The 1in5

Thoughts on Indianapolis MotoGP

2008-09-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Holy smokes. Racing in a violent thunderstorm. Water pooling on the track. Beer cans flying around. A red flag, and the 250s canceled. Rossi totally blowing off NBC's pimply faced pit lane reporter. (I'm downloading the BBC coverage) And, tragically for some, Rossi didn't make good on his promise to run naked down the front straight if he won.

Local boy (well, Spring, Texas) Ben Spies qualifies 5th in the dry, and finishes 6th in the wet, and is the fastest Suzuki by far, about 10 seconds ahead of the other boys in Rizla blue (one a wet weather specialist). But they have contracts and Ben doesn't, mostly because Ben wants too much money, and no-one want to put up with his pit-mommy. And there are no USA sponsors. And now that US roadracing has pulled a CART/IRL (you can tell because both sides deny that it is ANYTHING like the CART/IRL fiasco), what's a highly leveraged Texas boy to do?

But Nicky is the hero. Driving up from the OWB, to face his obligations with his long time employer after he gave his two-weeks notice. Just hoping they remember to unlock the garage. But Nicky knows the best revenge is putting the bike on the box in front of his hometown crowd, even if it means riding headfirst into a hurricane.

Bouncing Baby Boy

2008-07-29T22:22:00.001-07:00

bouncing will and waving will
Originally uploaded by will.cyclone.stiles

Better boy to bounce than the bouncing baby? I think not.

WSBK Qatar - It Makes You Grow

2008-02-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

A few comments on the WSBK races over the weekend. It was in Qatar. It was windy.

Were the Ducks sandbagging it? It was gentle sporting dominance, as they did let the Yamahas and one Suzuki at a time, play along.

I am really looking forward to the SuperSport race, whenever Speed decides to show it. Garry McCoy + Triumph = ...well, I don't know what, probably something with great promise that doesn't quite meet expectations. Wait..that's not it. =Excitement!!!! That's right! Go big, Garry!

Where was my favorite Turkish sporting hero? And why didn't I know that he had a funny mark on the "G" in his last name? I barely saw him. I mean, Ant West went from a couple races in SuperSport (where he thrashed our favorite Turk quite handily as I recall) to supreme glory in MotoGP, setting records for false starts and rain dances. So I expected Kenan to be dicing it up with the grown-ups. I'm sure he ran a very nice race, and if the leaders hadn't been so brilliant, I may have seen some of it. Helas.

Speaking of curds, a brief note for the commentary booth. When you have two racers, one a Roman and one a 6' Spaniard, duking it out mano a mano, and both are on bikes sponsored by Sterilgarda, a leading Italian milk concern, you've really got to come up with something better than "of the milk that would be spilled, one of these riders could cry...if it was sour." Next race try the following:
"Max is hard on the brakes, and takes the lead from Xaus, like Romulus grabbing the she-wolf teat from Remus and hosing him down with it."

Max & Ruben negotiate with their sponsor. The role of
the Flammini brothers represented by a woodpecker.

Or try this for inspiration.

It makes you grow.

Me and My Boy

2007-12-19T21:26:00.001-08:00

sharing a laugh
Originally uploaded by will.cyclone.stiles

The little dude uses his dry, wodehousian wit, and I make funny faces.

Young William, 6 pounds 7.9 oz

2007-11-08T18:23:00.001-08:00

Young William, 6 pounds 7.9 oz
Originally uploaded by dutcherstiles

One week ago, this little critter came into the world. He may be small, but he plays big. And, of course, he's the best baby in the world.

Valentino Rossi, Luciano Pavarotti

2007-09-07T16:52:00.001-07:00

Valentino Rossi, Luciano Pavarotti
Originally uploaded by Max&Douglas

In memoriam for LP.

(And probably in memoriam of Vale's MotoGP championship chances.)

Il Ritorno!

2007-08-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

According to the Autoblog, a US legal Alfa Romeo is in the USA. Detroit, no less.

And they said it would never happen.

Though the 8C is way out of my league, the Brera might do, with an Alfa V6.

In the meantime, back to sniffing Liquid Wrench fumes in the garage, while trying to pull my old head.

My Life On The Rock and Roll Stage

2007-06-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

In clip below, I am tentacles 1 & 2 (Middle C & B). I must say, my performance was awsome! The Casting Couch provided admirable support to my tentacality. It doesn't hurt that I'm sleeping with the adorable and gravid bass player.

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Vacation: Milwaukee, Elkhart Lake, Chicago

2007-06-11T18:18:00.000-07:00

Julie and I, after two years of marriage, decided that we would take our honeymoon. We were motivated in part by the fact that after October, when the youngster arrives, our travel options may be limited for a while.

Highlights of our trip:

Purchasing a kringle in Sturtivant.
The lobby of the Pfister in Milwaukee, strewn with the original proprietor's art collection under a fantastic ceiling mural.

The Milwaukee Art Museum - Beautiful structure, especially stunning as we saw it emerge from the fog in the morning. We only visited the 20th Century rooms, which held a solid collection well displayed.

Soup's On on the river in Milwaukee - Terrific, creative soups in a friendly, comfortable atmosphere, with a great view of the river. I tried the chili, and it made this Texan happy.

The lakeside beach chairs at the Osthoff.

Spotting a Moto Morini in the rain at Elkhart Lake on the way to dinner.

Having dinner a table away from Jake Zemke and family.

The Hyde Park Chicago experience: The university, the endless knowledge for sale at the Seminary Co-Op, the beer and conversation at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap and food at the Medici (which wigged me out - it looked about the same inside, but was up and across the street from where I remembered it 25 years or so ago).

And the race - which I'll post about separately.

Books and Books

2007-06-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

Recently shelved:
N. N. Taleb's Fooled by Randomness & The Black Swan

Finishing up:
Nick Tosches' The King of the Jews

In the backpack:
G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy
Robert Kaplan's Imperial Grunts

Just in the mail from Amazon:
John Robb's Brave New War
Robert Fulton's One Man Caravan

Finished a while ago, but just now mentioning it:
Michael Oren's Power, Faith and Fantasy

Flaming Lips Hoot Nite at the Triple Crown - April 14, 2007

2007-04-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

I made a trip south to see the Casting Couch play a set of Flaming Lips songs for an appreciate crowd of San Marcusians at the Triple Crown. The Couch was part of a long parade of bands. No doubt it was the loudest Casting Couch gig I've heard, which overpowered my Zoom H4 at times. Julie's bass amp was bigger than she was.
Here are some samples of their set:

Abandoned Hospital Ship
When Yer Twenty-Two

Pic by Julie of Derek's band from my flickr page.

Practicing the Wave for the Victory Lap

2007-04-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

I see a bright future for this last minute entrant to the human race.

(Photo by the sonogram tech, but posted by wife & mother to be & greatest woman on earth Julie Beth. )

Moto Racing Rundown

2007-04-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

MotoGP racing has had all the excitement of F1 the first couple of races. It seems that Dorna has figured that to be a real premier class, it must ban passing. This message hasn't sunk down to the 250 class, that had more excitement in three laps in Spain than MotoGP had in in all of Qatar. The Duck has the horses, and that'll work in Qatar and maybe in Shanghai. It was sad to see Ilmor give up, and KR racing almost have to give up due to sponsorship. I'm glad KR at least got a cool skull and crossbones to put on their bike, but heck, if Rizla can sponsor a team, it's time for Zig Zag to step up - cause, y'know, motorbikes zig and zag and what not. My man Colin has got a podium, and I think wild man from Cali will get his soon. I'll put money on a 2.5 Americans on the podium at Laguna, depending on whether the rumors about red-headed nature of Honda's stepchild Hayden are true.

(Not to be so harsh on F1. I actually watched some of the moto-pantomime in Malaysia, and it came close to being more exciting than Seniors golf. I'm thinking that Lewis Hamilton may entice my F1 apostate friend back from her prolonged boycott. But he's driving a Mclaren, and is from Woking, which could work for or against him.)

The real drama has been in WSBK, though. The return of the new, improved and maybe less pugilistic Biaggi alone has made for exciting racing. The pinky-amputating, nut-crunching, crash of Troy Bayliss followed by recovery in Monte Carlo and a pole for this weekend has been inspirational, though I don't know if I should consider the picture on the front page of his web site ironic or out of date. Ducati will have a hard time making the WSBK folks change their minds on twin displacement so long as they have a racer like Bayliss on the team.

AMA? Daytona provided some laughs in Formula EXXXXTREEEEMEEE. The Honda CBR600RR Daytona 200 Race Brought to You By Honda and The New Honda CBR600RR provided a season's worth of hubris when the Brand New Honda CBR600RRs putter to the gravel traps after a few laps. AMA Superbike looks like Hot Yosh on Yosh Action: Volume II, only not as hot this time around. They should turn loose a couple Ducati 1098s mid-season just to make it interesting.

Oh, there's a Turk whipping up on World Supersports. Which is cool. And Locatelli is recovering, which is also a good thing.

New Recordings

2007-03-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

This SXSW was pretty truncated, as I attempted to nurse myself back from a mild touch of pandemic with Irish whiskey (Michael Collins Single Malt, four stars I say!) and Nyquil.

I did get the opportunity to try out my new toy - the Zoom H4 Handy Recorder. Here are a couple recordings I made with it:

Bryan Crowell - Unknown Song - Some Place Off Airport
I balanced the H4 on my lap and used the medium recording level. I had never been to this venue before - some sort of comedy club/playhouse behind the I Heart Video on Airport. Julie and I came for the music, but stayed for the tubesocks. Only about 50 people in the room, and they were pretty quiet except for when they were talking to Bryan. I used the default mics on the Zoom, and pretty much just encoded the track to MP3 using Audacity. It is nice to be able to drag and drop .wav files from the Zoom to my computer.

Oliver - The Casting Couch - Woody's South
This was a little different. Woddy's is a restaurant, with tables and chairs and what not. And the Casting Couch had a new drummer, and no guitarist (for the most part). I grabbed a seat at the table closest to the stage, but it was still about 30 feet away. I put the H4 on the table, set the recording level at "Low," pointed it at the band and let it record. When they were done, I pushed stop. Despite my worries, the recorder didn't pick up the vibration of everytime I picked up and put down my pint of Fireman's 4.

Impressions:
I like the default mics, but neither of these recording scearios were what would qualify as a truly "rough service" concert gig.
Dragging .wav files across from the device is cool.
The H4 is too big to fit in a pocket.
I still haven't found a way mark or divide the files on the fly without pausing the recording and restarting.

So the jury is still out. Since I can't plug my binaural microphones into it, I'll have to see what would work in a more dynamic setting. I'm also looking forward to messing around with the four track.

Top Old School DY2006: Paul Robeson

2007-03-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

I bought Paul Robeson's recording Songs of Free Men last year, and every time a cut from it shows up on shuffle, I end up listening going back and listening to more. Robeson's deep, resonant voice can illuminate a dozen shade of sorrow and comfort in his selection of show tunes, union ballads and folk tunes.

So, number 13 on my last.fm list is the top Old School Artist of DY 2006.

Top Ten for DY2007 - Intro

2007-02-25T07:07:00.000-08:00

A year ago this week, I subscribed to Last.fm. I have found it to be a bit useful in finding new music to listen, but it also serves as a record my listening habits. So this week I will mark my top five or ten or howevermany Albums/Artists/Songs for Dutcher Year 2007 (out of 6000 tracks recorded).

A few notes on the data:
1. The music on my charts is only music I have listened to on my iPod or on my computer. When I rip a CD to iTunes, I usually let it play, and then listen to it again within a day or so at work, so it shows up at least twice in a week.
2. The CDDB / Gracenote database is woefully inconsistent. For example, I have tracks by The Mekons that are labeled as Mekon, Mekons and The Mekons. I believe Last.fm has changed some of their code recently to correct these errors.
3. ID3 tag limitations - If a track cannot be readily identified by Title / Artist / Album (which is usually adequate for your pop and rock 'n roll), you are at the mercy of the ID3 tags and caprice of the Gracenote submitter. Therefore, there is no way of telling how much I really listened to Liszt, Schumann or Chopin when they are all played by Helene Grimaud on the same CD.
4. The Last.fm data doesn't include my drivetime music (mostly Bikini Red by The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Tribal Thunder by Dick Dale or Vision Thing by Sisters of Mercy - all recommended for rush hour traffic) or music played on the Big Stereo in the Living Room.
5. Artists with many short tracks are disproportionately represented.

So, with that caveat, here's the chart, with individual posts on the bests of to follow:

Kirk Rudstrom RIP

2007-02-25T06:52:00.000-08:00

Kirk Rundstrom died at age 38 last Thursday. Kirk was a member of Split Lip Rayfield, a Bloodshot band, who saw his cancer diagnosis as a race to perform and record as much as possible in his time remaining on the planet.

My memories of SLR are in the Yard Dog's back yard on March afternoons, wailing away in hillbilly frenzy to a crowd drunk on free beer.

Photos of their last show in Austin from La Suprema.

Book: Right as Rain by George Pelecanos

2007-02-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Wrapped up Pelecanos' Strange/Quinn story "Right as Rain" the other night. Nicely written, tightly plotted and reasonably gripping. And, not unlike myself, he digs music and is a gearhead. But it think that sometimes the music references seem more to be what should be playing as a soundtrack to the novel than a reflection of the characters taste. Everyone in the book has a musical taste (down to the old hillbilly who can't stand Allan Jackson), unlike in real life.

Worth reading, and I'll likely pick up another Pelecanos before too long.

Why I Am A Colin Edwards Fan Now

2007-02-13T16:05:00.000-08:00

1. He's fast on the 800. Wicked fast on two continents.
2. The carbon black and red Yamaha with the black and red leathers looks bad ass.
3. He's a Texan.
4. After watching The Doctor, The Tornado and the Kentucky Kid, and listening to some interviews with him, he seems like he has his head screwed on right.
5. He sounds uncannily like an accordion player I know. The accordion player is an alright guy too.
6. Nicky is a bit too Hollywood.

Now, who to root for in WSBK? Because Biaggi makes such a good villian.

Terrifying

2007-02-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I was wigged out whilst watching the dog show. The winner was a Dandie Dimont terrier, and I freaked, imagining it singing showtunes at me. Singing them VERY POORLY.

"JUNE IS BUSTING OUT ALL OVER!"

Just thought I'd let you know.
It's o.k. to freak out.

Nina Simone

2007-02-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

From the O'Reilly Radar
Nina Simone vs. Aardman.
Only a little creepy in parts, but mostly charming.

This Week's Top Music Listening Objects

2007-02-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Number One, with 21 listens - Grand Ol Opry. From a couple of recordings downloaded from the Dime. Transcriptions originally made for Armed Forces radio, likely in the late sixties/early seventies. Oddly, though, it was ID3 tagged with Grand Ol Opry as the artist, and the artist and song name in the artist tag. So go figure. Soon, taxonomy will be taught in the elementary schools in a way that most pleases me!

#2 - The first of two entries composed of non-latin characters/symbol/ideograms. Дмитрий Дмитриевич Шостакович, or Dmitri Shostakovich from the CD New Babylon Film Music & Song Cycle from Jewish Poetry. The song cycle is top notch, with "The thoughtful mother and child." I recall hearing this in a recital several years ago at The Off Center.

#3 Paul Bowles - Virgil Thompson once wrote that Mr. Bowles slept through harmony class.

#4 坂本龍一 (or Ryuichi Sakamoto) Mostly from BTTB, because this was a difficult week at work. (tied with Mekons)

#5 Delta 5 - Why? MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! And who makes homebrew with lots of sediment? YOU YOU YOU YOU.

Protest

2007-02-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

Some snapshots from the anti-Wal-Mart protest at Northcross Mall are available at Julie's flickr.
Some observations:
The organizers asked everyone to wear red. Enough people did that it gave a feeling of an organized effort rather than a random bunch of loiterers who got lost on their way to Denny's.

No singing or chanting where I was. Protest singing and chanting should be reserved for events higher up on the protest scale (civil rights, death penalty, peace). Wal-Mart taking over a mall doesn't (and shouldn't) drive that level of emotion. And besides, what are you going to say?
"What do you want?"
"Mixed used area with green space, a grocery store that's better than the HEB down at Northland and Burnet, and maybe a cool record store!"
"When do you want it?"
"Sometime in the next six to eighteen months!"

The event was scheduled for ten minutes. A big steam whistle or something would have been helpful in indentifying the commencement and cessation of protesting activities. When I first heard about this protest I figured the red clad folks would be trying to levitate the Mall, Pentagon style. But no. Probably didn't get past the RG4N lawyers, no doubt due to the skating rink risk.

We had delightful kolaches afterwards, provided by LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED KOLACHE DEALERSHIP! FIGHT THE POWER OF CORPORATE KOLACHE!

The Weekly List

2007-02-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

My weekly top artists according to Last.Fm.

Some notes on the entries for last week:
1. Flaming Lips (17) Not much of a Flaming lips fan, but these tunes were downloaded off the iTunes store via a gift card as a courtesy to The Casting Couch who will be participating in a Flaming Lips hoot nite in a couple of weeks. TCC may come out of hibernation soon.

2. The Good, The Bad and the Queen (12) I've actually listened to it two other times. Maybe one more listen. I really dig Albarn, but there is a missing component of drive and rockitude. I'll give it another listen or so, maybe something will pop.

3. The Sadies (10) Great stuff, mostly from their live album that was released last year. I prefer the version of Neko's "Hold On, Hold On" because it sounds a little more ragged and the guitars a little more desperate.

4. The Mekons (6) Because a day without the Mekons is like night.

5. London Symphony Orchestra (5) Mahler's Second Symphony. This recording is maddening in its format. Two CDs, one of the symphony, the other of "alternate takes" and "deleted chords." Each has the artist listed differently (LSO on one, Gilbert Kaplan on the other). And the tracks are divided into submovement portions. So if you want to hear "Urlicht" it takes some digging through tracks named "Three bars before Trombones" or "Flutes, then molto assai." Urgh. But performance is top notch, otherwise it wouldn't show up.

We feel fine.

2007-01-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

From the O'Reilly Radar, the very data visualization stylings of We Feel Fine.

Me? I feel pretty lucky.