The Birthday

Yesterday was quite a day. Yesterday was such an incredible day, in fact, that it may rate highest on the list of best birthday memories. (The award for Worst birthday memories is reserved for my 26th birthday, on which I was robbed blind by NYC thugs as a result of my own stupidity and trust).

Stupidity and trust were in full effect this year as well, but to a better end, as the machinations of Ellen and company were completely successful in suprising me with an amazing celebration. I'd like to give a play-by-play of the evening, but seem unable to do so (I don't know if this is a result of my slightly hungover state, my sub-par writing skills, or the nature of the story). I will therefore, tell the tale in a bullet-point style.

- Ellen took me to Shoji Retreats, "Asheville's Japanese Style Outdoor Hot Tub and Massage Spa". The place is beautiful, and I was treated to a one hour hot tub soak (in a private area, with views of the mountains and a bottle of champange) and a one hour massage. This was one of the most decadent moments in my life.

- Ellen had told me that after Shoji (which was a surprise in itself) there remained two parts of the evening, both of which were mysteries to me. I was also told that I would not be spending the night in Asheville, and I assumed that part two of the evening would be some sort of dining experience.

- When we stopped by Ellen's house so that she could "pop in and grab her bag for the night" I was greeted by a large number of screaming voices (saying "Surprise!") and noisemakers. The entire house was decorated with pictures of my face (including on the inside of the toilet seat) and balloons. I was very surprised, to say the least.

- Everyone was wearing small pictures of me on their shirts, many of them quite unflattering.

- The cupcakes were decorated with pictures of me.

The whole night was amazing. So many good friends came out (on a Tuesday), we ate great food and drank good beer, and played music late into the night.

I wish I could spin this yarn in a more entertaining fashion, but I am finding this impossible, so I'll stop here. Check out the pictures below.










THESE LITTLE GUYS, GIVEN TO ME BY TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE, ARE MADE WITH ONE CONTINUOUS PIECE OF STRING

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NO BIRTHDAY WOULD BE COMPLETE WITHOUT THE NECESSARY AMOUNT OF DELUXE DRIED SQUID


ALSO NECESSARY ARE SHAKERS THAT LOOK LIKE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Panchos Via Dot Com II

There seem to be a few problems with the www.panchosvia.com address. Hopefully I'll have it working soon.

Pancho's Via DOT com

This BLOG can now be reached at the following, much more user-friendly, much less stupid and ridiculous web address: www.panchosvia.com

The Swimming Hole, Seafood Adventures and Taqueria Gonzalez

Yesterday, Ellen and I took Lupe out to my favorite swimming hole, which is about an hour away from here, just off of the famous Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a beautiful place, with some of the clearest water I have ever seen, nice trails and campsites, and plenty of places for Lupe to swim and run around like a lunatic.







After hanging out there for a while, we headed off back to Asheville and out to dinner. Now, we have recently been discussing our lack of experience with many of Asheville's restaurants. Sure, we've eaten at nearly all of the local vegetarian places, the Indian restaurants, the sushi places, and some fancy places. You get the picture, I'm sure. There are so many local places, "normal" places, however, that we have not yet tried.

In our defense, in many cases this is because many of the places we haven't eaten don't look appetizing. Nonetheless, we decided to venture out and give one of them a try. "Fisherman's Quarters II" was the name of the place we picked, due both to its proximity to our homes and the cheesy sign looming over the parking lot.



I'll make a long story short: I will, in the future, trust my instincts more with regard to food establishments in the region. The place wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't anyplace I would recommend to a friend. Nonetheless, I suppose that I can congratulate myself on eating in a restaurant in Asheville in which at least 75% of the people eating there were surely from North Carolina. This is rarity here in Asheville, as much of the town, and nearly all of my friends, are Asheville immigrants. I rarely, in fact, ever meet anyone that is actually from here.

So, at least I get local points for my adventurous spirit. I lose points, however, for going to a seafood joint in the mountains.

There is, however, one type of restaurant here in town that I am always prepared to try--Mexican. Much of the Mexican food in Asheville, unsurprisingly, is terrible. There are a number of places that serve insipid, uninspired, overly cheesy, overly saucy, messes of food that they claim is Mexican. A quick story about one such place:

I went to a certain restaurant for lunch one afternoon with a friend. It was a beautiful day, we had just played a game of basketball. We sat outside and each ordered a beer and enjoyed the restaurant's tortilla chips and salsa. We ordered--I can't remember what my friend asked for, but I ordered a "chile relleno", which, in Spanish means "stuffed chile pepper".

(A quick aside: I have lived and traveled and studied in Spain and Mexico. I taught Spanish for five years. I have eaten Mexican food in great quantities. I just want to be clear on one point--my qualifications for understanding perfectly the nature of the chile relleno are outstanding, stellar, spotless.)

The waiter delivers our food, and on my plate is a mess of cheese, random morsels of ground beef, and a few strips of green pepper. I look at it with suprise, try it, and look up at my friend with disgust. We both wonder what the hell I have just been served. So I call the waiter over to the table, and I ask him, "Where is the chile relleno?" I ask him in Spanish.

"it is there on your plate," he responds.
"No," I say, "on my plate there is cheese and meat and a few strips of pepper."
"That," he explains to me with an air of superiority, "is how the chile relleno is served."
"But," I tell him, "it is impossible to call this a stuffed pepper. By definition it is impossible. Where is the pepper with things on the inside of it?"

The conversation continued for a bit along this line, as he tried to explain to me that I was eating a stuffed pepper, and I tried to tell him that in order for something to be called a stuffed pepper, there must actually be a stuffed pepper present in the meal. This is the kind of Mexican food that I could really do without.

There are, thankfully, also a few places in town that serve delicious, though somewhat "Americanized" Mexican food. And then, there are the Taquerias.

Ahhhh, the taquerias of Asheville. Never before have I seen a white face (besides my own and those of my friends of course) in these places, these hidden gems, these havens for lovers of true Mexican flavors. I am not, of course, the only non-Mexican in town that enjoys these places, but truly--I have never, ever seen "whitey" in any of these places.

These totally under-utilized places serve up incredible plates and delicious, cheap tacos (usually around $1.50 per taco. I am stuffed with three, Ellen gets two.) And where else in town can you get a cow's head taco? I mean, come on! Look below for an example of a delicious dinner from Taqueria Gonzalez (located on Haywood Rd. in West Asheville.) The tacos shown are (starting from the top and moving clockwise) chicken, barbeque, and tacos al pastor.

An Inconvenient Truth

I have finally gotten around to watching Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth". For anyone who has not yet seen it, it is imperative that you do so. It is a sobering, frightening, and inspiring movie. Gore is eloquent and passionate about the issue of global warming, and demonstrates, in a simple and straightforward fashion, the global crisis we are currently facing.

We in the United States are responsible for 30.3% of the total carbon emissions that lead to global warming, and so it is we that, more than anyone, need to act to arrest this phenomenon.

Honestly, the film is amazing and scary, and I would recommend it to anyone. Also check out the companion website, www.climatecrisis.net.



Sorry if this seems overly preachy and political, but as Gore says in his film, there really is nothing political about all of this. The world is going to hell in a handbasket--glaciers are melting, sea temperature is rising, ocean levels are rising, the number of violent storms of all types is increasing. We are f#*@ed unless we do something.

I'm biking to the gym today.

White Chocolate

*Editorial Note: Pancho's politics, while not generally an issue in this blog, fall rather far to the left. They fail, however, to reach the often silly and ridiculous reaches of some of the dreadlocked, kaffiyeh-wearing, tattered clothes-sporting university students of many European cities.

*Second Editorial Note: Though Pancho does indeed quote Jesus Christ in the lines below, this is not meant in any way as a claim of religiosity, but rather as an attempt to faithfully quote an often mis-quoted line.

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Sometime ago, a friend and I (see his blog on Italian politics here) began planning on a still unwritten book. The proposed book title was something along the lines of "You're As Bad As U.S." and would have detailed certain inconsistencies, as we perceived them, in European ultra-lefty politics.

The idea was this: The U.S., in the field of International Policy, does some pretty terrible things. Nonetheless, we felt that many Europeans that we met were wholly ignorant of the terrible nature of the foreign policy of their own country, not to mention the foreign policy of other countries within the European Union. Our book was meant to expose everyone, showing that while we recognized our own problems, we also could see the problems inherent in the politics of our detractors.

In the words of Jesus, the star of the New Testament, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone. . ."

Anyway, this theoretical book comes to mind now as I read a New York Times article about the current state of Swiss poltics. (You can find the article, entitled "Immigration, Black Sheep and Swiss Rage" HERE.) According to the article, the country of Switzerland, known for its international neutrality, chocolate, skiing and raclette, is also a nation of racists, xenophobes, and budding fascists.

The image below, which has been mailed to thouands of households in Switzerland, put on billboards, and generally advertised everywhere, is the work of "the most powerful party in Switzerland’s federal Parliament and a member of the coalition government, an extreme right-wing party called the Swiss People’s Party, or SVP." The SVP, campaigning for upcoming elections, is focusing increasing energy on the perceived problems of immigration. Unfortunately, rather than engaging in a rational debate on the issue, they are utilizing scare tactics, racist advertisements, and proposed draconian policies to garner votes.



And so, I once again humbly remind the world of one simple fact: We've got problems, and lots of them. We've got a lunatic in the White House, corruption and hypocrisy in Congress, and a generally violent and greedy record of foreign affairs. We've also got our share of problems in domestic affairs. But remember--we're not the only ones. Sometimes, you're as bad as U.S.

Demetri Martin

For whatever reason, I am the blog-master today. Just a quick note to all about a comedian I recently discovered. By discovered, I mean, of course, found out about long after everyone else in the country.

Anyway, he's got a website with a really strange, funny, quirky short movie called Clearification. You can find it at www.clearification.com, though the website is really slow. You can also find the movie on YouTube.

Check it out.

The Yard Dogs Road Show

Rather than write too much about last night's show, I am going to put up these movies (not my movies, nor are they from last night's show), which should give a pretty good idea of what it was all about. I must say, however, that this was honestly one of the most incredible shows I have ever seen. I left the building swearing to my friends that "I would never be normal again."

Once you've seen the alternatives to normal, normal just seems like a waste of time.

Enjoy.

Asheville in the Times

Asheville was recently featured in the New York Times, in their travel section. While the writer didn't exactly get everything right, it wasn't all that bad, and it is nice to see my home in the news. Though, of course, this does mean that the "yuppification" of Asheville is gaining steam and energy.

You can read the article, entitled "36 hours in Asheville, N.C." (the Times does this sort of article quite often) at the New York Times website.

Yuppification or not, Asheville is still pretty weird, as many wish it to be. One can even find bumper stickers all over town that read "Keep Asheville Weird". And, amazingly, this guy, Chris Chiaromonte, is running for City Council in the upcoming elections. He alone is proof enough that Asheville is still quite weird.

Elections will be held on October 9th, which, coincidentally, is my birthday.

The Anarchist Cookbook

Last year for Christmas, my brother PJ gave me a collection of inspiring and revolutionary books. One of the books is called "The Anarchist Cookbook: Recipes for Disaster", though it is not to be confused with the older and far more cheesy book entitled, as well, "The Anarchist Cookbook".

While the older book by the same name told 1970s hippies how to smoke banana peels (which, it turns out, do absolutely nothing for the smoker), this book details actual anarchist techniques for wreaking havoc and displaying true displeasure with the "system". The book is published by Crimethinc. Agents Provacateurs, and can be purchased at the Crimethinc. website for only ten dollars.

Okay, so some of it is a bit ridiculous, and much of it is hard to justify morally. Nonetheless, there are chapters and sections that are, with no irony, truly inspiring. It is nice to read of people who are unhappy with the current state of things (aren't most people?) in the world and who really attempt to do something about it.

Here are a few juicy entries in the index:

Arrest
evading 212-218
health issues relating to 263-264
ETC.

automobiles
as blockade 162, 175, 428

The list goes on, obviously, and treats the reader to instructions on creating and displaying banners, means of graffiti-ing, creating musical instruments, and having sex. Best of all is this quote on the back of the book, which is in fact what inspirired me to write about the book in the first place:

"You must always have a secret plan. Everything depends on this: it is the only question. So as not to be conquered by the conquered territory in which you lead your life, so as not to feel the horrible weight of inertia wrecking your will and bending you to the ground, so as not to spend a single night more wondering what there is to do or how to connect with your neighbors and countrymen, you must make secret plans without respite. Plan for adventure, plan for pleasure, plan for pandemonium, as you wish; but plan, lay plans constantly.

And when you come to, on the steps of the presidential palace, in the green grass beside the highway, in your cell's gloomy solitude, your secret plan finished or foiled, ask your comrades, ask your cellmates, ask the wind, the waves, the stars, the sea, ask everything that ponders, everything that wanders, everything that sings, everything that stings -- ask them what time it is; and your comrades, your cellmates, the wind, the waves, the stars, the sea all will answer: "It is time for a new secret plan. So as not to be the martyred slave of routine, plan adventure, plan pleasure, plan pandemonium, as you wish; but plan, plan secretly and without respite."

'Nuff said.

Falling Behind

I've been falling behind a bit on the posting, but will soon begin with greater regularity.

Things in Asheville continue much as they have been--playing music, going to the gym (a new thing, since I quit smoking), walking the dog...Life is not so tough at the moment, I cannot tell a lie.

I left town with Ellen the other day, and we rode out to Hot Springs, a town about 45 minutes from here. We camped alongside the French Broad River there, sleeping in the back of my van (aka Mrs. Breeze). I've got the back of my van pretty well set up, with a nice, thick futon mattress that fits in perfectly. I open the windows to feel the fresh air, and have a great view in the morning. It really is perfect.

Whilst there, I purchased a fishing rod, lures, and the such. I enjoy fly fishing on occasion, but locals informed me that the French Broad is not much a fly-fishing-conducive river, and so I broke down and went the route of the rod and reel. Using a bright orange plastic bug, I quickly caught myself a nice-sized smallmouth bass, which I roasted over the hot coals a few hours later. Quite delicious.


Tonight I am heading out to see The Yard Dog Road Show. I'm not really sure exactly what it is, but it seems to be some sort of burlesque / musical / sideshow type performance. From what I hear, it is very entertaining. I've been looking to become as ridiculous and side-show-like as possible while performing, so perhaps this will inspire me.

Finally, my band, Sirius.B now has the new website nearly completed. You can check it out at www.siriusbmusic.com. Tell all of your friends, listen to the tunes, and enjoy. (Note: some of the tunes are not quite completed, such as "Spice Bullet" which is currently undergoing renovations.)

More soon.

I Got a Squeezebox, Nobody Sleeps at Night

Today, after much searching, I stumbled upon an accordion in a rare and delicious moment of serendipity. Xavi and I had traveled to the nearby town of Hendersonville, on the prowl for a PA System (pics of that tomorrow) that we thought we might find at the town's local music store.

Wandering through the aisles of the store, I looked around me with a vague and slight interest until I noticed two old accordions sitting on the floor. I picked one up immediately, strapped it on, and sounded out a few sour notes and chords. My love for the instrument was as immediate and intense as I expected it to be. This was, you see, the first time that I had even held one.

I have been looking for an accordion for some time now, peering at want ad magazines and posting notices on Craigslist.com. I have asked friends and family, and I have searched on e-Bay. There is, to be sure, no shortage of old accordions out there, but they are invariably quite expensive or quite rotten looking.

What has been so truly maddening about my search is that I am convinced that the attics of this world are packed full of accordions that nobody plays. It is just a matter of finding the right attic and the person with access to that attic. (Which, by the way, if you are that person, I know now that no man can have too many accordions, and I would be quite happy to free up that space in your attic.)

Today, as per usual, the accordion that I played was way too expensive, even in light of my love. 'Twas my luck, however, to discover that a guy working at the store had another accordion for sale. He went to the back of the store and came back with a beautiful (somewhat worn and tired-looking, but beautiful all the same) instrument. Just as I hoped, it came packed inside a 1920's looking case with velvet lining, making me think immediately of Ellis Island, cool three piece suits, and Polish beauties. I knew that I had to have the thing.

I played it and once again fell in love, proving that I am a complete and utter accordion slut. I bought it without a second thought, for the very reasonable price of 120 dollars (I got him down from $150), and walked out the door, struggling to contain a sudden and inexplicable urge to eat cabbage.

More soon, with pictures of the new PA.

Sirius.B at the Brewery

Sirius.B played a show the other day at the French Broad Brewery, a local Asheville brewery just down the road. The venue was tiny, and the time was strange for us (they have shows nearly every day from 6-8 pm), but everything went really well.

We'll be playing this weekend at an event called something like Extravaversablogapalooza, or something of the sort, which is meant to be a gathering of liberal bloggers from the area. Somehow the event's name makes me wonder if the politically minded tend to be somewhat less creatively inclined. This remains to be seen.

Xavi and I, along with others, are also continuing to play street music, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite evening activities. We plan to go back out on the streets on Friday, from around 6 to 10. Hopefully nobody will have taken our prime spot.

More soon, with pictures.

(UPDATE): Apparently this blog event is not merely political in nature, but rather a gathering of Asheville-based bloggers from all fields of the blogosphere. In addition, there may be people from the event reading this blog. If this happens to be the case, I revise my derision of the other day and say that the event's name is refreshing and exciting.

Peanut Butter Bumpers

Good lord, man. It had been a long time, but I am now once again enjoying Mother's Peanut Butter Bumpers as part of a nutritious breakfast, and I could not be happier. This has got to be the most delicious cereal ever. When coupled with chocolate soy milk, I am inspired to drop everything and dedicate the rest of my life to eating Bumpers. I can't imagine anything more amazing.



Now, with that out of the way, a bit more about recent events. Xavi and I have taken to engaging in a bit of busking (street-performing) here in Asheville. It is a difficult trade to ply, and one wrought with potential pitfalls and tantalizing windfalls. It is a fickle business, to be sure, as we realized yesterday. After two hours or more of playing in what turned out to be terrible places, we moved on, carefully packing up our five dollars and change.

We moved a few hundred yards down the road and took shelter in an empty storefront's entryway. The shape of the area afforded us some nice reverb, and greatly enhanced the power of Xavi's small battery-powered amplifier. There, within the same number of hours, we made approximately ten times as much money as in the two hours before.

Now, we of course spent everything that we made on dinner and a few beers soon after, but this is rather beside the point. We aren't playing for the money (though we are playing for money). As far as hourly wages go, busking has so far for us turned out not to be the most lucrative of employments.

But, as I say, it isn't about the money. The pocket full of bills is nice, but even nicer is the fact that we are playing on the street, making music, and that people are really enjoying it. Enjoying it, in fact, enough to pay us money in appreciation for what we are doing. Someone, in fact, appreciated us so much that they dropped a folded-up twenty in our tip jar. I certainly appreciated their appreciation.

I think that we'll make this a fairly regular affair, and next time head out with a slightly larger group, bringing along Imhotep with his drum and perhaps some violin accompaniment. I'll make sure and take pictures of that.

Well, that's it for now. For anyone in the Asheville area, Sirius.B will be performing at the French Broad Brewerey on Tuesday. Come on out and enjoy.

More soon.

Timber Framing Completed

No time to write much about it at the moment, but I wanted to put up a copule of photos of the completed frame. There is obviously much more to be done, though I am no longer involved in the process. Heading off now for some busking on the streets of A-ville.

Enjoy...

Timber Framing Continues

I've spent the last few days waking up early and helping out my mountain-dwelling friends with the construction of their timber frame house. We're a small crew and the timbers are heavy (some around 650 pounds), so the days can be exhausting. It is, however, truly an amazing process.

Basically, the house that we are constructing is made up of three "bents". A bent is, if you can imagine it, like a movie set facade left naked--pure timbers making the skeleton of the front (or rear, or middle) of the house. See an example of a nearly completed bent (this is the back of the house) below. Unfortunately, the frame is so large that it was impossible for me to take a photo of the whole thing, but one gets the point:



Now, after constructing this bent (again, the one you see above is the frame for the back of the house) using only timbers (connected by joints and wooden pegs), we moved on to the next bent--that which will be in the middle of the house. We constructed this bent directly on top of the first one, and then moved on to the front bent, also constructed directly on top of the others.

As you can imagine, by the time we were done with the three bents, it was an interesting process moving around the "deck" (what will eventually be the floor of the house). In order to do so, we had to leap high timbers and avoid tightly pulled "come-alongs" (a hand winch).

It has been a good time--days of hammer swinging and heavy lifting, drilling and pegging, malleting and pulling. It has also been a time of laughter, cussing, and grunting in a very manly fashion. For the other guys, it was a time of well-deserved smoke breaks (I did not treat myself to this particular part of the experience) between hours of hard work.

Tomorrow the crane will arrive at 7:30 am, at which point the truly crowd-pleasing part of the process will begin to take place. Using the crane, we will lift up each of the bents, one-by-one, and place them in pre-carved slots in the deck. They will be anchored with straps, come-alongs and cables. At this point, the house will look like three skeleton facades lined up in a row.

At some point after all of this, some people (I don't know yet if I am one of the chosen few) will ascend with harnesses to continue in the construction process, this time from very, very high in the air. It should be interesting.

More soon, with more pictures.

Timber Frame Style

Tomorrow morning, very early, I will leave to head Northeast to the bustling metropolis of Bakersville, NC. Upon arriving, around seven o' clock, after an hour's drive, I will begin day one (of four or five or six) of assisting in the raising of a timber frame house.

I don't know much about the process, though it apparently involves cranes, heavy lifting, hammering, and other such things. Below, you can see a picture of what I believe is a somewhat typical timber frame home.



What is quite interesting about these structures is that they use (apparently) no nails, but are rather held together using wooden pegs and a variety of joints.

I'll try and regularly update with pictures of the process, though considering the twelve-hour days ahead of me, this may be more difficult than I think.

More soon.

Guadalupe and I

It has been a busy few days with Guadalupe the dog on the scene.

In addition, the day after acquiring this lovely dog, I quit smoking.

Needless to say, the last few days have been quite interesting.

Amazingly, quitting smoking has gone quite easy so far. Luckily, I've had the help of those around me and my incredible dog.
Oh, and a nicotine patch and some special drugs and some stuff called Lobelia (alternate names--Pukeweed, Vomitwort), which seems to help as well.

Still, considering the fact that I am fighting against ten years of using a highly addictive drug, I'd say that I am doing quite well. Hopefully all will continue in the same vein, though I'm not sure that I'll be as quick to share any failure as I am to now share my current success.

And so, to fill my smokeless days, I have been taking Lupe out for long, long walks. We've headed out to Bent Creek, a local wilderness area, for some nice hikes. We've also gone downtown, passing the occasional drug addict and prostitute on our way. I've been bringing her everywhere with me, and it has been amazing. She has ended up exhausted every day, falling into a chilled out stupor on the rug in our front room.

And that is pretty much all that there is to report from here at the moment. The posts will improve soon, I promise, but for the moment, quitting smoking and walking my dog are pretty much full-time jobs on their own.

More (and vastly improved and exciting) soon.

Don't go away, we'll be right back.

New Sirius.B Website

Sirius.B has a new website! It is still under construction, but there are a bunch of songs up there already...

Check it out at www.siriusbmusic.com

Enjoy!

Guadalupe

I have been gone from this blogosphere for quite some time, and won't much right now, as I have a show to play and much to do. I must, however, share with all those who read this blog my very exciting news.

I have a dog named Guadalupe. I adopted her today, and she is a Rotweiler-mix somewhere between 1 and 2 years of age. She is super well-behaved, beautiful and extremely calm. Treat yourself to some ocular enjoyment below.