Well, I don't really have too much to say, but I suppose I'd best start somewhere. Uneventful day at work today except my main machine was dead when I came in and I was consequently less productive than I should have been. Corina (from work) is having her baby shower tomorrow. I think she's due in October.
Lynnette, Stacie, their mom and some of Lynnette's friends are going out to pizza tonight for a good-bye party since 'Netts is moving to Denver tomorrow night. Even though we don't see too much of her, it will be strange that she's gone.
Michael left another message on my machine here at work. I need to get a hold of him and see how he's doing. He started school last week and has been staying with Shawn & Becca.
I think I will be naughty and get crispy fish from Thai Kitchen on the way home. Mmmmm... crispy fish. :-)
Stacie and I went and saw Lou Reed last night. Great show, really glad we went. Lou has four people in his band besides himself... Mike Rathke -- guitar that sounds like a piano & keyboards, Jane Scarpantoni -- Cello, Fernando Saunders -- drums & base guitar (sometimes at the same time which is a pretty good trick if you ask me) and 'Antony' -- vocals. Oh, and then there's Tai Chi Master Ren, but I'll get to that later.
But let me back up a bit first... So we show up at the Moore theatre downtown and get our seats which are all the way in back in the right-side section (sections are left, right and center) on the left aisle. This is annoying for two reasons:
First, after the show starts, people keep trickling in, letting in light and generally being distracting.
Second, there is a woman a couple of seats down from us that just WON'T SHUT UP!
So anyway, the show starts, Lou starts singing 'Sweet Jane', we're getting into it and then Lou stops dead. Starts talking, then picks up the song again. Okay, no problem, that wacky Lou, it's all good, but then,
"FLASH"
Someone takes a picture. So now Lou stops again and says, "Hey c'mon, no flash photographs because then I can't read the teleprompter". Okay, fine, no worries. 'Sweet Jane' starts up again.
"FLASH"
Lou stops again, but this time he loses it. He's really pissed. Security comes on stage shining a flashlight into the audience looking for the person with the camera and finally Lou starts the song again. But you can tell he's really annoyed and it shows because the song is off and frankly, it's kind of crappy.
So anyway, He tries to get his groove back and introduces the band:
Mike is forty-something, generic, studio musician-looking, clearly can burn it up, has probably been a musician since the age of two.
Jane is young, mid to late twenties, pretty, with long blond hair, dressed all in black.
Of course Lou is wearing black leather pants and a black Tshirt... he looks pretty good despite a bit of a pot belly and face that is lined to the point that he's starting to resemble a shaved howler monkey.
Next is Fernando. Fernando is a total trip. Probably early forties, black leather pants and Tshirt, two pewter medallians around his neck, black scrunchie wrist band on his right wrist, expensive watch on his left, and rose-colored sunglasses on a face that looks like a taxidermied lizard. For those who saw 'Land of the Lost' as a kid, he's the spitting image of a Sleestak.
Antony is pale, blond, a little pudgy, late thirties, wearing a black armless Tshirt over a button-down striped dress shirt. He looks like someone's kindly gay uncle who still lives with his elderly mother. But even though he had a kind of ordinary, harmless appearance, he was really bizzare-looking because he kind of twiddled his hands and waved his head side to side when he sang, like he was blind or slightly retarded or both.
So anyway, little by little, Lou's getting back into it. Two things about him become evident early on: First, he is probably a total asshole; Second, he really is all about the music and he likes his band alot, giving them ample showcase opportunities.
At this point, Stacie and I are are aggravated by the opening door, the talking woman and Lou's petulence, so we get out of our seats walk down towards the stage where around a hundred people are standing in the aisles and the area just in front of the stage. Some of the songs are Velvet Underground classics, most I don't recognize. Some of them are great, some of them suck, but the thing is, somehow, magically it's all working. Even the fact that we're slightly pissed-off is working because it's the perfect mindset to listen to some of his songs.
While it's true that the show started out a bit surreal, it got really strange when, out of nowhere, Lou says, "Master Ren, everybody!" And this Chinese guy in red silk pajamas comes out on stage and starts doing Tai Chi during one of the songs and then walks off when it's over. When the band played Lou's 'new and improved' version of Poe's 'The Raven' (starting with around ten minutes of instrumentals) accompanied by Master Ren's Tai Chi, I was actually kind of sorry that, for full effect, I wasn't on Heroin.
Overall, a hell of a show, and he finished it off with 'Perfect Day'. And it was. :-)
Okay, I guess it was the template. Mirabai, you're going to have to email me the code I need to insert for comments if y'all want to shout back. (robkni@microsoft.com).
Current thoughts are about action versus avoidance. Sometimes it's easy for me to categorize how I feel and what I do in largely binary terms (good, productive vs. bad, unproductive, etc.) But I've been trying to come up with a new way of observing myself (and the world) and have been playing with the idea of an ecosystem-based philosophy.
This nuances the idea of avoidance considerably. Avoidance is a fundamental survival trait. Hell, it's probably one of the top two or three adaptations along with eating and reproducing. Looking at it in this light, avoidance becomes, epic... hell downright heroic. :-)
On the other hand, (and also in keeping with the biological/ecosystem paradigm), avoidance can also be indicative of disfunction. Many social mammals hide or refuse to eat when they're not feeling well. And this, I think, is in the nature of my avoidance.
But of course, that would imply some kind of unwellness that seems soluble through retreat. And since it feels like what I'm avoiding is life, it makes it a bit tougher to tease apart. Okay, none of this is profound, I know, but I guess I'm trying to go somewhere with it and just havent' figured out where yet. Soon I'll try to write something more amusing.
