Why pointless, you ask? Because there's next to zero chance anyone reading this is going to have the opportunity to see what it is I'm reviewing. Why bother? Only for the sheer, unadulterated fuck of it. Last night I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at Boston Commons. The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company does free Shakespeare in the park each year, and sadly it's hit or miss. Last year's Taming of the Shrew, for instance, was excellent. But the year before that they butchered Hamlet. Much Ado About Nothing was decent when they performed it three years ago, and prior to that their Macbeth was, well, a mess. Solid performances were swamped by a desire to model the production after Evita, of all things. In any case, the last show is tomorrow, so unless anyone reading this is going to be in town tomorrow and doesn't have plans, what I'm writing will be of little use.
I certainly trust a comedy in their hands more than I do a tragedy. Which is odd, actually, because being funny is harder, and it can be particularly challenging to make a modern audience laugh at Shakespearean humor. They almost always field a talented cast. Anyone who doesn't do so in Boston should be fucking shot. There are four cities in this country where actors are mainly trained. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. And of the four, Boston is the one with the least work for actors. Which means that there are tons of people with theater degrees who can't find a stage. Talented people.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I don't give much credit to Commonwealth Shakespeare for finding a solid cast every year. And that's really the only way that they're consistent.
They love to play around with settings when they do Shakespeare. So do I, for that matter, but they tend to do it clumsily Their Macbeth took place in Argentina. But they still said "Scotland." To their credit, they fixed that when they set Taming of the Shrew in Boston ("they said "Bostonia" where "Italia" was in the script), but they didn't do anything about references to geography. Hamlet was set in some sort of anachronistic dystopia, which I'm a fan of in several implementations, but the way they handled it was a tonal mess. Also, they castrated classic monologues to go for the cheap laugh, but that's neither here nor there.
As best as I could tell, this play took place at a summer camp. The set consisted of astroturf and a weather balloon suspended in the upstage left corner (which, for non theater people, means to the back of the stage and on your left Also, I'll get to the weather balloon later). There also seemed to be a bit of a hill, but it was ill-defined. For scenes with the fairies,
A Midsummer Night's Dream is the play among the Bard's works that is the most about magic. If you don't get the fairies right, you didn't get the play right. Ok, so yes we're taught that in art there's no right or wrong way to do something. The reality is that while there's no right way, there are an infinite number of wrong ways. One of them (in this case is to design them as the demented offspring of PT Barnum and Shigeru Miyamoto (this joke requires one to have played at least one of the later Legend of Zelda games) And they're all laden with baloons... which signify.... magic? Oh wait! The weather balloon! They mean to say that there's magic in the air! HOLY SHIT And whenever they came on scene, they were greeted by trance music, to which they performed a drunkenly choreographed ensemble interpretive dance. THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND
I will grant, however, that in a different production of the play, trance music might be appropriate. In fact to set the entire play within a rave is hardly stretching the imagination, because if there was ever a play one could apply raver drugs to, it's this one. But it didn't mesh in this production at all.
The one exception to my distaste for the fairies was Puck, who was done up like a chromatic Pan, and was awesome.
Oh that's right. I didn't quite explain why I thought that it might have taken place at a summer camp, which now that I think of it doesn't seem all too solid. The Rude Mechanicals showed up dressed as Boy Scouts, with the director as the Scoutmaster. They perform the play within a play, which is quite clearly a parody of Shakespeare's own Romeo and Juliet, and upon further investigation may contain a thinly veiled reference to a glory hole (the hole in the wall through which the lovers "whispered to each other" and later kissed through). Of course, one of the parts in a play within a play is female, while all of the players are male. The implication of homosexuality within the Boy Scouts is, of course, a new joke and is a bottomless well of hilarity. The play within a play is humorously terrible, if one remembers the text of the show, and once again the fact that they are Boy Scouts is brilliant satire.
On the other hand, if one set aside the tonal mess that the director and producers made of the play, the performance was quite good. The four main characters, Demetrius, Lysander, Helena, and Hermia, bounced off of each other brilliantly at their best, and at their weakest it was still adequate. The Rude Mechanicals, if one set aside their attire, were fucking brilliant, though I have to say that having sat through what was more or less an abortion of production values, seeing them do something that was intentionally awful was all the more hilarious.
Like I said, you will find no shortage of competent performers in Boston. If everyone working as an actor in this town dropped dead there would still be fierce competition. Of course, there is always the peril of a director trying to put something on the stage that will appeal to the masses at the expense of, say, anyone who knows a damn thing about theater.
I will say that I was entertained, but only because I was with friends who were mocking it along with me. Also, we had had booze. But a much better time was found at Flat Top Johnny's, a pool hall/bar/restaurant in Cambridge. Once again, I doubt this information is of any use, but there is a reason it's been rated Best in Boston for every year in recent memory.
7.28.2007
7.25.2007
still alive... still not posting as often as I should
I confess. I didn't watch the debate.
There was a time--only a few years ago in fact-- where the beginning of baseball season came with a pretty strong anxiety for me. I would find myself caring far too much about where the Sox were in the American League East at a time when it meant next to nothing even to people to whom baseball may as well be a matter of life and death. A player of whom great things was expected underachieving at the beginning of the year? Torture. So what I would do is just take the early spring off. I'd still watch a game if it was on, but no Globe Sports articles. No statistics. No sports talk radio (actually, this is probably a healthy choice no matter what. For every sports radio host that is actually likable there's a hive of loudmouth assholes who will berate you for disagreeing with them on the tiniest of issues and somehow manage to weave right wing politics into their diatribes). I don't get Sox anxiety anymore (thank you very much Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Dave Roberts, Derek Lowe, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, et al).
I do, of course, get election anxiety.
But seeing as I'm not registered to any party (and thus am ineligible to vote in primaries), and seeing that no party or candidate shares my politics?
I'ma let this one slide for a bit. In 2004 I found myself getting in debates all over the place starting at about this point, and achieving nothing but headaches.
So I'm not going to go blackout. If something important comes up I'll follow it and maybe write about it. I think that Obama is the best we're going to get this year. Will he be a good President if elected? Unknowable. I will say this though. Four years of Hillary will rally the GOP assholes and eight years may leave us with a similar political climate to 2000, which it has been demonstrated was shitty for the country. Right now? I don't think I'd serve any purpose by being anything more than a casual observer. So at this point you'll only hear from me on this if it's of particular import or if it's entertaining.
Aren't all six of you glad that I cleared that up =P
My congratulations go to Jon Lester, who the other night returned to the pitching rubber for the Sox after beating Lymphoma to strike out six and allow only two runs on five hits in six innings and giving Boston a 5-2 win. That's big fucking news, seeing as the guy only took a year to get back to the main stage.
There was a time--only a few years ago in fact-- where the beginning of baseball season came with a pretty strong anxiety for me. I would find myself caring far too much about where the Sox were in the American League East at a time when it meant next to nothing even to people to whom baseball may as well be a matter of life and death. A player of whom great things was expected underachieving at the beginning of the year? Torture. So what I would do is just take the early spring off. I'd still watch a game if it was on, but no Globe Sports articles. No statistics. No sports talk radio (actually, this is probably a healthy choice no matter what. For every sports radio host that is actually likable there's a hive of loudmouth assholes who will berate you for disagreeing with them on the tiniest of issues and somehow manage to weave right wing politics into their diatribes). I don't get Sox anxiety anymore (thank you very much Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Dave Roberts, Derek Lowe, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, et al).
I do, of course, get election anxiety.
But seeing as I'm not registered to any party (and thus am ineligible to vote in primaries), and seeing that no party or candidate shares my politics?
I'ma let this one slide for a bit. In 2004 I found myself getting in debates all over the place starting at about this point, and achieving nothing but headaches.
So I'm not going to go blackout. If something important comes up I'll follow it and maybe write about it. I think that Obama is the best we're going to get this year. Will he be a good President if elected? Unknowable. I will say this though. Four years of Hillary will rally the GOP assholes and eight years may leave us with a similar political climate to 2000, which it has been demonstrated was shitty for the country. Right now? I don't think I'd serve any purpose by being anything more than a casual observer. So at this point you'll only hear from me on this if it's of particular import or if it's entertaining.
Aren't all six of you glad that I cleared that up =P
------
My congratulations go to Jon Lester, who the other night returned to the pitching rubber for the Sox after beating Lymphoma to strike out six and allow only two runs on five hits in six innings and giving Boston a 5-2 win. That's big fucking news, seeing as the guy only took a year to get back to the main stage.
------
My parents celebrated their 28th anniversary on Saturday. They left the house at around 10 to go out, with no defined plans. I was up when they rolled back in at around 3 in the morning, wondering what it is that took them so long. It turns out that they found themselves at Harvard Square at around midnight and decided on a whim to go see the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Which, quite reasonably, shocked me. It was the first time for both of them, and, I mean, they're my parents. Which isn't to say that I'm anything less than fucking proud of this fact--it lies somewhere approaching my grandmother handing my ass to me in a paper sack at the Bowling game for the Nintendo Wii (and yes it is a matter of pride because when your grandmother buys a next gen system before you do and you're an oldschool gamer who still remembers the original Pitfall that means that your grandmother is awesome)-- but it also means that they were hanging out with my crowd. Though I doubt they did anything that I'd be ashamed of, such as my brother who upon the shouted requests of multiple hot girls to remove his shirt during the Virgin Sacrifices just stood there. The boy, it is safe to say, was given a thorough lecture on the nature of his transgression... where was I?
Oh yeah. Interestingly enough, I was considering going that night (potential awkward moment averted), which was part of the reason why I spent the day reading through the 700+ pages of J K Rowling's latest work, which is, to my mind, solidly her best. The reason? The callbacks at the RHPS are always in line with what's current. The Mooninte scare in Boston was the subject of constant mockery and I have no doubt that spoilers were shouted out during the show.
The other reason I spent the entire day reading it was because I couldn't stop. I'll readily admit it. I'm pretty thoroughly a Harry Potter fan, and I have been since eighth grade. The concept of the antihero being prevalent in a series of books read by millions of children worldwide is something that I relish. And to my mind that this one series hasn't necessarily sparked a resurgence in reading among children isn't necessarily the point. Expecting one woman to do that with a pen is a bit lofty. It's demonstrated that there is an audience there to be engaged. The hope is that publishers might learn what to look for. But aside from that, it's solid mythology, clever invention, good narrative and inspired characterization And real danger. She may not be Tolkien, but she's picked up a few of his tricks.
Anyways, I'm not exactly thrilled that there won't be any more. Not to the extent that I'll resort to reading all of the slashfic though. Interestingly enough my position in an argument regarding them was vindicated by the final book. I shan't elucidate though, as it would contain spoilers and we don't fucking do that here.
Was there anything else? I don't think so. Later.
Oh yeah. Interestingly enough, I was considering going that night (potential awkward moment averted), which was part of the reason why I spent the day reading through the 700+ pages of J K Rowling's latest work, which is, to my mind, solidly her best. The reason? The callbacks at the RHPS are always in line with what's current. The Mooninte scare in Boston was the subject of constant mockery and I have no doubt that spoilers were shouted out during the show.
The other reason I spent the entire day reading it was because I couldn't stop. I'll readily admit it. I'm pretty thoroughly a Harry Potter fan, and I have been since eighth grade. The concept of the antihero being prevalent in a series of books read by millions of children worldwide is something that I relish. And to my mind that this one series hasn't necessarily sparked a resurgence in reading among children isn't necessarily the point. Expecting one woman to do that with a pen is a bit lofty. It's demonstrated that there is an audience there to be engaged. The hope is that publishers might learn what to look for. But aside from that, it's solid mythology, clever invention, good narrative and inspired characterization And real danger. She may not be Tolkien, but she's picked up a few of his tricks.
Anyways, I'm not exactly thrilled that there won't be any more. Not to the extent that I'll resort to reading all of the slashfic though. Interestingly enough my position in an argument regarding them was vindicated by the final book. I shan't elucidate though, as it would contain spoilers and we don't fucking do that here.
Was there anything else? I don't think so. Later.
7.19.2007
We fucking get it already!
When faced with meeting the needs of the underprivileged and throwing scraps to the fat hounds of private industry, our asshole President will choose the former. HE DOESN'T NEED TO FUCKING REMIND US. He certainly didn't need to voice his opposition to a plan that would provide health coverage to 3.3 million children to get the message across. Instead he's suggesting a tax break. Because that's the only response he and his ilk have to any domestic issue. I think that the only reason he hasn't responded to global warming is because his team is secretly developing a way to rationalize an across the board tax cut as a response.
Maybe the answer to the whole thing is to find a way to run a generator on human stupidity
Maybe the answer to the whole thing is to find a way to run a generator on human stupidity
7.10.2007
Every day the bucket goes to the well. One day the bottom must drop out
Slowly things are easing back towards normal, if anything in my life can be called that. Family in town for a couple of weeks, the last remaining relative, my aunt, flying back out in about three hours.
There is no time.
While large gatherings aren't exactly uncommon for me, this one wasn't planned. A few weeks ago my uncle Bob died. He was forty-two. We don't yet know for sure what caused it.
A good portion of the time I've been AWOL around here has been spent, to be frank, drinking beer with family. My aunt Martha said that she'd been to only two wakes, in the sense with which I'm familiar, in LA, and that in her experience it was normally just gathering and drinking and then a funeral. She later quipped that she could tell why. We all were ready to lighten the cooler once we left the funeral home. And we did.
The last time I'd seen him, he just showed up while we were building a staircase for the downstairs apartment. He just jumped right into it. Dude was a force to be reckoned with, whether it be construction or destruction. He'd removed huge chunks of his own backyard around the foundation (which he'd also altered) as a part of a project to build, I shit you not, subterranean parking for his one master work, the Bobmobile. The body of a 1968 Firebird, gutted and filled with the newest, shiniest, and most powerful Detroit steel he could get ahold of. As I recall, a 440 horsepower GM V8. Custom exhaust and hardware, all wrought of grade 8 stainless steel; the same stuff used by fucking NASA. Reportedly, the insurance agent got a boner when he drafted the policy. All left incomplete in his brother's garage. But a monster nonetheless. In as good a eulogy as one could hope for, unmarred by any attempts at "eloquence" (and thus achieving it) my uncle Bill quipped that he'd modeled his life after Batman. The Bobmobile and the Bobcave that never was were mentioned. He had a friend named Joe Kerr. And the Bobphone was as sure a hotline as Batman's blinking red device that somehow was never traced by the Gotham Police. And he didn't mention it then because his most recent girlfriend was there, but we all know who his Catwoman was. She was the one who made it real for me at the wake. I walked into the room and she grabbed me and squeezed the life out of me and I got it.
I spent most of my weekends with him and his sons when I was a kid. Never a dull moment, and all the related cliches. I remember him handing me my ass in Mortal Kombat and trash talking the whole while. Much of last week was spent in that same house, fixing up the apartments so that his son, my cousin could keep it. It always amazes me, given the fact that I've put in a fair amount of hours on a number of different construction projects, just how little I've retained from it all. I instead found myself humping sheet after sheet of drywall up three flights of winding stair, being qualified enough to figure out just how to get it up there; one of my two contributions to the planning. The other one I suggested numerous times and it went unheard (I had thought dismissed) until when sitting back and cracking open a Budweiser (a beer which I now understand, because it's tolerable when it's ice cold after working with your hands all day) I said, "I still think we should wall off that area and call this a four bedroom." It wasn't any worse an idea when I'd said it before, but apparently when I open my mouth to offer an idea about a construction job, to think that it could possibly be a good one requires there to be beer in one's system. It's not a premise I'm of much a mind to argue with, but I try to learn.
It really has been amazing. Had contractors been hired for the job we did, it would have been thousands of dollars and several weeks to do what we accomplished in four days. Even the unskilled gofer-grunt can take pride in that, though not as much as the others.
As I'd said, the last time I'd seen him was a home improvement project. And prior to that the last time had been New Years. An unusual gap.
One of the things that I'll always be grateful, beyond all of the more obvious bullet points that fall under "my uncle" was that he never gave me a laugh for free. If I was trying to be funny, he only laughed if I succeeded, and I learned at least as much from that as I did in classes. You can't learn not to fear silence out of a book.
No one was ready for this shit. And it's all we can do to tip the glass and utter his name. Well, that and all the other stuff we've been doing =P
Whenever my uncle Paul comes into town we square off one-on one. We each have our strengths. I have my height and my youth, and he has his quickness, ball-handling and defensive abilities, and skill developed by playing basketball exhaustively every day for a large chunk of his life. Also he's a Marine. Admittedly, a 49 year old Marine, who's three inches shorter than me...
he took two out of three from me. Which marks the first time I've beaten him.
Stop laughing
What can I say? for the past year I've had some sort of freaky phantom stress fracture that has ducked X-Rays, MRIs and any other way of qualifying it, but the fuck if you're going to tell me it wasn't there. And there has always been some competing interest robbing basketball of my time ever since I picked it up, whether it be music, theater... even chess for a while... Oh and yeah... The Nintendo Entertainment System came out a year before I was born. Yeah, I know. It's a cliche and while I don't reside in that box, I do overlap in it, and I have to own that. Or whatever.
Can't help but enjoy playing with him even if he's running you ragged though.
The eve of the fourth had altogether too much rain. So naturally my aunt and I decided to go into town and watch the Pops and the fireworks We met my cousin and her LA boyfriend there. When I say that... well, she lives in LA too, but this guy is more thoroughly an LA person than just about any other dude whose company I have enjoyed. He'd said that if it was always like this in Boston on the Fourth. It isn't, by the by, but we weren't in any rush to tell him otherwise. In fact it's almost never like this, but in this case it meant that we'd be able to get to the Esplanade even if we left on the late side.
Rather, it would have meant that were the festivities not being televised nationally, with Craig Ferguson hosting etc etc The point is security was pretty heavy. We were able to slip the guards and hop the fence and meet them just as John Mellencamp was starting up his set. When I say "the guards," I should say that I'm referring to the National Guard.
And who among you can say that you've hoisted your aunt up to your shoulders so that she could get a better view of the fireworks?
Sadly the evening prematurely ended because every fucking bar in Boston seemed to be doing a private party.
It wasn't any Robert Johnson, or even any John Mayer who was walking down the road at three AM playing walking blues on an acoustic guitar while done up on the contents of a bottle bearing the legend hecho en mexico. This happened two different nights, from two different sorts of bottles, and two different levels of intoxication, but the route remained constant. One night I passed a car.
Actually I passed several cars both nights but there was only one on either night that I didn't simply pass by without occurrence. There was a woman sitting in the front seat.
Do you have any H?
Nah
Oh.... Do you want to hang out with me for a while?
Nah
She laughed. Now I've been asked for all kinds of drugs by all sorts of people. But this was a first. Actually I think now that if I'm asked for crack, DMT, ketamine, and amyl nitrite I'll pretty much have a full card. To bad there's no place you can redeem those things for anything.
I guess I just have that kind of a look.
But yeah, she picked the wrong question to lead with. And I'm thankful.
The acoustic, incidentally, was picked up in the little town of Gray, Maine. I was driving by an antiques store when I saw a sign that said "Big Sale" and the guitar sitting on a stand outside the door. I went inside, was told sixty five for it, and paid fifty five. It's worth at least two hundred dollars, I think. Probably more.
It just so happens that the bug in my ear that I'd be able to get sweet guitars in rural areas for the sort of money I was carrying with me came from none other than our own resident Information Professional, so thanks Jason. I might not have stopped otherwise.
I was on my way to my uncle Bill's place on a lake in Maine near
So yeah. Shit's been going on. Which isn't to say that I haven't had the time to post, though there was some stretch when that was true. But since then nothing I've come up with has been enough. Which, yeah, is a bullshit notion but I guess I wanted to put up a big one. I'ma try to line up some more posts and get some momentum going. I hate being out of it
There is no time.
While large gatherings aren't exactly uncommon for me, this one wasn't planned. A few weeks ago my uncle Bob died. He was forty-two. We don't yet know for sure what caused it.
A good portion of the time I've been AWOL around here has been spent, to be frank, drinking beer with family. My aunt Martha said that she'd been to only two wakes, in the sense with which I'm familiar, in LA, and that in her experience it was normally just gathering and drinking and then a funeral. She later quipped that she could tell why. We all were ready to lighten the cooler once we left the funeral home. And we did.
The last time I'd seen him, he just showed up while we were building a staircase for the downstairs apartment. He just jumped right into it. Dude was a force to be reckoned with, whether it be construction or destruction. He'd removed huge chunks of his own backyard around the foundation (which he'd also altered) as a part of a project to build, I shit you not, subterranean parking for his one master work, the Bobmobile. The body of a 1968 Firebird, gutted and filled with the newest, shiniest, and most powerful Detroit steel he could get ahold of. As I recall, a 440 horsepower GM V8. Custom exhaust and hardware, all wrought of grade 8 stainless steel; the same stuff used by fucking NASA. Reportedly, the insurance agent got a boner when he drafted the policy. All left incomplete in his brother's garage. But a monster nonetheless. In as good a eulogy as one could hope for, unmarred by any attempts at "eloquence" (and thus achieving it) my uncle Bill quipped that he'd modeled his life after Batman. The Bobmobile and the Bobcave that never was were mentioned. He had a friend named Joe Kerr. And the Bobphone was as sure a hotline as Batman's blinking red device that somehow was never traced by the Gotham Police. And he didn't mention it then because his most recent girlfriend was there, but we all know who his Catwoman was. She was the one who made it real for me at the wake. I walked into the room and she grabbed me and squeezed the life out of me and I got it.
I spent most of my weekends with him and his sons when I was a kid. Never a dull moment, and all the related cliches. I remember him handing me my ass in Mortal Kombat and trash talking the whole while. Much of last week was spent in that same house, fixing up the apartments so that his son, my cousin could keep it. It always amazes me, given the fact that I've put in a fair amount of hours on a number of different construction projects, just how little I've retained from it all. I instead found myself humping sheet after sheet of drywall up three flights of winding stair, being qualified enough to figure out just how to get it up there; one of my two contributions to the planning. The other one I suggested numerous times and it went unheard (I had thought dismissed) until when sitting back and cracking open a Budweiser (a beer which I now understand, because it's tolerable when it's ice cold after working with your hands all day) I said, "I still think we should wall off that area and call this a four bedroom." It wasn't any worse an idea when I'd said it before, but apparently when I open my mouth to offer an idea about a construction job, to think that it could possibly be a good one requires there to be beer in one's system. It's not a premise I'm of much a mind to argue with, but I try to learn.
It really has been amazing. Had contractors been hired for the job we did, it would have been thousands of dollars and several weeks to do what we accomplished in four days. Even the unskilled gofer-grunt can take pride in that, though not as much as the others.
As I'd said, the last time I'd seen him was a home improvement project. And prior to that the last time had been New Years. An unusual gap.
One of the things that I'll always be grateful, beyond all of the more obvious bullet points that fall under "my uncle" was that he never gave me a laugh for free. If I was trying to be funny, he only laughed if I succeeded, and I learned at least as much from that as I did in classes. You can't learn not to fear silence out of a book.
No one was ready for this shit. And it's all we can do to tip the glass and utter his name. Well, that and all the other stuff we've been doing =P
-----------
Whenever my uncle Paul comes into town we square off one-on one. We each have our strengths. I have my height and my youth, and he has his quickness, ball-handling and defensive abilities, and skill developed by playing basketball exhaustively every day for a large chunk of his life. Also he's a Marine. Admittedly, a 49 year old Marine, who's three inches shorter than me...
he took two out of three from me. Which marks the first time I've beaten him.
Stop laughing
What can I say? for the past year I've had some sort of freaky phantom stress fracture that has ducked X-Rays, MRIs and any other way of qualifying it, but the fuck if you're going to tell me it wasn't there. And there has always been some competing interest robbing basketball of my time ever since I picked it up, whether it be music, theater... even chess for a while... Oh and yeah... The Nintendo Entertainment System came out a year before I was born. Yeah, I know. It's a cliche and while I don't reside in that box, I do overlap in it, and I have to own that. Or whatever.
Can't help but enjoy playing with him even if he's running you ragged though.
-----------
The eve of the fourth had altogether too much rain. So naturally my aunt and I decided to go into town and watch the Pops and the fireworks We met my cousin and her LA boyfriend there. When I say that... well, she lives in LA too, but this guy is more thoroughly an LA person than just about any other dude whose company I have enjoyed. He'd said that if it was always like this in Boston on the Fourth. It isn't, by the by, but we weren't in any rush to tell him otherwise. In fact it's almost never like this, but in this case it meant that we'd be able to get to the Esplanade even if we left on the late side.
Rather, it would have meant that were the festivities not being televised nationally, with Craig Ferguson hosting etc etc The point is security was pretty heavy. We were able to slip the guards and hop the fence and meet them just as John Mellencamp was starting up his set. When I say "the guards," I should say that I'm referring to the National Guard.
And who among you can say that you've hoisted your aunt up to your shoulders so that she could get a better view of the fireworks?
Sadly the evening prematurely ended because every fucking bar in Boston seemed to be doing a private party.
-----------
It wasn't any Robert Johnson, or even any John Mayer who was walking down the road at three AM playing walking blues on an acoustic guitar while done up on the contents of a bottle bearing the legend hecho en mexico. This happened two different nights, from two different sorts of bottles, and two different levels of intoxication, but the route remained constant. One night I passed a car.
Actually I passed several cars both nights but there was only one on either night that I didn't simply pass by without occurrence. There was a woman sitting in the front seat.
Do you have any H?
Nah
Oh.... Do you want to hang out with me for a while?
Nah
She laughed. Now I've been asked for all kinds of drugs by all sorts of people. But this was a first. Actually I think now that if I'm asked for crack, DMT, ketamine, and amyl nitrite I'll pretty much have a full card. To bad there's no place you can redeem those things for anything.
I guess I just have that kind of a look.
But yeah, she picked the wrong question to lead with. And I'm thankful.
The acoustic, incidentally, was picked up in the little town of Gray, Maine. I was driving by an antiques store when I saw a sign that said "Big Sale" and the guitar sitting on a stand outside the door. I went inside, was told sixty five for it, and paid fifty five. It's worth at least two hundred dollars, I think. Probably more.
It just so happens that the bug in my ear that I'd be able to get sweet guitars in rural areas for the sort of money I was carrying with me came from none other than our own resident Information Professional, so thanks Jason. I might not have stopped otherwise.
I was on my way to my uncle Bill's place on a lake in Maine near
-----------
So yeah. Shit's been going on. Which isn't to say that I haven't had the time to post, though there was some stretch when that was true. But since then nothing I've come up with has been enough. Which, yeah, is a bullshit notion but I guess I wanted to put up a big one. I'ma try to line up some more posts and get some momentum going. I hate being out of it
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