PunchBuggy Blues

2009-02-08T11:00:00.003-05:00

New York Comic Con Report

So Charlie and I hit the road at 4:30AM and made it to the Javits Center around 9:30 or so, at which point we had been in five states in five hours. Which may not be legal.

There was a massive line of people waiting to get in, but it seemed shorter and moved faster than last year. There were an impressive number of costumes, some unfortunate, some obscure, and one Spock whose ears were so well done they may have actually been a birth defect.

I actually managed to forego lunch while I was there, subsisting on bottled water and granola bars, so by the time we hit the 4:14 train back to Jersey I was pretty wiped out, being on my feet with several heavy bags for a good seven hours. But at least I decided to leave my Absolute Watchmen at home.

Especially since Dave Gibbons wasn't signing til today.

So here's the highlights:

I spent a good portion of the first hour trying to get a couple of things for Maria. I'm still not quire sure what they are. Go visit her. She can tell you.

Picked up a handful of books: The Brian Azarello Joker graphic novel, the second volume of Darwyn Cooke's Spirit comics, and Ben Templesmith's book about The Presidents.

Met Templesmith and got a quick sketch of the tenth Doctor for Mathilda.

Began my ridiculous quest to get the 20th Anniversary Sandman poster signed by as many of the artists as I can. So far I've gotten Colleen Doran and Kevin Nowlan to sign it. More at Baltimore in October.

Got the remainder of my Final Crisis issues signed by JG Jones and a quick pencil sketch of Wonder Woman for Mathilda. Refrained from telling him that his contribution to Final Crisis 7 was the best part of the issue.

Looked in vain for Darwyn Cooke.

Forgot to actually see how long the lines were Garth Ennis.

Met Jerry Robinson, who may or may not have created The Joker. Got two editions of The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told signed for a friend of mine and a copy for me. Also got him to sign one of my teaser posters for The Dark Knight.

Also got the Dark Knight poster signed by producer Michael Uslan (At this point it has been signed by one person named "Michael" and another named "Robinson." Go figure.). Also got it signed by Bill Sienkiewicz, who did a lot of character design for The Joker, and picked up his sketchbook of the work he did for it.

And I got presents for Tilda.

DC was giving away Wonder Woman tiaras to promote the upcoming animated movie, so I picked one up for her.

And I got her a huge remote-controlled Dalek. It is belligerant and it kinda freaked Tilda out a bit when I showed it to her this morning by having it go towards her screaming "Exterminate!" as she came out of her room. But she was smiling, so it's all good.

But I am exhausted and my eyes are still bloodshot.

And I'm still taking Tilda to Coraline this afternoon.

Can't wait to go back to work tomorrow.

2009-01-01T08:05:00.004-05:00

Thirteen Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2009

1. The beginning of the end for Scrubs and Battlestar Galactica (January) - I know that Lost and 24 are both back this month, but those two have at least one more season to go while these two are heading towards their conclusions. The final episode of Scrubs sounds mind-blowing and I don't know anything about it other than practically every character who has even been on the show should make an appearance. And as for Battlestar Galactica, I'm convinced that John Hodgman is the final Cylon. He's already all over tv saying he's a computer.

2. Henry Selick's Coraline (February 6) - The coolest thing about this right now is over on Neil Gaiman's blog he seems to be geeking out about the movie as though he wasn't the guy who wrote the book it was based on. I can't wait to take Tilda to this one.

3. Watchmen (March 6?) - The first thing on this list not featuring John Hodgman. Hopefully Fox will allow us to see it in March. And hopefully I'll only be a little disappointed by it.

4. The Decemberists' Hazards of Love (March 24) - It's a rock opera. And the one song I heard from it during Colin Meloy's solo show last year was sick and brilliant. Songs about murdering children really shouldn't be funny. But this one was.

5. Elvis Perkins in Dearland's currently untitled second album (Spring) - Just found out about this and I've heard the first and last songs when he was touring for Ash Wednesday. Probably won't be happy, but it should be good.

6. Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 3: Century (Spring) - The first volume "What Keeps Mankind Alive" is due out in April and is apparently a musical. Volumes 1 and 2 are some of my all-time favorite comics and although The Black Dossier was a bit of a letdown, I'm looking forward to these.

7. Disney/Pixar's Up (May 29) - It's Pixar and it has nothing to do with Cars, so I'll probably like, if not love, it. And based on the trailer before Bolt, the 3-D effects look incredible.

8. The four 2009 Doctor Who TV specials - I just got into Doctor Who and though I have no idea when they'll air in the US I should be caught up with the series by the time they do. And then I'll get excited about Stephen Moffett (who wrote "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink") taking over the show in 2010.

9. Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (August 21) - The release date was announced yesterday. Tarantino doing World War II with Greg Nicotero in charge of makeup effects. Can't wait.

10. Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (September) - Heath Ledger's last movie and Tom Waits as the Devil. Throw in Gilliam and stir. I have no idea if it'll be any good, but at least there will be a Gilliam movie in more theaters than showed Tideland. (Bonus points if you've even heard of that one.)

11. Untitled Neil Gaiman nonfiction book about China (Fall) - Dunno anything about it, but it's Gaiman, so it should be interesting.

12. John Hillcoat's The Road (Fall?) - This should be no fun at all.

13. John Waters' Fruitcake (December) - John Waters doing a holiday children's movie. With Johnny Knoxville. Probably the most wholesomely freaky thing since David Lynch released a G-Rated movie through Disney.

2008-11-20T08:59:00.005-05:00

Something or Other

So I'm home today with Mathilda and the twenty-four hour vom-a-thon. Started around four AM. She's miserable and I'm exhausted. But Jamee has to go to work and teach tonight, so she'll probably be even worse off.

Recently Tilda's been watching a lot of movie trailers. She's obsessed with the one for Pixar's Up, and has been watching it as part of her nightly bedtime ritual. If you can tell how the boyscout got on the porch, please let me know.

She's also been wanting to watch "Joker Movie," which translates to the two trailers for The Dark Knight. There's no way I'm letting her watch teh full movie, but she seems really taken with The Joker, most likely due to Halloween. But last night, unprompted, she said "Why so serious" while we were having dinner and it was the creepiest thing in the world. So we're probably going to have to cut back on that one.

But today, one of the few things that makes her happy is the trailer for Coraline, which just got posted yesterday. It's a little more colorful that I was expecting, and there's a few too many things coming towards the camera because it's in 3-D effects, but I'm still going to take her to see it come February 6.

There's two posters out for it too. This one:

And a UK version that came out this week:

For once, I actually prefer the US version. I asked Tilda which one she liked better and she said that she liked "the scary one," though I think we have differing opinions on which one that would apply too.

Too bad I already got her the Other one.

2008-11-01T06:03:00.002-05:00

Me Want

From Neil Gaiman's site.

If only I'd had one of these a week-and-a-half ago for the Hodgman event. Of course, carrying one more thing would have been a bitch.

Halloween post soon. Still recovering.

2008-10-31T05:33:00.005-05:00

Happy Halloween 2008

Preview for the long-awaited Dark Knight post:

Well, long awaited by Sara, at least. Won the costume contest at work yesterday. And I didn't even bother to do the face scars. More soon...

*And though I haven't watched this week's The Office yet, be advised that I was the only one.

2008-10-24T05:27:00.002-05:00

The Magic Word is Hodgman

So I took Tilda to see John Hodgman at Politics and Prose last night. Which was kind of a mistake. About ten minutes into his thing, she decided that she would rather run around screaming. So we went outside. Just like for Neil Gaiman two years ago. For this, I will be traumatizing her with Coraline next February. In 3-D.

And to prove that I am completely stupid, we stayed for the signing, even though we were towards the end of the line. I had a pile of books - mine, two for a co-worker, and a couple of others for people who shall rename nameless who I don't believe are aware that this blog exists. But leaving would have made the whole trip to DC a waste of time. The line was long and slow, but Tilda was surprisingly good. She rode on my shoulders most of the time and appeared to entertain the woman behind me. At one point Tilda wanted to see her book and she asked what the magic word was and Tilda said:

Hodgman

I told him that when we got to the front. He seemed to think it was a good idea. He was very nice and made the whole thing worth it, though I am still sore from Tilda wrangling and lack of sleep. But the best part of the evening was when he was done signing my books and shook my hand. Tilda, still on my shoulders, leaned down and shook his hand too. The few people left in line said "awww" and it was incredibly cute. I wish I had a picture.

Maybe next time.

That is all.

2008-10-17T05:26:00.001-05:00

Foresight

Of course, the scariest thing about this is when you notice the publication date.

2008-10-13T06:58:00.008-05:00

Last Last Weekend, Part 2 (Now that Last weekend is no longer Last Weekend)

Whenever we travel, I like to eat at places I cannot easily get to where I live. It's a general rule and works out pretty well most of the time and is the primary reason that I didn't drink Starbucks once when we were in Seattle (Tully's rules, but still isn't as good as the coffee at Top Pot Doughnuts). As we reached the exit that we needed to take for Brad and Sara's we saw a huge billboard for a place called Biscuitville.

Looked a little kitschy. We had to try it.

The first morning we were prevented for venturing out to purchase biscuity goodness by Brad and Sara making a damn fine breakfast (including a damn fine blueberry tart thingy), which was nice and big and prevented us from getting too messed up at the World Beer Festival. Got some Indian food at the fest for lunch. Which was nice.

For dinner, we met up with some more friends at a lil family friendly diner in Durham called Elmo's. I got the jambalaya. I'd go back. Even though they never did bring my milkshake. But they didn't charge for it either.

On Sunday we were due to be brunching at Enotica Vin, a wine bar in Raleigh, but more on that later. Because first we went to Biscuitville. Or, Brad and I eventually got to Biscuitville. Because we got lost. Who knew that some streets in Mebane, NC, seem to randomly dead-end? But we got biscuits. And they were nice. And cheap.

And you know what, I'm going to wrap this up, because if there's two things I'm fairly inarticulate at writing about, it's music and food. It basically boils down to "Me like it, it good, you try" for both topics.

But it's good to know people who good places to eat.

And I will let Jamee talk about the barbeque.

2008-10-08T20:46:00.002-05:00

Something's Bugging Me

This one's for Emily and Maria, because I know how much you love The Mist. Been trying to get this pic off my phone since August. Jamee finally succeeded tonight. Hoo-Ray.

Not sure whose head that is behind me.

2008-10-07T19:48:00.002-05:00

Non-Beer Interlude

Now this is just cool. Man, I love The Goon.

2008-10-07T19:20:00.002-05:00

Last Weekend, Part 1

So we went down to the World Beer Festival, Jamee, Mathilda and I. We stayed with my friends Brad and Sara, who are two of my favorite people in the world. And we saw my friend Sarah, and my friend-in-law Blair, and my friend Amy, and her daughter Yoko, who Mathilda adored. Kelly and Kevin were there too. All of them are some of my favorite people. Actually, I think everyone who's even aware of this blog counts as one of my favorite people, which fifteen years ago would have seems like an alien concept to me. You know, the actual long term liking of people. But then, I've known my friend Kevin since I was in ninth grade, which was eighteen years ago this month. And I've know my friend Jasper since I was in pre-school, so that's going back almost thirty years. Which blows my mind.

But there's really not that many people that I actively dislike, at least among people I know (and you know who you are, Mister). But I genuinely like people, which the fifteen year old me would find to be an alien concept, even if he did it too. I think it drives Jamee nuts.

I also like beer.

I had the privilege of not drinking in high school and most of college. Again, an alien concept. My first real beer was in Ireland and it was a Guinness and it was lovely. Most of the people in my group found it abhorrent. But it lead me towards the good stuff. I think the microbrew explosion of the 1990s was a wonderful thing and I love how you can find some really interesting things in the grocery store on the shelf next to Budweiser (except in Maryland, where you'll find neither in a grocery store).

The World Beer Festival was big and crowded and loud. And we brought a three year old. People were generally nice and the beer was nice too. I was especially fond of the Foothills Sexual Chocolate Stout (which we went back for too late to get more) and the Kuhnenn Fourth Dementia Olde Ale, which had a 13.5% ABV and was just fantastic, even though nobody else seemed to like it. I thought it was so good that I want to go to the Kuhnenn Brewery and Brewpub. It's only eight and a half hours away. And in Detroit.

Jamee really liked the New Holland Ichabod Pumpkin Ale. I bought her a shirt for it, but she can tell you more about that.

Coming soon - a trip to Biscuitville.

2008-10-01T18:19:00.010-05:00

My Big Fat Geek Weekend

As Emily already pointed out on her blog, we did the geek thing this past weekend. The problem with being a geek is that sometimes multiple strands of your geekery converge and this year both the National Book Festival and the Baltimore Comic Con happened on the same weekend. Neil Gaiman was at the bookfest, signing at 1:00 and Mike Mignola was at Baltimore. I'd met them both previously, but Emily wanted to meet Mignola so we decided to do something crazy and do both in the same day.

So...

I got to the National Mall around 11:00 and bought The Graveyard Book and then headed over to camp out in the Gaiman line. As I said, I've met him before and this would be my fifth signing, so camping out is the thing to do. You may be waiting for a while, but it ultimately saves time in the long run and you usually meet some nice people.

Neil started scribbling on things at about 1:00 and by 1:35ish we'd gotten to the front of the line. Neil was nice, as usual, and scribbled on the new book, my UK American Gods, and my advanced reader's copy of Good Omens, which he said was in surprising good shape for a twenty year old ARC.

And then we turned around.

I estimate that we were about fifty people from the front of the line. On Neil's blog he says that there were approximately 1400 people there for him. I have never seen such a crowd. And he signed something for all of them. With a broken finger.

That is why I love Neil Gaiman.

So Emily and I rushed up to Baltimore, getting there at 3:30, about two and a half hours before the Comic Con was due to close. We headed straight for Mike Mignola and were amazed that there was no line. Emily got her stuff scribbled on and I got a pile of stuff signed. So then we walked around the place and from here I'm just going to combine the rest of Saturday and Sunday into one big pile.

If I was forced to name my five favorite comics artists, I'd probably have to go with:

1. Mike Mignola
2. Bernie Wrightson
3. Darwyn Cooke
4. Tim Sale
5. A constantly changing roster of about ten different people

All of these guys were there. To my amazement, Bernie Wrightson had no line at all during the weekend and you could just walk right up and talk to him. He was extremely approachable and a pleasure to talk to. He was selling production art from The Mist that was way out of my price range, but if I had a spare $200 to drop I would own the spider sketch. But I didn't, so I don't. He did sign my Mist poster and a couple of Stephen King books that he illustrated and I bought a lovely print of one of the illustrations he did for Frankenstein. I've loved his work since I was in high school and it was nice to meet someone whose work I've admired for so long and have him be as great as I'd hoped.

I feel like I almost took advantage of Mike Mignola. He signed a ton of stuff for me and he said that if he didn't want to sign things, then he wouldn't have been there. So I don't feel too bad about it. It's not like I'm going to sell all of it.

Eric Powell, who writes and draws The Goon, which you should read, was there too and drew a quick sketch of my favorite character, Willy Nagel, which will go up in the zombie dining room at some point.

The only real wait we had was for Tim Sale, which is understandable since he was only signing from 4-5 when we were there on Saturday because he was doing commission sketches for most of the day. I did get a pile of stuff signed and he drew the Batman jack-o-lantern in my Absolute Long Halloween.

Between Tim Sale and Darwyn Cooke I've now got all six issues of the Kryptonite story they did for Superman Confidential signed. Cooke was unfortunately sick, so I wasn't able to get him to do a sketch of Catwoman for Tilda like I'd hoped, but chances are I'll get to see him again. He's doing a tour next year to raise money for the Hero Initiative, so hopefully I'll be able to get a Catwoman sketch then, or a Wonder Woman, or anyone. His work is beautiful. Especially The New Frontier, which is one of the best graphic novels ever. It's as good as Watchmen. Jamee likes it better. And though he wasn't really sketching, he did draw a quick Hal Jordan in the clouds when he signed my Absolute New Frontier.

After ditching the massive hardcovers in my car, I swung back to see Steve Dillon, who drew Hellblazer, Preacher, and The Punisher. He was very nice (I've met two of the three main people who worked on Preacher - Steve Dillon and Glenn Fabry - and though they should by rights be degenerates, they were both lovely. I have not yet met Garth Ennis). And Dillon cleared up, for me at least, how John Contstantine's name should be pronounced: It's "tine" as in part of a fork, not "teen," as in someone who's older than twelve and younger than twenty.

He also drew me a sketch of the man. Note that he looks nothing like Keanu Reeves.

But the highlight of everything was meeting J.G. Jones. I only have the first three issues of Final Crisis that he drew, and they were giving out promo posters of the first four Final Crisis covers. I really didn't know much of his stuff, but what I'd seen I liked. So I brought my stuff that he drew with me as a last minute decision. And he turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever met. Very friendly and generous - he even offered me a raisin chocolate chip cookie, which turned out to be the only think I ate between 9:00 and 3:30 on Sunday, but that's pretty much my fault. Still, 'twas a damn good cookie.

So now I'm a huge fan of the guy's stuff, and I'm adding his 52: The Covers to my X-Mas list and pretty much telling everyone to go check out his stuff. He does good work and seems like a genuinely good guy. Here's the image for the Supergirl poster - I got one signed for Mathilda and
one signed for Aurora:

Hopefully he'll be attending next year. That was a damn good cookie.

2008-09-30T18:18:00.003-05:00

An unpopular opinion

So I just realized that Cars is the final film for Paul Newman, George Carlin (not counting Happily N'Ever After), and Joe Ranft.

Man, I hate that movie.

2008-09-19T15:31:00.003-05:00

This wasn't supposed to happen

In May 1994 I say James play at The Boathouse in Norfolk, Virginia. At the time I had only been to a few concerts - Morrissey, U2/Pixies, James Brown, and another artist who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons if you know who it is.* They were in support of the Laid album and at the time it was the best show I had ever seen, to which a college friend of mine retorted "Yeah, but you haven't seen much," which was true if a bit dickish. Well, I've seen many more shows since then, and that show is still one of my favorites, although there was something missing.

My sister was supposed to come with me, but she was fourteen at the time, in high school, and it was a school night. At least that's how I remember it. She tells it that she had missed a dance class the previous week and mom wouldn't let her miss a second. Memory's funny that way. One of my sister's friends clearly remembers me talking my way out of a suspension in high school for wearing a "Get Laid" t-shirt. Which is a great story and I fully admit to it's truth even though it never could have happened, mainly because I never heard of them until my freshman year of college.

So, anyway, mom wouldn't let Emily go. "You'll see them next time," she said.

And then, things happened. The Next James album, Whiplash, got only sporadic US shows and some festival support. The following albums, Millionaires and Pleased to Meet You, never got a US release at all.

And then they broke up.

And The Boathouse was destropyed by Hurricane Isobel

So that whole "next time" thing didn't really work out.

But then last year there were some rumblings that James may be reforming. There was a singles collection with some new songs and rumors of a new album. Then the new album, Hey Ma, came out in the UK this April. I picked it up through Amazon UK because there was no indication that it would be getting a US release anytime soon.

Anytime soon turned out to be September 2008.

And there was a US tour. And they were playing at the 930 Club, which is only a few blocks from where my sister lives, and although it was also a school night, she got to go.

So next time only took fourteen years.

The show was good. Not quite as good as the first time I saw them, which is still one of my top five shows, mainly because it was a little loaded with the new album, which frankly, I'm not fond of. But in the second half they started playing more of the older stuff and it got good. The crowd singalong with sometimes was wonderful and when they came out for an encore and started taking requests... well, who the hell does that?

Rumor is that James'll be headed back to the US next February. Hopefully it's true. I'd hate for next time to be another fourteen years away.

*and to be honest, you can probably find out. (Footnote in memory of David Foster Wallace)

2008-09-04T17:57:00.000-05:00

CARMEN! CARMEN!

2008-08-24T07:13:00.003-05:00

Failure

So the Olympics are nearly over and I have completely failed in my goal to get Jamee to watch Munich. Something about it being three hours long and remembering me being depressed for three days after I saw it the first time.

I thought that would at least be offset by Daniel Craig in tight 1970s shirts, but oh well...

2008-08-24T07:06:00.002-05:00

Questionable Parenting Decision

So last night we decided to let Tilda watch this:

Yeah, I know, we're lousy parents. But you know what? She loved it. And as soon as it was over, she gave us a "One more time?"

Which means that my three-year old now has a new movie that she will want to watch incessantly like The Incredibles and the Catwoman episodes of Batman: The Animated Series to the point where mommy and daddy don;t even want to be in the same room when it's playing. And that movie is Evil Dead 2.

I should be proud, but I just don't want to get sick of it.

2008-07-13T10:31:00.004-05:00

Oh Hell

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Regal Gallery Place
Washington DC
35mm

I love Guillermo Del Toro. And I love Hellboy. But I did not love Del Toro's Hellboy. I wanted to, I really did, but I just didn't. There a number of reasons.

Such as:

1. The pacing felt a bit off
2. Agent Myers
3. I didn't buy the Hellboy/Liz love story
4. Didn't get why they made Hellboy and the BPRD secret and felt like too much time was spent on the agency's secrecy
5. Agent Myers
6. Abe Sapien disappears about halfway through
7. Agent Myers

Hellboy II fixes most of the problems I had with the first film within it's first thirty minutes, although the lil kid Hellboy makeup is a bit dodgey. This is the movie I wanted the first one to be.

One of the biggest problems with the first movie is that it seemed like there was a studio mandate to invent a "normal" character through whom we could focus on the freaks. Enter Agent Myers. In this one Myers is dispatched with a single line of dialog and we get to focus on the weirdos.

And oh boy are there weirdos. Just about every scene is stuffed with monsters, from tooth fairies (of a variety that Del Toro first used in the short story "Tasty Teeth" that closes the Hellboy short story collection Odder Jobs), to trolls, to elves, to things that lurk somewhere in the dark cobwebby recesses of Del Toro's imagination. There's a book coming out called The Monsters of Hellboy II that I just have to get. If only to see everything that's in the Troll Market sequence...

...and that's where I stopped writing a week ago. At the time, Hellboy II was the best thing I had seen in 2008. I suspected that that would change within a week and I was right.

But that's for next time.

2008-07-07T19:10:00.003-05:00

An Album a Year

Oh well, may as well jump on the Bandwagon. The idea is to pick one album from each year that you've been alive. It was easier than I thought, though 1987 proved to be a good year for stuff I liked. 1998 was tough and I may have cheated a bit, but I like that disc.

And here we... go.

1975 - Alice Cooper - Welcome to My Nightmare
1976 - Bob Dylan - Desire
1977 - Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
1978 - Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy
1979 - The Clash - London Calling
1980 - Joy Division - Closer
1981 - Oingo Boingo - Only a Lad
1982 - The Cure - Pornography
1983 - "Weird Al" Yankovic - "Weird Al" Yankovic
1984 - Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain
1985 - The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & The Lash
1986 - The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
1987 - The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
1988 - Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man
1989 - Pixies - Doolittle
1990 - They Might be Giants - Flood
1991 - U2 - Achtung Baby
1992 - The Cure - Wish
1993 - James - Laid
1994 - Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
1995 - David Bowie - Outside
1996 - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
1997 - Radiohead - OK Computer
1998 - The Big Lebowski Soundtrack
1999 - Tom Waits - Mule Variations
2000 - Johnny Cash - American III
2001 - James - Pleased to Meet You
2002 - The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
2003 - The White Stripes - Elephant
2004 - The Magnetic Fields - I
2005 - The Decemberists - Picaresque
2006 - Elvis Perkins - Ash Wednesday
2007 - Basia Bulat - Oh My Darling
2008 - DeVotchKa - A Mad and Faithful Telling

For bonus points, I own every one of the above.

And for the hell of it, I tag Jamee, Kelly, Emily, and Maria.

2008-05-31T07:12:00.002-05:00

Considering DeVotchKa

This is cool.

NPR's All Songs Considered has the DevotchKa show we saw available here. You can also get it as a free podcast through itunes, which is only slightly less expensive that an actual ticket to the show was.

And, if you want to hear the first White Stripes show we went to, they have it here. If you want to hear the second one we saw, I have a crappy bootleg of it, which I actually appreciated listening to more than actually being at the show. (It's weird, as much as I didn't enjoy that show - stupid Patriot Center - it turned me on to Bob Dylan's "One More Cup Of Coffee" and was therefore worth it.)

Happy listening.

2008-05-18T13:23:00.003-05:00

Late Concert for Old Michael

So, we had tickets for DeVotchKa and Basia Bulat at the 930 Club in DC last Friday. I was kind of concerned, bing old, that according to the tickets the doors would be opening at 9:00. On Friday they posted the stage times for each performer. They'd added a second opener who would be going on at 9:45. Basia Bulat wouldn't be going on until 10:30.

DeVotchKa would hit the stage at quarter til midnight.

Did I mention that I am old? And that that was really frickin' late?

So, I decided to suck it up and not worry about the time. I already had the tickets anyway and we had friends coming up from Hampton on Friday to see the show. So, in the spirit of not worrying about the time. Here's a rundown of Friday night:

I decided that I wanted to be at the 930 Club by 10:00 because I did not want to miss Basia Bulat. Her album's been in constant rotation on the computer and the ipod for the couple of weeks. It takes about an hour and a half to get there from my house if you factor in walkign and the metro arriving at the best possible time.

Kevin and Marie (the Hampton friends) were leaving there around 4:00, which should put them at our place around 8:00. If we leave then we should be able to get to 930 around, well, 9:30 and everything should be great.

It did not happen this way.

Around 7:00 I called Kevin to see about where they were. Richmond. There were delays and they would be getting to our house around 9:30, which meant we wouldn't be getting to DC in time to see Basia Bulat.

Change of plan - we'll meet at the Shady Grove Metro stop. We''ll pick'em up and then drop them off at the car on the way back. They get there at 8:30. We're there at 8:40. There are ten minutes of shenanigans wherein we eventually determine that Kevin and Marie are on the opposite side of the station than Jamee and I. I never learn where they actually parked.

So, by 8:50 we're on the road. At this point I realize I have to pee.

I call Emily. She and some friends are at a restaurant near the Columbia Heights Metro, which is one stop away from the U Street Station, which is a two minute walk from the at this point fabled 930 Club. We are to meet them at the station. We get to Emily's at somewhere around 9:40 and hike the four blocks to the Columbia Heights metro. We get there at the same time as Emily and her friends. We now have enough people to go search for the One Ring, assuming one of us gets to be Bill the Pony.

We get to the station. One of our two SmartCards finally craps out. A train departs. Another comes. We get on it at 9:55 and are immediately informed that there will be a three minute delay due to trackwork or some such thing. Fifteen minutes later the train leaves. One minute after that we arrive at U Street.

And I really have to fucking pee.

We get to the 930 Club at 10:15 and get to wait in line for ten minutes to pick up my will-call tickets that I probably should have tried to get when Emily and I came to see Colin Meloy back in April. At 10:25 we're inside. And I make it to the restroom. And there was much rejoicing.

Five minutes after that Basia Bulat comes on. She and her band play for about forty-five minutes and it's a good show. They played almost all of her album with a couple of covers adn a newer song that may or may not still be called "Untitled." I bought Jamee an "Oh My Darling" shirt and she enjoyed vodka. I bought myself a DeVotchKa shirt, but they only had up to size Large for the designs I liked. It nearly fits and I've now got another reason to keep going to the gym.

At 11:45, as promised, DeVotchKa hits the stage. It is, a damn good show, though they did not play their cover of "Venus in Furs," which I've heard is just awesome live. But I cannot complain. And they had an acrobat during the encore.

So around 1:30 we leave. Through the entire time we were actually in the club, it never felt as late as it actually was. But the moment I stepped foot outside it felt like everything hit me. We go to the Metro and although it is apparently running until 3:00, there are no trains that appear to be coming for the forseeable future.

So we walk back to Emily's. At around 2:00 we stop at a late night McDonalds. I get a quarter pounder with cheese. First one I've had in years. It tasted incredible. No way that it should have tasted as good as it did. Maybe they're nocturnal. Or maybe it was the overuse of mustard.

By 2:15 or so we're at Emily's. We head back to Brunswick and after about ten minutes everyone's asleep but me. Or at least they're reeeeally quiet. We get to Shady Grove to drop off Kevin and Marie at their car and end up circling the place and heading back towards 270 because we're not sure where they parked. I ended up dropping them off where I originally found them and headed out. I made it most of the way back to Brunswick without falling asleep and by 4:00 we were home.

At this point I had been awake for twenty-three hours. We went inside and went to bed. I slept for four hours.

And then I woke up.

2008-05-10T14:47:00.002-05:00

Curiosity

Until last night The Cure was the last band that I was majorly obsessed with in high school that I still cared to see live (sorry, REM) that I had never seen in concert. U2 - check, Morrissey - check, Pixes - check, check. I missed seeing them in high school on the Wish tour and they never played anywhere near where I went to college. And after Wild Mood Swings I just kind of lost interest.

But when I was in high school...

When I was in high school I was an obsessive collector of the things I was interested in. Still am, but to a lesser degree. I got into The Cure in the period between Disintegration (technically Mixed Up) and Wish. I snagged all the albums (on tape!) and then found out about b-sides from a friend at work who was obsessed with The Cure and the cassette-only extra songs on Standing on a Beach and Concert & Curiosity. So I bought all the Disintegration singles. Bought all the Wish singles. Bought The Crow soundtrack for "Burn." But I could never get the Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me singles. Because they were too goddamn expensive. I wanted some sort of boxed set with all of the non-album stuff that I just couldn't track down. Tracking the stuff down was fun, but I wasn't about to buy a four-disc box set of Electra artists just for one stinking Cure song. At least not after thinking about it.

Which brings me around to getting back into The Cure. A few years ago I saw in the Best Buy circular that there was a Cure box set coming out called Join The Dots, which was exactly the collection that I wanted in high school. I hadn't listed to them in years, but I wanted the damn thing. And I got it. And it's good. There's some weak stuff on there (it is a b-sides collection) but overall it's worth getting if you like the band. And I was hooked again.

And then they started putting out remastered versions of the early albums. And then there was a new album that wasn't that great. They toured for that, but I didn't go because I didn't want to pay for the festival thing they did and risk only seeing them play for an hour.

But they announced a show at The Patriot Center last September. The tickets were a little pricey (about $60 - which is more than most of the acts I like to go to) It got postponed until last night, which was good because it allowed Jamee to get me tickets for Christmas.

So, after nearly 18 years of liking this band, I got to see them live.

Here's the setlist:

Plainsong, Prayers For Rain, A Strange Day, alt.end, The Walk, The End of the World, Lovesong, To Wish Impossible Things, Pictures of You, Lullaby, The Perfect Boy, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, Hot Hot Hot!!!, The Only One, Push, Friday I'm In Love, Inbetween Days, Just Like Heaven, Primary, Shake Dog Shake, Never Enough, Wrong Number, One Hundred Years, Disintegration

1st encore: At Night, M, Play For Today, A Forest
2nd encore: Lovecats, Let's Go To Bed, Freakshow, Close To Me, Why Can't I Be You
3rd encore: Boys Don't Cry, Jumping Someone Else's Train, Grinding Halt, 10:15 Saturday Night, Killing An Arab.

Yeah, That's 38 songs. Three hours and one minute of show. Let's break that down a little by album.

Three Imaginary Boys - 2 songs
Seventeen Seconds - 4 songs
Faith - 1 song
Pornography - 2 songs
The Top - 1 song
The Head on the Door - 3 songs
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me - 3 songs
Disintegration - 6 songs
Wish - 3 songs
Wild Mood Swings - 0 songs
Bloodflowers - 0 songs
The Cure - 2 songs
the new album - 3 songs
Singles - 8 songs

So half of the show came from their pre-Kiss Me catalog. I think that's pretty impressive. When I saw U2 on the Achtung Baby tour they only played maybe three songs that predated The Joshua Tree. And we're talking about a band that was touring for an album that was only two albums after Joshua Tree. When we saw The Flaming Lips, there wasn't a whole lot of anything prior to The Soft Bulletin that got played. And that was still a damn good show. The U2 one was, too. Pixies opened on that one.

But what impressed me about The Cure show is that they working with thirty years worth of songs and they managed to fit in stuff from just about every period and every album (with the exception of the album that made me give up on them and Bloodflowers, which I didn't pick up until later). And out of thirty-eight songs, they only played two that I don't really care for (verdict's still out on the new ones), and those were back-to-back near the end of the main set, but right after those they played "One Hundred Years," and I got a new appreciation for that one. It's a dark song from a great album (Pornography - which you should put on if you want to feel really bad), but I didn't really get just how dark it was until they showed news photos in teh background of atrocities from the past century.

This was offset by the large woman who was twirling and dancing like a hippy in teh aisle next to Jamee. I'll let her talk about that one.

But think about the number 38. How many concerts have you been to where they played 38 songs. I mean, these guys played for two solid hours before the first encore break. I've never seen a show by a single artist where their set goes past two hours including encore.

So, this is arguably the best show I've ever seen, especially based on lowish expectations going in (It was the Patriot Center). But based on the sheer number of songs, length of the show and enthusiasm of the band (Robert Smith never once seemed bored playing these songs that you know he's done thousands of times) it was well worth the ticket price.

The t-shirts, however, were not worth the price. But I still have three left from high school and they fit. And that makes me happy.

Next Week - DeVotchKa

2008-04-20T08:46:00.003-05:00

Re: 'venge

Emily took me to see Colin Meloy at the 9:30 Club for my birthday last Sunday. Not that it was my birthday last Sunday, or this Sunday, or even next Sunday, but that's when he was playing and sometimes you do what you have to do.

So he was doing his third solo tour without the rest of The Decemberists. I've never seen the whole band live, but based on this show I'd see them in a second, though hopefully they'd play for longer than that.

'Twas a good show, and though he tended to play mainly Decemberists songs that I don't really care for (Am I the only one who hates "Perfect Crime #2"?) and he dropped "Everyday is Like Sunday" from the set (so now I've seen both Morrissey and Colin Meloy and neither played it live), the final song in the encore was one of my top five concert moments. Easily.

He played a solo acoustic, campfire sing-along version of "The Mariner's Revenge Song." It may be my favorite song. If you've never head it go here and listen to the live KEXP version. It's a murder ballad about a sailor whose mother has a relationship with a rake, who leaves her destitute. On her deathbed, she implores her son, our narrator who is about five at the time, to seek revenge:

Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and
Break his fingers
To splinters
Drag him to a hole
Until he wakes up
Naked
Clawing at the ceiling of his grave

Tilda loves the song and sings along. There is nothing creepier than hearing a two-year-old singing that. It's all very cute.

Anyway, it's a great song, and though I thought I loved it before, seeing it live was awesome, even with just one guy and a guitar. The audience sings the mother's words and during the instrumental waltz section the crowd sways back and forth like waves in the ocean.

And it's just occurred to me that there's no real way to convey the experience to someone who wasn't present, or to someone unfamiliar with the song. I would say get the song and listen to it loudly and often. And if you get the chance to see Colin Meloy live with or without The Decemberists, do it.

And on another nautical note, I think I may have found my favorite verse from the Bible. I'm not particularly religious and I'll keep my views on the whole matter of god to myself, thank you very much, but this is from Psalms 107: 23-24, and is beautiful:

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the lord, and his wonders in the deep.

Now if I'd just known about the Hellboy comic they were giving away in New York yesterday that uses the first bit as it's title.

2008-04-20T07:55:00.003-05:00

Oh, Hell

So my brother-in-law-in-law Kevin and I went up to the New York Comic-Con yesterday. And came back. I'm exhausted and am currently aching in places I didn't know I had. Kevin may feel worse. He did the driving.

The initial draw for me was that Guillermo Del Toro was going to be there. Never did get to see him - the Hellboy II panel was packed, and my lotter ticket didn't get drawn, so I missed out on the signing.

But I did get one of these:

It's a Drew Struzan painted one sheet that was exclusive to the New York Comic-Con. Only 2100 printed. Heavy paper and individually numbered. It's just nice and the lil image above really does not do it justice.

Otherwise, the con was both over and underwhelming. It was packed, which was to be expected, and I didn't get nearly as much stuff scribbled on as I brought. I found out a couple of days ago that Michael Whelan was going to be there, so I spent the day lugging around my copies of The Dark Tower 1 and 7, which is probable contributing to my general achiness today. But he was very nice and signed both of them, and now I know what to bring if Stephen King ever comes around.

Only met a couple of other artists that I like. Darwyn Cooke, who did The New Frontier, was great, but he had a line and I didn't want to take up too much time. Plus he'll be in Baltimore in September and hopefully I'll have a copy of the Absolute Edition of New Frontier by then.

That is a hint.

Glenn Fabry, who did the covers for Preacher and Hellblazer was cool and I got Kelly and Kevin a print he was selling of the main Preacher folks. He did do all the driving after all.

And Duncan Fegredo, who drew Hellboy: Darkness Calls was great. He signed all six issues and drew a little Hellboy doodle on the cover of issue #3.

Kevin and I ended up going to the Grant Morrison panel on a whim. I've liked Morrison's stuff, though sometimes he gets a little weird and esoteric. Yeah, even for me. But he seemed very cool and basically spent the entire hour doing a Q&A. The highlight was when someone asked him about the Batman movies and he said that the great thing about Batman is that you have a character who's been around for seventy years and you can do pretty much anything you want to with him. He then stated that there's been some great superhero moves and some really bad ones, but you can even find stuff to like in the bad ones.

At which point someone yelled out "What about Batman and Robin?"

And without hesitation, Morrison replied:

"Oh the colours are brilliant!"

Which is now why I like Grant Morrison as a positive role model. He can even say something nice about Batman and Robin.

But I still don't think I can bring myself to watch it again.

Ever.

2008-04-14T20:19:00.004-05:00

Catching Up

So Jamee's out of own in Charlotte for about a week. So I'm here with Tilda by myself for a couple of days. Well, technically not really, because dad come up for the weekend and watched her last night while I went to a concert with Emily.

So, since Jamee was out of town I Netflixed a couple of things that I knew she would want to see. The first night of bacc'ing it I watched Right at Your Door, a low-budget flick about a guy who gets stuck in his house when a series of dirty bombs get set off in Los Angeles. It's pretty good. Small-scale and scary, but it kept bugging me trying to figure out where I'd seen the male lead before. Turns out it's Rory Cochrane, who played of my favorite characters in Dazed in Confused. I thought he'd disappeared after that one, but he's apparently been working steadily since. Which is nice.

My dad and I watched Breach on Friday night. It's the one about Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who was selling secrets to Russia for twenty-something years. It's a solid picture, and It's weird seeing DC locations in movies now that I've been living up here for eight years. Which brings me to a quibble with the flick. Hanssen was arrested the weekend Jamee and I moved to Ashburn. And unlike in the movie, there was no snow. Because if there was, I'd be even more pissed at the people who bailed on helping us move (None of whom read this. I think.)

So, on Saturday Dad and Tilda and Emily and I went to DC. Technically, Emily was already there. We went to the Natural History Museum where Emily is now doing an internship (a picture of her with her lunch can be found here is you scroll down to the R's). We walked around for a good six hours, taking a break to get lunch at the American Indian Museum, which we walked to. And Tilda did not tire. At all. She also did very well with the escalators. To my knowledge it was her first time riding one and she did great. Older kids were freaking out, but not Tilda.

She saved that for the dinosaurs.

Apparently dinosaur skeletons, like the Joker, freak her the fuck out. We'll try that again later.

She did like the new mammal exhibit, which is like a big zoo where all the animals are dead, and she seemed to really enjoy the bones exhibit, which is a long hallway lined with glass cases filled with skeletons. She's freaked out a bit by human skeletons, but she didn't have a problem with the one there. It's a pretty cool exhibit, too, and goes to show that context is everything. A hall full of skeletons in glass cases in a museum is neat. In your neighbor's basement, not so much.

We also found out this weekend that Tilda likes snakes and bugs. There was a display of a couple of snakes and according to Emily, Tilda pointed at them and labeled them "Mommy 'nake, Daddy 'nake, Tilda 'nake." Which is unbearably cute.

And I could not drag her away from the Insect Zoo. Which would horrify Jamee.

There are things that Jamee does not like. One of them is in the following picture. It is not me.

It's kind of hard to make out, but that big black thing halfway up my forearm is a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach. They had a petting zoo portion of the Insect Zoo and the thought of letting a four inch long cockroach crawl up and down my arm horrified and repulsed me.

So I did it.

It was cool.

Tilda would not allow it. We shall save that til next time. Oh yes.

We then went to the gemstone exhibit that Tilda loved because I think she thought it was a store. So she likes skeletons, snakes, and bling. We are not warping her at all. Maybe I should play her more Alice Cooper.

We're going to have to go back to the Natural History Museum in the fall when the Ocean exhibit opens up. All you can see of it now is the giant whale they have suspended from the ceiling. I showed it to Maddy and said, "It's a whale, just like 'Find Him'."

Which brings us to the next post, which I will hopefully have up tomorrow.

But no promises.