Just a few days to go...

So crazy here at work with earnings and InnovationJam and all the hustle and bustle. Or was that bustle and hustle? Argle. Bargle. Anyway, I have a deep plate of both hustle and bustle. But this weekend I am going back to Ohio! Just like the Pretenders song.

Yeah, wedding time with Brian and Beth and then a week of making music, swimming and reading -- though not all at the same time -- in Athens, OH.

I'm going to try to post some updates from there including -- maybe! -- some sneak previews of the music Dan and I are going to belch out. At the very least I'm hoping to have a cleaner version of Cum on Feel the Noise done and posted in a week.

I had this thought the other day, maye it will land in a song: Everyone saying the same thing, saying the same thing, saying the same thing, I'm saying the same thing.

Sounds a little like a Radiohead lyric. Hmmm. All I need now is a whirring popping whizzing sound and a couple distorted guitars -- and I'm in business!

Ok, my sandwich is done...back to work.

Coffee and the Voice

Last night I went to bed early because I got home from work so late. I'd spent the day in gnarly Somers, NY speaking about RSS and Social Tagging on behalf of IBM at a Web 2.0 Summit. Interesting stuff, but doing the same presentation 3x in a row, being video taped and having execs in the room while your presenting takes up a lot of energy. It's always surprising to me how similarly I feel after a big presentation and a musical performance. I guess the two draw on the same reserves of performance-energy.

Anyway, went to bed early last night and so I woke up early today. It was just so nice to go to Cafe Gelato (I think that's the name) on the corner of 10th Street and 1st Ave (right across from where I live) and have a cappucino and a chocolate croissant while reading the Village Voice. I honestly think this place has the best coffee in town. They prepare it lovingly and without pomposity nor any of the BS you find at Starbucks (grande, verde, merde!) This place uses Lavazza coffee beans, which for those of you who care, are the real deal. I recommend real milk and sugar in the raw (I usually use skim and Equal, but not at this place) for cappucinos served here.

And their chocolate croissants are top rate too. And this is coming from a guy who perfected the art of eating chocolate croissants at an early age (my elementary school was a French Magnet School) and went on to pursue an advanced degree in choco-croissant-ology while living in Paris in the '90s. The cafe at 10th street and 1st avenue (which, by the way, also serves wine and beer) makes both Italian and French style chocolate croissants -- go for the French style. The Italian ones are ok, but they are more like canolis. I think they use some kind of ricotta in the filling and they are not as buttery. The French style croissants are naked on the premises and will transport you to, uh, France, I guess. What I mean to say is: they are damn good and true to form.

Anyway, that was a great start to a kind of bland day -- I just did some paperwork and stayed inside (away from the heat, rain and humid air.) But yeah...eat some croissants! Drink some coffee! Read the Voice! (even if their Sexpert pales in comparison to Time Out New York's witty Jamie Buffalino.)

Feel the noise

Thanks youze guyz for all the nice comments and suggestions on how to kick Gupta the hell outta my innards. I think that for the most part he's gone (he?) . At any rate, I've been sleeping through the night and eating solid food.

Mmm. Chicken.

In less disgusting news...early next month I'm going to take a trip to Ohio for Brian and Beth's wedding. As much as I'm stoked to go (I'm one of Brian's groomsmen and am humbled by the honor), I'm just as thrilled to extend my trip a week. Now, you may be thinking, "Gosh, a week in Ohio doesn't sound all that amazing, Eth." But it will be. I'll be staying in Athens, OH with my lifelong friend and creative partner, Dan Dreifort. He and I have been making music together for (oy, I feel like such a blarghy old bastard) like twenty years. I mean, I think we started toying around with music in our early teens and now we're in our early thirties so there ya have it: nearly two decades of inexcusably lame, low-tech, low-brow noise making with all the accompanying posing, posturing and, uh, partying.

These days we're working on a project called Indelible Beancurd, which is for all intents and purposes our virtual band. That sounds mega-fancy, but all it really means is that Dan and I swap musical ideas and lyrical doodads through the "POWER OF THE INTERNET" and then meet up periodically to lay down tracks in either rented studio space or in our home studios. The result so far? About half a dozen songs that I'm not going to link here because we haven't yet decided how we're going to release them. I'd like to commercialize them somehow (please, no complaints! I've given away my music for free on ethanrand.com for years now and will continue to do so) but haven't thought it through yet exactly how.

My dream? That we get a tune into a reasonably successful film/commercial/whatever and get paid enough to buy some real studio time.

Anyway, in preparation for the trip and because I just felt inspired by the song's intrinsic beauty, I recorded a cover of Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noise." As I drove home from work last week and it struck me (as the tune came on the radio during a random station scan) that it would sound all purty and stuff as an acoustic balad. In waltz time. Seriously. So here is a simple live recording made with just a single mic in my living room just to whet your whistle and give an idea of the arrangement. I'm working on version that's a little more elaborate now (wrote a bass line etc last night) and will post that as soon as I'm done with it. You can hear in this recording that I'm still figuring out how to sing it, but I hope you'll get the idea where I'm headed with it.

Cupboards

Almost getting there. I dropped off the new fridge at my condo yesterday, so that means the cabinets that Garett built will be going in soon and I'll have one more item off my plate. And so will he.

Still feeling sick, though I slept through the night the last two nights. That's a start. My friend suggested I name my bug. She called hers Gupta, so I will too. Be gone, Gupta! Be gone!

I thought I'd go home to sleep early tonight but watched an indie flick instead called Motorcycle. They showed it in the park across the street from me under the stars. Pretty low key.

I am hungry, but couldn't eat.

When I was driving home from Armonk tonight I realized that you could get away with substituting the word "farting" with "foreign" if you said it semi-under-your-breath as in, "Is she a farting exchange student?" Or, "I read his by-line in Farting Affairs."

Try it. You'll see.

Back in the U.S. of A.

Right, so I am back in NYC for over a week now and my body is still in semi-revolt. Well, my stomach anyway. It's making it a bit hard to get back to my normal life and enjoy the summer. I suppose that's the Maharaja's revenge for ya. Let's hear it for yogurt and Gatorade for breakfast lunch and dinner!

That said, Sarah and I went up to the Berkshires this weekend, which was fun and pretty relaxing. I got a little bit of a tan too. I definitely need to get off my ass about getting a place in the country. I started looking at cars more seriously. I'm thinking about getting something cheap and reliable and good on gas. Though those three attributes don't lways necessarily coalesce into one, perfectly priced package.

Funny, up in the Berkshires it seems like every fourth car is a Subaru Outback. We made a game of spotting them. Two extra points if it was Forest Green. Outback!

I meant to add a couple photos from my last days in India. Or at least get a picture of Geeti in here, who was such a nice host to me in Delhi. We ran around a bit to the Delhi Haat market and dinner at her place with her dad and brother. At the market i bought some nice hand-painted parchment which I'll frame and hang up in my apartment. Photo to come...

Early this weekend I got together with Brian Newman, who will be marrying Beth Kades later this summer. I spelled out both of their names just now because Beth told me when she Googles herself she gets an old post from when the three of us went on vacation together last summer in Vail. Well, now here's a new link for ya, Beth!

Anyway, we had a little bit of a wedding party and bachelor party combo. I was only there for the first night, but it was a great time. I really enjoyed meeting Brian's friends from around the U.S. He has surrounded himself with wonderful people and I'm honored to be one of his friends and one of his groomsmen.

More pictures here.