July, 2005

The Street Urchins made my ears bleed and caused me to question my sexuality. I was only going to the show because I absolutely had to see Holly Golightly (touring with The Woggles,) but all of a sudden these guys in black makeup and studded leather clothing came out and ROCKED MY FACE OFF. As usual, my friends complained about the opening band and left. Whatever, they just couldn’t handle it.

The Woggles were awesome, too, but in that more current retro-indie way. (Current retro? Indie trends are messed up.) But they had everyone dancing and a lot of people were shouting for an encore. They were a polite opening band and declined.

Holly Golightly, the reason I came, did not disappoint. I got the feeling she did research to find out what words Americans are just dying to hear British people use. I heard “This audience is lovely,” “You’re all so civilized,” etc. It nearly made me blush. The show really seemed to kick into high gear when the guitarist went to drums and the drummer moved up to an electric organ about halfway through the show. Organs rule the dance floor.

A note to the Vaudeville Mews: the stage volume seemed appropriate for the first band, but I was still being blasted by the second band and had to strain to make out any of the vocals. I know it’s a “rock” show, but I didn’t pay ten dollars to accelerate my developing tinnitus. Thankfully, I could make out some of Holly’s vocals, or I would have seriously wanted my money back. Cranking the PA until it blows a fuse is no substitute for actually making the music sound good.

I really do not want to have to go all the way to New York just to see this, so it’d better come to Des Moines in it’s wide release. If it doesn’t, there will be hell to pay.

Hell to pay!

Yesterday’s odd coincidence was a little more weird than usual. For some reason, Derek was looking at pictures of Jon Heder on imdb.com. Something about a picture where he is accepting an award from Jessica Alba. I dunno. Anyway, he saw this one and said it looked a little like me. I thought, hey, at least he didn’t say I look like Napoleon Dynamite.

I went grocery shopping later that evening and pretty much raced through the store at breakneck speed (I wanted to get to the eight o’clock showing of Wedding Crashers,) and when I got to the checkout line, there were three cashiers with lines and one cashier who was just standing around talking to three other teenage grocery store employees. I worried a little that she might be pissed at me for interrupting her good time, but I was in a hurry and hey, no line. Instead of the expected eye-rolling and foot-stamping, though, she turned to me and said, “Hey, you look like that Napoleon Dynamite guy, you know, with his hair down.” Whoa. This she followed up with, “He looks way different with his hair down, but still hot.” Thank you? I wasn’t sure how to take that. Maybe she is saying I’m hot, but maybe she is saying she finds uber-geeks attractive, in which case I can’t really trust her taste. Whatever. Two comments in one day. I guess I just look like that Napoleon Dynamite guy- you know, with his hair down.

On a side note, I got some comments from online casinos the other day, so I turned on comment moderation. If you try to comment and it doesn’t show up, just wait a while. The php on my web host is completely unreliable, though, so if it takes days for a comment to show up, I guess you should email me to find out what’s up. If you don’t know my email address, then you probably shouldn’t comment on my site. I do not endorse online casinos!

Maybe you remember back when my gallery wasn’t broken, and I had pictures of stuff? Yeah, that was cool. Well, it broke, and don’t bother crying about it. Anyway, if it was still up, I’d remind you how I had all kinds of cool pictures from a small tour that my friends in The Envy Corps. took last year. It was a smashingly good time for me, I hope they remember it fondly. We saw a SPAM truck and met Circulatory System. And now, they have a new EP coming out, and people are all calling into the local radio station about their new single. Check out the banner for Taste of Des Moines. Yeah, that says “The Envy Corps with…”

Guys, you made it above the “with” on the billing. Right on.

Maybe these people have never heard the phrase, “Don’t be that guy.”