Fancy

Tomorrow night I'm going to see a show from an opera box for the first time! I think. I mean, I think it will be the first time. Also, there will be a soundcheck party, which I suspect will be heavy on the "soundcheck" and very, very light on the "party." Details to follow on Wednesday. (The band in question is Wilco.)

The song "High Enough" by Damn Yankees is going through my head. Seriously, why? Not even the chorus, either. No, the actual verses are going through my head. "I just made one mistake ... I didn't know what to say when you called me BAAAAAAYBAY!" Oh, it needs to stop.

On Wednesday Anya officially gets her cat! I'm so excited. It's not going to be the cat with the balance problem after all - instead, it's a cat named Dana. Somehow that reminded me that I need a haircut. (I don't know.) My hair falls into odd waves at this length, and will not hold to any correct head shape to save its life. Unless it's blown dry, but then it gets all staticky.

And on that note, Happy Halloween!

Mrs. Oliver Harriman's Book of Etiquette

The non-taping of Veronica Mars was redeemed on Saturday night, when I watched the rerun of the episode. Everyone can stop holding their breath now. If I may, I would like to request more Francis Capra in the next new episode. Thanks!

On to Mrs. Oliver Harriman's Book of Etiquette. It was an early birthday present from P&M, who couldn't wait if it killed them, and it is fantastic. It's got everything an upstanding gentleman or lady of 1942 should know to smoothly sail through high society. The book jacket itself is charmingly tattered, and the back cover has ads for other books that cost as much as $2.95!! (That was for a rhyming dictionary.) Anyway, every so often I'll probably share some wisdom from Mrs. Oliver Harriman. No need to thank me; just using these tips in your everyday life will make the world a better place for all.

From Appendix C : Do's and Don'ts

• Don't glare at a man who doesn't give you a seat on the subway just because you're a woman. He may be more tired than you.
  
• Do remember, if you are a woman, that it is your duty to make the first move to leave when you and your best beau are with friends. He'll be stuck all night unless you give the go sign.
  
• Don't protest once your wife has signaled that it is time to leave. Accept her decision gracefully. Argue later in private.
  
• Do sit with your knees together and your legs slanted in slightly to the left. This is the most graceful and well-bred position a woman can assume when she is seated.
  
• Don't chew gum in public. Personally, I do not care for gum at any time.
  
• Do speak in low tones wherever you are. A loud voice is bad form at all times.
  

Next time: dealing with your servants.

VCR ... wha?

I totally failed last night at taping Veronica Mars. I swear I set everything properly, but somehow I only recorded the first 20 minutes of the episode. That means I'll have to watch the reshowing on Saturday night, but that's a long time to wait for my fix. I've probably programmed my VCR and cable box to record stuff while I was out about a hundred times, and this is the first time I've screwed up. Naturally, I blame Jim O'Rourke.

In other news, we are getting a cat! Next week! From the Humane Society! I'm so excited. For years now it has been my dream for my roomie to get a cat. I get to live with it, but it's not my responsibility. Perfect. The cat hasn't quite been decided upon, but there are some finalists. Including a kitty who had a bad ear infection awhile ago and now has a balance problem and walks around with her head tilted. Awww. We were cracking up tonight (affectionately, of course) imagining her walking around the place and smacking into walls and stuff. I suggested a tiny kitty helmet. Hehe. Oh man. Our cat is going to be special.

j'ai un question pour toi

Really fun show from Rhett Miller tonight at the High Noon, as always. I took along a couple of friends, but they ended up sitting at a table in back. If you're reading this, guys, what's the point? Oh well; I stood up front and met some new people. Close enough to see some girls pelting the stage with pennies during "Rollerskate Skinny" and Rhett's collosal eye roll in response. Haha.

One surprise was the fact that the first verse and chorus of "Question" were sung ... in French. Apparently Rhett has signed to Universal, and Universal is largely owned by the French, so he recorded an alternate French version of the song. He also joked that it was his way of sticking it to the current administration.

You know, a lot of musicians kiss the ass of whatever city they happen to be in. But Rhett is either sincere in his affection, or he does more ass-kissing research than anyone I've ever known. He was busting at the seams with Madison anecdotes tonight. How he loves coming back to Madtown ... how he was sorry he couldn't stick around for the infamous Halloween here ... how playing a certain song reminds him of playing at the Rathskellar in the mid-90s ... how he was born in Austin but he always thinks of the UW whenever he plays "19" ... how playing "Stoned" (which was great, by the way) reminds him of Club De Wash, and then apologizing for burning it down ... how the scrambler at Mickey's Dairy Bar "will fuck you up" ... how the first time he ever heard the term "sausage party" was at a post-show party here in the early 90s, when the Onion was just starting up and some of the staff members lived in a church near campus (which, by the way, was right by our place on Pinckney) ... how Rhett would sleep on the pool table there, because he was reasonably sure nobody had puked on it or had sex on it ... recently.

He played some new songs, including his duet with Rachael Yamagata, "Fireflies". It sounds quite promising. He sang both parts, informing us that "when I'm a guy, I'll face this way" and "when I'm a girl, I'll face that way". I was thinking, "Heh, cut your hair and that will seem less real." I considered requesting his Jon Brion cover, "I Believe She's Lying," but then I realized ... I'd much rather hear more of Rhett's actual songs anyway. So I didn't. He played two encores, and I got home right at midnight.

And then I discovered that the White Sox failed to comply with my wish for them to lose at least one game of this World Series. Oh well. I'm very sorry I missed it, but yay!

Go Astros?

I really hope Houston wins Game 4 tonight. Because I'm going to be seeing a show, and won't be around to watch. If the White Sox were to win the World Series and I missed the whole game, I would be a little sad. Also, not that I want to tempt fate, but it would be awfully cool if the Sox could win it in Chicago. So ... I'm sending vibes the Astros' way. We'll see if that works.

Beat the Thirsties

My cousin John Charles recently digitized about 400 of our grandparents' old family photos and sent them out on CDR. I feel like Christmas came early. As a small sample of the treats contained therein, I give you the following picture from a family gathering in 1986 - click here for the large version. In particular, please take note of my awesome shirt:



I am 100% certain that it was purchased with Kool-Aid points. I'm impressed that I even had bright red pants to match! A complete Kool-Aid themed outfit.

Ozzzzzie

When I was in junior high, I was a HUGE fan of the White Sox. I saw one game at Comiskey and a few in Milwaukee (where I cheered my heart out for the Sox ... sorry Brewers). Since then (ever since a promising season was basically traded away with a few pitchers) I haven't paid as much attention. But I've had my eye on the Sox. Ozzie Guillen was my boy back in the day (he had my favorite helmet ever, too) so I'm thrilled to see him lead the Sox into the World Series. I'm only sorry Frank Thomas is injured.

That said, I cheered for the Cubs when they made their run. I have spent a lot of time in Chicago, I have a lot of friends who are huge fans, and the city was a happy place while that was going on. And God help us, if the Brewers were ever to make it back to the playoffs, I'd go crazy cheering for them too. You could claim I'm not a true fan of any of those teams ... or maybe I'm a fan of ALL those teams, and the cities involved, and the other fans involved, and the game of baseball.

At any rate, the Sox are now up 2 games to none, and I'm simply tickled. GO SOX! Somewhere deep inside me a giddy eighth grader is beside herself.

TKO!

Piston Honda will END YOU!

Friday night, I was supposed to go see the New Pornographers at the Barrymore. Unfortunately, the show was postponed due to an emergency appendectomy for the bassist. Yikes. Suddenly, it was 6:00 p.m. on Friday evening and I had nothing to do. What would you do in a situation like that? If you're like me, you'd eat some dinner, grab the remaining insect candy sent to you by HotLix, and head down to Chicago for a Nintendo party at Hotel S 'n S. Much wacky late 1980's Nintendo high jinks ensued. Besides the actual playing of Nintendo, Paul and Kris and I had some spirited conversation about old school WWF wrestling, Sam presented me with a pierogi soap, Kris scared Amelia with Sooz's giant penguin, and I downed my share of liquor + Sunny D cocktails. Once we were sufficiently in the bag, the Nintendo-ing began. I did a respectable job at Tetris, beat Sam in Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular (which inexplicably takes place in Italy), sucked a whole lot at Marble Madness while Alison kicked some ass, and cheered on Paul as he took on Von Kaiser and Piston Honda in Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Sam also had all the sampling keyboards out, so many of the games were accompanied by avant garde soundtracks of our own creation. Lucas jauntily playing "Happy Birthday" with Cali's sampled meows as Sam and Paul drove around rescuing hostages in Jackal ... that was a particular highlight.

I danced with Colin Meloy

Then again, so did a lot of people on Thursday night at the Orpheum. That was one crazy-ass concert. Looking back on it, my overall feeling is "That was a great show!" But it didn't really start out that way. They realized that and turned it into a great show, though, which is a really vital talent to have as performers. It separates the decent from the good from the great.

I arrived at the Orpheum a little before doors, fueled by a few handfuls of Cheez-Its I'd managed to scarf down between work and the concert. Woo! Since I know what the balcony is like, I decided to sit in the front row to check out that perspective. Reminder - the stage at the Orpheum is elevated to about seven feet, which is why this isn't an open-and-shut case. There were some annoying aspects of being down there in the front: I couldn't always see John Moen, and some of the people in front of me (yes, some people are dumb enough to get really, really close to the stage so they have to crane their necks at a 90 degree angle to see the perfomance) were distracting. But overall, definitely the right decision. From my spot a few feet back I could see fine (one benefit of an insanely tall stage, after all) and I would have felt really left out in the balcony as the show progressed.

At the beginning, things meandered. Each song, though played well, seemed like an isolated performance; islands of action between tuning and giggling and chatter from the band. It was fun, but not exactly "great show" material. Petra is supposed to high five the front row if she makes a bad joke, but due to the stage, she would run to the corner, bend down, and have people flock to her. Colin had to do this at one point as well. For awhile Jenny's accordion didn't work, Colin flubbed some lines of "16 Military Wives," and totally blanked on a line in "Eli."

The good was really quite good, however. Solo, Colin covered "When I Was a Baby" by the Donner Party. We heard "Engine Driver" and "On the Bus Mall," among my favorite one-two song punches of all time. And finally, at my fourth Decemberists concert, I heard the aforementioned "16 Military Wives." Ahhh.

Then, the real goofiness began. Before "Chimbley Sweep" Colin ran us through some calisthenics, and wound up by leading us in waving our arms in the air while singing a few bars of "With or Without You" by U2. During "Chimbley Sweep," Colin gave Chris Funk a sensual chest massage before playing his guitar from behind. Then he invited everyone onto the stage while Petra, Nate, John, Chris, and Jenny jammed. I almost went up there, but after noting the sizeable wall to be scaled, wisely decided against it. There must have been forty kids up there, though. Meanwhile, Colin came down and danced with those of us on the floor in front. By the end of "Chimbley Sweep," he had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

The encore was "Mariner's Revenge Song," and Chris busted out an awesome set of cardboard whale jaws for the occasion. (He'd earlier joked that the tall stage was theirs and they got it from Cheap Trick, by the way. I thought, "Oh, if only you guys were taking it with you.") Colin sat dangling his legs off the stage and pretending to kick people. He also flung picks into the crowd.

But that's not quite the end. Once the show was over, the band started playing a game of keep-away with Chris Funk's mandolin. It dropped on the stage, and suddenly they all rushed to stomp on it! They totally destroyed it, and then started tossing chunks of mandolin into the crowd. It was pretty awesome. I got a very small piece. Plus, I got a setlist, which has a charmingly bad doodle of a satyr (centaur?) on it. I'd like to know who's responsible for that.

Pukin' pumpkin

It's not mine, and I wish I remembered where I found it. I love it though. Incidentally, we made pumpkin seeds last week, and they were delicious.

Decemberists tonight! I'll be scouting the Orpheum for the best spots.

How many states have you visited?

I have visited 32. If you count DC, 33. Not too shabby. My criteria for counting a state as "visited", by the way, has to include some sort of stop where your feet touch the actual sidewalk/grass/street in that state. No driving straight through (unless you did it at 15 mph for about 10 hours, and if you can go that long without getting out of the car, then props to you), and no airports (even if you walked across the tarmac).



Resizing the map left the state borders a little wonky, but you still get the gist. If I'd just had a little more time in New Hampshire I could have had about 5 more states in the bag, too.

What about you? Go here to make your own map.

Go me!

Between early Saturday evening and about ten minutes ago, I managed to watch the entire first season of Veronica Mars on DVD. That's 22 episodes in a little over three days. And during that time I even watched two baseball games and went to work! And went out to dinner and stuff! I'm not sure whether I should be proud of myself or moderately horrified. I'll settle for both.

By the way, Veronica Mars is a great TV show. Ever since Alias killed off Michael Vartan (bastards) it's moved into my #1 slot for the week, also beating out Gilmore Girls, Family Guy, and Anthony Bourdain's show. Which are the other shows I watch with some regularity. I get HBO, but somehow have never gotten in the habit of watching any HBO series. Except for Sex and the City, when that was on. At which time, actually, I didn't even get HBO at home. Let's just stop there.

Musical Moments #2: Old 97's

Second band in my "yay memories!" series is Old 97's. I became a fan after I saw a free Rhett Miller performance at the Madison Music Awards. Before that show, I barely knew who Rhett Miller was, let alone that he was otherwise in a band. Afterward, I was finding out all I could. Three memories that stand out for me:

• On my first business trip ever, I bought my first Old 97's album ever. It was "Too Far To Care" and I listened to it that night on my Discman, sitting in a chair in my hotel room, gazing out the window.
  
  
• A couple of years later, a post-concert house party petered out in the wee hours of the morning. My car was still parked in the Barrymore lot, and a group was walking back in that direction. It was a crisp October night, far from campus, and it seemed like the rest of the world was asleep. The residential streets were quiet save for the murmur of voices and the crunch of leaves under our feet. Ken and I were walking a few yards behind the others, down the middle of the road, kicking leaves and discussing Poptarts, Nutella, and other sundry topics.
  
  
• Before my first Sloan show, at the Double Door in Chicago, "Barrier Reef" was played during the preshow music. My friends and I couldn't resist singing along ... and apparently neither could quite a few other people near us. A gleeful, impromptu Old 97's singalong ensued.
  

Most succulent sausage

After a comprehensive review of Google, I'd have to go with this one:



Mmmmmmmm, sausage.

Happy Friday!

Musical Moments #1: The Jayhawks

Music is a pretty big part of my world. And within that general "music" category there are certain bands that stand out. They're mostly bands I've loved for a long time, though not all ... but they've all wormed their way into my life somehow. I think it would be fun to highlight one of those bands every so often, and list a few of the little memory bits that stand out particularly for me. I'm not going for anything general ... more of a "moments in time" kind of thing, and probably a weird mix at that. I'll see how it goes. First up:

The Jayhawks

• At Luther's Blues, the first time I saw them live, they played one of my favorite Golden Smog songs - "Jennifer Save Me". When Gary Louris sings "fences bent gun metal sunlight/all the way to Montreal" in concert, sometimes he changes Montreal to something locally relevant. Well, on this particular night, he sang, "fences bent gun metal sunlight/all the way to Kenosha." At the time I honestly thought I'd misheard, because he couldn't possibly have named my relatively obscure hometown. But I got a copy of the recording sometime later, and he certainly did.
  
  
• Marc Perlman playing his bass with the bass stand, getting really into it, at the end of "Sister Cry" during the same show
  
  
• After an October '04 concert in Minneapolis, a group of friends and I ended up at the same bar as some stray Jayhawks. Gary was standing near the bathroom hallway for awhile, pretty much blocking the way ... and he wouldn't move for people. Gina had to sort of slither her way around him to get past. For some reason, this makes me laugh every time I remember it.
  

Speaking of great headlines

I was just looking at the Yahoo homepage and saw this:

UNICEF Bombs Smurfs to Highlight Plight

If you're anything like me, your reaction to reading that sentence was "............................what?"

So I clicked, and ... it's pretty much exactly what the headline says. UNICEF has bombed the Smurfs. Smurfette is left for dead! The poster is a fund-raising ploy in Belgium, and apparently it's working pretty well - at least UNICEF has been getting a lot of calls. But I think it might be more effective if it weren't so horribly comical.

U2 yousendit

In case anyone else is interested, I finally compiled an 11-song mix of "lesser-known" U2 songs. More than that, these are just songs - to me - that are different from the type of sound people would normally associate with the band. They're more experimental, or more country, or more stripped down, or louder. Here's the tracklisting and the link to yousendit (it's a zipped folder, about 59 MB) to download it all.

Link

1. In the Name of the Father - Bono & Gavin Friday
2. Promenade - U2
3. Jesus Christ - U2
4. Corpse (These Chains Are Way Too Long) - Passengers (vocal by The Edge)
5. Falling at Your Feet - Bono & Daniel Lanois
6. Ito Okashi - Passengers & Holi
7. Gone - U2
8. Flower Child - U2
9. Slow Dancing - U2, Mickey Rapahel & Willie Nelson
10. The Wanderer - U2 & Johnny Cash
11. Elvis Ate America - Passengers & Howie B.

If you're curious, the one that sounds to me least like U2 ... "Ito Okashi". I guess Larry Mullen must have been on percussion for this song, but I cannot picture it at all. And my favorite song on here? A tough call, but probably "In the Name of the Father."

All we need is a tiny John Bonham

As you probably know by now, periodically I make plans for what I'll do when my two dollhouses have been salvaged from the Basement o' Wonders in Kenosha. I have just decided that one of my "modern" dolls will need to be a drummer, because HOW COOL IS THIS?



So freaking cool. I want it. Of course it costs about $220, so unless I go really crazy one of these days, I don't think I'll actually get it. But so pretty!

Not today, Kittery. Not today.

I almost went to Maine today, but then I didn't. We got out of work 2 hours early, at 4:00 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m., and I was all psyched to use my extra time to drive to Maine. Just because I could. Then we drove back to the hotel in the pouring rain, I got back to my room, sat down on the bed, and was like, "Yeah, I'm not going to Maine." It's all the rain's fault. The rain and my bone-deep fatigue, but mostly the rain.

Code 2 in the spa

Today at work there was a psych code emergency ... in the spa. Everyone on the floor at the time just started laughing, emergency though it may have been. Someone was like, "What did they paint someone's nails the wrong color?"

So I'm tired. Thirteen hours is a long day. I really would like to stay up for Conan tonight, but we'll see how that works out.

If anyone was wondering, no Ladies' Wing this time around.

Off to the Shire

New Hampshire, that is. Ahahaha. God, I'm sorry. Anyway! It may rain here, which could make things interesting. The weatherman was talking about our "warm, juicy air." Ew. Oh well, it's for business, so it's not really my problem if flights are screwed up. Wow, that's a fabulous attitude, isn't it? But really, ít's the path of least stress.

I've programmed my VCR and digital cable to record about 4 shows while I'm gone. Tonight I noticed that my cable has been doing the charming thing where it pixelates and cuts out intermittently. If I come home to a tape full of blackness and blips, someone is going to be PISSED. And that someone is going to be me. Yes, yes, I know you're like "Why don't you have TIVO?" And I'm like "Why don't you pay for it?"

Tonight I saw a commercial for a new breakfast sandwich at Burger King. It's called "MEAT'NORMOUS". Wow. Now tell me that wasn't originally a joke someone made in the boardroom that accidentally got taken seriously. Some guy was all "It's enormous! And it's meaty! It's meatnormous! Haha ... ha ... oh God, you actually like that?"



Side note - I Googled it to make sure I hadn't been hallucinating, and Google helpfully asked, "Did you mean: burger king metanormal?" Mmm, don't think so. In fact, that concept is rather frightening. And then the MEAT'NORMOUS message on the BK website encouraged me to "HAVE A MEATY MORNING!" Umm ... no? Dude, sandwich, I don't even know you. Tone down the innuendo. And stop grabbing my ass.

Ireland, 2002

I recently started digitizing some older vacation photos, and now I'm feeling nostalgic. Here are few Ireland photos from January of 2002. These are in and around Dublin, but at some point I'll get to the photos from other areas:


The bathrooms at the Clarence Hotel ... heh heh. They're nice, aren't they?


View from the Ha'penny Bridge, night


A dog that we played "rock fetch" with on the beach in Killiney. We joked that s/he was Bono's dog. Hey, he has German Shepherds. Who knows?

When journalists were wordsmiths

I just found an old clipping from the Kenosha News. It's not dated, but based on context clues I can date it somewhere between 1932 and 1934. The article is about a football game between Kenosha High School and Madison East. So, it's a small town newspaper article about high school football. But it's written like a novel! It's absolutely nothing like sportswriting in your average newspaper today. Here are some excerpts:

Surging back with that old do-or-die spirit typical of great Kenosha High school football elevens of the past, the Redmen, trailing 3 to 0 only less than two minutes before the half ended, opened with an explosion of aerial bombs and a long run to score a touchdown on an 80 yard sweep accomplished on four plays in a minute and fifty-two seconds as they throttled a viscious fighting Madison East aggregation, Big Eight championship favorites, 6 to 3 Saturday while dazzling in the "under dog" role in a brilliant, bruising battle of spectacular offensive fireworks and iron-clad defensive tactics.

Damn! Take a breath. Anyway, here's my favorite part:

The story-book finish of Saturday's thriller makes Frank Merriwell's fictionized adventures as dull as a 16-year-old kid in the third grade at a country school.

Ha! BURN!

Eddie Hartnek, "will o' the wisp" halfback, returns the kick-off 10 yards. Joe Gogola, like a crafty general sending his soldiers into the "big push," wafts a forward pass to Brianne's Grandpa [yay grandpa!], a tricky kid, and he gains 15 yards. Eddie Hartnek then rocks the foundation of the East team with another aerial blast which that "hawk" Grandpa grabs while walled by two Purgold enemies for another 15 yards.

What will happen? WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

Seconds are left in the half, and the goal line is 40 yards away. So what. So Gogola plays his ace card. He calls the signal for "Red" Horne, his offensive dynamo, to get going. "Red" doesn't disappoint. He goes big. This elusive, hip-shaking, redhead cuts off tackle, streaks for the sidelines and does a hula-hula through a charging army of Madison East players to cross the enemy goal line.

Wooooo! That elusive, hip-shaking redhead does a hula-hula, eh? I wonder if he caught any shit for that from his buddies. But how did the fans react to all of this? I must know.

Horne's dazzling run puts the stands in a wild, uproarious scene. This was something. Red players go somersaulting with their cleats in the turf. East's players and rooters are mute, dejected, refusing to believe their eyes. Only in fiction are games won like that. Then comes the gun for the half. The Reds troop off the field jubilantly and East's husky horde stumbles disconsolately to the dressing rooms.

The article is actually much longer than this. I love it. I'd also love to see some writer try throwing in a "disconsolately" in a high school sports article today. I can just see half of the readership staring blankly at the page.