Control

You remember the band Joy Division, right? from the late 70's? Don't remember that far back? It's ok, I don't either.

In 1983, a friend turned me on to the band New Order, my first real taste of "alternative" music (as it was called back then - now they call it "indie rock"; today's "alternative" is bland and commercial). Shortly thereafter I learned that New Order formed out of the ashes of the band Joy Division after singer Ian Curtis hung himself. What little Joy Division I heard at that time sounded primitive and dark in comparison to New Order, so I wrote it off and put my interest in current bands.


Years later I had the chance to revisit Joy Division and found I really liked them, and have periodically gone back to their music ever since. And recently the film "Control" was released, a biopic on the life of Ian Curtis. I went to see it at the Shattuck Cinema in Berkeley. It really was a beautiful film. Shot in black & white, it really captured the industrial decay that defined Manchester, England at the time. It was the perfect backdrop to Ian Curtis's dark and often tortured lyrics. The film was based on the book "Touching From a Distance" by Ian's widow, Debbie Curtis. Ian Curtis was practically doomed from the start; very intelligent and insightful but moody and depressive, he married way too young while still in his teens. As the band became more popular he battled with increasingly frequent epileptic seizures, the pressures and demands from the band and feelings of being trapped in a loveless marriage with a child. After releasing only two albums, Ian Curtis hung himself in his kitchen in May of 1980. He was only 23.

What's amazing is that such a short life and burst of creativity could have such a profound and lasting impact. They essentially invented "post-punk" and created the template for almost all the alternative music of the 80's and beyond. The film does a fantastic job of capturing his life and what his art was about without romanticizing it in any way. I highly recommend seeing this film if you have even the slightest interest in Joy Division, New Order or alternative music.

Sunset at Indian Rock

These days the sun sets here around 4:50pm. At that point, I'm usually done with work and have some time to kill before picking Jeffrey up from the Kidz Club after school program, so lately I've been driving to Indian Rock to watch the sunset before getting Jeffrey. This evening I brought my camera and took some shots. Unfortunately, the top of a tree is visible in most of them. But this time of year the sun sets right behind the Golden Gate Bridge, which makes for a wonderful sunset. Just a few weeks ago it was setting above the hills of Marin; soon it will be setting behind the city.

Biking in Tilden

I finally made some time to take my mountain bike out to the trails in Tilden Regional Park in the hills above Berkeley. Yesterday I began work at 6:30am so I could take a long lunch (2.5 hours) and go biking. It was perfect weather - 65 degrees and sunny.

I started out at Inspiration Point, on the east side of the park, and rode on the Meadow Canyon trail, which was a gradual descent into the valley. You can view a details trail map here. When I hit the start of the Gorge Trail, I was in the lowest part of the park. The Gorge Trail is really beautiful and lush, running beside a winding stream that connects the two lakes in the park. This was probably my favorite part of the ride. Then I began the long ascent up Curran Trail, which was fairly difficult but had some incredible views of the valley and stream below. Soon I completed the loop and it was still early and I was hungry for more. So I decided it would be a good idea to head up the Seaview Trail to the East Bay Skyline National Trail. Big mistake. It was one long steep uphill. It nearly killed me. Less than halfway up I knew it was a mistake, but I decided that since I'd come this far I had to go all the way. I finally made it to the top but I was completely exhausted and thought I might die at any moment. At least I had an amazing view of the whole bay and the valley and Mt. Diablo to the east. All from one spot. Pretty incredible. Riding the crest of this trail was very nice, but too short. Then began the descent down the Big Springs trail, which was just too steep and rocky to be much fun. I then came to the Quarry Trail which led me back to my starting point. This trail would have been a good ride, but by this time I was so tired and sore I could barely peddle. The ride was just under 8 miles, but since near half of it was steep uphills, it really kicked my ass! It was a much more intense workout than the 3.5 to 4 miles I've been running regularly.

I actually can't wait to bring my bike back out there. I'll just avoid biking on the ridiculously steep trails next time.

Friday Night in the City

I'm generally not a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but years ago I stumbled upon Marc Maron (MySpace) on some TV special and was instantly won over by his sense of humor. He's intellectual, very left-wing, dark, angry, twisted and self-deprecating... my kind of guy. I don't quite know why his humor resonates with me so much. He can come off as kind of an asshole. But a highly entertaining asshole. The kind of guy I'd love to hang out and drink with. If he still drank. He did a weekend at the Punchline Comedy Club in San Francisco and I met up with Pamela and her friend from NYC on Friday night to go see him perform. He did not disappoint. I was one ear-to-ear grin the whole time. I even got to chat with him briefly after the show. Good fun!

After that, we hung out at Pamela's place in SF for a bit before she went off to some DJ thing and I went to the Rickshaw Stop (a small club in SF) to hear The American Music Club, a great indie rock band led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Mark Eitzel.


Eitzel recently moved from San Francisco to LA and subsequently put together a whole new version of the band with only the other guitarist remaining. The show was the first on a long tour, and one of only two shows in the US. It was quite good, but the band hadn't had a chance to learn much old material, so 90% of the setlist was new material from their upcoming album. I would have liked to hear a few more old tunes, but it was great to finally hear them live at all.

Muir Woods and Redwoods

This past weekend involved two wonderful days of outdoor activities. Saturday we went tromping around Tilden Park again, which is full of great hiking trails through the hills above Berkeley. Then on Sunday we headed over to Marin County to explore Muir Woods, which I had never been to. I had heard that it was pretty great, but it surpassed my expectations. Located in the valley and foothills just south of Mount Tamalpais, it's quite large and extremely beautiful. It doesn't have the huge old growth redwoods that exist further north in California, but there are a lot of quite huge and majestic redwoods. After a short hike on the shorter main (and touristy) trails, we hiked a longer trail up in the hills towards Mount Tamalpais. This trail was stunningly gorgeous, winding across streams, crossing over small gorges on footbridges and over huge fallen redwoods. After winding up and up and up, we ended up on a trail called "Ocean View", which we hoped would afford us a wonderful view of the ocean. Unfortunately, on the part of the trail we were on, we were not quite high enough to see the ocean beyond the ridge just before the ocean. Had we turned left on the Ocean View trail, away from our destination, I'm sure we would have had the great view. But alas, it was time to head back to our car as we had already pushed the hiking limits of a 7 year old boy. I'm already looking forward to our next visit so we can see more of the Ocean View Trail.

Did I mention that all our hiking this weekend was done under clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid 70s? In November? Yes, living in California does not suck.

Here are a few photos. They do not at all convey how amazing this place is.