Strange radio experience

For those who drive a lot like I do, there are plenty of interesting experiences with different radio broadcasts for sure, like hearing the same songs back to back on different stations. Or hearing music from a CD you just played at home before you leave. What happened last Sat was kinda unusual: we were on our way to the Math show at Foothill College and my son said he enjoyed rock and roll so I switch from my "default" Jazz station to the next preset, which is rock, and the DJ played Guns'N Roses' "Patience." It is an interesting single, the first one off "Lies," an half-fake-live and half-acoustic album as the followup to the hugely successful "Appetite for Destruction," a metal instant-classic. The racial message in the song "One in a million" from the same album caused a great deal of controversy back in the days. When we came back to the car from the show, guess what was playing on the radio? "I Used to Love Her" from "Lies!" And it's another controversial song from the album. The reason was pretty obvious: the next line after the song title was: "... but I have to kill her" :P Anyway, I don't think it happens too much all these times I listen to the radio.

SF's #1 radio station in 2014

I bet not many people would have guessed it correctly: it's KDFC, the classical music station, who is supported by listeners and beat out all those corporate-owned stations (soft rock KOIT at #3, news KCBS at #4, and sports talk/Giants baseball KNBR at #5). Personally, KDFC is #2 behind my beloved jazz station KCSM. I am happy for KDFC. It went through some tough times (it was previously owned by Entercom and the mothership decided to drop the classical music format so the folks working there formed a new station and had to find new radio frequency and financial supports from listeners. For the record, its music selection was way better than its commercial days) Looking back to 2010, the top 5 stations were KCBS, KGO, KOIT, KQED and Wild 94.9. (KDFC was close to the bottom of Top 10)

A breakup caused by a violin

It's not a breakup of 2 partners in a romantic relationship but a string quartet. And it's not any violin but a Bergonzi violin worth US$900k before Y2K. I wanted to write about the story of the Audubon Quartet way back. Basically, three members of the quartet wanted to kick out their first violinist David Ehrlich because the latter promised the services of the quartet, free of charge, in order to secure donations to pay for a $900,000 violin without consulting or notifying them. The quarter is not a no-name either: They were the first American string quartet ever to win a first prize in an international string quartet competition, starting with the International String Quartet Competition in Evian, France in 1977. The issue ended up in court. The first violinist won, with a $611k judgement. The bankruptcy court almost had the cellist and the violist sell their instruments to cover it but then a settlement was reached to reduce the amount and an investor stepped in to pay that amount and become owner of the instruments. He then loaned them back to the musicians for 10 years (this is the 10th year!) Audubon actually continued with a new violinist until 2011 when they disbanded.

Baseball weekend

As a UT alum, I receive a few email newsletters and was told months ago that the Texas Longhorns would be playing the Stanford Cardinals here in Palo Alto last weekend. I was well prepared to go, taking my kids and meeting a few other alumni over there. Coincidentally, it's also the pre-season opening weekend for my son's little league (his first) We planned to go to team practice at 11 and bike over to Stanford for the game at 2. Too bad our bikes got flat tire and wasn't able to make it there at 2. It's already the end of 2nd when we finally returned home. Fortunately I remember from Stanford's website that it would be streaming their games live! So we started watching and relaxed in our comfy sofa (with drinks in our hands!) It was a 4 game series and Texas already lost the first 2. However, they had a big 1st inning and got a 3-0 lead and hung on to its lead 'til the bottom of the 9th. Both teams made lots of good plays. Glad to have watched it, even though it would have been better live. We watched the Sunday series finale as well. Texas got a huge 1st inning again (including scoring twice on bases-loaded walks!) and won the game easily.