Category: Personal

What do I do in life? I’m a musician!

Well, I’m no musician, but that’s an answer that I prefer to say over my profession. It sounds better! Anyway, music is a hobby that I enjoy very much. 

In the past months I’ve been playing on the base guitar with my friend Lior. He writes excellent original songs which we performed on stage. He plays the acoustic guitar. Another friend, Amit, joined in the second show on the drums. In our recent, and third show we Gil on the saxophone as a guest.

In this last show, I also sang one song, Neil Young’s Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World. This is a song I love, and I hope that I didn’t ruin it too much…I apologize for the quality of the video as well:

 
Keep on Rockin in the Free World – Cover Version – The most popular videos are a click away

And, here’s another song we performed on stage, Lior’s :”Mehaka Lera”, which translates to something like “Waiting for Worse”:


– The funniest videos clips are here

If you want to hear more of Lior’s songs, check out his MySpace.

My definition of Endurance

Running 10,000 meters isn’t easy. It takes a long time to complete and demands a lot from the body. Adding Tel Aviv’s humidity and a stupid race strategy, endurance and suffering are mixed together.

I had trained for the Tel Aviv night run for over a month. My final result in the lab (aka the air conditioned gym) was 53 minutes. I usually started with 4-5 minutes of a slower race, and then accelerate to a steady pace. This allows the body to make an easy transit from anaerobic effort to aerobic effort.

I expected to score the same result also in the field. I assumed that the adrenaline rush would compensate for the strong humidity. Well, I can blame the humidity, but I can mostly blame my bad running strategy.

Seeing about 10K runners and lots of noise, I started the race at a very strong speed, forgetting all my training experience. I finished the first 2K at a pace of 45 minutes per race. I was talking to the people around me, waving to the bystanders and running far away from the pacers that ran at 55 minutes per race.

My race
My race metrics (very nice graph)

After about 3K, I began feeling tired. At such an early stage in the race, the rest became a struggle. I struggled not to walk, struggled not to go to bathroom, and struggled to keep up with so many runners that left me behind.

Well, I passed the test of endurance, and completed the race at 57 minutes sharp. After it was over, I felt great satisfaction and I regained my physical strength.

Tel Aviv Night Run
Finishing the race (I’m in the middle) – video capture

Both images taken from here.
Next time I’ll save my strength and I’ll break the 50 minute mark!

Vote for my picture on JPG Magazine

Last October I’ve posted a short post featuring a homeless man sleeping on a bench beside a shiny globe. The globe was part of an exhibition that celebrated globalization in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Here’s a reminder:

Globalization

Anyway, I’ve submitted it to the JPG Magazine site. It’s up for votes in the Democracy theme. If it wins, it will be published on print, and I’ll be famous.

Well, I won’t be famous, but I’ll be happy if it wins, and I’ll be very happy to get your “Yeah” votes for it.

So, just click here and click on “Yeah”. You’ll be asked to register (not for lazy people!).

Thanks!

If Neil Young doesn’t come to Israel, then

I’ll go see him elsewhere. I’ve just received my entry ticket to the Rock Werchter festival. Neil Young is performing on July 4th, the second day of the 4-day festival.

I became a fan of Young in the past few years. I love his songs, his lengthly guitar solos, and his political thoughts. It’s amazing that this singer is still creating new and exciting material all the time. Many of his generation (he’s been in Woodstock!) are not active anymore.

I’ve featured his songs a few times on the blog, and here’s the song No Hidden Path from his last album Chrome Dreams II:

More about Neil Young in Wikipedia, and for news, check out Thrasher Wheat’s excellent fan blog.

Apart from Young, the festival has lots of other big names that are definitely worth seeing: Radiohead, R.E.M, Lenny Kravitz, My Morning Jacket and Moby to name a few. Check out the site for all the details.

So, in two months time, I’ll be at a small Belgian village, enjoying those performances. Yeah!

Happy Passover 2008

Last year I’ve complained the same ritual repeats itself every year. This time, your suffering Jew complains about the fact the eve of the holiday is on Saturday, thus taking away a vacation day from work.

Being a Jew is never easy, and especially hard during the 7 days of Passover. No bread, no pizza, no cookies and no beer! Luckily, I skip these rules…

Dancing Camel Party Passover 2008

Regarding the beer: I’ve attended the traditional “Biur Hametz” ceremony at Dancing Camel’s brewery in Tel Aviv. Instead of cleaning and burning down every piece of bread, as requested by Jewish tradition, we “got rid” of all the beer (non-Kosher as well).

There were 4 regular commercial beers, and 6 special seasonal beers. I’ve tasted all of them, and it was very fun. It’s just a pity that the sound in the brewery was awful, and it was hard to talk with other people. I’ll check it out next year!

Anyway, I don’t have too much to say except Happy Passover!