That sand isn't going to rake itself

Productive day! Worked, scheduled a vision exam for May 8th (finally), lugged home a huge 13 pound box of poster frames, went out to dinner, saw Thank You For Smoking (recommended), put together five custom poster frames and framed five posters at long last, and packed. Saturday afternoon I'll drive to Appleton and then work a 12-hour overnight shift in the ER. Wee!

Seriously, though, the poster frames worked out great. They look wonderful, came with clear instructions and all the mounting equipment I needed (down to pads for each back corner to protect the wall), and fit perfectly. The bad news is, of course, that now I will want to buy additional expensive custom frames for the rest of my artwork.

Finally, here's a picture of a pork martini. A PORK MARTINI. Ever had one?

She hides the basket with purple trim...

It's too late this year, I suppose, but next year I plan to compose a poignant Easter song based on Pearl Jam's "Better Man" ... it will be called "Butter Lamb."


It will be an instant classic, so watch for that one.

My, my, my, my slow descent...

I think the New Pornographers may have been contractually obligated to play "The Slow Descent into Alcoholism" Sunday night, since the entire event was sponsored by Jack Daniels. Not that they wouldn't have anyway. There was an awful lot of drinking going on, as you might expect - Carl passed around his bottle of whiskey early in the show, and then made Kathryn go backstage to get the other one. The audience was already well lubricated by that point, believe me.

The private event itself was better than I expected in terms of free stuff. We got vouchers for a free iTunes download when we arrived at the High Noon, and our ticket stubs entered us in a drawing to win a $100 iTunes gift card or a signed guitar. (We didn't win.) There was also a buffet of free food, two free drink coupons per person, free taxi vouchers for the ride home, waitresses handing out free drink samples, and a pool table full of free Jack Daniels merch. I noticed various band members grazing along with everyone else. There were an awful lot of sloppily drunk twenty-somethings in the house by the end of the night, which was kind of icky, but if I flash back to my days at college bars/parties on weekends it suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

The show itself wasn't perfect, but it was a lot of fun. After Archer Prewitt's opening set, the New Pornos took the stage. I had been hoping that maybe Neko would show up, since she played with the band Saturday night in Evanston, but it was not to be. There was a lot of joking and audience interaction, and of course plenty of great music. The vocals were very muddy up front, but that's just par for the High Noon course. About halfway through the first set, Carl broke a string and requested the signed Jack Daniels guitar ... which he proceeded to play for the rest of the night. The guy who won it now has a 50% cooler tale to tell. They were taking requests, and I desperately wanted to hear "Breakin' the Law" ... the only problem being that I couldn't remember the title. I wasn't about to yell, "THE LAST SONG ON MASS ROMANTIC!" so I kept my mouth shut. Next time, New Pornos. Next time.

Best as I can recall, they played:

Twin Cinema
The Laws Have Changed
Use It
July Jones
Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
The Bleeding Heart Show
Testament to Youth in Verse
From Blown Speakers
The Jessica Numbers
It's Only Divine Right (I think?)
The Slow Descent into Alcoholism ("there are a lot of songs out there that talk about how sad it is to be an alcoholic, but there aren't too many songs that talk about why people become alcoholics ... because it's kind of fun")
Mass Romantic
Star Bodies
The Bones of an Idol
Sing Me Spanish Techno
The Fake Headlines
Letter from an Occupant

Ain't that strange?

I've never missed the Old 97's as much as I did tonight at the Barrymore. I saw Rhett Miller and his backing band, The Believers, and overall I'd have to say ... eh. The band was technically proficient, and I liked the drummer. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a cover band that just happened to be fronted by the real lead singer. It didn't help that the guitar player (and bassist, to some degree) creeped me out. I'm sorry, and I'm sure they're actually fine fellows, but oh my Christ. Anya will back me up on this.

Even Rhett's usual audience chemistry and charisma seemed somewhat dampened. He smiled and danced and shook his hips as per usual, but it wasn't until the end that I truly believed he was into it. Maybe that was just me, though. I did find their transformation of "Barrier Reef" into blistering punk interesting and entertaining, and the songs from the solo albums were decent - though the bass was mixed too loud. But the clear highlight for me was the trio of songs Rhett played by himself while the band took a break. In honor of a recent march and capitol sit-in by "a bunch of hippies" here, he even played "Stoned". You (and even I) might think that my opinion is biased, since I'm very familiar with solo Rhett. But Anya, who'd never seen him in any incarnation and only knew a couple of songs, independently prounounced it the best part as well. And if both of us think that, who's going to argue?

Garrison Starr, who opened the show, was good. I liked her songs, and she bantered with the audience and told stories for probably a quarter of her time onstage. Unusual for an opener, but kind of fun. When she wasn't veering into "okay, this is kind of awkwardly rambling now" territory. I also enjoyed the fact that her Mississippi twang was able to make "and" into a two-syllable word.

Things!

On Sunday night, I finally purchased my laptop. I chose the MacBook Pro, and its estimated delivery date is tomorrow! I'm so excited! I've been tracking it like a fiend for the past two days. It started out in Shanghai (so much for "made by Apple in California") and at last update had left the FedEx facility in Indianapolis. Wee! I decided to celebrate this evening by ordering five custom poster frames from a wholesale store. Even wholesale custom frames are expensive, and the shipping is ridiculous. But since I've been pining for some of these frames for the past three years, I've learned that custom framing stores around here are 500% more ridiculously priced. So, at long last, I'll be able to frame some more stuff.

Speaking of receiving things in the mail, today a hand-addressed envelope from "Entercom Madison" arrived for me. I opened it, and guess what? It turns out that the song I suggested for Triple M's "Greatest Guitar Solo of All Time" got played on their lunch program, the Radio Deli. Which means that I won ... two tickets to see the New Pornographers' private show this Sunday! Hahahaa. Oh man. If only my attempts to get Conan Chicago tickets would end up yielding such bounty.

Mrs. Oliver Harriman's Book of Etiquette: 3

Another etiquette lesson from 1942!

Travel tips:

• In planning any trip, your first concern, of course, is luggage. If you can pack all your belongings in suitcases without resorting to a trunk, for goodness' sake do so.
  
• Before you start out on a trip, as well as while en route, forego the pleasure of eating raw onions or limburger cheese.
  
• After leaving port, don't entertain members of the opposite sex in your cabin.
  
• Unless you know exactly what you want to eat, have a waiter come to your room with a menu. It's perfectly proper to receive him in pajamas or a negligee.

The Proper Clothes for Women:

• "You may have the greatest product on the market, but if it's not attractively packaged it won't sell." That certainly goes for you and me as well as for that box of soap flakes on the grocery counter.
  
• Nothing is uglier or more ludicrous than a somewhat portly female clad in pajamas.
  
• I personally do not like to see rough tweed skirts and Brooks sweaters in the city. Nor do I care for washable pastels or white shoes in town in the summer.
  
• Remember, shorts and tennis dresses should be worn only on the tennis court, never on the golf course.

Questions and Answers:

• After eating a half of grapefruit with a spoon, is it permissible to squeeze the last bit of juice into the spoon by picking up the grapefruit in one's hand?
  No. Forego the remaining juice. You must never pick up the grapefruit.
  
• Do women servants ever wait on table at a formal dinner?
  No, formal service requires men.
  
• Is it in good taste to admire objects in a friend's house?
  Of course. Naturally, if you dislike them, you will say nothing.
  
• Should a mother put colored nail polish on the nails of her little girl?
  No. This would be very bad taste.
  
• When playing mixed doubles, who takes charge of the balls?
  The man supplies himself and his partner with balls.

I suck

After having read New York Magazine's article about Grups recently, and mocking them along with Anya (especially Neal Pollack telling his son that the TV shows he watches suck - though he did post a rebuttal here) - I did the exact same thing this afternoon. Totally unintentionally, too.

The family Easter meal was over, and my nephews (the three-year-old twins and the four-year-old) insisted on watching, for the second time, the videotape they'd brought from home: a truly cringeworthy collection of Mary-Kate and Ashley birthday party shorts. The stories show the Olsens somewhere between the ages of 8 and 10, singing insipid songs at various themed birthday parties with their fake friends. As Mary-Kate and Ashley clutched their faces in "horror" while their slumber party guests chirped about scary monsters, I was driven to comment, "Okay, you guys really need watch Mary-Kate and Ashley at home."

"Why?" demanded Nate, the four-year-old.

"Because this is the worst video ever made in the history of the world," I replied.

"No it's not!"

"Yes, it is."

"Why?"

"Because it's incredibly cheesy, poorly acted, predictable, and extremely uncreative."

"What does that mean? 'Uncreative?'"

"It means ... you know exactly what's going to happen. They didn't think very hard when they made this movie. They didn't come up with any new ideas." I was already starting to regret this conversation.

"Yeah they did!" Nate exclaimed.

"Not really," I replied. "They're just at a sleepover. They want to stay up all night, but soon they'll all fall asleep. Now if they all turned into dragons or something, that would be awesome."

"Well, yeah," Nate conceded, climbing onto the couch. "But they had to think of all the words to all those songs!"

"Yeah, but I'll bet they rehearsed them earlier! They didn't just think of them on the spot!" was my lame-ass reply. That was when the "oh my God, I'm actually arguing with a four-year-old who just wants to watch the little girls sing songs about birthday parties" realization fully kicked in. So I didn't bother pointing out that they were actually not singing at all, or to explain the meaning of the word "trite." In my (weak) defense, it wasn't like I wanted to turn on Adult Swim instead or anything. I wanted to watch Old Yeller.

The Poetry of Gregg Typing, 1958: Good Friday Edition

We left Phoenix, Arizona, late that Friday night.
By the next day we had gone all the way to Ogden.
Frank and Quen each drove for almost three hours.
We spent three weeks there; then we had to leave.
It was very hard to plan a trip such as this one.
You should take a trip like this sometime, James.

Buds on the bushes

Now is the time of year when I proceed to geek out about the weather and outdoorsy stuff. Although I have to admit that what my brain wants to do after the phrase "buds on the bushes" is continue singing, in a sultry R. Kelly voice, "...over by the stove, put you on the counter, by the buttered rolls..." Which reminds me, I'm finally finishing Haroun and the Sea of Stories, in which there is a character named Butt the Hoopoe. Naturally, I think of Mott the Hoople.

Okay, brief foray into my brain: over. Back to the weather. It's been warm and alternately rainy and sunny for the past few days, and I love it to death. T-shirt and pants weather. All around my house the bushes have buds or tiny leaves, the trees are starting to bud, the grass isn't that ugly brown anymore ... man. I love early spring. It'll be 90 degrees before I know it, so I want to savor this.

Finally, I forgot to mention one final thing that was awesome about my weekend. On Sunday I got back to Madison to find mail waiting for me. In the stack was a large packet from The Onion. I was puzzled for a few seconds, and then I realized what it must be, and tore open the envelope. Free tickets for the New Pornographers' private show at the High Noon in two weeks! Eeee! When Spoon did a similar show here I know they ended up releasing tickets to the general public a few days before the show, but I didn't want to have to hope that would be the case in this instance. And now I don't have to! Yay! I'm excited. I have to buy Electric Version before then. That's the day after Rhett Miller plays at the Barrymore, too.

Sing like you was singin' to Jesus!

Way back in late December of 2005, a bunch of needy families in Chicago had a super Christmas thanks to the generosity of many people. In a related story, in mid-April of 2006, many people had an amazing weekend of music and friendship and music and delicious food and more music, and some of them are still recovering and trying to figure out how they became lucky enough to know such a fantastic group of people.

When we do something, we don't do it half-assed. Both cheeks, as Gwennie averred. Saturday night was the culmination of everything, of course, featuring the musical stylings of Mart and Dave as well as Jeff Tweedy. Two Cow didn't end up performing, given their night's schedule at Subterranean, but they did stop by for food and drinks early on. It's kind of a shame, because I know how excited Jeff was by the prospect of opening for them.

We ate, we drank, and we were merry. Among the candy jock straps, pretzel fights, Boston terrier impressions, Bell Biv Devoe poses, brownies, and wisecracks were some very, very fine performances. Jeff's set was great, and seeing Dave and Mart play with him was such a treat. Not to mention the late-night campfire singalong afterward. The music didn't end until the not-so-wee hours of Sunday morning, and I drove home as the sun rose. It was the perfect finale.

If I had to compare last year's show to this year's, I'd say that last year had a more dreamlike quality to it - being the first of its kind, I don't know if any of us really believed it even as it was happening, and it was a bit more of a free-for-all. This year I think we all knew each other a little too well for the pure, crazed giddiness to reach critical levels - but that added something, too. Another red-letter day on my memory calendar.



By the way, remember that exam I took last Thursday afternoon? I got a 98.

One down, one (big one) to go

Last night was a crazy success, I'd say. Big crowd, lots of drinks, lots of food (including brownies!), and some wonderful music. The posters were beautiful, and there was even a goat head in the background! Can you believe it? It matched my goat head mobile so well.

Our fears of the police raiding the joint proved to be unnecessary, as the merriment went on unmolested until the early hours of the morning. Healthy White Baby was great and loud, Adam Fitz was great and not-as-loud, and Devin Davis was great and had a theremin. What more could you ask for? Well, maybe even MORE musicians and fun the next night, which is what I'm heading for now. At least, I'm making an assumption about the fun. Heh.

Tuesday

A good day at work, and I actually cooked dinner - spare ribs in a tomato/vegetable sauce over rice. It turned out tastily. I also saw Capote, and just now finished whining with Anya over how fast time goes by these days, how we can't believe it's April, how all of our fun birthdays are behind us, and how old 26 seems. Then we realized that someday we'd be laughing about that conversation, but it would be because we were even older, so it still wasn't a comforting thought. Oh well. Age ain't nothin' but a number. As the late, revered Aaliyah once said.

I'm also getting more and more excited/freaked about the upcoming weekend. Freaked in the sense of "holy Christ, I can't believe it starts in FOUR DAYS." I'm trying not to have any particular expectations for this year, because last year was pretty much perfect. This year will be different; very much so. That doesn't imply worse, but for some reason when I think about it I have this vague sense of trepidation. But then I think of all the people I'll get to see, and honestly, I'll bet we could have fun in a small, damp cave together with nothing but our wits for entertainment. And this, my friends, will be a far cry from that.

Finally, this is a very fun website someone sent me today. MyHeritage face recognition demo. Upload a picture of yourself, and it will analyze your face and tell you what famous people you look like! It's funniest to look at male and female matches. I tried two photos of myself, both very recent, and it didn't come up with the same person twice. Some of the suggestions for the first photo, in order of % match, were Katie Holmes, Rachel Bilson, Robert Redford(?), Billie Jean King (ha!), Alicia Silverstone. The second picture likened me to Missy Elliot, some Swedish king(?), and Conan O'Brien(???). Nonstop entertainment!

Monday

Productive weekend! Goat head mobile completed. Supplies purchased. Twins sat. Books read. Laptops ogled. (17-inch PowerBook: utterly ridiculous.) New iPod loaded, old iPod sold. Work email answered. Sister's wedding photos viewed.


Resolved to visit somewhere tropical soon.