Music!

February 27, 2010
When I first heard Fela Kuti, I was a senior at Middlebury and it sealed the fact that I needed to visit West Africa as soon as possible, which I did eight months later in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali. Unable to visit Nigeria then, I was transported on Wednesday to Lagos (sort of...) on Broadway and treated to some great Afrobeat courtesy of Antibalas and (an actor portraying) Fela. He was an incredible character and fierce musical guerilla warrior, constantly antagonizing his oppressors and receiving due punishment. The music he created is hypnotic and powerful, wise and inspiring, and…

Mad River Glen

February 24, 2010
The Backwardest Mountain is The Best. It is some of the most challenging skiing on the East Coast, with steep gnarly pitches over rocks and through trees covered in the best moguls (thanks to their no-snowboard policy) all serviced by a double and a single chair. While every mountain around it is owned by a ski resort mega-corporation, Mad River is cooperatively owned. It is an amazing ski experience. Eastern skiing definitely means contending with ice and trees and other natural objects impeding your progress, which makes it a very technical exercise, but also makes it more exciting and MRG's…

Vancouver Winter Olympics 2010

February 18, 2010
I love this. They have had some issues to be sure with uncooperative weather and malfuctioning zambonis and torch hydraulics and DEATH! But when it happens, it is some of the most beautiful expressions and extreme limits of the human body imaginable. In competition, emotions run the gamut from highest highs to lowest lows and in the Olympics, they are telescoped to planetary proportions. Two of my favorite events are the Downhill and the Halfpipe and yesterday had both, with Americans Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso - both stunningly beautiful ladies! - winning gold and silver and Shaun White proving…

Sydling St. Nicholas

February 15, 2010
I choose to live in the city for many reasons, mainly its efficiency and culture, but there are also some crucial deficiencies to life in Brooklyn, namely tranquility and nature. Luckily, I have some very special homes away from home, one of which is the lovely village of Sydling St. Nicholas in Dorset, England where Alaina's grandparents reside. This is beautiful countryside of rolling hills occupied mostly by cows and sheep with tiny human hamlets in the valleys. In the city, it is the immensity of our buildings that inspires me; in the country, it is the immensity of space.…

Copywrong

February 10, 2010
In my music classes, I love to sing an old Australian folk song called Kookaburra: Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree Merry merry king of the bush is he Laugh Kookaburra Laugh Kookaburra Gay your life must be It's a nice melody and a beautiful round and I had never known who the original writer was until yesterday. Marion Sinclair wrote the song in 1932 and died in 1988, with publishing rights currently held by Larrkin Publishers, who just won a lawsuit against the band Men at Work claiming copyright infringement for a flute solo on their classic 80's…

Hacked!

February 10, 2010
The Supergood ORG was hacked recently and I apologize to anyone who was randomly redirected away from the site. Luckily Matt at Bluehost Help Center worked it out, finding the offending code in my Wordpress Theme and eliminating it. I'm not going to take this cyber attack personally, and I am assuming that this is not a declaration of war on supergoodness, but it is still frightening how obviously vulnerable we are to dorks...

Democracy?

January 23, 2010
Ever since I celebrated what I considered to be one of the greatest political victories of all-time, it has been a constant losing battle. Obama's victory felt like such a reversal of bad trends that had consumed our country during the Bush administration, but since that peak in November 2008, we have been subjected to more of the same; more bailouts, more troops, more gay-marriage defeats, more inaction on climate change. On Tuesday, my home state of Massachusetts dealt me a blow by electing Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. When Kennedy died, I cried. He was a a…

Weekend Update

January 20, 2010
I love my job. Teaching music to kids all day is awesome and my workweek is Monday - Friday with siestas most days. It is very satisfying work, but while I love doing it, I l also love not doing it. The weekend is so crucial and this weekend was MLK Day so the time was increased by 50%. I took advantage. Friday night was a final blow out at Monkeytown. I will always remember that space as the site of special times and will miss VJing and being inside the giant video projection box. I can only hope to…

Old Year/New Year

January 11, 2010
I got a new camera, Sanyo Xacti HD2000 and have been shooting my first HD footage! Here a music video I put together over the break. It features a cardinal from Newton, Snappy from Brooklyn, a Sunday in Foxboro (back when it still felt good with Wes Welker working-check out his nice route!), John and Evans' wedding in Buffalo and a sunset from the sky. It was a good week. Old Year/New Year from Supergood on Vimeo.

And Thus It Ends…

January 11, 2010
But who am I kidding? While my interest in professional football has been temporarily radically diminished, I know it will return eventually and my psychotic obsession with consuming everything Patriots will burn once more, but for now i just feel burnt... At Gillette Stadium with Dad and Bro, we witnessed what I feel can absolutely be considered the worst quarter of football ever played. Has there ever been another 15 minute period that included a first play 83 yard draw play TD, a third play strip sack followed by TD, 2 interceptions and 10 more points for a 24-0 slaughter?…