The Hardcourt Bicycle Polo Federation World Championships are happening this weekend directly across the street from my house here in Philly! I’ll be able to watch from my bedroom if I wanted.

I already posted this on my music blog yvynyl but I gotta share with all y’all who don’t read that (yet!). This is the new music video from my pals Free Energy. The vid was directed by m ss ng p eces and shot on location at the dudes’ house party earlier this summer. I’m really in love with this song and the video – and well, as I said on yvynyl:

Philly + bikes + summertime + my neighborhood + cute kittens + my buddies’ band + a great house party + cameos of dozens of my friends (damn, i didn’t make the cut!) + one kick-ass party song makes this my favorite music video of the week. Then again, I’m biased.

My friend Lance Weiler has been working hard on a new project where creative people meetup and discuss the future of multi-platform story telling, open-source media making and cutting-edge technologies in the creative industries.

DIY Days will be in Philadelphia, happening on August 1st at University of the Arts. But if you’d like to get a jump start on the action, there will be a pre-party and creative meetup on July 8th.

The pre-party details:

Wednesday, July 8 :: 7-11pm @ Johnny Brenda’s
Presented by the WorkBook Project and PIFVA
$5 at the door or FREE for PIFVA members

Special performances by
* SCIENTISTS ARE THE NEW ROCKSTARS

* CHIEF WRECKEM’s ORGANS vs TURNTABLES

* Speed power points presentations about
the FUTURES OF ENTERTAINMENT.

* PLUS a number of targeted NETWORKING SESSIONS to help you meet others who are making creative work in PHILLY.

My neighborhood hosted it’s 3rd annual arts festival this weekend. I’ve been saying this is my favorite day of the year in Fishtown, a day when I’m extra proud to live here and be part of such a vibrant and wild-spirited community. What promised to be a rainy affair turned out to break free of the showers and even give me a sunburn. It was lovely, as always.

A big part of the festival, for those of you who don’t know yet, is the ‘Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby’. I took lots of photos of the derby and here’s a video of some of the best sculptures in action:

Philadelphia Phillies became World Champions last night, in case you didn’t hear. If you were in Philly last night, there wasn’t a chance in hell you missed it. The noise + celebertion + collective euphoria was unbelievable. Here’s a crappy, dark, blurry shot I took on my phone outside of Johnny Brenda’s in Fishtown. Probably 500 people in the street from all the bars in that area. Fireworks. Police. Crazed fans. Amazing.

Gangi

I’ve been a fan of Matt Gangi’s music for something like two years, having completely randomly stumbled upon his MySpace page through friends. He’s an amazing songwriter and his sounds are completely 21st Century, but rooted firmly in the psychedelic era of the 60’s. He’s got an amazing ear and his partnership with Lyle Nesse on drums/drummachine/synth forms a killer duo. I’m so glad to have seen them play a small show at the studio/rehersal space/party house Inciting HQ last night – a complete treat.

06-animals

Magical, Beautiful

Magical, Beautiful is the band of my buddy Chris Keener whom I met years ago at True/False in Columbia, Missouri, his home town. He now lives in Chicago and collaborates with these fellas. We went to see them play at a small house show they booked, and I was blown away. Dualing synths, deep drums and what might be described as Joy Division-style vocals.

They just came out with their first music video recently:

Both of these bands are completely DIY operations, neither is on a record label. If you dig their music, I encourage you to click over to their websites and purchase their records. I have them, and I highly recommend them. Support indie music!

[photo: ESPN/AP Photo/Chris Carlson]

Holy crap, I am so high from the Phillies amazing playoff run right now (though it might be the coffee). I haven’t been this baseball crazy since I was 12 and I was growing up in the Bay Area and going bananas for the Giants awesome playoff run that got them to play the A’s in the “Earthquake” World Series in 1989.

Jason Stark’s pride-inducing post-game write up starts off:

The magic of October is that you can’t script it, you can’t predict it, you can’t even explain it.

So who wrote this script? Who predicted this finish? Who can explain the unbelievable chain of events that have led the Phillies to the brink of their first World Series journey in 15 years?

My love of baseball has been fully revived. If I weren’t so damn broke, I’d snap this up in a hot minute:

Down on one of the backstreets among the broken down factories near the waterfront behind our house, hundreds of people gather on a nice day to race their tricked out four-wheelers. It is a crazy sight, to be sure. Nary a helmet in sight and outa control bravado, it’s really like the old wild west. Racing for money and honor.

After hanging out for a while this afternoon and chattin’ up a few of the racers, we’re convinced we must make a documentary about this amazing subculture. Stay tuned for that.

I guess they were demolishing the house next door and got a *little* too close. It’s amazing how often this actually happens. I’ve seen it several times in the past few years.

This kind of thing happened to my friends Nancy and Will, too. Their rental house’s facade was bowing out and one day just fell off. Wild.

[Vampire Weekend]

We got to enjoy a very relaxing, sunny summer day listening to music outside at Drexel’s campus this past weekend (see all the photos here). The Popped! Music Festival got a lot bigger this year. Last spring we were cramming into small local venues watching great up and coming area bands. This year, it was a full-on festival complete with international musical acts.

My friend Alexis did a great job pulling this thing together over the past year. I helped her out planning a bit early on, so Audrey and I scored some VIP passes and had a good time watching the (ahem) mild debauchery going on back stage.

If you’d like to see some live music clips from the event, check out my music vlog yvynyl live.

The good people of P’unk Ave and The Hacktory are putting together a free event called Ignite Philly on Wednesday June 11th at Johnny Brenda’s at 6:00pm. I’ll be there!

The basic premise of the thing is to ask some local innovators to get up on stage and give a talk about what they do. The catch? They can’t speak for more than 5 minutes and their powerpoint slides will only stay up 15 seconds max. Should be an excellent time for all us nerdz and non-nerdz alike.

You won’t want to miss the awesomeness of featured speakers like:

Hope to see you there!

Last night, Audrey were already in bed early. Probably 11pm. Sometime around the witching hour I get woken by loud banging on our door. Still groggy, I crack my eyes open to see our room flooded with flashing red lights.

“Uh oh,” I think. “Something ain’t right.”

Sure enough, I stand at the window in my boxers and see what appears to be our whole house surrounded by fire trucks. Oh boy.

“Audrey, wake up! Get your clothes on!”

I throw on some jeans and a t-shirt and run downstairs. The following thoughts ran through my mind:

1. my wife gets dressed hella slowly, even in an emergency
2. I’m glad they made me buy that home insurance
3. funny, I don’t feel that warm in here
4. wouldn’t it be wild if flames started coming out my closet
5. if our house burns down, we’ll move to India
6. that’s not so bad. could be worse.

So while I’m outside checking out my neighbor’s house on fire and smoking something fierce and the firemen putting it out and the campfire smell when there isn’t a campfire and the cold, damp night, I think, dang we’re lucky it’s been put out.

As one of the firemen are walking past back to his truck I say, “boy it’s great you guys came so quick.”

He laughs knowingly. “Yeah, we’re the ones who will always come. We always come when you call.”

I smiled and almost asked him if he read my blog last week.

Our house is across the street from a small park. Most of the time, I really enjoy this fact. I run there. I shoot hoops occasionally. I watch the people playing games. Our bedroom window has a vaulted view of the playground, and we often stand and watch the neighborhood energy.

However, once in a while, watching the park has a dark side. Like the other night when we watched two kids in the shadows, shooting up.

Or like last night.

Audrey and I were getting ready for bed. It’s about 1am. I happen to look out the window and notice commotion. Some screaming. A big group of young people scattering. A white SUV screeching to a halt, then gunning towards people. Then smashing into and through someone’s backyard fence adjacent to the park.

I’m not sure what’s going on. We watch, stunned. The SUV is snagged on the fence and is revving in reverse to get out. When it finally does, it squeals it’s tires and speeds away, barely missing a girl who presses herself up against a cinderblock wall to avoid being crushed.

The crowd reconvenes near that fence. It become clear that the SUV had intentionally run someone over. Smashed into them like a weapon. These idiot kids are picking that someone up by his limp shoulders and ankles, dragging him to the basketball court, under amber street lights. We think he’s dead. We call 911.

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by a car near our house.”

“On Cedar and Lehigh? Yeah, we got it.” *click*

Okay. Minutes pass and no police show up. The crowd of older teenagers are screaming. More neighbors are coming to see what’s going on. The kids, circled around the boy on the ground, pick him up again. Two or three bigger boys drag him (he’s alive, but clearly barely conscious, he cannot walk) across the park and towards our house. I get a clear view of this kid as they cross under our window. He’s messed up. The kids drag him down the small side street.

“This is ridiculous. I’m calling 911 again. Why are they moving him when he is so hurt?”

“Hello, 911.”

“Yeah, someone just got run over by an SUV and the cops haven’t arrived and now some kids have dragged his barely concious body away from the crime scene.”

“Oh really? Well, he must have wanted to leave.”

“What?”

“Was he dead?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?”

“What the? Are you emergency services or what? They just dragged a barely concious kid away from a crime scene!” My heart is racing and I’m getting agitated by the flipant tone of the 911 operator. Now I see police pull up the crime scene. They shine flashlights all around. Only neighbors are there anymore, the kids are gone.

“Do you want to give a statement?”

“Yes, please, I just witnessed the whole thing. But I’d really like the cops to find this kid and make sure he’s all right. They’ve all left the crime scene, dragging a semi-conscious kid with them.”

“Look, buddy, there’s nothing we can do about that. What’s your address, I’ll send the cops over to talk to you.”

And that was that. I went outside to wait. Nothing. Not a peep. No cops, no ambulance. Nothing.

So then Audrey and I went to bed. Shaken.

And I dreamed about mountains.

Norm and I spent two hours and probably close to twenty bucks playing Big Buck Hunter on Saturday night at Paddy’s Well in Fishtown. I’m telling you, this is the best arcade game in the world. Anyone who wants to play soon, you’re on! Cheap drinks, good buddies at a dive bar with fun arcade games. You really can’t beat that for a late night weekend.

On this past gorgeous springtime Saturday morning, Audrey and I ran our first “competitive” running event ever. It was a 5k race to raise awareness for the Clean Air Council. Our buddy Roz organized Team IndyHall Fit Club which included a bunch of blogging buds including Sara and Scott. After our half-assed attempt at pre-run yoga (see evidence below), I pounded a Steaz – I swear to God the strongest energy drink I’ve ever had – and it was off for a mile and a half up West River Drive along the Schuylkill and back.

I have to say, for our first time, we didn’t do half bad:

Feelin’ groovy, just after the race:

And on our way back home, the lot of us decided it would be awesomely cliché of us to run the Philly museum steps (á la Rocky). Fun! Yes, we nerdz.

[thanks for cheering us on and taking awesome photos, Marisa!]

[photo link]

After a rollercoaster of a house-buying, mortgage-getting, Fishtown-loving, Fishtown-hating, cold-featin’, day-dreamin’ process, we FINALLY closed on this beautiful house this morning. Here’s me, pretending to sign one of the 1,000,000 legal documents signing my life away:

So Audrey and I are officially homeowners. Who’da thought! Us hippies. Crazy. We’ll have you all over for a fun party to celebrate very soon!