Okay, so forget anything I said yesterday about the quality level of in-snow driving around here. Those observations were, it turns out, overly influenced by a sample group limited to anyone who happened to drive past our house yesterday. First, late last night we saw a couple of people just down the road having to push out a car that had gotten stuck in the snow (looked like they were going to fast and skidded into the heavier snow on the shoulder). Driving around today I saw multiple cars fishtailing, a car that had been rear-ended, a guy skidding out on his scooter and (to top it all off) someone took out a utility pole just up the street. I think it was just telephone lines.There were people standing around watching and no one seemed to be in a panic and there were no sparks coming from the downed lines. But the road was completely blocked and I had turn around and take the long way (down to Sparger and back out to Hillsborough) to get over to the radio station.
I think what's going on is that the roads are in an extremely variable state. Most of the main roads have been plowed, there's a pretty good amount of traffic, and the sun has been out all day. So there are stretches where things are mostly clear and open. But every road I was on today had a stretch, and they sometimes came up without warning, right after a curve or something, where that changed and there were slush piles or the amount of clear pavement was down to just tire tracks or (in spots where the road had obviously been in the shade all day) where nothing had melted and it was just a big sheet of packed-down snow. So if you're going out. pay attention and watch out for other drivers who might not be.

Whee... snow!

We're about ten years out from the big 20 inch blizzard which is the biggest storm we've had since I've been living here. Last night and today's storm didn't come close but it came way closer than any other FWDFA(tm) event we've had in the last few years. I think we ended up with about 7 inches. Would have been more except it changed to sleet for most of today. Major bummer that it started early last night and we had to cancel our reservations at Panciuto. But we didn't have to go anywhere today so we could just stay in and make biscuits and watch old movies and burn up a bunch of wood in the fireplace.
It's been pretty quiet out on the road in front of the house. No one's done a 360 or sailed off into a ditch. But I did see plenty of cars driving down the road with their entire rear windows covered in 5+ inches of snow. And it's not like this is a southern thing. I used to see that all the time up in NYC. Perhaps the theory is that if some goes out of control and is about to ram into you from behind, you're better off if you don't see it coming.

This morning was one of those days when XDU feels like my own personal playground. There hasn't been anyone on the 5-7am shift before me in at least a year so I'm always getting there and powering the station back up. But when I checked email before leaving this morning I found a note from the 9am DJ saying she was out of town and hadn't been able to find a sub. So it was: drive to station, turn on all the machines, play music for 2 hours to whatever random people happened to be listening, turn off all the machines and leave. Still, it was fun. It's pretty much always fun. And, hey, I managed to get thru the show without mistakenly playing any indecencies over the air (which is a good thing).

In other news, Frozen White Death from Above(tm) panic in full effect, y'all. Which rather sucks, as we're supposed to be going out for Sarah's birthday dinner tomorrow night. Maybe we'll get lucky and the storm will slow down and things won't get all snowy (or wintry mixish or whatever) until later. I'm thinking that Saturday's planned excursion to China Palace for lunch w/ Phil, S, D, and Sta Salsera is probably not gonna happen. But we don't need to figure that out now. As one of our number pointed out earlier, if the weather is bad we'll all be trapped in our homes watching the internets anyway.

Okay, so today's Dinosaur Comics just cracked me up. Off to the catapubmarine!

Also, can your heart stand the horrible truth about unhappy hipsters

Stephen Worth, the director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, has been guest-blogging over at boing² and last weekend he did a series of posts on music. Specifically, great American music from the 20th century. Including clips of Armstrong (w/ the Ambassadors), Leadbelly, Buck Owens & the Buckaroos. Lotsa good stuff and definitely worth checking out. It's funny, though. I agree with his basic idea that most people just don't know anything the vast amount of great music that's out there. But the way he made that point rather bugged me. Just a little too much "oh these damn kids with their microstep and their dubtech and their emohouse." And get off his lawn. I just think it was lazy writing to use his young interns as the example of incurious people with limited musical tastes. Most people, whatever their ages, are incurious and have limited musical tastes in some ways. For example, even a well-intentioned set of recommendations might miss out on huge genres of music from all around the world.

Here are some interesting final thoughts on Conan O'Brien from Bomani Jones, who has a different perspective than any I've seen elsewhere on the intertubes cos he himself was recently fired (when one of the local sports radio stations bought the other one last year, they ended up cancelling a bunch of programming, most of it local). I was surprised, at first, that O'Brien was able to take the high road. But it was really an impressive way to go out. Over the weekend I caught up with the live blog that AV Club did and some of the folks on there just seemed to have been completely confounded by Conan's decision to stay classy. Personally, I could've done without the ending jam on "Freebird" (it's just one of those songs I never want to hear again) but I certainly can't begrudge him his self-indulgence.

Oh, and remember, no kicking penguins.

I think it was on last Thursday's Tonight Show when Pee-Wee Herman came out to explain the whole Conan v. NBC fracas (using a plush giraffe & NBC logo, Optimus Prime and "the bad guy from Avatar"). I'd heard a while ago that Reubens was bringing back Pee-Wee but that was the first time I'd seen him in character since forever ago. Turns out he's doing the Pee-Wee Herman Show live on stage in LA. No word on any tour plans so I bet that the only way to see the show is to go out to Cali. Oh well. There's also a spiffy Pee-Wee Herman website. (Note: will play the theme song at you, but you can turn the sound off if you're at work or you've already memorized all the lyrics).

scream real loud!

So this weekend's mostly been a festival of slacktacularity. Well, I did get one of the household tasks at the top of the list done. And reviewed a couple of CDs. But other than that, not so much in the way of productivity. Well, I did do some shopping. Including a stop at the farmer's market to get some pie from Scratch to celebrate National Pie Day. Altho why National Pie Day is not on Pi Day I couldn't begin to guess. And I suppose it all might have something to do with the mad social whirl that's been whirling (party last night, brunch this morning, dinner at Watts tonight.
Speaking of which, Watts and many other Triangle restaurants are participating in Dine Out for Haiti. If you can't make it anywhere tonight, there's a bunch of places participating tomorrow as well.

Been thinking that I should be recording these last few nights of Conan O'Brien on the Tonight Show. Just to see how much of an FU he'll have for the ad wizards at NBC. But of course, here in the age o' the internets, I don't really have to do that since Gawker's very thoughtfully done all the heavy lifting for me with Late Night Wars, their compilation of all the wacky hijinks.

And speaking of all things intertube-tastic, here's some of the oddball goofiness that... well, I don't think you can say the 'nets created stuff like this but 20 years ago this would have been in a zine and probably only 114 people would ever have seen it. But now we can all get a chance to bask in the wonderfulness that is America Bowl.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 17 jan 10)

Nueva America :: Quiero Club
the Prester John Sessions :: Tommy T
Corridos of the Chicano Movement :: Rumel Fuentes
Taketron :: Slavic Soul Party!
Esta Plena :: Miguel Zenon
Sujinho :: Jackson Conti
Light a Candle :: Forro in the Dark
Shadow Music of Thailand :: various
Colour :: Latin Bitman
New York - Addis - London: the Story of Ethio Jazz, 1965-75 :: Mulatu Astatke

this week's video feature: Mulatu Astatke

Check out this awesome interview with Brian Eno Fun side-note: interview conducted by UK journo Paul Morley, who once upon a time was co-founder of ZTT Records and was the man who gave the world Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Fun bits from the interview include Eno saying nice things about Abba and talking a bit of smack about Steve Reich. He also talks a bit about working with U2 and Coldplay at the same time and his worries that he'd get his files mixed up and end up giving them identical tracks by mistake. An amusing thought as a prank and also confirms that the description of Eno and Byrne's working process for Everything That Happens Will Happen Today was basically accurate.

Here's a fun clip of the Mary Kaye Trio. According to Stephen Worth (who is guest blogging over at boing²), they were the first act in Vegas ever to play a late night lounge act, paving the way for Louis Prima & Keely Smith and the lounge explosion in late 50s Vegas.

Local food blog Varmint Bites covers N&O food critic Greg Cox's top restaurants list for 2009. I've been to 12 of the top 25 (as noted in the blog post, it's actually now a top 24, as Fins has closed). And, of course, all lists like this are just excuses to debate. Breaking with standard internets protocol, I don't offer any opinion on the half of the list I haven't tried yet. Of the places where I have eaten, I'd probably drop Elaine's and Second Empire and possibly il Palio (altho I hear they've got a new chef so they probably deserve another visit before they get kicked to the curb). I'd probably sub in Jujube and Piedmont in those spots.
Noticed in comments, both at Varmint Bites and over on Chowhound, that there's support for Rue Cler as being deserving of a spot in the top 25. Several people whose opinions I respect (including some who might actually be among the theoretical readers of this blog) really like Rue Cler. But it's never clicked for me. The food's good but not enough to get past the service issues. I wouldn't say it's bad service (I mean, we've been back several times) but there's often something that's just not quite right. Plus I don't really dig the space all that much. And, yes, I'm aware that this is largely idiosyncratic. I know I've read people complaining about problems at places where I've never had anything other than great experiences and sometimes wondered how they managed to have such a bad time when I never do. It is (as the cliché goes, what it is). Anyway, when I'm in the mood for French bistro food, I think of Vin Rouge. YMMV

Right on cue, noted asshat Pat Robertson came out droppin' knowledge that God (also known as Yahweh, aka Jehovah, aka James Mason) was punishing Haiti with that earthquake because they'd made a pact with Satan in order to overthrow the French and free themselves from slavery. There really is no human tragedy, no amount of death, misery and human suffering that he won't turn into a chance to remind us what a small-minded hateful motherfucker he is and what a crabbed, twisted view of the divine, the world and religion he has. For those keeping score at home, I believe that adds the Haitian earthquake to God's already crowded kill sheet, which also includes the Asian tsunami, Katrina, and 9/11. It's like the Eddie Izzard bit about Pol Pot's day planner: death, death, death, death... tea... death, death, death.
Two other spot-on responses from John Cook and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I'd like to be able to say that CBN (Robertson's charity) is a complete scam but in some brief looking around online this morning, they seem to be okay-ish, at least in terms of keeping their administrative costs down and using most of their donations for actual services. What they're doing with the money I don't know. And certainly, whatever good they might do, there are plenty of organizations doing as good work or better who are not headed by hateful morons. I'm sure y'all can figure out where you'd like to donate. if not, may I suggest Medicins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders

Monday's movie: Get Smart. The recent-ish big Hollywood explodo-fest remake. I remember seeing the early trailers for this in a theater, the one with just Carell recreating the opening credits from the original series and thinking it was gonna be excellent. Then it came out and the commercials made it look like a big dumb explodofest. Even though my pal Ace Flyrite is a HUGE fan of the original and gave it his seal of approval, I was still somewhat dubious. But I gotta say, it was awesome. Steve Carell was brilliant as Max. Alan Arkin nearly steals the movie as the Chief. Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson shows some fine comedy chops and stapler skills. Shoe phone, cone of silence and Hymie appearances. Terence Stamp!! Plus a Bill Murray cameo AND a Bernie Kopell cameo. In much the same way as the recent Star Trek reboot, I thought it did a good job balancing the expectations of audiences who have never seen the original show with those of hardcore fans. Fun stuff and definitely worth renting if you haven't already gotten around to it.

I think Deadspin had it about right on the whole McGwire thing: "America shrugs, returns to its lunch." Well, okay, that's what should have happened. Instead it's been pretty much wall-to-wall gasbaggery ever since. I think the single stupidest thing I heard anyone say was on one of the local sports radio yakfests. In the middle of a rant about how steroids had killed baseball, they actually paused to note that the NFL had had a steroids problem but they'd "cleaned it up." I can only assume that they were referring to improved hypodermic sanitation procedures and/or work done to reduce chemical impurities in the PEDs. Moments like that remind me why I'm glad I have an iPod in the car.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 10 jan 10)

Shadow Music of Thailand :: various
Esta Plena :: Miguel Zenon
Aguilas & Cobras :: Brownout
Ghana Special :: various
Corridos of the Chicano Movement :: Rumel Fuentes
Sujinho :: Jackson Conti
Taketron :: Slavic Soul Party!
Colour :: Latin Bitman
Light a Candle :: Forro in the Dark
Warm Heart of Africa :: the Very Best

this week's video feature: Forro in the Dark

Today's movie: 3 Idiots. When were up on SI for the holiday, Sarah and I watched this leased-time show about the best Bollywood songs from last year. It also included a behind-the-scenes look at the making of 3 Idiots, the new Aamir Khan movie. It looked really good so we were very excited when it opened at the Galaxy in Cary. A little bit of Real Genius (okay maybe more than a little bit). Plus some MacGyver, some Mythbusters with a heavy dose of coming-of-age melodrama. And big splashy musical numbers. And flatulence jokes. And a Satyajit Ray parody. And big splashy musical numbers. As a matter of fact, "Aal izz Well" (my fave number from the movie; couldn't find any video but this is the song) is quite literally splashy, taking place inside the shower rooms at the engineering college where most of the movie is set. Just a big fun movie.
Highly recommended.

There was the vaguest rumor of the possibility of snow yesterday night. I guess there were some closings and delays but even by the admittedly loose standards in place locally I don't think this rose to even a mild FWDFA panic. Which is all to the good since it warmed up overnight as the precip came in, changing the light dusting of snow to a light dusting of drizzle. Of course, now that there's no chance of anything falling out of the sky other than an anomic pigeon, now it's barely gonna break freezing all weekend.

Here's another gem du fromage (via Scrubbles)

Tonight's movie: Maestro. Outstanding look at NYC underground dance culture in the 70s and 80s, the roots of house and particularly the late, great DJ Larry Levan. Apparently there's very little film of Larry Levan (which makes sense... how many people are going around filming club DJs?) but the movie makes up for that by interviewing just about everyone, including Nicky Siano, David Mancuso, Louie Vega, Frankie Knuckles, Francois K, Tom Moulton, Jellybean, Derrick May. Highly recommended.
Sometimes I think documentaries about urban scenes of the late 20th century should be required to use a Memento format. That way the grim drug addiction and AIDS section of the story would come at the begining and the movies could end with the more upbeat earlier years. They try to get around this in Maestro by ending with a visual tour of contemporary DJ culture (movie was released in 2003). Which was nice (hey, that's Dimitri from Paris... Sven Vath... Fantastic Plastic Machine) but kinda frustrating cos they were just showing their pictures and not playing any of their music.

House of Dioxin wrrld music top 10 (year ending 31 dec 09)

la Luz del Ritmo :: los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Warm Heart of Africa :: the Very Best
Coconut Rock :: Adrian Quesada & Ocote Soul Sounds
Travelling the Face of the Globe :: Oi Va Voi
Black Diamond :: Buraka Som Sistema
Hidden Melodies Revealed :: the Sway Machinery
Boogaloo Pow-Wow: Dancefloor Rendezvous in Young Nuyorica :: various
Rio :: Aterciopelados
Imidiwan : Companions :: Tinariwen
Picotero :: Monareta

Following up on the XDU list, here's my personal list of fave wrrld albums from 2009. The XDU list is determined solely by the number of spins while on playlist whereas mine is determined solely by what I like. Of course, I had a hell of a time getting down to 10. Below the cut for those bubbling under (in alphabetical order).

Here's a current fave side dish for these wintry months: spicy sweet collards. The recipe's by Aaron McCargo and, yes, I did see it on an episode of his show. What I like about it is that it's a collards recipe that doesn't take all day to make. I have few notes and things I've adapted after cooking it a couple of times. It's definitely important to cut the collards super-thin if you want them to cook quickly. Think chiffonade. I roll up 5 or 6 leaves and then cut them. I've also cut back on the amount of heat -- a hefty teaspoon of chili-garlic paste worked well, a full tablespoon of aleppo pepper was a bit too much. Also, I've kicked up the sugar (1.5 or 2 Tbsp). And, altho they are edible in the 8 min. cooking time in the original recipe... c'mon, they're collards... it's tough to overcook them. I got results I liked after about 20 min.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (year ending 31 dec 09)

Welcome to the Party :: various
le Pop: les Filles :: various
Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk on the Isthmus, 1967-77 :: various
African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s :: various
Pop-Up :: Yelle
Paraibo :: Hugo Filho
Menagerie :: Nous Non Plus
Commercial :: los Amigos Invisibles
Coba Coba :: Novalima
la Luz del Ritmo :: los Fabulosos Cadillacs

So, same percentage for world music in the XDU top 100 as last year (21%). I'm not completely sure I've got everything in the right order. Music staff broke the numbers for compilations out separately. I checked the database to get the raw numbers to recombine but I might have miscounted here or there. Still, I think this is basically correct. And it gives me a chance to shout out my absolute favorite song of the year again, "la Luz del Ritmo" by los Fabulosos Cadillacs

It always seems so drab right after all the Xmas decorations come down. Well, to be fully accurate, only the decorations inside the house came down today. The outside lights and the big tinsel tree on the front porch are still up. Taking them down won't really be on the agenda until the temps at least start to break freezing.
Other than, it was a pretty quiet weekend. Watched the DVD of Colbert's Christmas special from last year. Which we'd forgotten we had. We'd seen the second half when Comedy Central showed it Xmas morning. But in addition to the opening number and other cool stuff we'd missed, there's also some fun bonus stuff on the disc, including "alternate" endings, a great hurtin' country Christmas song by Colbert, and a video yule log w/ bonus book burning action. That was a great way to wrap up the holiday season.

Here's an interesting article on Stephen Colbert. Includes some interesting stuff about that speech he did at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner back in 2006. Apparently there were some even harsher jokes he dropped on the fly when he saw that he was bombing. Note: the article gets all bloviating and pretentious towards the end. You'll know it when you see it.

Also cool news: just found out that Hollis Gillespie's third book is out. I've previously mentioned how much I enjoyed Bleachy Haired Honky Bitch. The second (Confessions of a Recovering Slut) is also quite fun. Oh yeah, and she's also blogging. Anyway, I'll report back after I've read it.

Time elapsed in 2010 before I encountered the first asshole of the year: about 9.5 hours. Which ain't so good, esp. seeing as how I was asleep for about 6.5 of those. I had to drive over to XDU to drop off a CD to replace one that was missing from the 2009 top 100 countdown we're doing today on air. Probably just misfiled somewhere -- I love my fellow DJs but I have to acknowledge that some of them seem to have issues with the alphabet; on Thursday AM I found all of the Nanci Griffith CDs filed between JE and JI.
Anyway, I'm driving down Broad St. Probably going the speed limit or maybe just a bit slower to check and see if Joe Van Gogh was open (they were; hooray for good coffee to start the year). In case it isn't obvious, Durham's not known for its busy traffic. So there was hardly anyone out on the roads this morning. But no matter, some car comes roaring up behind me and rides my ass for several blocks. I don't know where the hell they were in such a hurry to get to at 9.30 in the AM on New Year's but I'm glad to have done my part to make sure they got there just a little bit later than they wanted.

Feliz Dos Mil Diez, y'all.
We wrapped up 09 with dinner at Dos Perros with S & D. An earlier and less elaborate evening than last year's big tasting menu extravaganza at Jujube but still a fun night out. Highlights included the duck tostada appetizer (which instantly shot to my list of best local dishes I've ever tasted) and the sweet potato margarita. Yes, I said sweet potato margarita. The menu said something like "you're just going to have to trust me on this." And that's correct. Big ups to their mixologist. We all agreed that it's pretty much exactly like a margarita crossed with a sweet potato pie. It started margarita and ended with the warm holiday pie spices. The sweet potato (which I'm not sure how they got it in there since the drink was pretty clear -- maybe they steeped sweet potatoes in the tequila and then strained it) hit somewhere in the middle. The dessert was good enough to be a highlight -- carrot pudding with caramel sauce, toasted pumpkin seeds, and whipped cream (another hit of warm holiday pie spices) -- but we were all so full by that point that we couldn't enjoy it as much. I enjoyed my entree (pollo coloradito -- chicken w/ a milder red mole) and I loved the pinto beans on the side (the rice, not so much). I can't speak for everyone else but my impression is that overall the entrees were not as well received as the apps. It's too bad when the arc of the meal doesn't go up and up. OTOH, we're talking about starting at mind-blowingly awesome and moving to something that's good-but-not-great. Overall, a fine night out.