Netflix has shipped: Awkwardness

I was home for a wedding this weekend and I was talking to my sister in her room and saw a Netflix envelope on her dresser so I ignored whatever we were talking about and went to look at what it was. She saw me going for it and said, "You're not gonna like it." In kind of a sing songy way. You know. So I opened it up and read the title: Last Tango In Paris. Then I left the room.

I'll Take All The Blame, Aqua Seafoam Shame

This is going to be selfish. But then, I suppose any sort of bloggering is going to be. I just don't want this to make things worse, but somehow, I know it will. Or would, if you ever were to become aware of it.

I need to apologize. To a lot of people, probably, but the only two I know by name are Brittany Hatch and Jael Strauss. And it's pretty much because I know their names that I got into this. Anyway, as such, I'm going to address the rest of this directly to one or both of them.

I came to Savannah for my sister's graduation. But that was on Saturday. So I shouldn't even have still been there Monday night. But I was. And certainly I shouldn't have been at that bar. I rarely am at such a place. My sister had gone there Saturday night and asked if I wanted to come and I didn't. I told her if her friend Angela or Brittany Hatch showed up though, that she should call me. It was a joke. She didn't even know what you looked like (she still doesn't.) Although she did call Angela the next day. Anyway, I didn't go. So when it came up again on Monday it came as little surprise that I didn't go again, even though I was due to leave the next morning and a normal person would think, I should spend this time with my sister even if she wants to go to a place I won't enjoy being at. Anyway, I didn't go.

But then she called to tell me there was a band playing (The Square Sruts) wherein a girl was playing a washboard and it was amazing. Obviously, my sister knows me well enough to know that if there's a girl playing a weird instrument, or really anyone playing a weird instrument, that I'll overcome my aversion to bars and the people that inhabit them for it. And so I did.

And it was worth it even though I had to meet this guy Ben who by all accounts is a huge jerk but whom my sister apparently likes anyway. It was worth it even though some girl who works there, but wasn't working Monday night burned me with her cigarette. I was in control of myself not to say to her, "It's okay, my mother used to do that to me all the time, so I'm used to it." Because of course that implies something that not only isn't true, but that she shouldn't have to concern herself with. I mention this because it shows I wasn't in some any way impaired at the time. Because it wasn't long after that that you came in.

Earlier there was a tall girl with reddish hair that resembled you from behind, and I thought, that'd be really weird if after all the times I've joked about seeing you while I was here, that you'd come in to this place at this time. But then she turned around and it wasn't you. And I was kind of relieved. Because then I wouldn't have the ridiculous regret of being in a room with somebody you recognize and not talking to them. Because of course I knew I would never do that.

So back to you walking in. I didn't even notice at first. It wasn't until Jael and her two friends went by that something seemed weird. And it was weird. Before I saw the Manifer tatoo on Jael's neck I was just thinking, the East Village just walked in. What are these people doing? It's not as if there was some kind of type in this place that anyone not adhering to it would seem out of place. There was that Australian guy (who I can't believe wasn't hovering around you instantly as he had everyone else at some point) who had his Outback hat and all red tourist outfit on and he didn't seem all that strange to see there. But Jael's crazy yellow hair and spandex dress that looked like it belonged on a six year old ballet student and the little one's sideways Yankee hat and the blond one's 80's aerobic workout shirt brought with them an aura. That's all I've got to describe it. I really felt like something had happened when they came in. And then I saw Manifer and I knew.

So obviously it shouldn't be a big deal. For me. For you. For anyone. But it kind of is. I don't want it to be. I don't have anything to say to you that's going to enhance either of our lives. I don't want your autograph or anything stupid like that. Clearly you're very pretty people, but I don't care about that. But you become the focus when you come into a place. Maybe for anybody, with or without the crazy dress and uninhibited dancing. But certainly for somebody who watched the show you were on with such regularity. Thank goodness the band had stopped playing while you were there or I'd have had a hard time watching the washboard playing, which, after all, was the reason I'd ventured out in the first place.

But none of this excuses what I did. I'm still not sure really, why I took my phone out. Or why I thought you wouldn't notice. Or even why I thought I could take a picture that would come out in a place so dark. But it never should have happened. I'm not even positive that's why you left, because it seems like one of your group would have said something to me, even if on the way out. But it doesn't matter. The only reason I can come up with is that I didn't think I would be able to describe what Jael was wearing to anyone. Which of course I will eventually have to do, if not on the podcast then just to Hilary. But I pretty much just did it. But I've had time. Still. Not an excuse.

I keep thinking, what if you weren't you. Like what if that wasn't Jael and just some regular crazy person? What I did would be just about the creepiest thing ever. And just because it was Jael shouldn't change that. And that's mostly what I'm sorry about. There's also a little bit of chasing you out of the place, if in fact that was the case. But you only missed 1 and three-quarter Square Struts songs because the guy's guitar string broke and when he put a new one on and was testing it, he broke that one. He was pulling on it though and when he looked up at me all bewildered I said, "Kind of saw that one coming." So I suppose I ought to apologize to him as well. after that he kind of threw his guitar down and walked out.

I'm also kind of sorry because my sister saw me do that. And I've always bucked the idea that I'm somebody she should and/or does look to to emulate, but I've never felt like I failed in that more than I did Monday night. So I guess I should apologize to her too. But I won't. Because that'd be weird. Like something you'd see on TV. Where I saw you. And I should have kept it that way.

Las Furias del Beisbol

While the storm gathers over Barry Bonds and the dwindling gap between him and Hank Aaron, so much is made of how it will be handled when he hits number 756. Who will be there, how fans will react (especially if it doesn't happen in San Francisco), and what his legacy will be. There doesn't seem to be much joy in this, and maybe there shouldn't be. But there no longer seems to be as much anger as there was a year or two ago. Maybe everyone has just resigned themselves to the inevitability. Or maybe its the return to form Bonds has enjoyed thus far this season and the assumption that he's done it cleanly and that maybe he really always has been this good. Russ Springer might still throw at his head, but everyone else seems to have calmed down.

But I can feel it stirring in me with every home run highlight. Only, it's not Barry Bonds highlights that do it. It's Sammy Sosa. Now, maybe this is because I want the Giants to win pretty much every game they play while I only care about the Rangers if C.J. Wilson is pitching. (Which isn't often enough. Seriously, click on his name and read his blog instead. It's awesome. Anyway, Sosa...) I should have the same kind of resigned detachment people have come to regarding Bonds, right? I should by now be able to accept that he's in the Top Five of all time and just hope he retires before getting to 660 so when A-Rod gets there, he'll be back to sixth. But it's not enough. I want him blighted out. Erased somehow. Even though I don't really believe in that. Nor asterisks. I believe Jason Giambi when he says steroids didn't help him hit home runs. I believe that all it does is keep one healthy enough to hit said home runs and that really, they ought to be as acceptable to use as this Phiten stuff that supposedly straigtedge CJ Wilson bandies about (on his blog, which, come on, why aren't you reading that yet?) And yet, I cannot stand that Sammy Sosa is back and climbing that sacred ladder even if we can assume that everyone is now playing "clean."

And I don't get why. I don't particularly enjoy the idea that Rafael Palmeiro is number 9 and that Frank Robinson is out because of that, but I'm not angry about it. And it's not just starting now, I didn't want him to hit 60 in 1999 or 2000 because I didn't want him to be the one to hit 60 in consecutive years. But maybe that was just my subconscious doing the math and seeing his arrival in this selective sector he's wading in now.

I don't know. and I'd like to find out. Maybe it's that stupid sidestep he does when he hits one. Because I think we can all agree that that's awful.

When Did I Get Dumb?

It wasn't always like this. I distinctly remember teaching Andrea Tucillo and Tim Fenton (people I generally thought of as smarter than I was) everything we were supposed to have learned by doing our AP Chemistry homework everyday before class started. But maybe that was it. Because now I almost exclusively feel like I do not and more importantly, cannot, see things the way other people do. Which I realize, put under another light, sounds like a positive. But it isn't.

It's not as if I've somehow lost whatever intelligence I might have had. I didn't hit my head or anything. (Actually, the first time I went curling, I did fall and go unconscious, and I still don't remember it, so maybe this is a traceable event.) And while excessive amounts of television is almost certainly serving to atrophe every other part of my body, I don't believe it can make you dumber.

So why does everyone seem smarter all of a sudden? I never felt smart, really, not even during those probably misleading minutes before AP Chemistry, but I never felt dumb either. My mother suggested something about going back to school for something (anything) recently and that sounded like the worst idea in the history of forever. I couldn't even envision it, it sounded so horrible.

Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea feels like it's written in another language. One I might have taken a semester of fourteen years ago but obviously didn't pay attention to.

Anyone who uses an unusual word seems pretentious, which was always the case, I guess, but now I'm starting to feel like thinking that way is, and maybe always was, just a defense mechanism preventing me from having to understand them.

And, of course, most telling of all, I can't manage to type something here everyday. Mostly because everything I can think of seems like the most boring series of words ever strung together.

At least I can understand them.

Use Of Force

Even if one is able to look past the obvious ineptitude (both in content and consistency) posted below, this still seems like a dumb time to think about doing this again. Since all I really see myself writing about is TV or movies, and even that seems like a longshot, and since I already have places specifically for those (Frame Of Reference for TV and the other thing for movies) it would appear as though this place has become obsolete. Especially when I sit in front of it and watch the cursor blink for minutes upon minutes. And yet, I keep coming back. Not actually typing anything, but thinking about it.

And its not as if I think I have to say anything important. I've read other random blogs. But if even I don't want to hear what I have to say... well, what then would be the point? But if this is how it has to start, so be it.

David Thomas Hates His Drummer

That's not fair. Maybe he hates all drummers, whether they're his or not. He just doesn't get the opportunity to turn around during a show and slap every drummer's cymbals and berate them for being stupid and completely inadequate.

Obviously, that is (part of) what happened at Pere Ubu's show at Sonar on Easter Sunday. I'm sure it already appears as such, and will probably continue to, but I am by no means complaining. Besides the two Acoustic Vaudevilles I went to, this may have been my favorite concert. And not just because Dave Thomas had what I can only imagine is a fairly tame meltdown on stage. Because when they were playing, and that wasn't as often as I suppose it should have been, they were possibly the best band I've ever seen. And I've seen Air Supply.

Since I bought the new album, Why I Hate Women, directly from the band after the show, the new songs were lost on me for the most part. Only "Caroleen" stands out, and that because it sounded like a Rocket From The Tombs song I'd somehow missed. The rest of it was full of relatively later Pere Ubu stuff, "Electricity" and "Folly Of Youth" from Ray Gun Suitcase, "Phone Home Jonah" from St. Arkansas, which was a welcome surprise. When they started off with a ridiculously explosive "Final Solution" I suspected I was in for what most everyone else was there to see, a Terminal Tower retrospective. Or worse, a Rocket From The Tombs show.

But apparently, that was mostly out of Mr. Thomas' system thanks to the recent tour. He introduced the one, I would imagine, obligatory inclusion from that period, "Sonic Reducer" with a high-pitched Sting impersonation wherein said Sting told him he should write more socially responsible fare. Despite this light-hearted lead in, after one verse, the drummer apparently had made his final tolerable mistake of the night and Dave stopped the song. He mumbled something about missing the verse, glared at the drummer (who looked younger than The Tenement Year), and flipped through his notebook to find the next song.

For all I know, the drummer was screwing up, but I get the impression this sort of thing happens a lot and that while he may not have been perfect, he was better than fine. The inciting incident, really, is traceable to a fan yelling out, "Turn your synthesizer off!" after one of the early songs. He had a point, this fan, even though there was clearly no synthesizer on stage. The weird box that the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline was using was definitely throwing out a wall of fuzzy noise the whole time. Clearly this "fan" hadn't been keeping up with Pere Ubu though, as I'd imagine not too many in attendance have been, because that's pretty much standard. I was sort of impressed they could recreate it, actually. But I can certainly see where it might get annoying. Dave Thomas, nor the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline had any such understanding however. Dave Thomas yelled back, made fun of the guy, and seemed to let it go for the moment, though throughout the rest of the show, it was clear it was eating at him. It still might be. Two songs later he proclaimed, "We're officially doing this show for the money now" and later still, "I only have to fill two more minutes." Which were, as far as I could tell, completely unprompted. As was the end of the show, wherein he just decided he'd had enough and left.

And that would have been so much more satisfying had they all not come right back out for a short encore. Not that I didn't appreciate the few extra songs, but it seemed unlike him to abandon his principles. Fleeting principles, sure, but still.

So afterwards, I waited around like an idiot for way too long, making sure I wasn't missing a table that was selling their stuff before bothering them. By the time I felt like I had no other options, the stage was almost cleaned up and David Thomas was sitting in the folding chair he'd brought on stage with him, just behind the curtain offstage, head in his hands, probably still trying to figure out why that guy said that thing. So I asked the Pale Boy that isn't Keith Moline if they had any copies of the new album with them and he said sure and went to get one. But David was standing by then. I'd awoken him from his ponderous morass. He asked what I wanted in his best I-don't-actually-care voice. I told him Why I Hate Women. What I should have said was "What do you have? Because I know the rerelease of The Tenement Year is going to be hard to find. But I didn't. Because I'm dumb. "Do you have ten dollars?" he asks as if this is a problem, people asking for things they can't pay for. I totally had the ten dollars and I totally gave it to him. "Thank you very much" came out. And I meant it. But I don't know why I said it that way. "Thank you very much," he says back. I think he was making fun of me. Which maybe saved his night. So I was happy to take it.

Frame Of Reference

I know you're not actually here, because neither am I.

I'm here:

http://frameofreference.wordpress.com