Choose Your Own Blog Adventure Part I

I wonder how many times I have started my blog with the following: I planned on making it an early night last night. As a matter of fact, Tim and I specifically talked about leaving after the opening act at the Beachland Ballroom and calling it a night around ten or so. Flash forward to Mindy and I posing in front of a convertible cabriolet outside of Cocktails and Tim and I splitting a City Place 21-piece shrimp basket dinner (with soup and salad included) and a chicken wrap at 1 am.

Apparently our communication was off on more than one occasion. We talked about meeting at my place between 6:30 and 7 so we could grab a bite before the show started at 9. As 7 came and went, I assumed Tim was just running late. Perhaps to put this into better perspective, it is important to note that Tim has no cell phone right now and I have no door bell on the front door of my apartment where I live on the second floor. At about 7:20 I hear a loud knock on the downstairs door. Finally! Tim has arrived. The following conversation then took place:
Me: How long have you been standing down here?
Tim: Oh maybe 15 minutes
Me: 15 minutes! I am so sorry
Tim: Yeah, I got here around 6:15…what time is it now?
Me: Uh…you have been standing out here for an hour?
Tim: I guess so. Does your landlord live across the street?
Me: No that is her sister…why?
Tim: Well she has been staring at me.
Me: You have been standing out here for an hour on my porch, I am glad she has been staring at you. Ah well…ready for dinner?
Tim: Sure

Off to the Old Angle we went where my palate was quenched with the incomparable flank steak (a slight difference from the evening’s next meal at a 24-hour diner). From the Old Angle, we headed to the Beachland Ballroom. Even though we asked for directions at the Angle, we still managed to get lost on our way, which has become our pattern. The last time we went together we got lost as well. We always seem to have the same conversation as soon as we realize we are lost.
Me: Well you know I am not really from Cleveland. I grew up almost 30 minutes from here.
Tim: Oh I know. You know I am not really from Cleveland and I have only lived here for five years.
Me: See? It isn’t such a big deal that we get lost every time we come to this venue that we have probably been to 20 times combined.
Tim: Definitely.
I still don’t think I know the right way to get there. If I was giving someone directions, I would tell them to skip the actual exit, get off at the next exit, get back on the highway, get back off at the original exit and take a right.

To find out more about the show and the rest of the evening’s activities, you need to check out Tim's blog followed by a quick stop at Mindy's blog to see how the evening ended. If you feel comfortable only knowing this much about my evening, you will want to stop here.

Good Show, Great Bathroom

The Gwen Stefani concert last night was a lot of fun and even better than I thought it would be. She played all her hits and probably had ten different costume changes with a great light show and a fun dancing troupe following her around the stage. The crowd had a lot of teenagers but thankfully I didn’t have to interact with any of them as the loge I was sitting in was adult only. While I enjoyed the show immensely, the best part had to be the bathroom.

If you have spent a night drinking with me, you know I tend to go to the bathroom a lot. Some of my friends even call me “TB” short for Tiny Bladder. Because of this issue, sometimes it is a pain to go to large events and venues if I am drinking beer because of the lines. This was not the case last night. Our tickets were loge tickets so we shared a clean bathroom located right by the bar which was conveniently located right behind our seats. No lines and the bathrooms were clean. I was in and out of there in no time and I actually got to enjoy the show. This was probably the most time I have actually spent in my seat at a concert or sporting event in years because I didn’t have to wait in line.

I think my opinion of the show is a little biased because I had such a great experience in the loge. When people ask me about the performance, they look at me weird when I first talk about the bathrooms instead of the costume changes and set list.

First Time

We all remember our first time for those monumental events in our life. Our first day of school, first kiss, first job and so on. One of those monumental events in my life was the first time I heard Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani.

I will never forget that night back in March when a Drag Queen at Bounce ran onto the stage in a cheerleading outfit to the craziest song I had ever heard. Everybody went crazy and I had no choice but to start singing along myself. Before I knew it, I was sitting in my car at numerous stoplights spelling out the word bananas.

Tonight I will get to see that song performed live and I couldn’t be more excited. Two months ago I read a review of one of her shows by Dooce, my favorite blogger. The description alone has enticed me enough to want to see this for my own eyes:
“Her set was nothing short of brilliant, full of lights and costume changes and displays of superhuman energy. She had a few shaky vocal moments, but she was singing and running at the same time.”

The past two months I have been begging people at radio stations for tickets and telling my friends if they get tickets, that I would love to go. Yesterday my boss walks in and hands me free tickets in a loge. I can't wait! Look for my own review in tomorrow's blog.

TGIF Part Three

Three weeks are now in the books at the new position. I wish I had a little more to show for it, but I am getting there. The big progression this week included: REVERSE SHADOWING. Day by day they are giving me a little more power, though still supervised power.

Looking ahead to the weekend: I am so excited to see some friends from college I haven't seen in years on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night will be all about Le Tigre. I can not see this band enough. I am so excited! I will really enjoy the paradox of a baby shower and radical lesbian musicians rocking Peabodys.

Closer to Fine

I am excited to say that tonight I am going to the Indigo Girls concert. The Indigo Girls are a band I have followed since 1992 and yet I feel as if they have followed me through most of my life. Many major events in my life are integrated with an Indigo Girls song because they were there with me during what I consider to be my formative years (18-25). To me the Indigo Girls are: my first real concert, my first real everything, rainy nights in the Flats at Nautica, cold winter drives from Cleveland to Columbus, beautiful summer drives from Columbus to Athens, waiting in line for front row tickets my first year in college, men grasping their girlfriends hands for dear life, campfire-like sing-alongs, Amy and Emily laughing at one another on stage, my friend Brandi turning to me at my first concert and noticing my eyes so big from wonderment, fights with my friends over Amy vs. Emily’s musical talents, the camaraderie shared during each of their songs with a beer at the end of one arm and your other arm around your best friend.

Like the first concert I was able to go to in high school, this concert will also be free. My friend Vicki was nice enough to invite Liz and I along for a birthday surprise for our friend Kate. I haven’t been to a show since Mindy and I decided to go see them at the last minute (as usual with our comings and goings) at the Agora a few years back. If I had to guess I would say I have seen them ten times in various venues and setups but tonight will be different because I will be going with Liz. It will be her first Indigo Girls concert and I feel like she is about to enter a part of my life I have yet to share with her. In many ways I have grown up without them over the past couple years, which is unfortunate. Yet today I count down the hours until I see them on stage, just like I used to ten years ago. I am feeling like a little kid chomping at the bit to be a part of all that is the Indigo Girls and I can't wait to share this experience with the person I share my life with on a daily basis.

The ticket from my first Indigo Girls concert on December 15, 1992. It is a little distorted but you will have that after thirteen years.

11 After

First of all, I wanted to take a moment to say Happy Birthday to my father. I don't know if it is pathetic or endearing that the only picture (see below) I could find of us at my house was one taken 25 years ago.

At the Melissa Ferrick show last night I met this woman in a band called 11 After and I found it ironic because it was her first Melissa Ferrick show and it was my 11th time to see her live. The show itself was okay. It seems like each time I see her I become a little more disenfranchised with her music. Last night she didn't play any of what I consider to be her best songs. She played about half of her new stuff, which was very good and then what some would consider her "B side" songs. I just wasn't all that impressed, especially with her rendition of Drive. I realize she must now play the song with this constant monologue, but I miss the way she used to play it on her "Freedom Tour" when the album was released in 1999. Sometimes I am just never sure what to think of Melissa Ferrick. It almost seems like a love/hate relationship for me. At times I find her to be a total snob and a little dorky but watching her play guitar is a religious experience for me so I have to go to her shows. Plus I always want to support women who run their own record label, therefore I purchased the "Right on Records" mouse pad.

The crowd was also really weird. I felt like the oldest person at the Grog Shop, which I knew would probably happen someday but not before I turned 30. It was like I was at a high school dance the way some of these people were acting-running around, making out the whole show, talking during songs. Of course how many girls who are sixteen or seventeen years old get to go to a concert with their girlfirend when they are in high school? And, as we all know, prom for these kids is out of the question, so I guess I should find some joy in the fact that they are just being themselves at such a a young age. www.rightonrecords.com

A Pianist, a Cellist and a Violinist Walk Into a Bar...

I went to go see Antony and the Johnsons last night at the Beachland Ballroom. It was such a treat, though a little weird to sit for a concert in the ballroom at the Beachland. The decision to attend the concert was a last minute decision but I am glad I decided to go. It turned out to be a completely different night than what I had expected. I thought it would have had more of a Scissor Sisters feel even though I was told the man sounded like Nina Simone. It was much more of the latter--much, much more. The concert itself was very subdued but poetic and intriguing. Antony was accompanied by the Johnsons which on this particular evening were a violinist and a cellist. Also foreign to me now is to hear the violin and the cello without being plugged into an amp (thanks to Ember Swift and Bitch and Animal). I highly recommend his music to anyone who is willing to listen to something new and provocative. I found a review from a show he did in Massachusetts, which I wish I could claim as my own because of how true it is to how I felt:
“Saturday night's concert by Antony and the Johnsons at Mass MoCA was a bit like a dream -- that is, if your dreams are directed by David Lynch, with his typical undercurrent of subterranean, sublimated anxiety, sexual or otherwise. Singer Antony, who writes most of his own material, cut an exotic figure with his heavenly heartbreaking tenor and his effeminate mien. He sang of the pain of love (and vice versa) in an inordinately heightened, emotional state intended to resolve itself through a kind of soulful transcendence or catharsis. If you closed your eyes, you could have been fooled into thinking you were hearing the voice of a black soul singer a Smokey Robinson or Otis Redding, say, suddenly struck with an exaggerated vibrato and a plaintive streak."

http://www.antonyandthejohnsons.com/

I must thank Terry, Maura and Tim for a laughter-filled drive to the Beachland. Sorry we made you get off at four different exits Terry—you would think one of us would have remembered what exit to get off at for a venue in our own city, which we have all frequented over the past two years (five times for me so I may be the most guilty).