Music Friday: Old people like festivals too

The Treasure Island Music festival lineup was announced this week (or, "dropped," I guess. The lineup "dropped" on Tuesday.) and it is EVEN MORE DISAPPOINTING THAN USUAL.

Sigur Ros, really?  I mean, even if you like Sigur Ros, they don't jump to mind when you think "festival headliners."  Maybe the Kill Yourself Festival, with Nine Inch Nails, Mark Eitzel and a hologram of Joy Division.  I remember seeing Spiritualized at TI one year - during the daytime, no less - and thinking about how incongruous it seemed.  Spiritualized should only be experienced in a dark and smoky club with ample whiskey, not on a beautiful sunny day from the top of a ferris wheel.  Sigur Ros should only be experienced in a teenage cutter's room with lizards in formaldehyde in jars and an unopened bottle of Wellbutrin.

I guess Ice Cube could be fun.

But honestly, there isn't another band on there I would pay money to see.  What the fuck happened, Treasure Island Music Festival?  There used to be some good lineups.  I mean, in 2008 (the aforementioned Spiritualized year) you had TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, Okkervil River, Fleet Foxes, Hot Chip.  That's a good lineup!  Now we get "Glass Animals," whatever the fuck that is. I know a lot of people like Car Seat Headrest, but it just doesn't do anything for me.

Don't tell me it's because I'm getting old.  I'M NOT OLD, YOU'RE OLD. I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU.

Speaking of festivals, I recently learned that there is such a thing as the Animal Collective Camping Weekend in Big Sur and that sounds like it might be like taking acid inside a mescaline factory.  Nothing I'd rather do than sleep on the ground with 333 Animal Collective fans talking to each other in Bjork lyrics and whatever else people who would camp out to watch Animal Collective do.

Then on the other end of the spectrum you've got Desert Trip, popularly known as "Oldchella," because FINALLY someone is catering to Baby Boomers.  Haven't they labored in resolute silence long enough?  The lineup includes the Stones, Bob Dylan, The Who, Neil Young, and other proto-Mesozoic acts.  I have no idea how whatever the remaining members of the Dead are calling themselves today escaped this bill.  Apparently the olds are going to camp out, just like the kids!

You better have an "on-site locksmith," because there is no way Peepaw goes 3 days without locking his keys in the Seville.

Finally, the #1 "viral track" in the land, according to Spotify, is "Fuck Steph Curry," a nuanced and incisive analysis of Stephen Curry's faults as a basketball player and citizen.  Not really, it's actually just a guy saying "Fuck Steph Curry" over a backing track.  There are some other lyrics too. It's not very nice.

Here's "You Can't Hide" by Maktub.  It sounds like drinking beer in the sun.  Have a great weekend!

San Francisco needs 200,000 new units of housing. No problem.

A couple of weeks ago everyone was talking about Eric Fischer's amazing blog post "Employment, construction, and the cost of San Francisco apartments," in which he aggregated historical rent data for the city going back decades and found out there's no big mystery, rents go up when there are more people here making more money.  GEE I NEVER.

How do we fix it?  Eric knows:

Well, we certainly don't want to have a 51% drop in employment or a 44% drop in salaries (not my salary, anyway, although I wouldn't mind a 44% drop in the salaries of the shitstorms on Valencia every weekend night), and nobody liked my idea to offer 100,000 people $20K to leave, so all we need is 200,000 more housing units!

LET'S DO IT.

1190 Mission, part of the Trinity Place development, has 418 units in a 24-story building.

To get our 200,000 units, then, we'll need about 478 of those mothers.  NOT A PROBLEM.  We can wedge 478 of those in here.

Let's start in the same neighborhood.  Hmmm, that Best Buy on Harrison is pretty big for a store that sells a bunch of shit you're going to get on Amazon anyway.  And look at that parking lot!

Looks like we can get at least 6 1190's in there.  (That's what we're calling our Standard Housing Units, BTW, "1190's," after their original ancestor at 1190 Mission.

LO, BUILD THEM!

That was easy.  Poof, I just put 2,508 new units of housing where a bunch of flat screen TVs and parked cars used to be.  We're over 1% done and we've barely even started!  I CAN FEEL RENTS FALLING ALREADY.

A common refrain when talking about new housing in SF is that new building is always concentrated in SOMA and Mission Bay and never on the west side of town.  That has to end.  SUNSET RESERVOIR, MEET YOUR NEW NEIGHBORS!!!

I know, I know, we could probably fit like 16 1190's here, but the people across the street are already going to a series of massive coronaries and strokes followed by more heart attacks as soon as this is proposed.

We can even use 1190's to improve society!  BEFORE:

AFTER:

Ahhhh, that's better.

OK, now just have to find room for 468 more.  Don't piss me off or your block is next.

This one is called the Burrito Justice Arms, for obvious reasons, and it's actually very very expensive.  You can't live here.

Music Friday: The blood-dimmed tide is loosed

 Why do I hate Train so much?  Is it their blandly calculated Mom-rock, which sounds engineered in a lab and specifically designed by a team of specialists to appeal to suburban white women, 29-54, who still think of themselves as edgy because they have half a joint left over from a party a few years ago and enjoy the occasional shot of Mezcal and softcore porn?  It should come as no surprise, on that front, that some of their biggest "hits," like "Hey, Soul Sister" and "Drive By" were cowritten with Norwegian production team Espionage, who generally make their scratch writing for American Idol lower-tier finishers, which are about comparable to Train's level of competence and/or enjoyability.

Or is it the utterly insipid and often laughably inane lyrics, which sometimes, for example, feature singer Pat Monahan portraying himself as a "shy guy looking for a two ply / Hefty bag to hold my love," which would make him eligible for sex offender registration in several states?  Or their continued and desperate-seeming need to connect themselves to San Francisco, where they got their start, despite the fact that they have long since decamped to Seattle or whatever?

I don't know.  All of it, I guess.  But just in case you need a little more, Train has gone and released a song-by-song cover of Led Zeppelin II.  Even if you're not a huge Led Zeppelin fan - and I'm not really, although of course I was once a 16-year-old pot smoking youth and thus have done more than enough Led Zeppelin listening - this news should frighten and confuse you.  Why?, you might ask.  Why would you do such a thing?  Led Zeppelin never did anything to you.

Because I love and respect you and would never want you to be hurt, I went and listened to some of it.  It's not terrible.  It's extraordinarily faithful to the original.  Which means, what was the fucking point?  Last year, Ryan Adams released a song by song cover of Taylor Swift's 1989, which I enjoyed quite a bit, largely because he Ryan Adams-ized the songs so completely that it sounded like a decent new Ryan Adams album.  This sounds like when a TV show can't get the rights to the original recording of something and hire studio musicians to cover it as closely as possible.

They're playing it at the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday.  It's sold out, of course.

Ugh.

If you wanna go, here's a guy on Craigslist selling tix for $250 each.  Your funeral.  Here's a great article in the New York papers about the pointlessness and ennui of the whole project.

Speaking of existing in a hellscape of heat and pain, Bonnaroo is this weekend! I was just in Middle Tennessee and I could only be outside for 25 minutes at a time under the blinding sun and searing 90 degree heat and 50 percent humidity but if you want to stand in that to watch Jason Mraz, go for it.  Actually, there are some bright spots in the lineup - Waxahatchee, Tame Impala (playing from 1 am to 3 am! They don't make enough cocaine), the always fun LCD Soundsystem, Vince Staples, Father John Misty - but what with the heat and the hippies and the camping, I can't even.  I'm stuck with urban festivals only from here on out.

Finally, have you ever discovered a band that you've never heard mentioned by anyone before and you can't figure out why they're a big secret and man, this album is pretty good!  That just happened with me and the band is Ultimate Painting and the album is Ultimate Painting.  Predictably, there's also a song on the album called Ultimate Painting, but here's a different song.



The Velvet Underground is strong in this one. I like it. It says on their Internet web site that they're playing the Chapel on July 25, but nobody told the Chapel apparently.  Hopefully they sort that out.

And with that, go blessedly into your weekend.

How to disrupt the car rental industry, which needs some disrupting

We've been traveling a fair amount lately and that means renting cars and there may be, what, I don't know, 10 different car rental #brands like Avis and Budget and Hertz and Dollar and whatever else but it's always the same thing.  

1. Get to counter.

2. Give ID and credit card

3. Clerk tries to upsell you.  "How about a BMW 550?  Perfect for this weather!" This actually just happened to me.  No thanks, I can look like a dickhead just fine by myself, I don't need a BMW 550 to help!

4. Clerk warns you darkly of your financial ruin should you pass on the rental insurance.  "Sure, your insurance might cover it, but until their coverage kicks in, you will be forced to squat in a mud hole, covered in ants!  That could be very unpleasant!!!!"

5. Finally get your Mitsubishi Galant or similar.  Have you ever seen a Chevy Malibu other than as a rental car?  Does Chevrolet even make Malibus for sale to the general public?

Well, all that is about to change.  Meet bluechinchilla.com, the new car rental agency that will change the way you look at car rentals.

Here are the features of the disruptive rental car agency I just made up:

- We have normal cars.  Like you can get a VW Passat or a Subaru Outback or even a Prius if that's your Life Path.  Your funeral.  No "Buick Verano," whatever the fuck that is.

- All the insurance is rolled into the cost of the rental.  Sure, we cost a couple bucks more, but you're totally covered if you back into the Gateway Arch or whatever.  (Does not include windows being broken if you leave a laptop bag on the seat, you fucking moron.)

- Bring it back with however much gas is left, we don't care.  We'll fill it up and bill your credit card at whatever price the closest gas station to the airport is charging.  Don't worry about it, we cool.

- Our website will have a cool interface like Tinder or something but without the pain of constant rejection and disappointment.

- Is it going to cost a little more?  Of course it's going to cost a little more!  OK, a lot more.  But paying more just means you're important and cool!  

- Why bluechinchilla.com?  Chinchillas are known as the car rentals of animals.  No, I just made that up.  It's because bluechinchilla.com was available as of this morning.  Go innovate with us!

Music Friday: The Birth of Music Friday

Hey everyone, welcome to Music Friday, a new feature here where you can take advantage of integrated social network posting to reach job seekers on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  Oh wait, no, that's not right. That's someone else.  Actually this is a new feature where I will talk about music every Friday.  You know what they say, it mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel.  So let's go.

Recently Spotify Discover Weekly (more about which below) served me up something surprising and cool.  Now, if I said to you "how about a reggae cover of a Radiohead song" you'd probably say something like "they don't make weed big enough" or "can you reload for me I accidentally fired that one off the side of my head" but BELIEVE IT OR NOT this cover of "Let Down" by Toots & the Maytalls (under the Easy Star All Stars aegis) is actually pretty great.




It's not just me! According to reliable sources like their marketing agency, "Thom Yorke, 'in a rare moment of onstage chatter' according to USA Today, praised Toots and the Maytals' version of 'Let Down,' while Yorke's bandmate, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, calls it 'truly astounding.'"  Listen for yourself; I think it's pretty great, and I'm the kind of person who would normally break out in hives at the phrase "reggae cover."

(Why did SDW serve up this odd choice to me?  Probably because I listened to some Radiohead. Did I listen to some reggae at some point?  I don't think so, but BLACKOUTS HAPPEN!!!!)

Turning to matters more conventional, as you know, I love Sturgill Simpson a lot, which is to say more than other modern country music and less than beer.  I didn't love his latest album, "A Sailor's Guide to Earth" as much as his prior 2 albums, but it's still better than a lot of things.  Anyway, Sturgill did a WTF podcast with Marc Maron and it's illuminating and fascinating, not just because I'm a fan of the artist but also because he's just had an interesting life, going from rural Kentucky to the Navy to working for the railroad in Utah and other country-music-type-stuff.  Worth a listen.

(That being said, I might be heretical here but I don't really care for Marc Maron's interviewing style, which often seems to be Marc Maron talking about Marc Maron while the guest patiently listens.  He's like a rougher, recovering alcoholic Terry Gross.)

Listening to that led me to the catalog of Jason Isbell, an artist I have tried out once or twice but never really followed up on but then hearing Sturgill talk about him like he was God I went back and checked some stuff out again.  HOLY SHIT, I should have paid more attention the first time.  This blew me away:




Trigger warning, don't listen to this if anyone you know has ever died, or if you're a person on the Earth.  It is fucking DEVASTATING.

I promise I don't exclusively listen to reggae covers and morose alt-country!  While recently listening to someone's show on BFF.FM, the Only Station That Matters, I happened to hear Warm Soda's "Tell Me in a Whisper."  What a fun song!




Cool, huh? Wait, was there something else? Oh yeah, Spotify Discover Weekly, the service where Spotify serves you a playlist specifically tailored to what you might like.  Or should like.  Unlike every other one of these type things, Spotify Discover Weekly actually prodcues results.  It's magical!  Here's a great article about how they do it.

Finally, I really want to go to the Saturday set at FYF Fest in LA.  Seriously, check out this lineup:

Unfortunately, it's sold out.  Maybe I'll be the tenth caller or something, who knows.

If you go see Brian Jonestown Massacre this weekend, CONGRATULATIONS! You're probably older than me.

This Dolores Park fee thing smells like some bullshit, even if it's somehow not

What are we outraged about today?  Why, the Rec and Parks Department renting chunks of Dolores Park, the beloved humanity hive in Mission Park.  Patient Zero for Today's Rage appears to be SFist:

This should end well. A two-month pilot program from the Recreation and Parks Department now allows people to reserve sections of Dolores Park for periods of at least seven hours. And no, not the picnic table areas (which you've always been able to reserve), but just straight up sections of grass near Hipster Hill/Fixie Flats. What's more, on weekends Rec and Parks plans on having staff on site to enforce the reservations — so you better not sit in someone's spot.

Yes, it costs money. And yes, the primary way to book the spots is online. The new practice of course calls to mind the infamous Soccer Field War of 2014 in which longtime, Mission-born players ran up against a new reservation system being used by recent transplants and tech employees, ultimately causing neighborhood kids to get kicked off what they saw as their own fields.

According to the Rec and Parks website, in order to reserve your own little piece of Dolores heaven, now all you have to do is apply and pay the fee of $33 to $260 (depending on group size, and not including the $200 security deposit). "All requests for Mission Dolores must complete an online Picnic Application," the site explains.

The predictable Blinding Rage Kabuki followed: (1) Rage Trigger; (2) Angry Twitter; (3) Wait, this isn't a big deal; (4) My dumb opinion.

Number three took the form of tweets like this:

@cynthia_says @michesf With all due respect, I'm not sure I see the story here. You can reserve areas at EVERY park. Am I missing something?

— Joe Eskenazi (@EskSF) May 24, 2016

Well, sure. Everyone knows you can rent picnic areas (which is basically a picnic table or two and a grill that has been used so much it looks like it was dipped in molten iron and then hastily left to dry, or maybe Forged in the Fires of the Ur-Griller Carbo.  I was at such an event last Saturday in Golden Gate Park, even!  Some people even know you can rent the picnic areas in Dolores Park.

But this seems different.  We're not talking about a clearly delineated area like a picnic table.  No, this is just an imaginary square in the middle of the grass.

See that "NW-A"?  Unfortunately, it's not a set-aside area for performances by the legendary Compton ensemble.  It's picnic area A, and I guess if you rent it you have the right to control who shall enter and stay upon your private grasstangle.  You better get some velvet ropes and a big fucking bouncer, because based on how crowded Dolores Park gets on weekends, keeping the Undesirable and the Uninvited out of your Rented Piece of Paradise is going to be a Grade A Bitch.

So Rec & Parks' position is basically "Nothing new here, it's always been this way, we have always been at war with Eastasia," but I've been going to parks for a long time and I have never seen any square of grass that someone was claiming squatters rights on and telling me not to sit there because they had a fucking permit.

The problem OF COURSE like everything else in Our Garbage City is bigger than just this latest flap.  It's about the Public Good being sold off for Private Use and it's just another chapter in the Dropbox Soccer Bros tale of the newly arrived wealthy and entitled kicking the rest of us off of public facilities that we've been paying for a lot longer than they have.  RESENTMENT SELLS and gets clicks to boot.

So I don't know, maybe Rec and Parks really has been selling imaginary sections of the park off for daily use since Time Immemorial and we've just never noticed because we've never accidentally trod onto someone's private square of park, but the whole thing seems fishy as hell.

(All that being said, I still don't get why people shove themselves into every square inch of Dolores Park whil,e acres of other parks sit empty.  Convenience, I guess.  Still.)

UPDATE!!!!!!: It's over.  They're not doing it.  You can reserve the picnic tables, but the Grasstangles 2016 is dead.  RIP grasstangles.

(POSTSCRIPT: I know my assignment today was Day 2 of Computer Generated Week of Blogging, specifically "14 Common Misconceptions About Booze," so just repeat to yourself "alcohol is universally good or bad" 14 times.)

Computer-Generated Week of Blogging, Day 1: Take This Inane Quiz!

Thanks to this tweet by Twitterer Julie Polito:

Time waster of the day: Typing my favorite things into the @hubspot blog topic generator. pic.twitter.com/m8G4ds2lq2

— Julie Polito (@jlpolito) May 23, 2016

I learned there is something called "Hubspot" and that it can generate Great Blogging Ideas presumably designed to Engage My Core Audience and Develop Quality Content that will Drive Marketing Success and Engagement.  I haven't been blogging as much lately what with the Kid and also being a regular person taking up so much of my time so WHAT THE HELL I figured, Hubspot, give me some Fresh and Dynamic Content ideas.

I typed in three nouns that interested me and Hubspot gave me a veritable cornucopia of potential content:

Just for me!  OK, Hubspot, your wish is my command.  Let's start today with #1!

THINK YOU'RE CUT OUT FOR DOING SAN FRANCISCO? TAKE THIS QUIZ

Please answer "True" or "False" to the following 14 questions!!!

1. I spent junior year abroad in Spain so let me tell you how inauthentic these tapas are.

2. Things were better in another time that isn't now.

3. There is a stick that protrudes perpendicularly from the right side of my steering column. I have no idea why it's there or what it does.

4. I sometimes takes quizzes with titles like "Think You're Cut Out for Doing San Francisco? Take This Quiz"

5. I think it's a pretty good idea to open a ping pong bar that cost 5 million dollars.

6. I like dogs.

7. MY DOG IS A SPECIAL AND PRECIOUS CREATURE WHOSE VERY EXISTENCE IS A GIFT UPON A WORLD THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO RECEIVE IT.

8. I'm special too.

9. I could pay $4,000 for a one-bedroom apartment but a $15 cab fare halfway across town is ridiculous.

10. I moved here from Different City. It's different here. Let me tell you about it, based on my barely informed perceptions after being here for 6 months and some commonly held if not necessarily true beliefs.

11. I wear hoodies all the time, unlike in other cities.

12. I believe that all these new people are destroying the city so I sold my house for $3,000,000 and moved to Denver.

13. I have seen people less fortunate than myself and was able to come to terms with the fact that they are human beings too.

14. There aren't enough bubble tea shops anywhere.

If you answered TRUE to even one of these questions, CONGRATULATIONS!!  You are cut out for doing San Francisco.