Clarification!

The bar was full of Ellen and a bunch of beardy scruffy guys. Ellen was not full of beardy scruffy guys.

Just wanted to make that clear.

ROCK REPORT: Split Lip Rayfield

Okay. I have officially put the Simon and Garfunkel away and think it's high time we move on to other topics. So.

Last Sunday I went to the High Dive to see Split Lip Rayfield. It was kind of a weird crowd--I ran into Brandon from Ohio, and how on earth does that happen? I got there right as the opening band was wrapping up. I misinterpreted the show time and was afraid I may have missed the show altogether, so missing only the incredibly loud opening band was a relief. Frankly, by the time the show rolled around I didn't even want to go to the show anymore; but I'd already spent the money on the ticket, so I went anyway. As always, glad I did.

Split Lip Raygield is three guys on guitar, guitar, and bass (homemade from a Ford truck gas tank and a weedwacker string). The bass player used to look a lot like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. Now he's kind of long-haired and scruffy and wearing a t-shirt with kittens on it. Isn't it odd how rockers can pull of stuff like that and look, you know, rock? And the rest of us look like junior high spit us straight into wal-mart? Anyway. No drums. But the bass kind of does double duty--I can't figure out how he does it, but he keeps a pretty consistent tapa-tapa line running through it. That's cool.

I was standing kind of closish, but not too close, because newgrass brings out the wild dancing hippies like nothing else. Seriously, it's like catnip to them. At some point I started looking around and realized I was standing in the center of a Man Mob. Three deep in any direction, it was just beardy, grubby, darkly clad guys, either college Working Class Wannabes or post-college Real Life Working Class Guys. Hard to tell sometimes. And that's fine. They weren't a freakishly tall bunch, and as long as they're not being all tall in front of me, I don't care if it's a crowd of guys. EXCEPT...except for Dude next to me. Dude was the scruffiest, stocking cappiest, college attendingest guy in the area, and he was fine for the first three or four songs. And then...he started air bass-ing. Now that's just funny. More power to you, imaginary homemade bass playing dude! But THEN, halfway through one of the awesomest rockingest songs, he busted out with a mighty "haaaaaaaaaaaha!" There's this horrible sort of bluegrass hillbilly "yeehaw" that, as near as I can tell, only guys from like Winnetka ever make. And once they get started, they'll do it every chance they get--it's like they forgot all about the hillbilly hollar! But now! Now they remember! And I knew where this was going to go, so I just turned to him, looked him in the eye, and said "Aw, HELL NO," and walked away. Better to watch the show from a little further back than to endure that.

I had a quick little recap with Betsy and Western-Shirt Boyfriend (Ethan? Evan? Ivan?) and then headed on out. I had decided earlier that I didn't want to spend money on the high dive's flat, overpriced beer, and that if the show ended before 11 I'd go get one at MnM's. Which it did, and I did. Jessica was sitting there moderately alone, so I said hey, and then she was sitting all alone, so I joined her. "Geez," she said. "I'm glad you're here. It's sausagefest tonight." And I looked around to realize that the bar seating was all full of beardy, scruffy guys, and the side tables. And Ellen. So we had girl table (unsausage table? egg table?), until seats at the bar opened, and we moved up there. Momentarily along came . . .uh . . how to say? Let's call her "Armando". She confessed immediately to being out for beer, alone. Hey! So are we! Come on over to the estrogen end of the bar! So she did, and we had quite a giggly little Girls on the Town moment. And then I went home. The end.

Damn. That was a whole lot of words for a really lame story. Read it in it's verbose glory now, or maybe I'll edit it down to a nice, modernist little "went to rock show; good, I said" type of anecdote.

All the Simon and Twice the Garfunkel

I'm having a total high school moment here. I recently heard "Mrs. Robinson," and it's been stuck in my head ever since, so I brought to work today the Greatest Hits album. I spent many, many hours lying on my bed, reading books and listening to this album, and sitting here, right now, at work, listening to "I Am a Rock," I'm immediately 138 percent moodier and angst ridden. My mother told me a couple of years ago that that song always reminded her of me. Mamas, if the words "I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain" reminds you of your kids, something's wrong, okay?

Listening to it now, it's just so...it's perfect unhappy teenager music. It's romantic and overwrought and overwhelmed and searching, and ironic, but so, so sincere. It's so earnest. It's the Counting Crows of the sixties.
Man. Now that I think about it, there's a sad soundtrack for every stage of my life--Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles in middle and high school, Counting Crows and Morrisey in college, Automatic for the People in the years right after school. Now I've got all kinds of Slaid Cleaves and Death Cab and Whiskeytown to drown my sorrows in. I'm . . . I'm fairly confident I could put together a mix tape that would pretty much make you want to throw yourself off a bridge.


Let's see. What would go on the Most Depressing Mixed Tape ever? Hmmm. Mind you, these are not the songs I'd WANT to listen to, necessarily.

"Bookends", Simon and Garfunkel. "Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you?" Damn, Sam. That's harsh. See also "These Are the Days To Remember" by Billy Joel.

"Lonely Girls" or "Blue", Lucinda Williams

"Nightswimming" REM

"Somebody" Depeche Mode

"Anna Begins" Counting Crows

"Houses on the Hill" Whiskeytown

"She's Leaving Home" The Beatles

"Broke Down" or "One Good Year" Slaid Cleaves

Hmmmm. Let me think about this. What would you put on there?

The first wednesday after the first tuesday after the first monday in November

Well! What an interesting day. First, the good:

* A breakup of the one-party government! That's gotta help, right?
* A woman Speaker of the House! That means there's a woman, what, third in line for the presidency? Quick--to the Pocket Constitution^^! Yep. Third in line. That's pretty cool.
* Illinois is the bluest damn state ever!
* The Greens garnered extremely respectable votes; in my precinct, Whitney and Blagojovich were exactly tied for the governor's spot. And they got the 10% overall they needed, so that next time, they don't have to get a written permission slip from each and every Illinois citizen to get onto the ballot.
* Mike Frerichs won! Here's hoping he pulls through for labor.

^^ Did you know that the order of succession isn't spelled out in the Constitution after all, but was delineated in the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, and then was changed in 1886, and then again in 1947?

The bad:

* HOW does Tim Johnson get elected? What exactly has he done in his three terms? I mean that honestly--maybe there's something the state senate has pulled through that really does benefit farmers and rural areas, but I don't know what it could be. Our school funding is pathetic and the tax system hurts rural areas the most. I don't know any rich farmers. Gill clearly had it all over Johnson on health care. The roads are shameful and the funding to fix them goes to Chicago (who, to be fair, also has terrible roads). Gas prices have to be hard on people running tractors all day (or driving their SUVs and big-hip trucks into town to hit the Wal-Mart). I posit this as a rural thing, because Gill did quite well in the cities, but plenty of people IN town voted for Johnson too. Why? Oh, why?
* Blagojovich. Hmmm. I like his 100% pro-choice, pro-contraceptive voting record (compared to "pro-choice" Topinka's, who's record is about 17%). But I still think he's a chauvinist and kind of a jerk, and it does bug me that he won't live in the governor's mansion because it's downstate, and I do think he's got old Chicago croneyism and all that. So...you just watch it, Rod. Cause I'm watching you.
* Speaking of watching...the one good thing about having Rick Santorum in Congress was that it was easier to keep an eye on him. At least voting records are public. Now that he'll be a private citizen, he'll have loads of time to raise hell (and money) for conservative extremist groups. We need an eartag system or something, because once they're released to the wild, it's hard to keep up with what the little devils are doing.
* Bush's assish comment about recommending some "Republican interior decorators" to Nancy Pelosi. Even if he didn't mean it as a "you're a chick!" comment--which, come on, he totally did--it's still kind of jerky.


Okay, Democrats! Make sure you don't fuck it up worse!

PR, here I come

Hot damn! I totally found my swimsuit.