Y A W N.

do you feel like yawning?

not even just a little bit?

ha!

YAWN. yawn. zzzzz

Spending so much time holding a 2 month old child I start losing perspective on the world of the large and find myself looking at full grown people astounded by their size.

In the uncatalogued recesses of my brain I dredge up unformed memories of childhood--of the perspective from the floor, of mysterious language, and of being carried to bed. Perhaps these passing thoughts aren't memories at all but only misplaced empathy. Either way it makes my understanding of the boy and his processes slightly less opaque.
. . .
2 Months old as of yesterday. 15+ pounds and almost 26 inches long. He's already comfortably in clothes for 9-12 month olds. The boy is gaining on us.
. . .
me (& my mom of course) at roughly the same age:

New York radio has never done it for me. In all my stints of living here I've listened to exactly one station, WFMU. And WFMU isn't even based here, it broadcasts out of Jersey City. LA had a couple of good stations, KCRW being the big gorilla of radio goodness. There were also several good college stations scattered about although I could only ever pick them up in the Valley.

Anyway, frustrated with local NY radio, in my general quest to make everything digital, and because of Jenn's desire to have music in the kitchen, I impulsively bought a Tivoli tabletop radio with Sirius satellite radio.

Spying the attractive Tivoli box, visiting friends instantly assume we are in radio nirvana, but it hasn't worked out that way.

First the satellite radio sound quality is poor--probably worse than normal radio. This is, I'm sure, a consequence of living in a city with lots of tall buildings, but even with a clear view of the sky... not so good. (normal radio on the Tivoli sounds great).

The second issue I have is the whole concept Sirius is built on, namely mainstream narrowcasting. There are 184 channels each one very specifically focused on a certain type of music. So for example, there are 6 jazz channels, each dedicated to a different type of jazz, but each is basically a "greatest hits" channel. None delves deep. And many of the DJs are just record spinners who just read label info and put on records almost at random. My idea of a jazz dj is some former beatnik who lives in a house whose foundation is crumbling from the weight of the records it bears, a guy who gets furious when you make a mistake identifying a session drummer on Bill Evans live show... a guy who wants to share what he knows because he loves and breaths the music.

Ditto for the punk DJ, ditto for the old time country DJ, etcetera. Wait. Sirius has no pure punk channel. Nor does it have a real classic country channel (it has something called the roadhouse prone to playing 70's crap. Where's my Tex Ritter, Hank Snow, and Jimmie Rodgers? How about some Collins kids.) How about playing music that music buffs actually get excited about?

Sirius has it all wrong. They are taking the same approach that Clear Channel used to destroy commercial radio, except they have more bandwidth available and are making each channel more specific. There is logic to this, but ultimately this strategy will always lose out to the ipod. The ipod is the ultimate narrowcast, it's only the music you already love, commercial free delivered whenever you want it.

How does satellite radio compete against this? By offering real DJs in the mode of the late John Peel. People who are fearless musical explorers with a taste for the unordinary. A good DJ brings you into his world, if he is happy, he plays happy songs, if he's sad he'll play an hour of music that will break your heart, if it's raining he might play a couple of rain songs. He doesn't stick to one genre or time period. He just plays the next song that needs to be played because it feels right. That's radio that excites and draws people in, not this mindless polite stuff they are now broadcasting from too many channels.

Sirius also has commercials (for Sirius!). The shame.

Jenn's family. That's her with the red bow on the right. Funky pants. Her mom is holding her. She surrounded by aunts, cousins and her grandparents. Her dad is not pictured, I'm sure he was busy away at work.

Hey a flickr photo of me taken by my wife just got BoingBoinged. To be fair they could care less about me... it was on a story about the Millenium Park sculpture... Anyway, here I am jumping like a fool in front of the sculpture:

BoingBoing
Too bad Boing Boing doesn't link flickr thumbnails properly so they can be clicked through.

The original photo appeared on this blog back in August.

Have you ever done a google search on yourself? For many years I was the only Raul Gutierrez that came up on searches, but that was when the internet was young. My first page went up in 1996 and my first real site in 1998. I just recently took those off line. Back then, pre-google, I was the only raul gutierrez in town. These days there are almost 200,000 results for Raul Gutierrez. The name is common throughout the latin world so it's surprising there aren't more. In Los Angeles alone the phone book has a whole page of us. In Mexico most big cities have multiple pages. There is a famous Raul Gutierrez soccer player, a Raul Gutierrez Philipino rapper, and Raul Gutierrez wanted by the DEA (I know this last one from bad experiences at customs. They always ask me "Have you ever been to Guadalajara?")

So to the results:

1. This site... The google index is always a bit out of date, but it points here. Glad to see of the many thousands of us in the world I'm number one, at least for now.

2. The home page of Raul Gutierrez Fu Shi Kempo Knife Fighting Master. With his slick hair and steely glare this Raul Gutierrez saves the world time and time again in his direct-to-video movies. I have tracked down a few videos and will give a full review when they arrive. I have yet to determine whether this guy is Spanish or Portugese, but I would kill to be in his Galleria de Honor along with Elvis (apparently a karate fan), Hanshi the great, and Jose Bana Sanchez. No I don't recognize the last two either... but you know...Respect.

3. Raul Gutierrez Fu Shi Kempo Knife Fighting Master also commands the number 3 spot. This time on a Japanese site with Great Grandmaster Thomas Mitose. There is a lovely image of Raul with some of his many trophies. How do you think he got all those trophy's back home to Spain (or Portugal or wherever)?

From the site: " Practitioners of Kosho-Ryu Kenpo believe that if one gives respect to another than this respect would be returned. Alternatively, individuals who do not show respect for others will receive no respect."

4. The information page for Raul Gutierrez Sanchez, Spanish astronomer. Not much of a homepage, just some basic information, but it seems he studies brown dwarfs. What is a Brown Dwarf you ask? Happily the page gives an answer: "A Brown Dwarf is a quasi-stellar object unable to fuse hydrogen in a stable manner." I'm glad to see that some of us are smart (this is not to say that Raul Gutierrez Fu Shi Kempo Knife Fighting Master is not smart. Stay cool man. Stay cool.)

5. Ok. This one is my favorite. Masseur Raul Gutierrez of Walnut Creek California specializes in "Energetic Massage." He learned his vocation from the founder of the "Body Electric School of Massage" and his special vocation is to "touch men on erotic-spiritual paths." All this for only eighty bucks. Dude, you better hope Raul Gutierrez Fu Shi Kempo Knife Fighting Master doesn't find out about this. He might be very angry at you for sullying our good name... then again he might find your "polarity energy balancing techniques" relaxing and exhilarating.

6. This is a page for a Raul Gutierrez who died in Vietnam. No date of death, rank, or anything else. I might have to do a bit of research on this one.

7. Me again. A link to my photosets on flickr.

8. A painting by cheesy bird painter Raul Gutierrez. This man torments me. He's been on google for years and for a brief period googled higher than me. His banal paintings of ducks and swamps rarely fail to bore and yet he still commands around $8,500 per painting.

9. Me again. It's a link to a program I wrote several years ago. But I took those pages down and the link is dead now, just more internet detritus.

10. Raul Gutierrez, the Panamanian environmentalist. A bit of research dug up this picture.

So not too bad all in all. A diverse mix. My fellow Rauls I wish you well.

I was looking through some old journals this evening in an attempt to date photos I am scanning and ran into some pages I didn't remember writing.

Here's a bit that jumped out at me. It was written in a Tibetan guesthouse high on the plateau. The year was 1999:

4/30 - Last night I heard howling dogs, screaming hawks and a strange low moan that might have been human, but was not. From my high window, I could see the dark shadows of hawks circling overhead against a tremendous canopy of stars. In my dream I had seen lightning leaping across the sky. A bolt struck the moon and it fell, crashing with the sound of a falling chandelier. The broken pieces scattered in the soft earth flickering out with long angry hisses. My eyes adjust. Without the moon even more stars lit the sky, but they too began falling, one by one with whispered sighs until the world was inky black. A paralyzing fear overwhelmed me until, in this absolute night, swooped creatures bristling with electricity gliding out of reach on great gossamer wings. Looking, while comforting, hurt my eyes so I closed them and drifted quickly, silently away from this cold place and back into the warm river of sleep.

Today I was surprised by a lady on a unicycle speeding down Atlantic Avenue and without thinking exclaimed, "holy mackerel". I don't think I've said that phrase since I was a kid... and then out of nowhere, there it was.

Occasionally I'll let out a "holy cow" or a "holy moly.""Holy smokes" isn't really my thing, but sometimes it will show up... much more occasionally, "holy frijole", but "holy mackerel" has been locked up for probably 30 years. What spurred it? Did I hear it somewhere,was it the fish shop I visited the other day, or is there something about fatherhood greasing the rusty wheels in my brain?

We live in a nice old townhouse circa 1831. It has been renovated in the past, but never horribly. But the worst architetural crimes are often cumulative, small nicks and tucks that eventually leave a buiding without it's architectural integrity...

A few weeks ago we complained about the cold (it's downright drafty). Instead of turning up the heat a notch our landaldy decided to replace the windows as the current ones are uninsulated. It didn't seem like a horrible idea at the time....then the windows arrived. Instead of nice period-appropriate wooden casings she is installing horrible steel framed unpaned windows... I feel the building's pain. This will leave me grumpy for months.

I have been Domokun fan for years, but only recently have I begun to see the domo meme take hold here in the US.

Don't know Domo. Here's his homepage.

Here's a domo sig I created for your email (use a monospaced font to see it):

        __________ 
       /           
     _/  O      O   
    / )  ________  | 
   | (| |////| | 
     | |        | | 
       |        | | 
      | |////| | 
      |      
      |            | | 
      |            (_) 
      |     ||     | 
      (_____)(_____) 
Domo is powerful!

...

I've been a fan of audioscrobbler for a few years, but only recently has the Mac plug-in been polished enough everyday use. Lately I just leave it on all the time. Interesting to see what you actually listen to all graphed out. Right now the sample is too small so it doesn't really accurately reflect my tastes, but over time it should get more and more precise as more and more songs are added. Pretty cool if you love music. And even nicer when coupled with last.fm
This is my page for the curious:
http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/themexican/

Snippets from life with a newborn:

Jenn: ok. I'm exhausted, you need to take him for a while.

me: Ok little bear, let's play a game.... How about 'my nose, your nose'?

My nose.
Your nose.
My nose.
Your nose

(nothing)

Ok. don't like that one today. How about 'up down'?
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.

(nothing)

Don't like that one either. Ok lets play 'Ramones original lineup'?

Johnny Ramone
Joey Ramone
Dee Dee Ramone
Tommy Ramone

(Raul Andres lights up and actually laughs)

[repeat for the next half hour]
. . .

. . .
The snow is getting really dirty... I'm ready for another blizzard.

When I was in high school my little brother received a call from a man with a New York accent claiming to be our grandfather. "You're not my grandfather," my brother said and hung up.

The only grandfather we knew lived in Mexico, my dad's dad. My mother's father was dead. According to my mom he had been a bad guy and had left her family when she was a child. She never actually detailed how he had died, "I don't talk about him" she would say, but that's the impression she left. Only when asked questions directly would she parcel out small fragments of information. He was Irish. He was in the Navy. He had blue eyes. He left Queens for California. Eventually she would would change the subject.

His name was Francis Peter and to this day I've never seen a picture of him.

That afternoon in 1983 the man on the phone kept calling. It was a little bit scary so we took the phone off the hook. My mom returned home and answered a call. She shooed us out of the room and closed the door. About an hour later she emerged clearly shaken. It was indeed her father. He was dying and wanted to visit. It had taken him 3 years to track us down.

My mom called her lawyer, a big bear of a man with a gravely Texas twang to warn her father never to call again. He never did. About a year later we received word that he had died. He had been living in San Francisco...alone apparently; a park ranger. Before he died he had put together a large box of things he wanted to give my mom, it would arrive a few weeks later.

The box was a crate made of wood. Well made and heavy packed. Notable was the address, hand lettered in black paint with a sure hand. Big old fashioned looking cursive.

Within 30 minutes of it's arrival at our house , the box was on a truck headed towards the city dump. It was unopened. I didn't think throwing it out was right, but I knew that on this issue I would have no sway. My mom never mentioned the incident again.

Still, even today, half a life later, I wonder...

Are you someone who looks at people on the street and wonders what they were thinking? If so Simon Høgsberg's Thought Project is for you. He stopped people on the street in Denmark, took their photo, asked what they were thinking, and recorded the results.

And while you are thinking... you might as well check out Swapatorium, an excellent blog of found photographs and objects. Angelica has the most amazing eye... Her flickr pages are also worthy of exploration.

I wrote a long post tonight about nothing in particular (it meandered from thoughts on our local Brooklyn Heights deli to some nonsense about an old dream), but managed to delete it with an over eager command-w (window close for you windows people).

In lieu of anything else, enclosed is another portrait of the baby this time with me. He's been smiling nonstop these days, except when the camera is pulled out. Then he puts on his serious face.