Here’s me and Vic at the 400 back in 2003. I told him I liked his stocking cap. He told me it was cold in Minnesota. I thought maybe he’d say he liked mine. He didn’t. I didn’t care, I liked him because he was weird and awesome and emotional and unpredictable and funny and sad and seriously ‘Zippy Morocco’ is just one of my favorite songs and it’s a real bummer that he’s gone. Vic Chesnutt, Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 45
Oh man it’s almost time for the Olympics and you know what that means, right? Right. Snowboarding coverage in the NYT, baby! Today’s sports COVER PAGE featured an article about the run-up to Vancouver and how the double cork is gonna be the move to beat. It’s some new move that’s hard and twisty and you know what else – it’s actually kinda stylish, which is nice to see for a change given the ever present obsession on SO MUCH ROTATION that looks yes, hard, but also clumsy and awkward and silly. Stupid 1080′s.
But back to the double cork. Here’s the vid of Shaun White hitting it back to back earlier this year, which is mentioned in the article, and which pretty much freaked people out.
How crazy was it to roll into the parking lot the day winter decided it was time to party and see all these cars with their wipers pointed up at the sky. Super crazy. And totally new to me. And I’ve lived thru winters before. Several of them. And I’ve been around parking lots in winter. Several of them. And you’d think that given my extensive background in both winter and parking lots that I’d be familiar with most local genius tips and tricks for winter parking (LGT&T4WP). Especially if there was a tip that instructed you to “pop your wipers” before you go into the office. I’d be tuned into that, right? Right? Oh man.
Either way, here’s my theory on this. I work in a building with a lot of people who are either ex-pats from warmer (non-snowy) climates and/or travelling road warrior consultants in from other parts of the country. Many of them aren’t overly familiar with snow or cold or whatever. Some of them obvs are – like the Canadian guy I work with who rode his motorcycle every day up until like last Sunday – but there are seriously tons of people in the building who are from Honduras or Brazil or Georgia and just don’t know about winter beyond the “concept” and/or “youtube”.
My hunch is that it’s a regional thing. Some guy who flies in from Cincinnati or something. Everybody pops their wipers in Cincinnati, duh. So he does it here. Then the clueless non-wintered masses roll in, see Mr. Cincinnati’s blades, jump out of their car, yell something in Portuguese, and pop their wipes, too, assuming that’s how it’s done here in the Great White North. Such rubes. We don’t care about blades frozen to windshields. We take PRIDE in frozen blades. We put on our choppers and pound away at them with the thick blade of a scraper we purchased at a store that also sells large chains, coveralls, and deer urine. We use push brooms and shovels. You pop your blades like that and 9 inches of snow is gonna drift over your windshield anyway. You may as well hang a white flag on the tip of each blade because yeah, you just surrendered before the fight even started.
So now my mission is to a) find Mr. Cincinnati and b) find out if he’s really from Cincinnati and c) buy him a pair of choppers. Stupid Cincinnati, so much to learn about winter.
So here’s the recently released video for Dylan’s song ‘Must Be Santa’ off his new Christmas album that – like the rest of you – I thought was a joke when I first heard about it. But it’s not. And weirder yet, it’s actually not that bad.
And now here’s this video, and it’s one of those things where you laugh when it starts because it’s so absurd but then when it ends you’re immediately clicking the play button again because while you’re not sure you really saw what you just saw, it’s everything you want a Dylan holiday house party to be and you go check your mailbox and pray that today is the day you get the invitation. But it’s sunday, and there’s no mail today. So let’s just watch this genius all over again. Perfect.
Also: Here’s the ‘official’ youtube vid for the song. Bob’s people refused embedding on it. It’s slightly better quality.
My sister makes these. They’re for sale in her etsy shop. You should do some holiday and/or regular shopping at her site because they’re magical and seasonal and amazing and seriously she was crafty way before it was cool. Book it.
There are also watches made with safety pins and beads that look like they would take way more patience and squinting than I would be able to tolerate. You know you want one.
