Something's Fishy in La Rochelle

Wonk, wonk. Cause look at them sea critters I done ate! More on that later, but first, greetings from La Rochelle on France's west coast where I'm enjoying Bastille Day amongst the throngs of French tourists and attendees at the Festival Francofolies, a French music-focused festival where I played, somewhat inexplicably, last night. I was recommended to the festival by Parisian DJ Zebra who has helped create a real interest in mashup/remix culture in France and at this festival specifically, so they booked me, but at first I didn't really understand how French-centric it is: it turns out I'm either the first or second American to play the festival, ever, in its like 17-year history. So I was a little nervous about my gig at the smallish "Club Cosy" and created 6 or 7 new mashups and mixes using French music, and had a whole set planned using other local heroes like your Daft Punk etc. The other DJs playing with me got in touch and asked whether I wanted 12:30am-2:30am or 2:30am-4:30am, and I took the early set, thinking my somewhat mainstream tunes might be better to open the night with. Unfortunately another thing I didn't understand was that they were closing the venue after the 10:30 band, emptying it out, and then re-opening, right at 12:30, so even best case scenario my first, like, 4 or 5 songs would kind of be throwaways, to an empty room. That was about right, and I had a frustrating 30 minutes of trying to please the people walking in the door but not play any of my hits or new creations. Thankfully it was pretty packed at about 1:00 or 1:15 and I got to do a compressed version of the set I'd planned, at least.

Those mashups, by the way, along with most or maybe all of the other items I've made on this tour, I'll be posting to my website as a package-album-deal sort of thing, when I get back – a lot of it will be pretty silly stuff but a couple things turned out pretty good, I thought, like a new track matching Frenchman Katerine with Darude that made people go nuts last night. I forgot to take pictures but there were a bunch of cameras (and a TV camera taking footage for the festival to show on the big screen at the main stage tonight) so hopefully we can track those down.

Probably the most awesome thing that happened last night was that after my set, one of the festival coordinators brought me a form and asked me to fill it out. My French is very rough, but a lot of the festival employees' English was worse, so when I didn't understand the form it took a while to figure out what it was: it was a music-rights form on which I was supposed to list every song I played. Darrrrr? Can you say "c'est impossible"? "Uh, I played 10 seconds of the guitar from that song, but backwards, and 3 words from the acapella of 'Pump Up the Jam,' looped for 25 seconds…" I balked at that but they seemed to forgive me, or at least give up on trying to explain to the bumbling American what needed to be done.

Actually the most awesome part of last night was the meal I had "backstage," actually on the deck of the building where the event was taking place, a few hours before the gig around soundcheck time. Check it out to the right. On my rider from now on: a good Bordeaux and a view of the Atlantic.

Today is of course Bastille Day, and I got to enjoy a little French touristy fun times around town with the aforementioned DJ Zebra and his wife Alexandre, and as you can see above, the local specialty is seafood. Let's take a closer look at "La Plate du Capitaine" or whatever it was called:



Let's see. Clockwise, we can find mussels, some sort of chewy clam item, giganto prawns, normal sized shrimp, and the prawns are kind of balanced over a mega-huge crab claw that practically exploded when I cracked it open. Then we've got mini-mussels of some sort, the ubiquitous snails, and then teeny tiny little brown mini-shrimp that were impossible to peel so I just started popping them in my mouth like salty little sea insects that they basically are. All this, fresh from the sea, for only 26EUR (about $36). Anybody remember that Simpsons episode where Homer wants to start a new life "under the sea," and they cut to him swimming about in a Little Mermaid takeoff, gleefully ingesting all the dancing fishes? It was kind of like that.

The music festival continues today with one of my favorites, Birdy Nam Nam, a French group whose charming first album focused on wobbly sounds executed mostly on turntables, and which I used extensively in imaging production for LIVE 105. However, their new direction aims more for the arena-techno of Justice, for better or for worse, but they do have a rep for a great live "show" complete with expensive video and light show a la Daft Punk. The festival graciously gave me an artist pass for today as well so I get to chill in the VIP when they go on later tonight. Since the main stage is right in the center of the city, we went over for a few minutes early this evening where I checked out Sefyu, an up-and-coming French rapper whose aggressive style and glacial rhythms could probably be classified as "gangsta," but his live show was surprisingly sprightly, with two backup guys chasing Sefyu around the stage in and executing cheeky, carefully choreographed tandem dance moves.

The biggest break of my Euro Stim Tour starts for me now, with no gigs til (dun dun, dun dunnn) Portugal! Which will be next week. So for now, a bit of R&R here in France, a quick trip back to Germany, and a brief foray to an undisclosed location…

Budapest Photo Highlights

Courtyard of apartment building where I stayed


Not an eagle, but a mythical turul, the bird that apparently, according to Wikitravel, appeared in a dream to the wife of the Magyar leader Ügyek and told her that she would be the founding mother of a new nation.


Budapest - City from top of Castle Hill Funicular


Budapest - Keleti Train Station, 6:30am

Hungary Wrap-Up / Munich Fun Times

Okay, where do we start. Apologies to the 3 or 4 people checking up on me here (in addition to my random updates on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook) but my lack of internet service at the apartment I was staying at in Budapest, and the more pressing need to try and track down a new laptop battery (darrr!) meant I just didn't get around to blogging the few times I stumbled into an internet cafe. But here I am safely ensconced at the WiFi-laden household of Frank and Alex in Munich, and look at me go.

First up, mega-props to Pozsi, the DJ who spun with me at the VOLT festival and who has been a longtime resident at Zold Pardon, the big outdoor club/live venue on the Buda side of the Danube in Budapest, and who helped arrange that gig. In addition to being a DJ, he's also a partner in a budding vacation-apartment-rental business, and has been renovating these four little apartments in an amazing building in a great spot in Budapest, and generously allowed me to stay in one of the almost-finished ones, although the TV, internet and hot water hadn't yet been hooked up/turned on, so I did go a little stir crazy the few times I was actually just chilling in the pad. But once the things are done they'll be super fantastic so I have to give linky props:

Design-Apartment - Super Awesome Rentals in Budapest

Anyway, big thanks to Pozsi for that; and also to Simon Iddol of course who helped set up the gigs and pimped me out via his web site, AudioPorn Central. Actually that was one source of a bit of amusing drama -- I had made two mashups specific for Hungary, one using the classic Omega power ballad "Girl with the Pearl's Hair" and one using a filthy reggae-rap by the Budapestian Beastie Boys, Belga, called "Egy Ket Ha." The latter was a friendlier, sprightly drum-n-bassy number, but because of the dirty lyrics, we had to use the Omega mix for an "exclusive" track on his blog, despite my doubts about its appeal to the mainstream audience who would come there (due to a big link on index.hu, a major Hungarian internet destination, apparently). My suspicions turned out to be right, since apparently commenters on the post were universally negative, allowing me the pleasure of learning the Hungarian word for "shit" ("szar"). I did feel a little bad but we all know how internet commenters can be.

While Budapest had been swelteringly hot Monday and Tuesday, it cooled significantly on Wednesday when my "headline" gig was scheduled at Zold, making it a bit less attractive for kids to come out, but a good crowd did anyway, not gigantic but enthusiastic, and despite the presence of that one drunk guy screaming at me to play Michael Jackson (which, drunk or sober, has happened at every gig I've played since that dude kicked the bucket -- what the hell, people, is it more fun to listen to his music now that he's dead, or what?), he was outnumbered by the groups of actual live Party Ben fans, who told me they had "all the Sixx Mixxes" and took pictures with me and asked for my autograph and all that crazy junk. One marvels at the power of the internet, and also one is thankful for nice people, who totally made my night.

Budapest itself continued to both frustrate and amaze me -- the city is crazy beautiful, but the language is just crazy-making, especially for someone like myself who knows a couple languages and usually likes to pick up a few words and stuff before traveling somewhere. Hungarian was impenetrable to me, and some people were kind of unfriendly to the bumbling foreigner, especially, say, the woman who came out and yelled at me when I was just trying to read the signs and figure out why the Kiraly Baths, lauded as a stunning old piece of Turkish architecture built to house a bunch of hot spring pools, was inexplicably closed, on a day the guide magazine said they were open. This happened at another baths too, minus the yelling, but I finally made it to the Szescheni baths and pools, which were pretty amazing but not super hot, as far as water temperature goes, and super touristy, possibly due to the New York Times giving it a shout out.

But I was not going to miss the funicular!



In addition to my general love and fascination with all public transit, I have a special place in my heart for funiculars, inclined trains whose quirky custom-made specificity charms my socks off every time. Watch Budapest's above.

Also, I spent a drunken night out with Pozsi showing me all the cool nightspots, and man does Budapest have some amazing venues -- for instance, Holdudvar, a huge, sprawling open air patio on an island in the Danube, under huge modernist tents and glowing red lights, or Cha Cha Cha, also on the island, where I met a dude from Chicago who professed his love for J Dilla without me even prompting him. Also, there was some club whose name I can't remember but was accessed by a tiny elevator, whose hipster attendant had a cooler with mini bottles of Jaeger and a "palinka," (pronounced PAL-inka, not pa-LINK-a, like the Russian speaker in me wanted to), a local specialty that just refers basically to a fruit-based liquor, and can be any flavor. This crazy skinny bottle with a gothic type-face was cherry flavor, and of course I had to buy one for about 500 forints (around $2.50). Once the elevator arrived on the appropriate (3rd? 4th) floor, it opened to reveal a Mad Max-y scene of red-lit corrodores filled with hipsters and junky chairs, eventually leading to a steamy room blasting dancehall rhythms complete with dreadlocked MC. Up a clanky metal staircase to the gargantuan roof and views of the city. Then there was Szimpla, again, another place I would never have noticed from the street, just an entrance into a non-descript looking old building, which suddenly opens up to a huge, tree-filled courtyard, strung with lights, surrounded by two or three stories of glowing bars, and complete with a disembowled Trabant in the middle. Insane.

Anyhoo, finally I had to say goodbye to the beautiful, disconnected apartment, and grab the new RailJet train to Munich via Vienna. The train is billed kind of as a "bullet" although it only reaches its top speed of 200kph (about 125mph) once it gets into Austria. First class ticket for the nearly 7-hour ride was 59 euros, though, so you can't go wrong.

In Munich it was right to the club for Bootie Munich last night, where I did my video set via laptop to another enthusiastic crowd, complete with some former San Franciscans, one of whom confessed to hating mashups at first but eventually coming around to being a fan. Sound issues at the venue meant I wasn't totally happy with the set, but the video worked fine, so hopefully people enjoyed themselves.


Crap picture of the crowd at Bootie Munich

One of the venue guys had arranged to get me a guest slot at one of the many open-air music stages at Munich "Christopher Street Day," their big gay pride celebration set for Saturday (er, today), and I wasn't sure what to expect -- SF's gay pride has a bunch of different stages, some of which are just a few kids in a tent, and others are massive dance arenas. This turned out to be the latter, a huge plaza with a raised DJ platform, so I jumped up and did a goofy set veering between 80s-y themes remixes and mashups, some of my more electro-y new items, that Laidback Luke mix of Daft Punk's "One More Time," Cut Copy's "Hearts on Fire," stuff like that. Tons of fun although as I said on Facebook, I was pushing it a bit far with the MIA remix -- the stage had been playing genero-gay-house, like that "You're Free To Do what You Want to Do" song that just makes my brain ache with its self-helpy, saccharine emptiness. But that's what the gays like. I did play that new David Guetta thing to make up for my edgier stuff. Here's me:



The club promoter who had helped organize the stage was pleased enough to ask me to come by and "maybe spin" tonight at one of their big after parties, but after a few beers and snacks around town, I decided his vague proposition to "just come to the club and come find him and then they'll figure it out" seemed like it might turn out to be a total mess, especially since I would have been by myself and my German is quite bare-bones at this point. Not-on-list, can't-find-dude, no-open-slots, other-DJ-mad, yada yada, and me not able to understand any of that, with 30 million drunk Germans all pushing and shoving... sorry Sugar, I just wasn't up for it. But danke!

And of course danke to Alex and Frank, Bootie Munich promoters, and their housemate Julia, who were generous enough to allow me to take over their living room for a couple days.

Monday: France and Francofolies! Will I successfully pass myself off as a local at the French-centric festival? Stay tuned...

Budapest: Dumbfoundingly Beautiful and Kind of Creepy

It couldn't have been a more perfect drive into Budapest on Sunday evening with the always-friendly DJ Pozsi -- the sunny skies gave way to rain clouds, and as we approached the outskirts of Budapest, a rainbow appeared in the distance in the direction of the city. Entering from the southwest on the main highway, you come upon the city suddenly, with the suburban malls and car dealers giving way suddenly to old buildings, and then you're crossing the Danube. The view to the north from the bridge was just stupefying, unlike anything I've ever seen -- the small rainstorm had just passed and the sun was shining orange-gray from under dark clouds, backlighting the hills of Buda, the castle and crazy statue on top of this almost-mountain right next to the river. The bright, angular light threw the city itself into a weird darkness, and add the gothic architecture and suddenly you have something from a vampire movie.

Pozsi is putting me up at his just-finished vacation rental apartment, and we walk into the building, and my jaw drops even further -- the building is out of The Hunger, with huge archways surrounding a tall central courtyard and an old iron cage style elevator. The apartment itself is done up ultra-modern style, and couldn't be more awesome except it's not quite finished and so doesn't have internet, TV, radio, or hot water. :)

I walked up to the chain bridge after the sun se, and still just can't even believe this city. It's stunningly beautiful, and not in that tourist-postcard way Paris can be sometimes: gritty and sometimes dirty, with abandoned buildings and stuff, so "beautiful" really isn't even the word. Like something out of a movie, and the weirdly creepy gothic factor totally works in its favor. Amazing.

Now unfortunately instead of sightseeing or getting relief from the sweltering heat at one of the many public baths, I have to go try and buy a new laptop battery since mine took this opportunity to up and die for good, which makes sense because I'm in fucking Hungary so of course this isn't going to be difficult at all, I'm fluent in the language and know where all the technology stores are. DARRRRRRR

Hungary Stays Up All Night (Update: Now with Photos!)

Well, at least the 20 (?) thousand or so people who attended the VOLT festival here in Sopron. I guess I should have expected the late late nights, but it's understandable that I would be lulled into an old-dude-friendly "lights out at midnight" festival schedule by Coachella, which famously must pay a $1,000 fine, I think, for every minute they create retiree-disturbing sound after the clock strikes twelve. VOLT, being kind of out at a campground at the edge of this small city, is I guess more like Bonnaroo, which a) features mostly on-site camping and b) goes til the wee hours. Last night, Saturday, the final night of the festival, was no exception, and fittingly capped off a progressively-more-bonkers week with a couple super crazy sets. First off, back in our T-Mobile branded terrace room thing, I'm to get things going at midnight, but unfortunately the 10-12 guy is possibly the most aggressively listener-unfriendly DJ on the planet; not bad, necessarily, if you like shuddering, shrieking techno in impossible-to-follow time signatures or put-the-drill-in-drill-'n'-bass played at absolutely ear-splitting volumes. By the end of his set there were a few scattered casualties lying on couches at the edges of the terrace and one blissed-out girl still grooving away, so I had a bit of a challenge building a dancefloor. Now, I don't mean to big myself up, especially considering I had the bonus of Saturday's headliner Marilyn Manson finishing his set right at 12:30 (and the crowds dispersing to our still-bouncing side stages), but even by then I had managed to get a pretty packed floor going, something I think I should really get a fucking award for, although granted I was playin' the hits.



Amusingly, another group of DJs had (apparently, from what I understood, "inspired" by our mashup-themed room) created a "Bootleg Bar" just around the corner from our zone, and while they seemed to mostly play breaks remixes of familiar tunes, I have to admit I was pretty jealous of their setup which had a much better lighting rig (although our sound system showed theirs up by the time it got retuned on Thursday). It was also more open to the nearby path and just generally had a more solid crowd. (Especially when our room was playing Aphex Twin b-sides). And just like that, Saturday night I find out that the guys over there are big fans of my work and want me to do a guest set. I get Simon Idoll sorted out in the terrace after a few false starts and skedaddle over to their stage where I proceed to do a Party Ben power jams set, which goes well but not just ridiculously well, I mean I kind of lost the hands-in-the-air energy during a few of my own admittedly self-indulgent little electro forays. But first of all, I felt a little like acknowledging my homeland, since it was July 4th, so I opened with a short edit of Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner from Woodstock. I don't think anyone got it. But my two new Hungarian mixes went down a storm: first up, I've done a kind of electro mix of Hungarian metal combo Omega's '80s euro-smash, "Girl With the Pearl's Hair," a power ballad whose la-la-la-la chorus even a few Americans might recognize. My mix just basically plays the chorus and then loops the final note for a big buildup into a stomping techno beat lifted from Jean Elan's "Killer," which is just massive on a big soundsystem like that. Second, perhaps using my DJ ESP to anticipate the utter dominance of breaks and drum 'n' bass at the festival, I did a jungly mix of Belga's "Egy Het Ka." The band are kind of the Hungarian Beastie Boys-slash-Bloodhound Gang, and the track I picked has a loping reggae beat that fit perfectly over the good old Urban Takeover jump-up mix of Fatboy Slim's "Rockafella Skank." What I didn't realize is that its lyrics are also, apparently, utterly filthy, with a chorus that refers repeatedly to fellatio (my fellow DJ informed me). But, you know, bonus! So wrapping up my set around 3am with that little number (photo at like 3:10am above) turned out very well.

At this point as well I'm kind of drunk, partially because I figured out these weird ball things made by some local alcohol producer. All week people would give me these goofy little plastic balls, about the size of a golf ball and branded with the company's logo, and I would just toss them, thinking they were dumb promotional toys or something. Well, no, it turns out, if you unscrew it, it opens up to reveal a deliciously fruity alcoholic shot of some sort. One of the other DJs gave me one as I started my set and when I was like "what the hell is this thing," he demonstrated, and then once I'm seen up there on stage drinking the thing people are of course all like, "give Party Ben more balls." And then what am I supposed to do, offend their country by not drinking them?

A big giddy after all that, I wander over to another side stage where Noisia and MC ID are doing a much more melodic, friendly style of drum 'n' bass, and I dance around with the crowd for a while. Then I headed back to our good old terrace which wrapped up, again, around 5am, with the sun bright in the sky.




At about 5:10am, I'm waiting for the car to the hotel in a bit of a daze, standing out in the path a ways away from the Bootleg Bar, which still has a good crowd going, amazingly enough, to more drum 'n' bass. I see that it's the DJ who introduced me on the decks, and take a quick picture (see above). A second later and he spots me standing out there and gets on the mic, and starts shouting stuff. I hear a few "Party Ben's" and then a bunch of Hungarian and the whole crowd turns to look at what the hell he's talking about. "Party Ben, you arrrre my DJ brrrotherrr!" he shouts. The crowd is baffled, and I give a bit of an "I'm not worthy" bow, and mercifully, he's done. But, funny!

Anyway, I'd just like to speak to any of my DJ friends out there reading this, thinking, "who is Party Ben to deserve to go to this random country and DJ." Some of you have even come out and said it, like Australian mashupper Dsico who posted "gee, 4 days at VOLT, how did you manage that?" on GYBO, like I somehow tricked the festival into booking me. How do you fucking think I managed it? Maybe they fucking asked? And maybe when I said "could I please play two or three nights so I can go do Bootie Paris" they said, "no, we want you every night"? Maybe that? Whatever. But yes, okay, whether or not you’re an insensitive Australian dingo-face, I get you, I don't exactly have Top 10 hits or anything, and sure, there are many other deserving mashup producers, DJs, and supermodels out there who could also have been booked, for sure. Yes. However, I would just like to say that this was not all fun and games; the festival, especially the first day, was a total clusterfuck, organization-wise, and since I was pretty much at the bottom of the bill I was last priority for the organizers, who had forgotten to schedule things like, say, a car to get me from the festival to the hotel and back, and then, say, after two hours of waiting for a car, finally plop me into one, and then the driver turns to me and says something in Hungarian that I assume means "where are we going," and no-one's told me the name or location of the hotel, and he doesn't speak English, so I try to make clear to him I don't know where I'm going in a pastiche of German and hand gestures, and he gives me this look like "fucking Americans think they own me and I am biding my time before I can kill you all," and then we have to go chase down the organizers who have, of course, disappeared. That kind of shit. Also, with the music around the festival and what the crowds seemed to enjoy a bit off from what I expected, I spent hours each day reworking my set and remixing some of my tracks. So, what I'm trying to say is that, yes, I'm totally not famous enough to get booked at a big festival like this, and clearly it was some sort of mistake, but this was a goddamned fucking battle, and I battled, and I labored, and I endured, and I totally earned the great crowds and hugely fun sets I had the last three days, through sheer blood sweat and tears. The last thing I felt was "entitled" to the gigs, so I worked my ass off, and was rewarded. Anyone else out there willing to do the same would, I'm sure, have been as well.



Ahem. So, yes, I'm off to Budapest in a few minutes, which I'm looking forward to very much – this Hunguest (huh huh huh) hotel is basically in the forest at the edge of town and there aren't any things like stores or whatever anywhere nearby, and I have like 18 cents left in Hungarian forints right now and I'm so hungry I'm about to die. Will post pictures when I'm back in civilization…

This Picture...

...was taken at 3:45am, er, this morning, nearly 4 hours after I started DJing in the newly re-engineered "T-mobile terrace." Holy Hungarian 4-hour mega-marathon DJ sets. Tons of fun, and thanks sound guys for helping out!

My cohort DJ Poszi took over with some crazy breaks and drum 'n' bass (see?!) at about 4 and I took a quick walk around for some fresh air. A few doors down at the more "mainstream" dance room, the DJ is playing Boney M's "Rasputin," so I had a little shimmy with the kids. Then I went back and tag-teamed with Poszi until, er, about 5? See, these festivals, they aren't like Coachella over here, and when we shut our room down and got a ride to our respective hotels, in the full bright morning light, the party was still going strong. Go, Hungary.

Question: When is MTV not MTV?

Answer: when the "M" stands for "Magyarország," the Hungarian word for Hungary. That's right, the TV station that was interviewing me when I arrived at the VOLT Festival here in Sopron wasn't "Hungarian MTV," like I thought, although I think the miscommunication is understandable since that's how they referred to it in their initial e-mail, and a youthful hipster such as myself would obviously interpret that to mean the local offshoot of Music Television. But no, this is, literally, Hungary TV, one of the four or five Hungarian channels on my TV here at the hotel, and a national broadcaster of some note. Neat. Apparently the interview already aired last night, so if you were watching, I hope they didn't edit me to look stupider, since that always happens to me, but in the interest of clarity, here's basically how it went:

Interviewer: So, Party Ben, what makes you so brave to take music and change it?

Me: … Brave? Er… well… um… I wouldn't really say "brave," I would say, "easily bored," I guess? It's more like a disease, I can't stop changing music.

Interviewer: I've heard you're making some Hungarian mashups to play?

Me: Yes, I'm working on mixes of Omega, Belga and Beatrice [the final two didn't turn out so well, more on that later].

Interviewer: You stay up late every night DJing and it's of course a difficult lifestyle. How do you stay looking so young? [I shit you not]

Me: [Collapsing into hysterics] What? Seriously? Oh, stop, just stop. [Desperately thinking of something to say] Uhhh, I guess since I live in California, and we all eat our vegetables? [Realizing that was dumb.] Also I have a deal with the devil. [Realizing I'm digging myself in deeper, shutting up]

Interviewer: Thank you Party Ben!

So, as you can imagine, there's been some hilarity here in Hungary ("Hungilatiry"?) but things are basically going alright. First I should mention the brief visit to Vienna (Sopron is just over the border from Austria, and Vienna, about an hour's drive, was the meeting point for most artists on the bill). Mashup connoisseurs will remember that Vienna (or at least its outskirts) is home to DJ Schmolli, and he braved rush hour traffic to meet me at my hotel downtown and then heroically whisked me around the city to see as much stuff as possible. I finally got my TV tower fix in, and then we also hit up the old Vienna carnival, and by "old" I mean like "older than America," whose giant ferris wheel was featured in The Third Man, film buffs.

But my stay in Vienna was to be all too brief as I had to rush and meet the car that would take us over the border into Sopron. Also coming along in my van from Vienna: Delinquent Habits, a rough-and-tumble LA hip-hop combo whose first question to the VOLT representative when we got in the van was "Hey, you know where we can score some weed?" The VOLT guy ("Zoltan"!!!) said he thought so. After a beat, I piped up: "And I'd like a Red Bull please." Everybody thought I was very funny.

VOLT booked me to play all four nights of the Wednesday to Saturday festival, and so inevitably there were some first-night technical issues: the room they had us set up in was supposed to magically transform from a couch-filled chill-out lounge during the day to a thumping club at night, but of course, come night time, there's no one to actually, say, move any couches or anything. Plus the sound had been set up for the local radio station, also ensconced in the same place, and was weirdly compressed and quiet in the actual room. So, after a first-night fail, they got their act together, admirably (thanks by the way to DJ Poszi for helping out with that) and moved me to a DJ booth sort of straddling the VIP area and a general-public bar/dance tent thing, directly opposite the main stage, and scheduled me to go on right after the headliners. On Thursday night, amusingly enough, that was none other than Limp Bizkit. I was dreading their set, which I kind of had to sit through in anticipation of their who-knows-when ending, but in all honesty it turned out to not actually be that bad, just repetitive, since every song is kind of in the same key and stuff. For his between song banter, however, Fred Durst sank to hilariously idiotic, they-can't-really-understand-me-so-I-won't-even-try-to-make-sense lazy platitudes: "the feeling we have to play for you, you give us that feeling, so thank you, we are happy, to get that from you" kind of junk. Which was pretty awesome.

Then I got to play some tunes and stuff, which went pretty well, I kind of did a mix of mainstream rock/hip-hoppy kind of stuff to appeal to the Bizkiters and then more of my patented electro nuttiness. Fun times. I do want to point out one totally weird but kind of great think I've noticed here at the festival: there are about 5 or 6 various dance tents/rooms/platforms of varying sizes, and each of them, every single time I've walked by, has been playing breaks, or maybe drum 'n' bass. Every time. All breaks. It's crazy. Some of you may know I'm a big fan of the breakbeat tunes and in fact my DJ incarnation just before my mashuppy pseudo-fame was in the "nu skool" breaks genre. But correct me if I'm wrong, at least in California it seems like that scene has totally died out, except for some Burning Man types, and even they have mostly moved on to dubstep. I feel a little awkward since my current work is very much in the 4/4, bassline-centric electro-house zone. Anyway, whatever, I am what I am, but I did pull out that old breaks mix of the Gorillaz which got some cheers last night.

By the way, a torrential downpour in the evening meant that the entire festival was one giant sloppy mud pit, making me pine a bit for the dry roasting heat of Coachella, and also giving me that sinking feeling you can only get when you've got one pair of pants for 2 months and they're getting covered with brown slime. But hey, it's a rite of passage, right?



Hungary itself I haven't seen much of, except for a bit of wandering around the town center of Sopron. The city has about 50,000 people so the VOLT festival with its equivalent attendance is a big thing here, and the charming little restaurant I ate at for lunch had a "special VOLT menu": giant local Soproni beer, funky meatball soup, chicken cordon bleu with the ubiquitous fries, 2000 forints, or about $11. Obviously I don't speak more than the most basic Hungarian, and people don't even seem to understand me when I try out the most simple words like "Köszönöm" ("thank you"). My English fumbling and goofy sunglasses were likely what led to my waitress at the aforementioned restaurant asking for my autograph in scrambled, halting English that took me about 5 minutes to figure out what exactly she wanted.

Of course, a crazy new language does make for chuckles, and first among them, the name of my hotel:



Yes, that says "Hunguest." Joke 1: How do you think they knew? Joke 2: Glad I wasn't booked at the Micropenis Lodge down the street. Joke 3: I suddenly look at Super 8 and Motel 6 in a whole new light. Et cetera, tip your waitress.

Also, does anybody need any throat lozenges? Actually, I don't mean "anybody," I mean…



Oh boy. You know, I imagine Bill O'Reilly could spin this as reverse discrimination somehow.

Two more days of VOLTing around then I'm off to Budapest for gigs at the exciting-looking outdoor Zold Pardon, then off to Munich to hang with the craziest dudes this side of Stuttgart. Internet service comes in 30 minute, 300-forint chunks here at the Hunguest, and only in the lobby, so I've had to type this in Word and then upload it as fast as I can, and I haven't been able to stay on top of the e-mail or blogging as much as I'd like, but hopefully I'll be back on top of things by Monday.

And Thanks MUYB/Bootie Berlin Crew For an Awesome Time

Check out that picture -- with Party Ben's German heritage, you can't even pick me out of the lineup. Which black-shirted skimpily-facial-haired medium-blond dude might I be? Take your pick. Anyway, great hanging with these kids, and not just because we share 99.99999% of our genes. Andre/Morgoth is busting his butt to bring mashup culture to this techno-dominated city, not that I don't like techno but you know what I'm saying. His lady friend Steffie, co-DJ Dr. Waumiau and host at the "Mashup Hostel" Alex could not have been nicer, and everybody else hanging around and working at Silver Wings and U5 were great. Danke schon, and um, what was it, schon das du hier was?

Party Ben, European Tour Guide, Recommends: Intimes Cafe, Friedrichshain, Berlin

Two words: Sunday Brunch. Four words: Sunday Brunch Buffet 8E50 (approximately $12). 21 words: Holy schiesse I don't think I've ever seen so many varied and delicious plates of brunchy deliciousness in my life. Apparently brunch in Berlin is a big thing, and all the restaurants do it, but I went to Intimes, on Boxhagenerstrasse in the amazing, vibrant Friedrichshain neighborhood of the old East Berlin, and it was like dying and going to heaven. Because you know how I feel about brunch. This one featured about 100 different dishes including cheesy ravioli, stuffed mushrooms with spinach, vegetable medleys, bafflingly tasty couscous, like 17 various fried something or others, smoked salmon, creamy potato salads like heavenly starch clouds, a whole dessert area, and oh yeah, some scrambled eggs. Plus the outdoor table scene with scrabbly punk rockers and funky german families where dad's got bleached hair and mom's got goofy purple little round glasses. Best way to spend a Sunday morning and afternoon in Berlin. Plus my host Alex is like "this buffet is one of the small ones." How soon can I come back?!

I'm just sorry I forgot my camera, but this way, it will always live in my memory.

Tomorrow: off to Vienna for a day and then to the VOLT festival in Hungary, where I'm being treated, a little inappropriately, as a superstar: one of their largest news sites reported on my arrival in Europe on their main blog like I'm some sort of visiting dignitary, and I guess MTV Hungary wants to do an interview as soon as I arrive in Sopron for VOLT. What do they think I am, Girl Talk?

Bootie Berlin Goes Well, and Berlin Snacks Continue to Be Awesome

I have to say I was a bit skeptical about the inaugural edition of Bootie Berlin last night; first, it was happening at the Silver Wings club, which is located, crazily, in the old Templehof airport building complex. Templehof, as anyone familiar with WWII will know, is the airport that kept kept Berlin alive when the Soviets closed off access to the city, and is also one of, or maybe the, largest, like, structure, in the world. But it's also a bit out of the way, meaning anybody coming to the club had to really be coming to the club, not just strolling by. But by about midnight, which is actually early for Berlin nightlife, a good crowd had assembled, and when I went on around 1 I had a nicely full dancefloor, who cheered for the new track I made, a mashup of German dancehall combo Seeed and a remix of Bronski Beat's "Smalltown Boy." (Perhaps in celebration of Gay Pride which the Berliners are also celebrating this weekend).

Sheer exhaustion after getting back from the gig around 6am led me to sleep until 3pm, something I never ever do back home, but thankfully, the Freidrichshain neighborhood I'm staying in has adjusted to the nocturnal habits of its inhabitants and most restaurants say "Frühstück: 10:00 - 16:00" ("Breakfast, 10am-4pm"). Which is how it SHOULD be, goddammit! And this isn't just any breakfast, this is, well, look:



Thick crumply bacon and fried eggs and side salad and multiple bread choices and glgaglgarrrrhghgh. And that was like 4€50, which is just over $6. Not bad, especially for the DJ on a budget.



Also I wanted to mention visiting the Holocaust Memorial near the Brandenberg Gate on Thursday, which was more interesting than I expected. The memorial opened in 2005, and I remember seeing pictures of it around magazines and whatever: a grid of variously-sized concrete blocks, only a few inches high at the perimeters but up to 15 feet high in the center. In pictures, it honestly seemed kind of... pedestrian, I hate to say, like, "okay, gravestones, I get it." But in person, I had a weird experienced that made me appreciate it more. My new Berlin friends had been giving me a tour of the city that day, so there was a group of five of us walking around. The memorial itself isn't separated from the sidewalk so you just can sort of walk in casually. I stopped near the edge, where the concrete slabs are just ankle- or knee-height, to fiddle with my camera and stuff, as my friends continued on, jabbering loudly as we'd been doing all day. I finish taking a picture, probably just a few seconds of distraction, and when I look up, my friends have disappeared. They've walked deeper into the taller slabs, obviously, but it was so sudden: one minute they were next to me, and the next, they were just gone, and I had no idea where they were, and even their voices were weirdly distant echoes that I wasn't even sure were coming from them. I had that brief, instinctual moment of fear, like when you think you've lost the group you're with in an unfamiliar city, which made me laugh for a second, because of course I knew right where they were, generally, but then it suddenly hit me that this might be part of the point of the memorial's structure. Walking into it with a group, you are inevitably separated from them, almost without warning, and left alone, with only fleeting glimpses of other people down the empty rows. It gives you the faintest clue what it must have been like, having people around you, friends and neighbors, suddenly just disappear. The uneven, hilly floor of the memorial is also surprising -- you're walking amongst ankle-height stones at the edge, thinking this is nothing much, and then before you know it you're plunged into darkness, lost between towering concrete slabs. I'm still not sure it's great art (nor am I exactly sure why they had to make clear it's only a memorial to Jewish victims) but it does prove that you have to see some stuff in person.

Anyway. Tonight was supposed to be a more mellow party at a small neighborhood club called the U5 (named for the subway line the space used to be an entrance for) but it turns out some big bar-hopping group thing has made it a stop on their tour and some big Germany TV station is coming by as well, so who knows. I've got to get over there and see if I can make my laptop plug in to their video system for Party Ben video fun times.

Oh and hey: thanks to Dr. Waumiau for playing a bunch of my stuff on his webcast, and to Andre Angenfeld for playing a Party Ben mini-mix on Fritz 102.6FM here in Berlin last night!

Berlin - Photo Highlights

Vee Lavv Berlinnn!

Anybody remember that old "Berlinnium" song? No? Well me and Disco Shawn do. Anyway, it keeps going through my head as I walk around the socialistically-wide streets of the fascinating, lovely East Berlin neighborhood of Friedrichshain. At the main subway station, Frankfurter Tor, you emerge onto an intersection straight out of Moscow: wide streets criss-crossed by streetcar tracks, surrounded by monumentalist post-war architecture. However, the massive buildings are now filled on their ground floors with funky restaurants and bars, and covered with graffiti, and the side streets are crowded with even more shops and bars, and lined with trees. All of this apparently wasn't here, you know, 20 or so years ago, when this was a different country separated from the rest of the city by a frickin wall, which, by the way, is just completely bonkers.

Rewind to my arrival yesterday. Direct flights to just about anywhere in Europe on my schedule of late June to early August were crazy expensive, and after much searching I found a super cheap (about $480) fare on Air Canada from New York, although it's via Toronto on the way out (and Montreal on the way back). So, on Tuesday afternoon, I went from La Guardia to Toronto, sat there for a few hours, then flew to Frankfurt, where I arrived Wednesday around noon, and then spent way too much money on a train ticket to Frankfurt (note to self or anyone else coming to Germany: buy your train tickets in advance even if you're worried about late flights causing you to miss the original train because prices will likely double if you're buying them that day). Round about the time I had to change trains in Hannover yesterday afternoon, I was starting to be in a real sleep-deprivation fog, and just stumbled onto whatever train seemed to be the right one, and somehow made it to Berlin on time, where I was met by the local DJs and Bootie/MUYB emprisarios Morgoth, Dr. Waumiau, and Pozzy, who proceeded to hand me a gigantic bottle of beer right there in the Berlin train station. Turns out drinking beer in, say, train stations, or on the metro train, is not a problem, although in my sleep-deprived state I couldn't help but get jumpy and hide the beer when we came in view of some police.

I'm staying with Pozzy and his apartment seems a typical old East Berlin style unit, beautiful tall ceilings and foot-thick walls with double-height windows. At the moment we're getting ready to head out to see some of the sights, although the cloudy, spitty weather means the big TV tower (that you see pictured above in a photo I did not take) is off the agenda.

First gigs are tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, and we're not exactly sure how they'll be, with the weather iffy and various other events like the Berlin gay pride festivities going on at the same time, but the Friday event is at the old Templehof airport, which is kind of insane.

Also: Berlin does a phenomenal breakfast. We went out to just a regular old cafe and ordered the scrambled eggs for 4.50 euros, and I expected a little tiny plate of eggs and maybe a piece of bread; what showed up on the table was a gargantuan platter of eggs mixed with feta cheese, a huge tasty salad, and a giant basket of 5 different kinds of bread. Apparently Berlin's weekend brunch buffets are something to behold, another reason to love this city, which I already do, even though I speak like 4 words of the language.

Hey, Phil Bronstein Agrees With Me About Gavin Newsom

And thanks, Phil Bronstein, for saying what I said, with more actual evidence:

As San Francisco and the blue state majority of California nurse their election euphoria hangover, let's point out the obvious about the passage of Prop. 8:

Gavin Newsom screwed it up.

Voters are the ones who make the decision but no one person handed the Yes on 8 campaign a more persuasive and compelling sound bite than our own mayor. Even if there were other flaws in the anti-8 operation, he was unquestionably the poster child for the pro-8 push, whether you like it or not.

And unlike Willie Brown, whose 70s high afro and muttonchop sideburn photo got used as a thinly disguised racial scare tactic in the 80s by some Republican candidates for the State legislature (nothing he could do about it), Mr. Newsom willingly and imperiously handed over the ammunition in yesterday's election.

While No on 8 campaigners like Alex Tourk, who I talked to recently, were agonizing over whether they'd win and were working every angle, Mr. Newsom was out stumping against the proposition this last, critical weekend. Where? In Solano, the only Bay Area county to vote for 8? In Contra Costa, where the tally was pretty close and some minds might have been changed?

No, the mayor was hitting the bricks in the Castro. How many people in that neighborhood do you think were undecided on same sex marriage? But it sure must have been fun getting all that adoration and applause. No boos there for Mr. Newsom, not even on Halloween.

Thank you.

Haight St. Whole Foods/Apt Building Update: Well Look At That, They Approved It

Okay, yes, as usual, I didn't mince words when discussing the ridiculous NIMBY baloney that was driving the discussion of a mixed-use building for the long-vacant lot at Haight and Stanyan. The whole thing seemed all too familiar, a typical San Francisco notion that any development whatsoever is bad, because it might not exactly fit the supposed character of this city-in-a-bottle, or whatever, and so let's just keep the crack-pipe-filled parking lot since that's obviously working so well for us. But perhaps my outrage has contributed to a turnaround (well, it's possible). As Socketsite reports:

Last night, the Planning Commission voted 6-0 to approve the Conditional Use for the 690 Stanyan project, the mixed-use proposal with Whole Foods as the anchor tenant. During the four hour hearing, we produced nearly 400 letters of support, a spreadsheet showing 244 supporters for the Draft EIR, and a list of nearly 260 supporters from 690stanyan.com. This, in addition to the dozens and dozens of supporters who came to speak and show solidarity to the project, I believe, convinced the Commissioners that this was indeed a project that had overwhelming support.

Halle-freakin'-luyah. Now we'll see if the damn thing gets built. And while they're at it, any chance they could do something about this useless empty triangle? A mini-Ikea and a cheap sushi bar, plus someplace that sells socks, would be my suggestion.


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Gavin Newsom: The Savior or Saboteur of Gay Marriage?

Call me suspicious, paranoid, a pessimist, but my celebration of San Francisco's brief "legalization" of same-sex marriage in 2004 was tempered by deep concern, something I tried to keep hidden in order to support my friends who were taking advantage of the moment to tie the knot. While most San Franciscans immediately hailed the decision, I felt worried about the actual effects down the road.

There's a certain political chaos theory that seems to come into play a lot of the time, where actions taken eventually have the opposite of their intended effect. Look, for instance, at President Bill Clinton's attempt to end the military's anti-gay discriminatory policy, or his and Hillary's attempt to put together universal health care. Both were handled so terribly that they caused an enormous backlash, which, in my opinion, set both causes back 20 years or more. We humans have such emotional reactions to politicians that I find it useful to look at the actual results, the real effects, of their actions: while Clinton was an inspiring speaker on gay rights, and hired lots of gays and lesbians in the White House, what were the effects of his eight years in office? DOMA and "Don't Ask Don't Tell." It's sad we have to play that game, but it's something we don't think twice about doing with George W. Bush, whose every word seems to be the direct opposite of his actions and their effects.



So, while seeing long-time couples finally tie the knot in the dramatic rotunda of San Francisco's City Hall was undeniably emotional and affecting, let's talk about reality. What did those marriages "mean"? They were issued in defiance of state and federal law, they had no legal weight whatsoever. It was almost like the couples were being used, their emotions toyed with: here, sign these papers that would be legal in any other circumstance, but for you, they're just a "protest." Then, in a couple weeks, this "marriage" you thought you had will be dissolved, but Gavin Newsom will get all the credit for "fighting the system" in a way that had no real consequences, and his approval ratings will go through the roof, assuring him of reelection.



Actually, I take that back: there were real consequences, and they were negative. A country unsure about this whole gay thing was treated to visions of their most-hated city enacting "play" gay marriages, enacting every concern they have. Not to defend their points of view, but we've seen how rhetoric and terminology are important recently with John McCain and Sarah Palin inciting nutbag supporters to scream "Kill him" at their rallies, so I think we can all agree that understanding how to "play a crowd" is a vital part of politics. While McCain/Palin seem to be fanning flames of hatred with secret whispers and winks (although McCain, at least lately, seems to have come to a sobering realization of what's going on), Newsom's unilateral marriage stunt was like making Frankenstein's monster do a breakdance in front of an angry mob: just a useless taunting of a dangerous crowd. Of course, we all know what happened in 2004: John Kerry lost a close election and state after state amended their constitutions with bans on same-sex marriage or any recognition whatsoever of same sex couples.



Now, in the wake of this year's California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage, Proposition 8 is on the November ballot to ban it again. For a while this summer, it looked like it was going down, but new polls seem to show it winning. What, pray tell, is part of the reason? The San Francisco Chronicle has an idea:

The mayor has become the reluctant face of the campaign opposing same-sex unions with the help of a prominent Yes-on-Proposition-8 television ad. Conservative blogs have been atwitter about Newsom last week officiating at the wedding of a lesbian teacher whose class of first-graders took a field trip to celebrate with her.

In many ways, Newsom has become the single best campaign tool for proponents of Prop. 8 - and that might have been inevitable, political experts said.

"His pictures have become the rallying cry for Prop. 8. It's unfortunate for him, and it's unfortunate for the anti-Prop. 8 campaign," said Barbara O'Connor, a professor of political communications at California State University Sacramento. "I don't know that I would change his behavior, because he's representing his constituency, and he's been totally consistent in his position. But he's become everyone's worst nightmare."

Of course, in all truthfulness, I would be a terrible politician: I'd just blurt out whatever I was thinking at all times without any regard for the consequences, and I'm sure I'd screw things up. But that's why I don't run for office. There are people I know who have deified Gavin Newsom, and I've had to listen to them give tearful tributes to him at more than one wedding, as though he alone has made the marriages possible. On the contrary: there doesn't seem to be any evidence that the 2004 stunt did anything but energize the opposition and complicate the inevitable court case, and his naive, self-serving actions are now galvanizing the forces who would take these rights away again.

Oh, Blue Angels, Please Crash Down Upon South of Market and Release Me From This Mortal Coil, You Sweet Angels of Death

Hey everybody, it's Fleet Week time again, and in addition to drunk, horny sailors, you know what that means: Blue Angels! As I type this, five of these blue-and-yellow aeroplanes just went right the fuck over my street, with that terrifying noise that starts out up in the high registers, a hiss of impending doom, then suddenly, massively deepening into a gigantic, thunderous rush, becoming louder than you think it's possible for a sound to be, and then when you think it's as loud as it's going to get, it gets louder, and all the car alarms in the neighborhood go off.



Okay, okay, sure, fast airplanes are neat, and I get giddy like a little schoolboy watching them zoom around in bonkers formations, wing tips inches from touching. But the whole thing strikes me as completely, utterly insane. First question: doesn't anybody in this town have any work to do? Like, say, some of us, who maybe have work to do that has to do with, uh, audio?!? So, sorry, clients, all your shit is going to be like 5 days late since I can't hear a goddamn thing.



Second, perhaps more important question: has it occured to anyone that these daredevil flyboys, performing intricate maneuvers in their fuel-filled super-jets, are doing so over the most densely-populated area west of the Mississippi? And if one of them was to, say, get a little distracted for a split second while buzzing the Bank of America Building and plow into North Beach, they're likely to cause death and carnage on a scale that the human mind can barely comprehend?


Wow, honey, North Beach coffee is so tasty. Wait, what's that noise? And, kablooey.

Not to mention the jingoistic, military symbolism of the whole thing. All of this seems a bit crazy for liberal San Francisco, right? Well, the good old Board of Supes has tried and failed to get in the way of this juggernaut of military showmanship and daredevilry, thinking that perhaps they could appeal to the Bay Area's senses of, you know, peace and love and all that. But they failed, as all efforts to stop the Blue Angels and their vertigo-inducing maneuvers over our city, and I think I know why: it turns out there's something stronger even than our lovey-dovey liberalism here in San Francisco, and that's our longing for death.



Not only does the Bay Area have a rather high suicide rate, the Golden Gate Bridge presents an almost irresistible opportunity for the morbidly, er, morbid, and is often cited as "the most popular place to commit suicide in the world," with someone jumping to their death about once every two weeks.



Whether it's the city's reputation as a glowing haven for the unconventional drawing people who are intrinsically more likely to off themselves, or it's something about the dreary fog and insanely high cost of living, San Franciscans really just want to call it quits. But of course, everybody knows we're all supposed to be life-loving liberals in a place that's held up as an example of how to live for the rest of this trashy, red-state nation, so there's no way we can actually say that. Instead, our death wish spurts out in other, random ways, like say the way we drive, and also the invitation to our military to do some crazy dangerous shit right over our heads. Well, Blue Angels, I for one openly salute your death-defying ways, and invite you to aim right for South of Market, because not only would your crashing explosively into my pad save me from enduring more of this soul-crushing Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that's masquerading as my life, it would also be really hilarious: Party Ben, killed by a falling angel. Hold on while I go paint a target on my roof.

Haight-AshburyTurns Down Whole Foods+Apt. Building: More Evidence This City is a Hippie Moron-Filled Shithole

Curbed has the skinny on a proposed multi-use development for the long-empty parking lot (and former terrible grocery store) at Haight & Stanyan, which was to contain a fancy whole foods on the ground floor and fancy condos above. Apparently, the neighborhood association is fighting it tooth and nail, and the project appears to be dead:

The Whole Foods-pimped, Haight Ashbury Improvement Association-approved project, which would replace the now-defunct Cala Foods with 62 condos and a Whole Foods on ground level, has been met with staunch opposition by the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council. (Do we have a neighborhood brawl on our hands here? Oh yes, yes we do. How very North Beach of you, Haight!) Though he hasn't gone on record, Supe Ross Mirkarimi hasn't exactly supported the development. Neither has the city, which is reportedly dragging its feet on the environmental review process— the developer has languished in limbo for 2 and-a-half years at this point, and sees no end in sight as the Planning Commission hasn't even granted an initial approval hearing. The dev has spent over $1 million on the EIR, and has "little to show for it except a stack of heavy draft documents."

Okay. Let me just point out again: this is a parking lot. It's in a neighborhood notorious for a shortage of housing, close to a variety of transit lines, and without a nearby grocery store. The site is across the street from the jankiest McDonalds in the city (okay, maybe 2nd after the one on Fillmore) as well as a homeless- and hippie-filled section of Golden Gate Park. It's a craphole, just down the street from the plasma bank and a bong store. But God forbid we put something useful there! No, the supposedly most liberal area in the supposedly most liberal city in the country would prefer a big slab of concrete for gas-guzzling cars in their neighborhood, instead of condos that might be, you know, market rate.

It's something you see repeated over and over in this myopic, naive little burg. Years ago at the Castro Street Fair, I happened across a booth with the banner "SAVE OUR BAY BRIDGE VIEWS." The staffers were there to protest the then-planned construction of skyscrapers in SOMA that might block a tiny sliver of the Bay Bridge that they could see from their Twin Peaks homes. These spoiled, pathetic turds were lucky enough to have houses on the hill with phenomenal views of downtown, the bay, and the East Bay hills, and yet they had the astounding narcissism to demand that the city in their windows remain completely static, for ever and ever and ever.

Even if you get approval for a new building, you better make it a chintzy Victorian or a staid and columned retro-boring classical piece of crap. Interested in having a flagship Prada store with a not-exactly-world-shattering metallic facade? Sorry, nope, that's just crazy, make it look like a bank!

It's the great secret of San Francisco: since we have to fight off the Bill O'Reillys of this world calling us sinners since we dare to think the gays should be able to get married, we all can be self-righteously proud of how extremely liberal we are. We're all so progressive! But it turns out that San Francisco is, really, profoundly conservative: afraid of change, unable to evolve, willing to look the other way as the streets fill with homeless and trash, electing Clinton-esque political machine mayors every single time. It almost makes you think about repealing rent control: it would knock most of these moldy pseudo-hippie NIMBY dipshits out to the suburbs where they belong.

Look, I'm all about responsible development, and I'm not entirely sure that cookie-cutter skyscrapers with block-wide bases are the best solution for SOMA. But the neighborhood is 14 steps from downtown, and yet it's had acres of empty parking lots for years and years. The East Village may be the ideal (as Jane Jacobs says) but we're not going to get it, and really, in the most dense urban area west of the Mississippi, any development in the urban core is good development. A parking lot is bad for multiple reasons: it's a blight on the neighborhood and a subsidy for suburban commuters. Even Jane would tell you: just build something!!!

California is young, and the growth of its cities is awkward and sloppy. While Los Angeles has ridden the roller coaster of development to a sudden, fascinating adolescense, having finally filled its usable geographic area and turning to creative reuse and infill and innovative transit projects, San Francisco filled up early. It makes it attractive to tourists, but since we never had a massive exodus from the downtown core, for instance, we don't have a resurgence like in LA, with its Standard hotel and downtown lofts. None of our downtown buildings were ever empty, so there have been only rare opportunities to bring residences into the area, meaning our downtown still languishes as a 9-to-5-only area, not unlike financial districts in Houston or Omaha.

What's the Matter with Kansas wonders why midwesterners vote against their own interests, focusing on pointless, destined-to-lose anti-abortion initiatives while their pockets are being picked. But it turns out this emotional myopia is universal: San Franciscans will fight the future as hard as they can, just because it might alter their fantasy vision of their city, reinforced by "Tales of the City" and TV and movies about as unrealistic as the "Friends" apartment in New York. But that fantasy is long gone, and holding on to it is a fallacy, and grasping a long-dead vision from the past is actively damaging the present: slowing development, stopping infill, legislating architectural conservatism, putting the brakes on innovative transit development. Well, we can be a dirty, concrete-filled Amsterdam if we want: a charming, impractical vestige of another time, with one subway line and a moldy vision of social liberalism. Cute, but if you want a real city, look elsewhere.

Photos: New York City, June 22-24, 2008

A List of Everything That Went Wrong on My Trip Back from New York Yesterday

1. United. I'd requested upgrades using those stupid (but free) 500-mile certificates on both legs of the trip. Those dumb things expire after a year or so, but 99% of the time they don't give you the upgrade if you request one, since any other upgrade request takes priority. I had 6, enough for either SFO-JFK or JFK-SFO. So I requested both, just in case the first didn't go through. Happily, the upgrade went through for the flight out (a helpful text message was sent to me at 4:00am to announce this). So yesterday, I'm in Manhattan, and I go to check in online for the return flight. The web site sticks me in an endless loop: it shows I requested an upgrade, and asks me to confirm how I want to pay for it, giving me only the option of spending 6 500-mile certificates, which I don't have any more. I was not allowed to cancel the upgrade, only to purchase 6 more certificates for $200, and if I didn't do that, it would send me back to the first screen. When I called United, the Indian dude said I had to check in at the airport, and then asked, "Why did you request an upgrade if you don't have any certificates?"

2. Subway: Endless wait for an E train due to some sort of delays (the station announcements being even more incomprehensible than that old SNL sketch).

3. Subway: Horrifically crowded E train once it came.

4. Subway: Conductor announces "There's a totally empty E train one minute behind us" so I get off to take that one; when it comes, it's just as crowded.

5. Subway: 20 minutes down the line, the conductor makes a barely comprehensible announcement; I deduce that he means that this train is actually going to follow the F line and not the E line to the JFK AirTrain stop, so I have to get off again and wait for another E.

6. Subway: 15-minute wait for another E train

7. Airtrain: Before going through the AirTrain gate, I check my MetroCard: $6, enough to cover the $5 fee. I run it through the gate and it says "swipe again." I run it through again and it says "insufficient fare." I go back and check how much it has: $1. AirTrain ate my money.

8. Airtrain: Endless wait

9. Airtrain: Arriving at the airport, I think I'll be smart by jumping off the train and taking one in the other direction since my terminal is #7 on the list of stops out of 8 terminals, and the inner airtrain line just circles around in the other direction. (See right: going from 1 to 7 on the black line once you arrive is faster than going all the way around on the blue line). I get off at Terminal 1 just as another train is pulling away, and then wait for 12 minutes, more than enough time for the original train to have made it to Terminal 7.

10. United Check-In: Middle seat in back. Attempt to transfer upgrade request to 15000-mile regular fee results in waitlisting.

11. JFK: Attempt to walk through duty free store to get to food court (saving 5 minutes in walking) denied by meanest woman in New York who demands to know my destination. I say "The food court?" "No, sir," she says, angrily, sounding like Fran Drescher on steroids, "where are you flying to." "Canada?" I say, and she demands to see my international ticket before I even set foot in the store. I take the long way to get my $18 sandwich and soda.

12. United: Gate agents start announcing upgrades after they start boarding, meaning you can either wait in the boarding area and lose out on overhead bins, or give up your possible upgrade. I board.

13. United: Flight sits on tarmac for 30 minutes.

14. Dell: Laptop battery dies just at climactic scene of movie I'm watching.

15. United: Flight arrives 20 minutes late.

16. SFO: It's 11:35, but I know I can make it to the BART station for the last train (at around midnight) since I know the secret passageway by gate 70 to the international terminal. I run all the way only to discover this passageway is, for some reason, locked. This requires me to backtrack all the way around tot he main security entrance, then go the long way to the International terminal and BART station.

17. Life: I arrive at BART station to watch last train to SF pull out of terminal.

18. Taxi: No taxis at International terminal. Taxi attendant guy seems stoned. Wait 15 minutes.

19. Taxi: Taxi arrives, driver seems stoned. Bugs me with lots of questions about my flight. As we speed up 101, suddenly I see flashing lights behind us: that's right, my taxi gets pulled over for speeding.

20. Taxi: The kindly officer comes up to ask for registration and proof of insurance, and lo and behold, it turns out our driver does not have proof of insurance. He spends a really long time making a show of looking for it, then makes a lot of excuses about how it's not his car and it's not his fault. When the cop comes back with the ticket, there's another endless back-and-forth where the driver says the address is wrong on his license, and then gives another wrong one to the officer, then corrects himself again. The officer finally exhorts him to "stop wasting this young man's time." Tell that to the whole fucking world.

Random Thoughts 1: Love, Love is Boring, So Much More Boring Than Hate

Okay, I haven't really had much to say lately, so for the 7 people who might actually read this blog, sorry. I have a couple good excuses: Coachella, which I talked about here, and here, and here, and then some vacation time that ended up being work time in a hotel room, and some SoCal gigs. Plus, more seriously, what the hell is the point of this thing? I set up this blog as an easier way to post some updates while I was on tour in Europe, but I've never been a fan of the "here's what I had for lunch today" blog universe, and have always restricted my real website to a) music I've made, b) gigs I have, c) press or amusing encounters resulting from my music or gigs, and d) my self-indulgent year-end best-of lists. Oh yeah, and e) adorable kittens. Then I've got the Riff to jabber about cultural products of interest (although I don't get the feeling that's really working out so well either; I know there are staff members of the Mother Jones who consider any and all arts coverage to be a waste of time for their esteemed magazine, and moreover, I feel a little bit at sea being their only real arts-and-music-focused columnist, since I can't exactly be a one-man Idolator. Well I could, but not with my schedule, and not for what they're paying me). So, what is this little blog for, exactly? Just stuff I'm thinking about? Writing practice? Linking to the Emergency Party Button? Oh, I know, howabout complaining?



I suppose there's little to complain about: I'm making money, doing fun DJ gigs, seeing the world; I've got my health (and, so my doctor says, a record-low cholesterol level--who knows how that happened, I mean, it's not like I'm shoving steak into my mouth for every meal but I'm no vegan... maybe it's all the oatmeal, scrubbing away my veins like a crack team of those Scrubbing Bubbles I used to love). But you know what bugs me? People. Humans. "Bugs" isn't the right word: Confuses, howabout. I just don't understand people. People you think are friends mock you bitterly behind your back, friends who proclaim their absolute adoration of you also do so much annoying crap you can barely stand to be around them, people take your attempts at the tiptoe-iest "I feel x, y, and z"-style expressions of disappointment as huge insults, and guys you go on dates with, and say lots of nice stuff on the dates, never call you again. Okay, sure, that last one is probably another expression of the rule I tell all my friends who date men: "Guys Say Stuff." Indeed we do, and sure, I've been as guilty as anyone in feigning interest in, I dunno, fashion or business or cats, just to try and, um, how do you say, "score." I mean, hell, I've even managed to go on dates with guys who turn out to be Republicans, and I'll pretend that doesn't make me hurl just long enough to maybe get some makeouts. But, I thought I could see through it, myself, right?

Really, I just realized I don't know how to "woo," in the gay world. I find the Neil Strauss "game" stuff fascinating, actually -- as someone who's never had a natural ability to chat people up, and stumbles horribly at small talk or official meetings, I'm attracted to the idea that there are lessons, rules, things you can practice that can at least open the door for someone to pay attention to you. Unfortunately, The Game's heterosexual focus makes it kind of inapplicable. For instance, Strauss talks about managing to snag Britney Spears' phone number after engaging her in a conversation about what he calls "Chick Crack," i.e., horoscopes and personality tests and Cosmo-style gobbledygook. Unfortunately, I just don't get the feeling that would work on most guys, even gay guys.



Then there's one of the most basic tenets of The Game: act disinterested, give backhanded compliments, be, for all intents and purposes, a bit of a jerk. Sure, I can do the jokey "yeah you're okay looking" wink-wink stuff, but I'm not sure how much farther I can take that. Say you get "in there," you get the date, you get the nookie, and you really like the guy; what next? How do you keep up the "jerk" facade without just completely losing touch? Do you have to just wait for them to call you? When can you just be yourself, and call up and say "Hey, I'd like to see you again?" Because clearly I'm doing that all wrong, since the answer is generally "sorry I'm out of town," or something. And there's no obvious signs to me that the date went horribly wrong, other than, you know, the flatulence, and the inevitable revelation of my sex-change scars.

Or is it just that no gay dudes are interested in second dates? I mean, at age 37, I'm no spring chicken, and I get the feeling that any guy out there who really wants anything more than a one-night-stand has probably already found it, so maybe by this point there just aren't any guys out there looking for, er, Lurv.



Whatever. Considering how many of my friends spend time complaining about their significant others' annoyingly pointless stories or ridiculous shirts or tendency to treat their lives like an etch-a-sketch and shake away everything when they get a little freaked out, perhaps I should be happy to be single, and as a bit of a loner (and noted curmudgeon) I usually am. But I dunno, I guess it'd be nice sometime to meet somebody I don't feel like I have to fight for/act like a jerk to so they like me/figure out what the hell.



Of course, all this could be moot, since as Pete Burns says, gay relationships don't work:

Burns, 49, who was wed to stylist Lynne Corlett for 28 years, claimed there were too much "promiscuity" in the gay community for civil partnerships to thrive. He told The Mail on Sunday he had been "optimistic" about his civil partnership, but now he says: "I learned the hard way. It's a total joke." Burns said: "I view marriage as a sacred institution. I think two men naturally are predators. Gay relationships are a commercial break, not a whole movie. The relationships I'm aware of, apart from one ... it's as though there's some kind of emotional inadequacy or narcissism, where they feel emotionally inadequate and need more validation, from either a father figure or a mirror image of themselves. I'm not condemning it, I think it needs researching and help. There's a lot of promiscuity in the gay community. I don't understand why they take that union. How low is their self-esteem? One's on Hampstead Heath meeting men, the other one's hiring rent boys. Surely marriage is throwing anchor and saying, 'This is where I'm staying, I've made my choice and this is all I want because I've been on the up and down escalator, through the revolving door and I want to stand still.' That's what I expected."

He added: "I don't know what goes on in many heterosexual marriages but I know mine was 28 years.

Of course, the fact that you dressed up as a magical geisha and used the mystical sword of Fantasia to confirm your wedding vows wouldn't have anything to do with how this didn't work out. Word:



Actually, that guy is kind of cute, even with the terrible haircut. Maybe if I put on my geisha dress he'll go out with me? Anyway, you hear this a lot, that gay relationships are intrinsically flawed since they're either some sort of outwardly expressed narcissism or a doomed quest for a father figure or whatever. Well, jeez, good thing there's no creepy parental issues or narcissistic searching for mirror images happening in hetero relationships, am I right? Am I right? Is this thing on?



In fact there's probably something to that mirror theory, but in a less nefarious way: I think you look for someone who mirrors you, but in a way where they seem to have solved questions or answered mysteries you can't figure out; the lucky part is when you do the same thing for them. Of course, the question of how you get them to get over their slow-burning internalized homophobia and alcohol-salved self-hatred long enough to actually see that, that's a whole other question. Not that I won't join you for that drink.

Gridskipper Apparently Hasn't Ever Tried Taking a Cab from LAX

Gridskipper, the usually pretty-well-researched travel blog that's recently been redesigned around theme maps, just featured a map of restaurants that are supposedly worth a trip outside the airport if you're stranded at LAX for a few hours. Hmmm, really?

We've all been there: you're stuck in LAX on a layover, cooling your heels with a trashy magazine and a bag of chips, when you learn your flight to Phoenix has been canceled because of poor weather in Boston. You're rebooked for a new flight ... in six hours. You'd love to get out and enjoy a little of the city, but fear straying too far from the airport environs. Well, don't fear! In other major American cities, you'd probably be screwed, but thanks to the wonders of urban sprawl, there are tons of great restaurants within shouting distance of LAX. Get out and get a taste of the city — with ample time to cab back and hustle through security — with our handy map.

This handy map includes such establishments as Tito's Tacos and Buggy Whip. Okay, fine, but has anyone at the Skipper ever actually tried to take a cab from LAX? First of all, try finding one: there are only a few taxi pickup spots, and both times I've looked for one there hasn't been a taxi in sight, only a line of doomed-looking businesspeople. Second, and most egregious: for some reason known only to the string-pulling bossman in "Mulholland Drive," there's a $15 minimum for any trips originating at LAX. That's right, $15, even if you only go two blocks from the glowy columns. Sure makes Gridskipper's recommendation of a quick jaunt to the In 'n' Out on Sepulveda look a little ridiculous, doesn't it -- $15 there, $10 back, that's $25 for a $4 meal. The Burger King in Terminal 7 doesn't look so bad now, does it. Plus, how are you going to catch a cab on Sepulveda?

Here's some real advice: fly into freakin' Burbank.

The NY Times Catches Up With My Groundbreaking Trend of Staying in Cheap LA Hotels

Hey, this guy sounds a lot like me:

There was a time, on my frequent trips to the West Coast, when I used to stay at chic West Hollywood hotels, in rooms furnished with designer bottled waters, vinyl beanbag chairs and all manner of pay-per-view television entertainments. Each morning I proudly strode past fitness rooms, spas and barbershops I never visited, and each night I went to bed contentedly knowing that the hotel bar was packed with the sorts of people who would never give me the time of day.

Now, though, with the slumping economy, such sumptuous amenities are as much a relic of the past as the Brown Derby restaurant. Now when I travel to the West Coast, my center of gravity is shifted miles to the east, away from Sunset Boulevard to a far less alluring side of Los Angeles. I can usually be found at one of several low-cost motels in the city’s Koreatown and Thai Town neighborhoods, where the 101 meets Western Avenue and where glamorous expectation meets economic reality.

I know, reporting on the Travelodge as some sort of post-ironic hipster discovery is kind of ridiculous, but I've had the same experience. Bootie LA brings me down maybe once every couple months, and my hipster lodging of choice was the Standard Downtown. Rates there used to be as low as $119 a night, booked online with enough advance warning, and I felt like a rock star, with the Holzer in the lobby and Jose Gonzalez on the stereo on the roof deck. The minimalist rooms were just my style, and upon returning from the DJ gig, half-drunk, at 3:30am, room service was always available with a very tasty burger and fries. Granted, I was usually spending about as much on the whole deal as I was making at the gigs, but whatever, it was a vacation, right?

But things change. First, no longer having the disposable income of my good old LIVE 105 job means budget concerns are paramount; second, rates at the hotel seem to rarely go below $200/night these days; and third, I've stayed a couple non-hipster places and they're really not so bad. My discount hotel of choice is currently the Comfort Inn Sunset, and at about $90/night, it's not like it's free, but I'm saving money on a whole bunch of other things: parking, for one, which is free, and secured, under the hotel, and late-night room service, whose absence forces me to grab a tasty burrito at one of the late-night joints down the street rather than spend $25 on a burger. The rooms are recently renovated, and while the lights all use the worst, flickery fluorescent bulbs, it's pleasant enough, and the times I've stayed there my room faced the building next door, so no street noise from Sunset.

While I've done some work at the desk like the NY Times guy (and utilized the free wifi), part of the appeal for me is that the no-frills room really urges one to get out on the town. The hotel's location a quick drive from Silverlake means tons of cool restaurants and shops are right nearby, and of course Bootie LA at the Echo is just a few blocks the other direction. Since there's no waiting for a dipshit model-turned-valet to get your rental car, heading out is pretty easy.

I'll be interested to see if the Hollywood-area resurgence (a new W hotel is going in right at Hollywood and Vine) will trickle down to the more budget-minded hipster, and we'll see hotels spring up that are no-frills but, you know, cool. I've always lamented that the fantastic Ace Hotel in Seattle (and now Portland) doesn't have a location in every city: while some people might be put off by the hostel-like "bathrooms down the hall" concept, those bathrooms are spotless, like minimalist white labs, and there's a whole row of them -- I never had to wait, ever, and never felt weird about it. These rooms are still just $99/night. But hey, their website says they're opening new Aces in New York and Palm Springs; I'll be interested to see if they keep the low-price but high-style concept. In the meantime, hello, Comfort Inn across from the donuts-and-Thai-food place!

One More Reason Obama is the Right Choice for Democrats: Nebraska Goes Purple

I was leaning towards Obama all through last year, but skeptical of the "cult of personality" that seemed to be accumulating around him; Hillary's work in the senate had really impressed me, despite the fact that the Clinton circus drives me up the wall. So, I waited until Iowa, and then I watched his victory speech.



I kind of got a little choked up, and what I realized is that inspiration, in and of itself, isn't something to be cynically tossed aside, like I'd been doing; and that in fact, it's not Obama's otherworldly brilliance that impressed me, but his normalcy. It's almost as if politics squeezes the normalcy out of a person, almost inevitably, but in Obama we have a chance for a politician who's still kind of a regular human being.

Of course, Hillary's actions post-Iowa only cemented my feelings: Bill's disgusting outbursts blew my mind, and her campaign's dismissiveness of all of Obama's wins was bafflingly idiotic. Putting aside my deep reservations about electing a former first lady (are we freaking Argentina?) and the establishment of American political dynasties, that dismissiveness of red (or small) states struck me as reason enough to vote for Obama instead: not only is ignoring, say, Wisconsin a terrible strategy for winning the White House, it also serves to hold down the Democratic slate in other races. It's something Kos calls the "50-state strategy," and it's absolutely essential to overturning the Rove-created juggernaut of solid red states and entrenched 49/49 national splits in national elections, and in breaking through in state and local elections in traditional Republican strongholds. Now, we have some proof of how this might look in the general election against McCain in the fall.

Survey USA has compiled polls from individual states pitting both Clinton and Obama against McCain, and the results are fascinating.

First up, the hypothetical Clinton-McCain matchup:



Clinton ekes out a victory, grabbing both Florida and Ohio, which seems kind of far-fetched to me, but whatever. Now, here's Obama's map:



It's not only a more decisive win, but a more interesting and safer one: he brings it in without either Florida or Pennsylvania. And what, pray tell, is all that stripey business going on in my home state of Nebraska?!

If you're not familiar with the Cornhusker State's strange governmental practices, not only do we have a kooky unicameral legislature, since 1996 we also split presidential electoral votes by congressional district. It's never been tested in the three elections since then, because all three districts (1-Lincoln & Eastern counties, 2-Omaha, and 3-the Western 2/3 of the state) have always been reliably Bushy (or, uh, Dole-y).

But not only does the SurveyUSA Nebraska poll puts a potential Obama/McCain matchup at only 42-45% statewide, rendering the whole state a "tossup" (!!), it actually shows Obama beating McCain in both CD1 and 2: 44-42 in Lincoln, 45-43 in Omaha, compared to Clinton's 31-59 and 30-54 losses in both districts. This would give Obama 2 of NE's 5 electoral votes. Not only is it mind-blowing, considering Nebraska had the 2nd highest margin for Bush in 2004 outside of Wyoming (that's right, more than Texas), but also, strategically, it's rulebook-shattering: it's easy to imagine another close election where one or two electoral votes might make the difference, and if a couple of those might come from Nebraska, all bets are off.

Who knows what could happen between now and the election in November; these points could be completely moot. But I do know that Hillary Clinton offers zero hope whatsoever to rewrite the rulebook about how national elections work in the US, and would serve only to reinforce the same old red state/blue state dichotomy that the Rove strategy has proven to win, every time.

And sure, McCain seems like a good guy, but a) if he appoints another Scalia like he says he will, fuck him, and b) you know for a fact he'll govern more conservatively than he, uh, senatored, considering everybody's watching out for him to be "too liberal," so he'll overreact to the right. Plus he'll pick a far-right dipshit to be his VP and then probably die in office, giving us President Ridge or (shudder) Huckabee. You can respect his war service (and sense of humor) without wanting any of that crap.

New Music: 3face

Okay, we get it, two-face, three-face. Of course don't forget No Face:



He was super scary but then nice. But really, if you think about it, we've all got way more than three faces, even. Sometimes I'm Mopey Ben, other times I'm Drunk Ben, often I'm Curious Ben, a lot of the time I'm Worried Ben. The one thing I'm not really ever is Party Ben; thus the irony. But I think I could come up with at least seven primary faces, so from now on please refer to me as "7face."

Anyway, I heard this on a Sinden show from Kiss FM I downloaded. This guy may have four less faces than me, but he made a nice song. Actually he made an okay song and then it got a spectacular remix. The Four Tops sample is pretty inspired:



...but mostly I just like those ringing, propulsive chords, like I wrote about over on The Rifferoonie; it's a proper counterpoint to the oddly chirpy sample chorus, intense and urgent, futuristic.

3face, Nasty Jack, Nolay, Scorcher, Tinchy Stryder & Wretch 32 - "Different World" (All Star Remix)

3face MySpace (har)

3face interview

Mexico: Pictures

Hey look, I'm in Mexico, and here's some pretty pictures.

Shiny balloons apparently drive the Mexican economy:


Cool old falling-down building with wacky graffitos:


Cinco tacos al pastor, plus giganto glass of jamaica drink: 39 pesos (like $3.50)


Must be tacos with an angel, must be tacos with an angel: