My old buddy Robin Jacksaphone is blowing through with his traveling band, the Vagabond Opera. They've been doing a west-coast circuit for the past couple years, and are getting really tight. There's some great musical virtuosity and showmanship on display. Highlights include Skip the judo master of the Cello and the opera battles (really!) between Eric and Leslie. Everyone's got zazz.

Watching their show last night reminded me what talent really means, and how performance can be a transcendent act. You look at someone differently after seeing that kind of thing transpire; the rockstar effect. There were parts in this show where I would involuntarily/incredulously drop my jaw, that made the top of my head tingle. And now I have a teenage schoolgirl band crush on Leslie, of course. She sings some songs in French!

Anyway, this was the opening night of their tour, so things just get better. The rest of the dates are:

• September 27th: Petaluma, CA
• September 28th: Sutter Creek, CA
• September 29th: Santa Cruz, CA
• October 1st: Monterey, CA
• October 2nd: Los Angeles, CA
• October 4th: Alta Dena, CA (Los Angeles)
• October 5th: Santa Monica, CA
• October 6th: San Diego, CA
• October 7th: San Francisco, CA
• October 9th: Berkeley, CA
• October 10th: Ashland, OR
• October 12th: Portland, OR

Details on their website. I strongly recommend the SF show, which will be at Amnesia, which will be a great venue for them.

At a higher level, as my friends and cohorts move on through their paths in life -- careers, PhDs, families, etc -- it's really amazing to see the wonderful things people get into. It makes me want to step my own scene up a notch.

On a less heady note, here are two things to enjoy.

First a link to everyone's favorite lost rebel, the crackademic, who has a fucking brilliant gonzo account of his recent excursion to Copenhagen. Some choice quotes:

bq. I recruited some loafing street children to find me a place to eat. While this gave me fleeting delusions of gangsterdom, the children were ultimately unsuccessful.

bq. Ultimately when I meet a woman for the first time, and she can't stop talking about her sex life, it's a turn off. In my experience these women are usually batshit crazy.

bq. This scratches the surface of my subtle unease around all old Germans: Is that leather that Grandpa's wallet is made of? If I opened the Ark of the Covenant would his face melt off? You know what I mean.

There's more, including a 7-step recipe to 7/11-inspired charm, hot Brazilian girls into Corporate Social Responsibility, some vague hints at what our man in Germany is actually working on, and so on. He's a great writer, and the flow is worth appreciation. A they say, read the whole damn thing.

After that, all I have is a short video I dug out of my camera that shows some of the road I went 17 miles down last month to camp on a derelict mining claim. I post it because it communicates, I think, the reasons why I like doing that sort of thing:

First: more of Big Media Mark on the news. It explains a bit about his program, and has a nice clean-cut guy giving an even better soundbyte:

Other notes:

• Had a great weekend visit from the Girth, JD and Shamus. We all (them, me and Mark) headed up into the mountains, Trinity County Outlaw style: guns, dogs, bushwacking trails, mad-dogging up mountains in Moammar the 2WD Scorpion. It was epic. JD has photos.
• Things are all lined up for me to establish a base in the Bay this week. I have a little more work to do getting the pickup in order (adding a bed and a lock to the camper shell) but shelter has been secured and the wheel is in spin.
• Work is going so well that we got to give our awesome Sr. Web Ninja a raise. Considering how integral he's been to everything over the last six months, it's very well-deserved, and for me personally it's a big warm fuzzy.
• Got my Burning Man ticket in the mail, and Mark says he's all-in too, so it's on like Donkey Kong. Working camp theme is Rastafarian Navy. More plans soon, but if you want to get in on the action the first thing you do is procure one of those spendy pieces of paper they want to see at the gate. They only get spendier.

I've got a lot of wild loose ends to tie up but I feel great momentum, like I might just up and blossom one of these days.

Shazam! That's a bad-ass helmet and a pretty good soundbyte from the man.

Congratulations are in order for Mr. Yarwood, who successfully completed the Boston Marathon in under four hours, raising several thousand dollars for needy children. That's what I call Lunch Truckin'.

Apropos the post below, I started thinking a bit about the number of friends (let along colleagues, fellow-travelers, etc) put their stuff out there online these days. I think it's great, and I like pulling together the network. But "blogrolls" are so web 1.0.

In that spirit, here's new little featurette here on the OJ.com, aggregation. I just took 15 minutes and plopped in a bunch of feeds from friends and family, and the results are good so far. I plan on working this into a AJAX widget similar to my tag cloud at the top o' the page here, and heck, even if I'm the only one to use it it's worth my while.

For instance, I discovered this and this and this. My people are up to amazing wonderful things.

So this feature, such as it is, will evolve a bit. Content from the aggregator will get more categories, and make its way up to the front page in some blocky headlines-only pop'n-and-lock'n form. Let me know if you've got something I aught to include.

There's more here at The Kevin Murphy Show. Apparently the real thing will begin to air soon. This is a collaboration between a whole lot of folks I know back in BKLYN. Sassy bastards.

Credit to Jai (Jill's friend who we were hanging out with) for coming up with this:

2007: It's a Double-Oh-Seven Year

I'm not sure exactly what the best way to phrase it is, but I think that's a winner because it's clever, upbeat and best of all true.

I'm off on the road to Oregon. Gonna see my mom and grandma and maybe some more extensive family for the Xmas time. Strange how my perception of this season has evolved. I still dig the spirit, but the importance of that one day has pretty much evaporated, probably will stay that way until I have my own kids to bedazzle.

I'll be riding with Mark and Zya, who are going to Eugene, then Portland, then Texas for the holiday. Texas being an escape from all family and a chance to get a little lone-star adventure.

Me, I'm trying to make it back to NYC for New Years. We'll see how that goes.

Probably light posting for the next week or two, although maybe a redesign will happen.

Mark and Sixto have posted a thank you message on their Chipin site.

Also, the wonder-working power of this process has been an inspiration of sorts, and my friend Kristi from NYU has set up a similar page for her cat, who sadly doesn't seem to be doing as well.