Hey, I laid out a plan for you for this weekend. It’s on the FFW>> blog. I probably won’t do all of the things on the list, but I will definitely do some of them.
Elsewise, not much new. Stormageddon notwithstanding, I plan on sampling Round Corner Cantina tonight with the Elainafriend. I’ll let you know.
Speaking of Mexican, a trip to Las Velas a couple weeks ago pre-Gallery Crawl yielded tasty results. A good fish taco is to be had there: fried, which is a little weird to me, but the chipotle mayo is killer and the whole shebang is pretty good. It was odd to me that it wasn’t horribly crowded given that it was right after work on a Friday — a Gallery Crawl no less — but hey, I don’t like crowded places, so all the better.
Oh, and, unrelated, there’s a movement on to start having a Question Time in the U.S. Like Prime Minister’s Questions in the U.K., or any number of other similar setups in other countries. I’ve been into this idea for ages, and I like that it’s picking up speed, so check it out.
Next Sunday is the Super Bowl, and is also the WYEP Alternative Souper Bowl. I will, with any luck be watching both of these events. You oughtta too. I don’t really care who wins the Super Bowl, but I sure hope Ernie Hawkins beats Meeting of Important People at the Souper Bowl.
The following weekend begins the Winter Olympics. As you may know, I am a BIG FAN of hanging out and watching the Olympics.
I won’t have anything of substance in the paper for the next couple weeks. PICK IT UP ANYWAY. I’m sure there will be awesome articles in it. In the meantime, I will be acting lazy and hopefully getting a move on my upcoming coverage.
Last night I went to Target at about 8:30, and let me tell you: it was weird. What I hadn’t noticed before is that they don’t play music in Target. Usually it’s so crowded, you can’t tell the difference — babies are crying, etc. However, when there are about three other people in the whole store, and it’s pouring down rain outside, it’s straight creepy. Needless to say, I grabbed my grooming supplies and skedaddled with nary a wasted second.
Megadeth is coming to the Palace in Greensburg in March, FYI.
I meant to tell you last time but forgot: in these rather frightening times in the life of television, I feel it appropriate to tell you (again, if I’ve said it before) about what I think the second-funniest sitcom currently airing is. After 30 Rock, of course, which is a runaway favorite.
The second-funniest show is Better Off Ted. I know, the name is kind of lame. And Ted is kind of a boring main character, though that’s how it should be to an extent, since he’s playing the straight man to a bunch of zany ensemble players.
Portia de Rossi’s Veronica is flawlessly played, but the runaway show-stealers are Linda (Ted’s romantic foil, played by Andrea Anders) and the scientists, Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett). Wonderful chemistry, excellent writing, a propensity for taking a small joke, stretching it until it’s not funny, then stretching it just a bit further so that it’s funny again!
It’s on ABC on Tuesday nights at 9:30. WATCH IT!
PS – For the record, I like Community (NBC, 8pm Thursday) and it’s probably number three on my list. The Office has dropped to who-knows-where on my list, and last night’s episode certainly felt like a series finale to me, so who knows how long we’ll have it to talk about anyway?
PPS – Sorry if I wrote this post once before. I forget, and currently I have my blog on a theme that doesn’t appear to have a search function.
PPPS – Sorry I don’t have a search function. I’ll work on that.
However, right now I find myself jamming three new discs on the regular: Bear In Heaven’s Beast Rest Forth Mouth, which was actually from last fall but I didn’t get it until last week; Beach House’s Teen Dream, which is brandy-new, to the point where I’m not supposed to have it yet; and Tortoise’s synthy new groove, Beacons of Ancestorship. Does this mean music is getting better again, or just that I’m getting to be willing to listen to things that aren’t Arthur Russell again? Maybe a little of each.
In other news:
Tomorrow’s Third Thursdays show at the WYEP studio is my esteemed colleague Aaron Jentzen, playing along with Cello Fury. Worth a check-out!
I’ll repeat it so that it comes true. My new year’s resolution: Better high-fives, more often.
Some new stuff in the CP that came out today — I’ll post links when everything’s live online tomorrow. In the meantime, PICK UP A REAL COPY SO THAT PEOPLE WILL CONTINUE TO ADVERTISE IN IT SO THAT IT WILL CONTINUE EXIST AND I’LL CONTINUE TO BE EMPLOYED!
This is my friend Lena’s brother. It’s no Hall & Oates, but watch it, seriously. I promise it’s a funny song. PROMISE!
A trip to the Squirrel Cage that involved that jagoff guy from the kitchen dropping my friend’s burger on the floor then turning quickly and leaving, only to pass by a few minutes later and ask “WHAT FELL?!”
A trip to Half Price Books that featured two late-teens or early-20s boys attempting to sell a bunch of still-wrapped CD’s, and getting angry when they were questioned about their provenance. They eventually left, but not before hurling obscenities at the manager and threatening him, then claiming to be friends with the chief of police. Also, possibly the best nugget from this exchange may have been when they accused him of not liking young kids who look good. That’s probably what this was about, actually.
Speaking of liking young kids, the other part of that trip involved a stop at Toys R Us, where a clerk made a reference to being unable to tell certain people’s ages — “especially girls, but that’s another story.” Needless to say, we high-tailed it out of there.
In less weird news, but only slightly so, Bear in Heaven went off well at Brillobox, and made for some fun hangtime. As happens so often when I’m involved in any conversation, the Hall & Oates vid posted a few days back was discussed. As was this one:
It’s been a while since I’ve done a dream post, which is kind of a shame since dreams tend to fade from memory quickly, and if I don’t write them down somewhere, I might lose them. I like to look back on weird dreams I had a few years ago and read them like they’re fiction, because after that long I generally don’t remember having had them.
I’ve had plenty of ‘em lately, though a lot have been short and unsubstantial: last week, four nights in a row I had dreams about people I know to one extent or another, ranging from the incredibly mundane (smoking cigarettes in a restaurant with J****) to the weirdo (L*** is bringing a pizza to my party, and it’s going to be topped with a squash that’s shaped like a pizza) to the indecipherable (J**** is having a record party wherein you listen to records and complete some sort of scavenger hunt and when you’ve completed the scavenger hunt on your record, he plays a track from it for everyone else) (chance operation DJ night?)
Last night’s, however, was slightly more narrative, and truly epic: it began with the end of the workday; I was downtown and heading for a bus. As I was about to cross the street, a woman turned the corner in a minivan and the doors and windows swung open, and her dogs — there were four or five of them in the van — nearly fell out. She pulled over immediately to lock everything back up. I looked around and noticed a couple people making faces, like they were affected by the fright of having nearly seen these dogs get tossed from the van.
Then one of them starts to cry. Then another starts to cry. Then I look around and see a lot of people rubbing their eyes and coughing and crying, and it dawns on me that there are riot police up the block, and they just released a canister of tear gas; there had been some sort of Reclaim the Streets march, and now the cops and marchers are clashing. Someone offers me a bandana to put over my face, but I wave him off and use my sweatshirt hood. I start into the fracas to try to figure out what’s going on, because I didn’t know this march was coming.
I call my boss to tell him what’s going on so that we can put a report up on the paper’s website; it’s 5:30 but he’s still at work, though the phone is answered by a maintenance guy at first. I start to tell him the story, then I lose the connection and a friend I haven’t heard from in a while calls crying about a breakup or something. I try to be sensitive, but I’m kind of busy; I ask if I can call her back later so we can talk about it. She’s taken aback, then obviously upset with me for not stopping to talk to her. I hang up and call my boss again.
Then things get too crazy for me to be distracted by the phone; I hang up and start running for a nearby house because some of the marchers are now fighting one another. I get into the house through the back door, and the march is coming through the house, so I go out the front door and ready my camera so I can get a shot of the marchers coming out (I’m concerned at this point about photo composition, and how I always take the same boring kinds of pictures). They take a while coming out, though, and I realize things are basically broken up. I call someone to find out about getting a bus home, as now I’m somehow in Brookline.
At some point the scene changes and I’m in another friend’s car, riding home with him and a couple other folks. We get on a highway out of downtown, and there’s ice all over, and disabled cars and jackknifed trucks strewn about the road. I’m terrified, but we don’t crash.
There must be some transition here, but I don’t remember it; the next thing I remember is being on my next door neighbor’s porch, grabbing my mail because it’s in her mailbox by accident. She comes out the door and I apologize for hanging out on her porch and explain that my mail was in her mailbox; she’s not fazed.
A bunch of other people show up, and suddenly my neighbor (who’s probably pushing 80) is having a party in her yard. I’m fraternizing with her son, and then a bunch of women — her family, some random friends — start doing this dance/game that is a tradition in her family. They start running around in circles with these big . . . spear-like things? And I’m in the middle, just hanging out. Then they start throwing the spears across the circle and into the ground like lawn darts, barely missing me at times, and yelling for me to watch out.
Then . . . that’s it. I don’t think there was a more satisfying conclusion; that’s all I remember.
These schizoid drive-by posts are becoming routine. Sorry about that. Unless you like them. Then, you’re welcome!
Last night, good hang with the sweet dudes of Bear In Heaven; they play this Saturday at Brillobox along with Mariage Blanc and the excellently named Freelance Whales. Check it!
There’s a new City Paper out today; I don’t have any exciting pieces in it, just the usual summary stuff, but pick it up. It’s my livelihood. Also the ad on the back cover is off the hook insane. It is an ad for both a comic store and a law firm specializing in getting people out of debt. Weirdsies.
I’m pretty busy this week, but not with really notable stuff. Not that playing a new card-based game with good dudes isn’t exciting, it’s just not that bloggable. Unless you’re REALLY into card-based games and want to talk about its intricacies. I guess we’ll find out tonight if that is the case with me.
You probably already saw this elsewhere, but you can very easily donate $10 to Red Cross rescue/cleanup efforts in Haiti by texting “Haiti” to 90999. It’ll be added to your phone bill. It’s just like voting for American Idol or whatever, only meaningful!
Torley mixtape potluck & pie party occurred on January 1. I have not blogged about it, nor did I really blog about it beforehand, I don’t think. I’m not sure why. I made my mix (and my pot pie) the day of the party but it turned out pretty killer, I thought. I don’t have the track listing on me, but I sort of wish I had my own copy. The Fifth Dimension did indeed appear, as did The Bay City Rollers. Interesting fact about the mixtape exchange this year: in a shocking reversal of trends, the analog-to-digital ratio grew in comparison with the 2008 party. It was about 50-50 this year, which is probably the best it’s been in three or four years. I mean, if you consider tapes to be good. Which I kind of do. Not that I won’t accept a good mix CD.
I’ve decided to return to a 2008 resolution that I broke, and try to actually make it happen this year. It’s the one where I create a crossword each month, and post it here on this blog. I don’t have the fancy crossword creating software and am not ready to invest yet, so I’ll have to make it a PDF that you can print out and do. Look forward to that, though. Okay?
I’ve missed a couple shows I wanted to go to lately, mostly because it’s been frigid and I haven’t felt like leaving the house and/or neighborhood all that much. My plan for this coming weekend includes at least making it to Bear In Heaven/Mariage Blanc/Freelance Whales at Brillobox Saturday night. “Freelance Whales” is a pretty great name.
Know what else would be a good band name? Eskimo Curfew.
