We just got back from our wedding with 2 days before we leave on our honeymoon. It was so beautiful and wonderful and exciting and sweet that I don't even know how to put it all in words here yet. I got home to a present from Freakgirl waiting for me! That was the good news. The bad news is that UPS and the postal service were both supposed to be holding all deliveries until after we get back from the honeymoon, so I have to have some followup phonecalls with them tomorrow letting them know what will happen if I get back from my honeymoon to find a single wedding gift returned to sender. Of course, I haven't come up with a viable recourse for this possible event, but it wouldn't be pretty, you could bet on that.

OK, this may be the last post for while. Early tomorrow morning, I leave on a train down the coast. Thursday all of our parents are meeting up, Friday is the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and the low-key bachelor party, and then Saturday is the big day. I can't believe that I'm really getting married. I know I don't talk much about my relationship with Anne here on the blog. Neither of us really wants to have all of our private stuff floating around on a blog that routinely gets hits from searches for things like "breast implants gone bad," or "Metallica Chains of Pain Lyrics." But this morning I realy feel the need to write about Anne, and how happy I am that we're finally really getting married in just under a week. Anne responded to an online personal ad that I had posted and long forgotten about. She was living in NY at the time and I was in DC, but she wanted to write to me because our ads were so similar. An email correspondence led to a telephone correspondence and after many months she came to visit for a weekend. I think up until that point, I still thought it was possible that it could just be a cool long distance friendship since I was a little wary of starting a long distance relationship, but we clicked so well in person that by the time we had our first kiss, kissing goodbye as she left, there was no doubt in either of our minds that this was the real deal. After that I was coming up to NY a lot. My folks both lived there at the time (my dad has since retired to Florida), and I came up to visit them about a week after her visit, and she only lived about 90 minutes from them, so she came down and met my entire family on what basically was our second date. After that it was a lot of me coming to NY, her coming to DC, or us meeting someplace in between like Philly or New Hope. We tried to see each other at least once a month, but sometimes it was longer, and we ran up some insane phone bills! After close to a year of that, she moved in with me in Washington, where we shared the smallest, dumpiest, dustiest studio apartment ever. Sometime toward the beginning, the site where she found my personal ad stopped running personals (though it appears that they've started them back up again). This was one of many signs that it was meant to be. That winter, as we were on our way from her parents' house to the San Jose airport to fly back east, we stopped at the outlet stores in Gilroy to kill some time. We'd been talking about getting engaged for a while, but I wanted to do it right with the perfect ring and a romantic surprise. We decided to look at a jewelry outlet and there it was, the perfect ring. In a total whirlwind, I bought it and proposed to her in the store. We were beyond happy, just trembling and shaking, calling our families from the parking lot. I can only imagine how we're going to be while we're up in front of our families and friends on Saturday. I still get that feeling whenever I think about that day and I get a smile that nothing can break. It's been a year and a half since our engagement, and since then we've made a feature length film, planned a wedding and moved across the country. It's been quite an adventure and I could never have asked for a better partner to go through it all with. Anne is the sweetest, kindest, most sensitive, intuitive, creative and wonderful person I've ever met in my life. She's one of those people who just glow with goodness. You can tell just by looking at the way she smiles or looks at things. Words on this blog can't come close to describing how much I love her, or how much it means to me that a woman as wonderful as her not only loves a misfit like me, but makes me a better person in the process just by being with me. For all the things in life that go wrong, Anne is the one constant reminder of how things can go so perfectly right, and that's been obvious to me since we met 3 years ago. And the next time I post here, she'll be my wife, and that makes me feel like the luckiest, happiest man in the world. I'd also like to take this opporunity to thank everyone. Thanks to Anne's parents for throwing what will be an incredible wedding. Thanks to my parents for throwing the rehearsal dinner. Thanks to both of our families and friends for coming out to see us get married and for the wonderful gifts and sweet emails you've been sending. Thanks to our bridal party for being there for us and being part of our most special day. Thanks to swoon.com for enabling us to meet. And mostly, thanks to Anne for finding me, loving me, and sharing your life with me.

More pre-wedding fun today! (warning, some of this might be TMI) I went to the local cosmetology school for a haircut and waxing. Yes, waxing. I had my eyebrows and my back waxed. Let me just say... OUCH!!! Well, I only get married once, so I figure I might as well look as good as I can in the pictures, and I hate having a hairy back, so I figured I'd get that done too. My back is so hairy, the lady asked if I was taking steroids. I told her it's worse than steroids, that I'm Italian. I also picked up a shirt, presents for family members, and CDs for us (the latest Gossip and Notwist albums). I'm exhausted, and I still have a lot to do. Anne is driving down to her parents' tomorrow and I'm following on Wednesday, but we're going to send down a bunch of my stuff with her so I don't have to drag it on buses and trains. As of tomorrow, the wedding is only one week away. I can't believe it! We got engaged a year and a half ago in a jewelry outlet store in Gilroy, California during our Christmas visit to her folks, and that feels like it was just yesterday-- and now one feature film, a cross country move and a year's worth of planning have all passed and it's all coming together.

Uh oh, Richard Linklater's gonna get sued. "Cloverdale police say the teenagers used 28-inch long paddles to strike at least seven new freshmen on the buttocks. Investigators say the hazing was all the more painful because students drilled holes into the wood." I wonder if they also painted things like "Soul Pole" and the cover art of Dark side of the Moon on the paddles, or if the kids later got revenge by dumping a bucket of paint on Ben Affleck while Matthew McConaughey was trying to pick up on the high school girls.

More on the mall-jumping asshat.

I just found another mention of Washington Interns Gone Bad: Cultureflux Views: Big Screen Dreams: Over the past year, LFCN has offered an eclectic line up of independent movies and documentaries. One of the most popular features was “Washington Interns Gone Bad” by writer/director Jason Buckley and a cast and crew of local talent. This raucous political satire, which was made for less than a thousand dollars, played to a packed house. For his “intern exploitation” picture, Buckley used locations around DC, including Adams Morgan, Malcolm X Park, and the scenic alleyways of Shaw. The movie also features the contributions of several Adams Morgan musicians, including Adam Kroloff of the Captain Paradox band.

Some jackass hurt himself, an innocent bystander and an espresso machine when he tried to emulate Jackass by hurling himself off an escalator twice at a mall here in San Francisco.

Being the rock visionaries that they are, Ween launch their own file sharing program with their new album! (via metafilter)

So I've been playing Blogshares for a few days now and I am now a virtual millionaire! Blogshares is a virtual stockmarket which sells stock in blogs. As of this writing, shares of this blog are going for $23.44 (they were up to $43.68 before the 1:2 split and the issuance of 1000 new shares as I tried to figure all of these stock thingies out). As of now, I own shares of the following blogs: Rob Carlson, No Rock and Roll Fun, Arwen, Movable Type, EyeCandy, B Natural C Sharp, American Dissent, Machination.org and of course, this blog. For the most part, I bought stock in blogs that I either already knew, liked the title, or had some sort of interest in their subject matter.

If there was ever a day to watch an ad for a Salon Day Pass (or borrow a premium password from somebody), it's today. The top story is Bush's 9/11 coverup, plus there's The hyping of Saddam's WMD, How the left lost teen spirit (even though they think that the democratic party is the left - it's got some interesting points - also excepted), a review of the new Radiohead album, and a story about a Nevada brothel who are giving it away free to returning troops.

Message Board Mayhem! Some rightwingnut goes off on me after I called him an asshat a few times. I've gotten these people riled up before, but this one was just too easy. Ahhh, the power of the word "asshat!" (note: the title of the thread was definitely NOT my creation!)

Another foreign leader has some choice words about Bush.

I got an email today at my yahoo address from somebody at The Institute for Policy Studies, asking about the possibility of having a screening of Washington Interns Gone Bad. The idea of having my film shown at a kickass lefty think tank gives me quite a smile. And the fact that she wrote to my yahoo address means that my spamming outreach on the yahoo news message boards is definitely working.

Howard Dean continues to lay the smackdown on Bush! "This president is running the country the same way Enron was run."

What can I even say that's better than this headline: Bottles of Urine on State Roads Start Clean-Up Scuffle? Mike Watt wrote a song about this years ago. Thanks Mike Watt!

Just got back last night from a weekend with the soon-to-be inlaws down in Cambria, CA. The wedding is now just less than 2 weeks away and almost everything is all in place. It's strange how recently the reality that we're actually getting married very soon is sinking in. It's been such long-range planning for so long now, and as it gets closer and things are really coming together, it all feels so real and we're both very excited. The gifts have also begun to roll in, and we've been getting some very wonderful things! In case any readers of this blog want to get in on the gift action, we're registered at Bed Bath & Beyond and Williams Sonoma. Last night was the first time Anne and I had to ourselves in almost a week and while we love our guests and families, it was really nice to just be the two of us. Things have been pretty nuts. We had a great time showing our Norwegian friends around San Francisco last week. Since I'm still new to the city, it was good to get out and do some tourist things myself. Plus, it turns out that my friend and old drummer from my last band is also in town for a few days, so I got to see him and lobby him to move out here and start a new band with me. Drummers and bassists have a special bond and we make a really killer rhythm section together. I have some ideas on the direction I'd like a new band to go in, and it's very prog-rock and theatrical.

A belated happy birthday to Che Guevara! Hasta la victoria siempre!

Gregory Peck and David Brinkley both just died. These things tend to happen in threes. Who's going to be the third? Ronald Reagan?

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We have houseguests from Norway spending the week with us. Inger stayed with Anne's family when she was a foreign exchange student in high school and Martin is her boyfriend. They're very cool and we're having a blast showing them around San Fran. Yesterday they spent the entire day in Haight Ashbury and today we're off to Fisherman's Warf to hit the discount camera stores.

Our honeymoon is booked. We're going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a week!

Have I mentioned how much I love my new city? Here are some pictures of yesterday's blockade and shutdown of Bechtel's world HQ, protesting their corporate takeover of Iraq (sponsored by BushCheneyCorp, of course).

I've mentioned this before, but here's another story about my old post-college stomping grounds, New Paltz, NY, and their newly elected 26 year old Green Party mayor.

Wasn't there an episode of Buffy that started just like this?

So the past few days I've done some revamping of my store. I hadn't really been adding or rotating the merchandise in the books/music/video sections any for a long time, so I thought it might be easier if I set it up as a second blog. I also had a pretty embarassing lack of any cool t-shirts since Metallica's lawyers put the kibosh on the ones which parodied their font, so I came up with a whole new batch of goodies at my cafepress store.

It's time to bust out the wahwah guitar when the bridal message boards turn into cheesy porno! (safe for work)

Just what I need to be reading less than a month before my wedding. For poorer and for poorer For young couples trying to start a new life together, the dismal economy means more fighting, postponed weddings -- and less sex.

Take Action and help overturn the FCC's deregulation of the media.

The Onion AV Club interviews Stephen Malkmus. Yay!

See video of Al Franken bitchslapping Bill O'Reilly!

So today I had a pretty cool brush with fame. I went into Golden Gate Park with my acoustic bass looking to do a little jamming with some people. I followed the sound of drums to hippie hill where they usually have some wild jams and when I got there I saw a big tent set up and some intstruments and it looked like they were setting up for something, but I didn't pay it any attention because I was on a single minded mission to find some people to play with. So there were these dudes playing drums, guitar and even some guy with some funky brass horn (kind of like a cross between a flugelhorn and a french horn - perhaps an english horn?) and they seemed pretty psyched for a bass. Anyway, it turned out that what was being set up was a shoot for the new Santana video and all of us jamming were going to be extras! After a while, the director comes by and sets up Carlos' percussion section and a full marichi band behind them and then put all of the rest of us around. Then they brought out Carlos and we did a run through the song so that we all had a feel for it. Between all the pre-recorded track, the drums, horns, violins, guitars, whistles and Carlos playing live solos over it all, it was really tough to hear my bass, so while I think I was in key for some parts, I just worried more about keeping to the rhythm rather than trying to play anything even remotely acurate. Between takes, Carlos hung around and jammed with the crowd on all his old stuff! When he went into Third Rock From the Sun, he started looking at me to take that bass line, and luckilly I had ripped that line off a few years ago for an old band, so I jumped right on it and at that point I was fully grooving with Carlos Santana totally sharing a music moment with a freakin' legend. It was so exhilarating! Of course, after a whole bunch of takes, it started getting a bit tiring and the only thing that kept me going was the idea that I was going to be playing bass in the background of a Santana video. After shooting a few takes at the first place, they moved us to another spot on the field and brought out the singer, some guy named Alex Band from a band called "The Calling" who I've never heard of. We did a bunch of takes on that, each time adding more extras and spreading out further for wider shots. There was a pretty wide range of different cameras being used and there were a lot of them shooting in every possible way. They also had a huge bouncecard and people holding shades over each of the cameras. Must be nice having a budget! The name of the song is Why not You and I. I'll post when the video is available to watch someplace.

I wonder if Bush is ready to send troops into North Carolina for harboring and supporting a terrorist.

Inspired by a post on Enormous Fun about America's soldier of the future looking like Boba Fett, I came up with a little bit of fun Flash. Sorry in advance to anyone still unfortunate enough to be stuck with a dialup connection. It's a pretty hefty load.