The Oracle of Apollo
Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Happy Birthday, Apollo! Good-bye, twenties. Hello, thirties! That trips me out. I’m no longer a twenty-something.

Kai invited me up to the city to hang out for a bit and maybe get the grand tour of his company to boot. So, just before one in the afternoon, I jumped on Caltrain and headed up to the city. A little over an hour later, I disembarked, grabbed a cab, and found his office.

I got to see his laptop, which astonished me. A year ago, kai only had eyes for microsoft. Visual InterDev, IIS, SQL Server 7, the works. When I looked at his shiny happy new Sony Vaio, I saw that he had one terminal (yes, terminal) with some Java source code opened in Emacs (!). I have, at least in part, turned Kai into a Linux user! Praise me. Especially you, Kai.

We went over and had some ramen miso soup at the Metreon, a block away, and looked at the neat Sony computers (I still prefer the Titanium G4, though). A fun time, but I had to go before long, because Kai only had so much time to screw around with the birthday boy.

I got home and my roommate, Steve, had offered to take me for dinner. We went to The Red Sea—an Ethiopian place on First Street in San José. After, we snuck into Fry’s ten minutes after their official closing time, and I picked up a Servlet book. Wish me luck.

I’m still reeling from the fact that I’m not in my twenties anymore. I am old. Damn. I can still work a dancefloor, though. Believe that!

Since I don’t have to work on Wednesday (it is my birthday), I decided to go out and dance myself into my thirties. I looked at all the appropriate sources and picked Liquid for my dancing pleasure. David Harness was on the decks, and the music was first-rate.

As is my custom when I’m dancing, I sang my ass off and just carried on, having a great time. I went up to the bar to get a water and when I approached the dancefloor, David gave me a big hug and introduced me to his friends. “Where are you from?” he asked. “New york, Chicago?” “Idaho,” I replied, to his utter disbelief. It’s always fun to meet DJs. I gave him my card.

At midnight, I turned thirty. Actually, I was born at 6:05 pm Central Time, but midnight marked the beginning of my 30th birthday. Whee. Where the hell my twenties went is what I’m wondering. Now, I’ve got to be responsible and grown up, or something.

Kate wanted to go out one time before her trip to London, commencing on monday, so I zipped out to her house near Half Moon Bay and picked her up. We headed to Kelly’s Mission Rock, where I was last week. Tonight’s festivities: M3’s birthday and Green Gorilla Lounge. On tap: M3, John Howard, and Markie upstairs in the main house room. Kate and I arrived at 10:45 or so.

M3 started wrecking shit first and, like last week, was blowing minds with the wax he pulled from his bag. I was just getting into my jumping around, when I spotted Ernie, Fe Ann, and Greg, introducing them to Kate and hanging out for a bit, before heading back upstairs for some bouncing around to M3. The other people in the place were very pretty.

The hardwood got packed a little further on into the evening. I took a couple of breaks, endured Kate and Ernie and Fe Ann telling me I have game (show me which K*B to pick that up at), and went back upstairs to step hard to Markie and John Howard.

After, Kate and I ate chow on Van Ness with Andy, a conga player, who wanted to shoot the breeze with some people before zipping back home to the East Bay somewhere. What a fun night.

Such a sweet vibe, pretty people, and wonderful music. Damn. I wonder if this is a monthly or a once-in-a-while event.

Have fun in London, Kate!

Happy Birthday, Lee. I’m so incredibly proud of you. You are smart and funny and wonderful. There are spectacular things in your future—things that you can’t even imagine today.

Happy Birthday, Brittany. You are an incredibly special, sweet, and wonderful girl. There are no limits to what you can become.

Namaste at Kelly’s Mission Rock billed M3, Ellen Ferrato, and Mark Farina, among others. Free before ten. No way I was going to miss that. I arrived at 9:25, waited for fifteen minutes and was just about the fifth person through the door.

M3 was on the decks first in the main house room. The crowd was almost non-existent for a while. After a while, I began to smell Drakkar and knew what kind of crowd it was going to be, probably to see Mark Farina. In this genre of music, he’s the only person many have heard of and all those thick-necked motherfuckers who want a little taste of Asian pussy are out in droves, sporting their Fubu and Drakkar and shoving randomly through the dancefloor, ready to get into a fight for whatever reason. Just what we fucking needed.

The music, however, was nothing short of spectacular. M3 banged hard on the decks. Ellen Ferrato came later, making the speakers scream in protest, and inducing even the most pissed headnodder to get down. Mark Farina closed it out, lambasting our ears with beautifully deep SF house. Ernie and Fe Ann were there. And I got to see Sally for the first time in a few months.

When Mark Farina took over, most of the dancefloor upstairs was tightly packed with this huge number of people who were doing nothing but standing and trying to watch the DJ. I’ve never seen so many gawkers at once. Damn.

Next week, M3 and John Howard and Markie are putting on a Green Gorilla party there. It should be fun.

Friday night. Woo. Rain Dance presenting a Chinese New Year celebration at Cell Space, the venue at which September’s Fray Day 4 was held.

I arrived about 10:10, paid my ten bucks, went inside and noticed immediately that the crowd was much younger than I was expecting. The flyer said the minimum age was 21, but the event didn’t turn out to have a minimum age. The members of the crowd ranged from a few teens, to a lot of twentysomethings, to a few people over 35.

The music was wonderful, although one of the DJs took the music downtempo and slow reggae/hip-hop for a while. There were drummers and firedancers and all manner of spectacle. At midnight, there was a dragon dance, after a very white tribal ceremony thing with snakes and fire and people not wearing very much, chanting all kinds of stuff.

The people were very fun, laid back, and not too serious about anything but freaking out and being weird, which was very refreshing. I had a superb time, sitting in a drum circle beating latin rhythms as best I could for a short time, and went back down as John Howard took us into heaven with his deep house stylings. It was quite fun—the most fun I’ve ever had at a rave or a pseudo-rave. Bring on the next Rain Dance shindig!

Activate Fridays billed Single Cell Orchestra, Twerk, and Minty Fresh on their announcement, but I don’t usually go to happy hours. Kate had insisted she wanted to go and it sounded cool, so I left work early (around 6) and headed to Half Moon Bay to pick her up.

The music was really cool and the crowd at the almost invisible little bar in the tenderloin was attractive and urbane. When we arrived, Twerk was spinning some techno with a little aroma of house. Most people were standing around.

I went outside for some air and Justin, my former coworker, came sliding by. It was cool to talk to him, as well as Minty Fresh and Kevin, who gave me a cd of his music. There was a whole crew of dance music performers there with whom I ended up leaving Light and wandering to a nearby fish n’ chips house.

Talked alot about music technology to the guys, which was cool, and was asked to sit in the scottish pub and wait for everyone, who left and had to go pick up some gear, or whatever. I am WAY too nice. I sat in that fucking place with terrible music for half an hour, babysitting a drunk fuck whose head I was just inches from caving in.

Of course, after we all got back together, people were talking about going to Club Six to hear DJ Surgeon, but it was nearly 1. To hell with paying $12 to get in for half an hour.

Luckily, there’s a Mission Rock party tomorrow, because damn.

Damn.

Subject: music gear
Equipment: Roland JV-80 multi-timbral synthesizer, Roland SC-155 Sound Canvas, Boss SP-202 Dr. Sample sampler, Alesis Monitor One monitors, Alesis RA-100 Reference Amplifier.
Last powered up: May 24, 1999. Moscow, Idaho.
Placed in storage: June 1, 1999. Payette, Idaho.
Removed from storage: July 4, 2000. Payette, Idaho -> Mountain View, California.
Originally planned setup date: July 8, 2000.
New Year’s resolution deadline: January 15, 2001.
Status: Mission accomplished. Reconstruction complete.

Elsewhere at the Rawhide tonight. I picked up Kate near Half Moon Bay and played Tony Hawk - Pro Skater 2 with her kids for a bit until it was time to split. Zipped north to the city to the Rawhide and arrived right around 10:30. Fabulizz was on the decks, spinning a very abstract house set, wandering into IDM and big beat territory (although she’ll probably correct me on what she was playing) and it wasn’t generally what I’m used to but—DAMN—it was incredibly fun. Ruben Mancias took over just a brush after midnight and took it deep, banging out a set that left little room to doubt his stature in the SF scene. Holy shit, the music at the Rawhide tonight was mindboggling.

The usual miscreants were there—Patrick and Gigi. I danced enough that it’ll be a few days recovering before I’m able to move very fluently, I imagine. The crowd was plentiful and gorgeous and Kate kept calling me a pimp. I am not a pimp, girl, damn. All in all, a good time was had by all. Heh.

Imperial Dub Dance Party party was scheduled for tonight at Club 6, but Dubtribe cancelled the gig. They didn’t charge me cover. I went downstairs. There was, like, nobody there, but Anita Lofton was spinning an incredibly funky deep house set, so I stuck around and had a good time. Very few people ended up showing up, but Ernie and Fe Ann made an appearance. There were some nice looking people ready to dance. Fun fun. Hopefully, next Imperial Dub Dance Party doesn’t get cancelled.

Of course, after finishing a major project, there are a few bugs, which threatened to rob me of my MacWorld experience this year. last year, I went and couldn’t afford Cubase VST, which pained me, particularly after the demonstration of how seamlessly it works with other sweet music software. I was determined to hook up this year.

At the last minute, Emmett decided to come with, so we went in his car, missing Caltrain by a few seconds and resorting to the Colma BART station. We stopped at the bank, all was good, and continued on to the BART. It seemed to take an eon to get to where we needed to go, probably because today was the last day of the Expo and it was closing early.

Emmett did not have a pre-reserved ticket, so we had to cross howard for him to get a coupon with his invite, only to cross the street again, go downstairs, and have him complete a web-based form the size of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Jesus. I got to spend 90 minutes at the Expo.

That, as it turned out, was enough. Emmett found his old school Amiga 3D animation gurus, bought some software and I bee-lined for the music section, finding almost nothing, except Guitar Center (which was blowing me away with a Reason demonstration) and BitHeadz (with the $300 software sampler and other goodies). Reason is going to make all of my gear obsolete, I swear. But, I’m definitely picking it up when it comes out for retail in the US. Maybe it’s time to think about getting a beefier box than my current 8500/233. Maybe something, I dunno, modern? Yeah.

1200 Lounge at An Sibin tonight, and I managed to talk Booty into going out to the clubs with me. I got kind of a late start and we arrived at the club about 11. Booty just got back from Europe, where she spent the entire Christmas / New Year’s week. She did new Year’s Eve in Prague. How awesome is that?

It was fun, hanging with a few of my coworkers, but soon it was time to go find some heavier beats and a larger dancefloor, so Booty and I headed to Club 6. The DJ was spinning some very heavy techno, nipping at the heels of hardcore. Just spanking ass beats that drove the crowd along at nearly 160 bpm. Damn.

Booty’s listen.com friends were there, including the delightful Kelly and Megan, a jaw-dropping blonde with groovy specs. Remind me not to hang out with Booty’s friends too much. I’m trying to maintain, baby.

I can’t wait for next Friday. Imperial Dub Dance Party at Club 6, with Dubtribe Sound System playing live. Yes, you’re correct. Damn.

I put the finishing touches on a project at work that I’ve been chewing on for a couple of months. Other than merging some code, it feels nice to have at least the first version done. I feel accomplished now. Or something.

Ernie called me up, suggesting an Irish pub in Palo Alto that plays house music. He said he’d been there last night and it was cool, so I tossed caution to the wind and went to Rudy’s. I doubt that I’ll be back.

The place was entirely people with Stanford Business School students, and other assorted plastic people, trying to get their collective grooves on to the most pathetically inept DJs since they invented the term “top 40″. “Music” by Madonna was played, like, four times, for Pete’s sake.

Met a couple of cool guys there, and had Denny’s with Ernie and Fe Ann, who had lost her voice to a cold. It was cool to hang out with them and make fun of such a terrible crew. heh.

My first day back to work in ten days. It’s good to get back to my normal routine, despite my failure to do anything constructive between the time I got back from Idaho and today. Step by step, weekend by weekend. I just have to start training myself to not fuck around all day on Saturdays and Sundays. Nothing is more lame than doing absolutely nothing at all before going out on Saturday night, or hitting the sack on Sunday night with the annoying realization that the entire weekend was squandered. One of my resolutions is to solve this. We’ll see.

The year two thousand has officially ended and the third millennium of the common era has begun. After last night’s big Rawhide party, I was originally thinking of going to “Gravy” at the same venue, but I just didn’t have the energy. It’s the time for resolutions again, which I’m in the process of solidifying.

The highlights:

• Get back into shape.
• Set up my studio by January 15, 2001.
• Solidify and enhance skills in PHP, Java, MySQL, and Perl.
• Drive to work less.
• Write some music every week.

That’s just a smudge of what I’m expecting to pull off this year. Wish me luck.