2010 has been the year for some serious vagabondage, and I've been scumfucking across the world pretty hard. In November, I moved out of the house I had been living in for the past 3 years, the ever so comfy Prince Street House in South Berkeley. I finished out my commitments as far as work goes, although I think I did manage to stiff good ol' Hot Topic by playing a last minute show at the Ivy Room in Albany before No Babies/Snowsuit* tour. After that, NxBx went down southland ways and recorded 10 songs with Steve Touchstone, and played some really fun shows in Long Beach and LA with such homies as Busy Lights, Signals & Nicole Kidman. On the way back from the Long Beach show, our scary childabducting van blew out its power steering pump. We got it towed to an alleged repair shop, which really more turned out to be a place where a mob boss holds yr vehicle hostage, doesn't work on it and charges you exorbitant impound fees for keeping it in bondage. We managed to get it out through the shrewd business skills of Kandis Dekfet, get it repaired and get on our way back to the bay around 4pm. Again, thanks to the efforts of someone other than myself (namely Vanessa H), the show at Apgar that night started on time and ran without a hitch. Travelling bands got paid and everyone brought the party punk energy late into the night. Immediately after the show, we loaded back in the space, dropped everyone off at their respective homes and Rick, Kandis and I made it back to her house to pack and shower for our own trips. Ricky took one of his signature no-towel showers, packed a bag and I drove him to SFO at 4.30am to catch a plane to Mobile for the holidays. 24 hrs later, Misha and Kim dropped me off for my trip to Australia (covered in pictorial detail in an earlier entry). After I returned from my awesome adventures across Australasia, I was in town long enough to play the No Babies 7" release show at our buddies' house with the Pine Hill Haints, Sass On 3, Whitman and Strip Mall Seizures. Played about 4 more shows in the next 2 weeks, then joined my buddies in Death Sentence: PANDA! as a roadie on their jaunt to SXSW in Austin. From there, I caught a ride with the Bootyman to just west of Mobile, wherein my great friend Mike Faulk, recently arrived back in Bama from a pan South American bus trip slash internship for a Nicaraguan paper, picked me up at a shining beacon of the South known as Waffle House. I never want to go back in one of those ever again. Only time will tell what mysteries await me in the South.

Pizza from the Street = Streetza

Ricky, Kandis and I headed down to the Ivy Room in Albany to see our buddy George Chen do a short set of standup comedy, giving us a chance to see him stretch his creative muscles outside of the musical realm. On the way there, we decided to take advantage of the take-out Lanesplitter's Pizza on San Pablo, just down the street from the club. This must be the easiest job in the world. There is barely any foot traffic by the shop as Albany is really only two square miles surrounding San Pablo Avenue between Berkeley and El Cerrito. These dudes just hang out all day on the internet, watching movies & listening to recordings of big bands playing those romantic slow dance songs that appear in the scene of, for example, The Shadow, when Alec Baldwin's brusk confident charm overcomes Penelope Ann Miller's skepticism, disrust AND better judgement, and they fall in love over the lilting strains of croony trombones. Plus they get all the pizza they want! We ordered a 19 inch pizza for the low low price of $10.98 American on the drive north, only to discover a near whole pizza squirreled away in a cozy box, lounging in the dumpster outside. As to not put a damper on my fellow proletarians, we followed through on our implicit agreement and paid for our hot fresh pizza, but there is nothing like strolling down the lane and finding a friendly cheese pizza waiting to be caressed by chilly hands and churned by our hydrochloric acids.

Later on at the Ivy Room, George Chen, even withhis Baldwin-esque charm, was met with a fair amount of heckling, but shone through the fog of mediocrity, like a small Asian beacon of scathing sarcasm-as-hope. Among the many victims were white folks in Oakland who love Bakesale Betty's dry-ass chicken sandwiches, white folks who use iPhone applications to locate muggings and Chen's own strict Chinese upbringing (Three rules: 1) Don't go into the sun, 2) Don't get wet and 3) No food after midnight).

Abe Vigoda & High Castle @ Bottom of the Hill, SF 03/07/10

High Castle @ Bottom of the Hill, SF 03/07/10 from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

Abe Vigoda @ Bottom of the Hill, SF 03/07/10 from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

video detritus from the southern hemisphere

chinese new year, fortitude valley, brisbane, australia from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

St Kilda/Luna Park Ice Cream feat Marissa Magic from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

neon cthulhu from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

auld lang syne, sydney airport from Sean Engine on Vimeo.

Australia (sort of in order, reversed, but not really)