Ravel Shéhérazade
Giacomo Puccini “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca
Giacomo Puccini “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi
Prokofiev Scenes from Romeo and Juliet

Weekend Update: Search for the Bomb

My great aunt and I searched her house high and low for the bomb. Her brother mentioned it the other day, saying he hid the incendiary device in the house after returning from military duty as a young man.

She did not even know where to look, first telling me one spot, then retracting her demand. "It's not there, I've cleaned up there."

Up the step ladder, I point the flashlight behind an ancient bookcase, and see the base of a once-golden lamp. The rest of the torch-like lamp lies above everything, laid across the beams spanning the ceiling of the garage. That's a great lamp, Dort tells me.

Next we check behind the cabinets across the way. Nothing. Then the box of fishing weights. There were many different sizes, from a few ounces of weights strung together to one crusty ball weighing at least five pounds, but no bombs.

Back across the garage, behind the furnace we check the crawlspace above the tunnel. The tunnel leads from the front gate, under the kitchen, to the stairs leading to the front door. I did not see anything, until, in the very corner, a cylinder, made of black metal. I angled myself upward, my head tilted to avoid the water pipe, and snagged it with one hand. It was skinny and hollow, with two-inch strips scored out of one end. They were flanged upward, like a bomb blast blew it open.

"I wonder what that is," Dort says. We didn't know and put it down, continuing our search.

We made our way back to the rear of the basement, near our starting point. As Dort rummaged some more, I looked around, picking up a large leather holster that belonged to Dort's dad.

She would tell her brother we searched hard but found no bomb, Dort said.

This whole episode reminded her of when her brother asked her for his ammunition. She had given it to the police, but did not have the heart to tell him it was gone.

youtube, but you don't move

i've seen a couple of these singer-songwriter YouTube videos. the music's great, but the videos leave something to be desired. at least jon greets the viewer with a few words, but why bathe yourself in red light? Film school 101 -- don't throw a glare in the background. This guy sits there, wearing a baseball cap, looking like he's reading the words off the screen. it's like, why not just post an mp3, if your music's that great? course I'm one to talk...this should really be a video response, right?

license to park illegally

i saw Robin Williams this weekend shopping in the Richmond. He parked illegally and smiled at me as he got out of his shiny black car. nice guy. then some other people recognized him and he waved at all of us as he walked down the street. he definitely enjoys being famous. maybe that's why he takes all these terrible movie roles, or roles in terrible movies. i can't blame him, it puts gas in his SUV.

test

best price Life Digest

i got an apartment and a mackbookpro. i made a new song called Dopr D and posted it on Ultra Digest. my life got flip turned upside down and i'd like to take a minute just stop right there, i'll tell you how i became the prince of a city that's right here

my bro moved in to his fiance's
and i was still livin' wit' my aunty
my bro and his woman like drinking wine
chardonnay cab sav and chianti

their place was stuffed from wall to wall
so they moved out and bought a house
i moved in to the apartment
furnished clean and without a mouse

soon music was bumpin' and pasta cooked
my friends came over and saw my place
they could not help themselves but said
Pete my brother that's one fine space

i come and i go but i mostly don't
stay here at all and it's making me broke
i pay so much it's like i died and went
on to heaven with the rich folk

i shant be here quite so long
it's running my bank account to the ground
i'll find me a place with a lower price
and then they'll say, bro you're found.