So it is on rare occasion that we head out to do something in San Diego. Other than are normal grocery store, library, and 24 hour fitness routine. The semi-routine weekend jaunts to Oceanside to hang with Josh and Jessica. However, a random glance into the paper last night and a reasonable cover charge has us heading up to Solona Beach for the highly entertaining Cody Chesnutt. I highly recommend checking out his only album, The Headphone Masterpiece for anyone who doesn’t know him, which is most of you I’m sure. Cody’s biggest claim to fame is one of his songs, “The Seed,” being rerecorded by The Roots with him singing, appropriately titled “The Seed 2.0.” Cody’s music is, as I believe he describes, neo-soul mixed with rock and roll a dash r&b and a good sprinkling of acoustic guitar. Cody is performing with Martin Luther, another soul / r&b singer. There is some opener who I am not going to bother to mention, but may choose to edit the post if they are good. This concert is sure to be entertaining and sensual at what is toted as the best venue in SD, Belly Up. Peace y’all.

EDIT: So it turns out Cody Chesnutt found like women and children and God and is less cool now. He was still highly entertaining and dressed like a fool but I lost a lot of the sexy ideal I had for him. He also stated multiple times through the night he was only going to do new stuff. Myself and the few other people in the audience urged him to do a couple of his classics but it was to no avail. He was very receptive to the audience coming down to be with people. I hugged him and took a pic with him. Below is a video of Martin Luther who he performed with. Martin Luther was hit and miss with the songs. Two things I hate about live shows. 1) “Alright random person on guitar or bass, let me hear a solo.” This leads to moderately impressive solo which is always kind of meh. 2) Fake encores, they might as well just call it a set break or an intermission. If a crowd really wants it come out and play more, otherwise just do your job.

Martin Luther covers ‘A Heart Shaped Box’ from Ryan Navaroli on Vimeo.

Martin Luther who performed with Cody Chesnutt covering Nirvana’s ‘A Heart Shaped Box, August 20, 2009 at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, CA.

Congrats to George who, yes now has a job. His employer: Care Fusion. His job traveling medical software technician (or something along these lines). Perks: money, benefits, paid travel (possibly even Hawaii or Alaska). Horray, living in a van can pay off. Location: Mira Mesa (North part of the city) pretty close to La Jolla and UTC.

EDIT:What could stand in George’s way now. Pee. Watery Pee. Being the clean boy George is, he went in for his piss test with no reservations. Everyone knew what the results would be. Alas though, the results too watery, to watered down. “You must come in today and take it again,” said Mr. Ramirez. An easy comply but what if George were to fail again. But he didn’t. So hiphiphoray George has peed an acceptable amount of whatever else is in pee.

Well I suppose it has been a few weeks since my previous post in the Las Vegas airport (aka my hotel for the night, grrr). I went home to Athens and spent a very nice 10 days there. Seeing friends, family and loved ones as well as being there for the religious union of Matt Handley and his wife Megan. Apparently they did the legal marriage thing like a month before but oh well. The wedding was a great time and Athens was very pleasent as to be expected. Congrats to Matt and Megan. Also, congrats to George’s friend Zuber and his wife. George coincidentally attended Zuber’s wedding the day after Matt’s and was gone about the same amount of time less his fun in Vegas. For those curious, the van rested at the Las Vegas airport long term parking.

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Another drinking weekend to Oceanside
Well like clock work we headed back to Oceanside for our fourth weekend in a row drinking with Josh and Jessica. This weekend however we had more plans than just shots in the appartament and possible rambling. It was time to see some nature in the SD area and head inland about 45miles to what is known as La Jolla Indian Reservation Campground. What promised to be a simple day of some boozing and hanging out in the river turned out to be a bit more than we bargained for, in a good way.

And later… we leave San Diego… for good! Click to read the entire post.