Coliseum Clasico

I put my soccer fandom to the test tonight by attending my first-ever MLS game, a resumption of the California Clasico between the San Jose Earthquakes and the Los Angeles Galaxy.  

The game was moved from the Quakes regular home at Buck Shaw stadium to the more cavernous McAfee Coliseum in Oakland because this guy plays for the Galaxy now.



Like Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan, I had to see David Beckham in person before he retired, and this was my opportunity to do that. Forty thousand other people decided to do the same thing, so the Coliseum was filled as full as it can be with that silly tarp on the third deck. Watching the flow of the game, it was quite obvious that Beckham was the best player on the field. He didn't score, but he set up two of the Galaxy goals and was always at the right place. His trademark is the "set piece" off a corner kick or free kick, because he can almost direct the ball at will (just like that movie says).

Other than watching Beckham, the game itself was pretty uneventful. The Galaxy won 3-0 and the home side didn't mount much of a challenge. Also, the Oakland Coliseum configuration for soccer is really weird, with many of the seats miles away from the action. I hope it doesn't mess up the outfield grass like that other kind of football does.

More Sounds of Summer

I've been trying to upload a new mix to muxtape every week, and this week is the first of two parts of "summer songs". Summer starts next week (in the Northern Hemisphere) and here are a dozen songs to get a start on the season.

Sounds Of Summer (pt1)

1. "Soaking Up The Sunshine" - Danny McDonald
I added the "Northern Hemisphere" qualifier to the start of Summer because in the Southern Hemisphere (where Danny McDonald comes from), their Summer is our Winter, even though it evidently has the same surf and sun and two girls for every boy that Northern Summers do.

2. "Let's Go Surfing" - Daniel Wylie
Daniel Wylie (former Cosmic Rough Rider) is from Glasgow, and it might sound weird for a Scottish guy to write a surf song, except the North Sea has some of the best surfing in the world. Surfing the North Sea probably requires a strong will, and an even stronger wetsuit.

3. "Over The Summer" - Sparks
I wrote about Sparks earlier this week, and said that "Over The Summer" from Introducing Sparks (their sixth album) was one of my favorite summer songs ever. For that reason alone, I had to include it.

4. "Cruisin' Music" - The Rubinoos
This is a cover of a Raspberries song that probably wins a stuffed animal in early Beach Boys Bingo (references to surf, sun, cars, girls, and good rock& roll). Next Saturday I'm planning on seeing the Rubinoos in their first, last, and only show of their "2008 World Tour" (at SF's GAMH).

5. "Summer Wine" - Nancy Sinatra
Actually Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (who wrote the song). A wine made from strawberries cherries and an angel's kiss in spring would be too sweet for me, but I'd take off my silver spurs to drink some with Nancy and Lee.

6. "The Door Into Summer" - The Monkees
This is a good song, with a title taken from a Robert Heinlen book. Game Theory used to cover it.

7. "Summer Song" - Klaxons
I downloaded this from the internet. According to the ID tags, it's from an album called My Diet Pill, which doesn't seem to exist. It's a good song though.

8. "Summer Evenings" - The Frank and Walters
The Frank and Walters are one of the best Irish bands ever, and this is from their latest album A Renewed Interest in Happiness. Actually it's from one of the singles off that album ("Fight") but that's not important in the iTunes era.

9. "Summer Sunshine" - The Corrs
Another Irish band. I was excited to that this is one of Scott Miller's five year old daughter's favorite songs. It was also a number one hit, in Indonesia. When five year olds and Indonesians both like a song, you know it's a good one!

10. "Summer Holiday" - Cliff Richard
One of my favorite moments from "The Young Ones" was this exchange between Rick and Suggs (Madness lead singer) from the "Boring" episode.

Rick: Do any of you lot know "Summer Holiday" by Cliff Richard?
Suggs: You hum it, and I'll smash your face in!

11. "Beach Boy Blood (In My Veins)" - Dave Edmunds
One of my best finds of this last year was Edmunds' Plugged In album from 1994 (his last album of all-new material), especially this song. I've got Beach Boy blood in my veins too, especially during the Summertime.

12. "All Summer Long" - The Beach Boys
The first corpuscles of Beach Boy blood started flowing through my veins for the first time when I heard this song at the end of the movie American Graffiti. "All Summer Long" was also the final song on Endless Summer album, so it's always symbolized the end of something for me. In this instance, it's the end of my mix.

Most of these were found by typing "summer" into the iTunes search box, but there might be an even better list of summer songs that don't have the word "summer" in the title. Such as?

One Thing Leads To Another

Disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who's facing charges of fixing games, filed a court document earlier this week stating that game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference finals between the LA Lakers and Sacramento Kings was fixed by the refs.

I remember that game as the one that turned me permanently off NBA basketball (permanently, until the Warriors dramatic playoff run last year). The Kings were dominating the possession, but the refs were going out of their way to call fouls on them, giving the Lakers 27 free throws in the 4th quarter, to create a revenue-boosting game 7 (won by the Lakers).

The officiating in that game was so horrible, and so much in favor of the Lakers, that it was obvious that the fix was on. NBA league history is full of bad calls that just happen to benefit big-market teams at crucial times, and it happens far too often to be chalked up to coincidence. Just thinking about that 2002 game makes me upset (and I'm not even much of a Sacto Kings fan).

Of course, as a convicted felon, Tim Donaghy isn't really a credible source, and NBA commissioner David Stern calls his allegations "baseless", but if that game wasn't fixed, it was the the worst-officiated sporting event I ever saw in my life. I found this breakdown on the youtube.



Meanwhile, the L.A.  Lakers are back in the finals this year, against the Celtics. I don't really have a horse in these finals between my two least favorite teams, but sources at crookedrefs.com tell me to expect an exciting seven game series with Boston winning the final game at New Boston Garden. 

The Celtics are now up 3-1 after tonight's dramatic second half comeback, so look for them to lose the next two before winning game seven, because that's the way the NBA has it scheduled to go down. Professional basketball is almost like professional wrestling.

Marks and Sparks

Sparks have been celebrating the release of their 21st album by playing their previous 20 albums in order over 20 nights at the Carling Academy in London, ending with the debut of their 21st album Exotic Creatures Of The Deep this Friday (June 13). 

In a fit of congruity, each of the 21 nights were priced at £20 each. The extravaganza kicked off the first weekend I was in London with their first two albums, Halfnelson (1971) and A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing (1972), and I was thinking of going except I wasn't sure about dropping 20 quid on 40 minutes of music, so I decided to pass.  

The next weekend (when I was also in London) was Introducing Sparks (1977) and No. 1 In Heaven (1979), but I didn't make it to those shows either. Introducing Sparks is one of my favorites by them, so I was definitely tempted by that show.

A bunch of Sparks' back catalog (including the long out-of-print Introducing Sparks) was recently added to emusic, so the rest of you subscribers can hear that album as well. Isn't "Over the Summer" one of the best summer songs ever? And doesn't every photo of Ron Mael look like some photo of a regular person that's been defaced by funny glasses and a Hitler moustache?

Unsafe at any speed

Ralph Nader is polling at 6% nationally in the latest Presidential poll. That's even above the margin of error, which is what is is to even consider voting for Nader in 2008.

Anyone who votes for Nader this year has the blood of 4094 US soldiers, and even more Iraqis, on their hands. There's just too much at stake to throw a vote away on "principle".  And that's even discounting the fact that Ralph is about as qualified to be President as I am (because I'm a U.S. born citizen over 35 too).

As ¡Jestaplero! would say "People are idiots (results higher for Nader voters)"

Bay Area Slow Transit

And Rarely Dependable Service

On the weekend before I started my vacation, there was a fire in the South Hayward BART yard, which affected the service on my line (Fremont) for a few days. It was slightly inconvenient, but thought I would spare the worst of it by being away while they resolved the problem, and everthing would be back to normal when I got back home.

It wasn't. One month later, we're still four or more weeks away from BART service being restored, and it's really frustrating.  Before the fire, my daily commute took 46 minutes .

8:00 Catch a Richmond train at Hayward station
8:22 After six stops,
         walk across the platform to a Pittsburg/Bay Point train
8:46 Get off the train at Walnut Creek station and walk to the office.

The fire on May 10th shut down the Fremont-Richmond line during the day, so I need to transfer twice, and the trains are out of sync, so my daily commute takes nearly 1.5 hours.

8:00 Arrive at Hayward station, wait 5-10 minutes for a SF/Daly City train
8:10 Board SF/Daly City train (time uncertain)
8:30 Wait 5-10 minutes for a Richmond train at Lake Merritt
8:40 Wait 10-15 minutes for a Pittsburg/Bay Point train at 12th St.
9:20 Get off the train at Walnut Creek station and walk to the office.

The ride is a half-hour longer each way, and it's the same in the evening. The constant waiting and changing is getting old, and it seems like BART doesn't really care. After the MacArthur maze caught fire last year, there was a lot of local media attention and public cooperation and everything was back to normal in a week, but nobody cares about some fire at the tail end of a BART line that only affects 5% of the commuters except the 20 thousand people who are actually affected.

Why you should never arrive late or leave early!

I didn't make it to today's A's-Angels game until a few batters in, so I missed Rich Harden striking out the side on nine pitches in the top of the first. Why did he choose to do it in the first inning?

The game ended up going to extra innings and I left after the bottom of the 11th to make it home by 5pm,  just missing Mark Ellis's walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 12th!  

So I attended a game with two historic feats by the home side and missed them both, even though I caught every pitch of the 3.5 hours in the middle.  

It's probably payback for seeing that triple play last weekend!