Since 2004, my favorite band has been the Caterwauls. Their unique style of punk, funk, and melodic junk won me over the first time I heard them, and their second performance solidified me as a fan for life. Several weeks back, I texted the lead singer Kyle Sonnenberg to find out when the next show for his new band (Superfunk Allstars) would be, and he said October 22nd.
It was bittersweet to me because I was glad they finally had another gig in the books (their first in six months) but it just so happened to conflict my plans to see Barsuk recording artist Ra Ra Riot when they came through Tempe, AZ, on their first tour in support of their new album "The Orchard." Nonetheless, friends prevail over fame for me and I set my schedule to attend SFA.
Today, I started thinking that maybe I could make both shows. Kyle's band played at 9PM, so if The Clubhouse started shows late, like 9PM, then I would be able to see both of them. I called the venue and there was no answer. I checked the website, and the show started at 7:30 with only one opening act, so both bands I'd want to see would be playing simultaneously in different venues in the same town. Oh well, I went to Kyle's show.
As soon as I started talking to Kyle, he asked whether I had paid the cover yet. I had not (I have a way of slipping through doors) so he handed me a free pass in order to get into the show. It was a nice souvineer, notwithstanding their new album, my only "Superfunk Allstars" memorabilia to date. Surprisingly, the bouncer came over to me (the guy who was supposed to charge me at the door) and he was going to insist that I pay cover, except he saw my ticket so there was no need.
For the first live gig in six months, Superfunk Allstars did a solid job! Quick 60-minute set, and they wrapped. I spent a little bit of time (about 15 minutes) talking to the guys before I told Kyle that I was going to split to see another show. I figured that they only played 60 minutes, so if the national touring band played 90 minutes, then I could hear the last bit of their show outside the venue.
When I got to the Clubhouse, the parking lot was PACKED! Knowing musicians as well as I do, I drove around back first where the tour vans were. I could hear a band playing live, so I knew this area was my best opportunity. There was only one parking spot in the entire lot, so I had the good fortune of getting it, and then I walked around to the back area where I had just driven by, except now the music from inside sounded like a recording. There was a gentleman coming out of the double doors, so I politely asked whether the music inside was live or recorded. Now that I've re-written that question, I understand his confusion because he said it was a live band, HIS band, and then said that they had just finished.
I asked if his name was Wes, the lead singer of Ra Ra Riot. It wasn't. His name was Colin. "What's the name of your band?" I forget his answer, but I basically heard Opening Act. "Has Ra Ra Riot played yet?" Colin said they were on next, so I could hardly contain my excitement! Colin and I chatted for another couple minutes, exchanged names and other courtesies including set durations, and then I went around to the front.
I was so happy with my stroke of luck that I was willing to pay $20 at the door. Lucky for me, showing up late, it was only $15. I had promised to pick up a friend at work around midnight, and I had previously told her that my second gig was not going to work out, so I would be available. Colin told me that the band plays an hour, sometimes an hour and a quarter, so I felt like I would have enough time to get to Amy's place by midnight.
Ra Ra Riot took the stage right around 10:30, which was getting to be close to the estimate where I may have to leave the gig early. The thing that impressed me the most was the size of the crowd. Before long, I was less impressed with the size of the crowd and more impressed with how intently they were listening to the music. I cannot remember the last time I was a part of a crowd that size that truly appreciated the music. No one was there for the fame of the band. No one was there because they wanted to mingle. The population in attendance was there to hear this band, whether they were familiar with all songs from both albums or only a couple tracks.
They played a short & sweet set, wrapping up after 45 minutes with their fantastic "Ghosts Under Rocks." Unfortunately, I was severely disappointed. Not by the fact that paying $15 for 45 minutes of entertainment meant I was paying $1 every 3 minutes, but because they had not played my favorite track "Dying Is Fine." The band thanked the crowd, and they left the stage. A large portion of the crowd exited the doors. I wasn't sure what to think, but I wasn't ready to leave without hearing the song.
Not (too) surprisingly, the band came back onstage after a full minute and they thanked us again before starting a new song. After that last song, I knew there was only one thing left. It had to be the song I paid to see. They started up "Dying Is Fine," and it was worth $15 to see just that one song performed live.
Ra Ra Riot is formed of several talented musicians, but as a group, they're a one-song-band. Not necessarily a "One-Hit Wonder," but the magic in this song is so far above every other song that they perform together that it is almost hard to believe it's the same band. It was the single greatest performance of any song I've ever seen live by a national act.
After the gig, I picked up their CD/DVD of the new album since I knew more of the profits would go directly towards the band itself. The girl they had working merch actually acknowledge the fact that I had figured that out and expressed her gratitude on behalf of the band.
I stuck around a little while, I told Milo (guitarist) my statement about what a pleasure it was to see that many people truly enjoying the music of a band, and then I started heading out to get to my friend's job before she could text me. I was halfway there when she said that she was finally off, and (since she had been there for 12 hours) ready to go!
All in all, it was a GREAT night -- and it had been a long time since I had so many moving parts fall into place so perfectly. I will have fond memories of this night and Ra Ra Riot for a long time to come.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
This is why my job sucks...
Truthfully, my day job is a real pain, and it's mostly boring that I don't like to think too much about it (much less talk about it afterwards) when I'm not at my job, so most of my friends do not know what I do for a living. That's fine with me. If I tried to explain it to them, I'd be as bored telling them as they would be bored listening, so it really works out this way.
But this situation today was slightly amusing, so it's worth sharing (in vague terms since I don't want to sidetrack myself with too many details).
Basically, we receive a request (work) and we have to complete the transaction requested, and then it goes to a department where they approve the work (humorously titled "quality assurance"). If we get a difficult item, we can ask for guidance with the work from Service Admins, i.e. consult an elevated peer, so today, I had a very hard, complex transaction and I asked an elevated peer how to process it around 11AM.
This complex transaction takes a long time to process, but I had a very specific question at the end of the process, and I asked about that specific part but they said that, in this case, I wouldn't have to do it the long, hard way, because there is a simple alternative where it updates easily. So I undid all the work I had done and updated the transaction through easy, simple way.
After I processed it the easy way, I sent it to have my work double-checked. The people that double-check my work actually said, "no, this is a long, hard transaction, and what you've done is very easy, so it must be wrong."
My alternative course of action was to argue, and they basically told me, "yes, that was an easy way to do it, and it may seem shorter, but you need us to approve it and we won't, so your supporting the easy way with rational explanations will take longer than the long, hard way, because we are going to argue, and you will have to use the long, hard way anyway."
Honestly it reminded me of an observation I made during the 2008 elections: "Some people are so full of their own shit, they don't know life without it."
But this situation today was slightly amusing, so it's worth sharing (in vague terms since I don't want to sidetrack myself with too many details).
Basically, we receive a request (work) and we have to complete the transaction requested, and then it goes to a department where they approve the work (humorously titled "quality assurance"). If we get a difficult item, we can ask for guidance with the work from Service Admins, i.e. consult an elevated peer, so today, I had a very hard, complex transaction and I asked an elevated peer how to process it around 11AM.
This complex transaction takes a long time to process, but I had a very specific question at the end of the process, and I asked about that specific part but they said that, in this case, I wouldn't have to do it the long, hard way, because there is a simple alternative where it updates easily. So I undid all the work I had done and updated the transaction through easy, simple way.
After I processed it the easy way, I sent it to have my work double-checked. The people that double-check my work actually said, "no, this is a long, hard transaction, and what you've done is very easy, so it must be wrong."
My alternative course of action was to argue, and they basically told me, "yes, that was an easy way to do it, and it may seem shorter, but you need us to approve it and we won't, so your supporting the easy way with rational explanations will take longer than the long, hard way, because we are going to argue, and you will have to use the long, hard way anyway."
Honestly it reminded me of an observation I made during the 2008 elections: "Some people are so full of their own shit, they don't know life without it."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wastes of Time
This morning on the radio, I heard a trivia question where the hosts were having callers attempt to guess the answer. The question was "what is it we do the most that is the biggest waste of time?" The callers answers varied to really good guesses to some really stupid choices.
My very first thought was "making the bed." [For the record, now that I've had more time to think about it though, I probably would have said "responding to news articles online," which is an activity that I vehemently hate and nothing has made me think less of this country than them, and yes, it's the reason comments are not allow on my entries here.]
The first couple guesses were things like sitting at red lights, watching television, and texting, so one of the hosts got really annoyed about the lack of intelligence or forethought in these questions, so he started explaining the value in the time spent doing the wrong answers, i.e. stopping at a red light permits other cars to pass to prevent you from getting hit (although I understood the caller's point since I've spent plenty of time at a red light when there is NO traffic in either direction), television is a shared experience to discuss the next day at work, and texting is a form of communication.
The next guess was "cleaning house," and the host explained that the end result is a clean house, so it wasn't a waste of time.
The very next caller was "making the bed," to which the same host said, "ok, that one is a waste of time."
Eventually, we learned the answer was "playing video games," which immediately sounded like a lame answer to me but I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I was offended, and it definitely wasn't that I'd call my "Virtual Ego Boosts" worthy of the time invested. But what really bothered me about that answer is that not enough people spend time playing video games for it to be called the "biggest waste" of time. Only a handful of the population play video games in the first place. I thought we were guessing at the one activity on which most people waste a lot of time.
The hosts said that the answer was determined by a recent study, so I think that study was a bigger waste of time than video games themselves. It seemed to be a very poorly construed study if that was their final determination.
Especially since another caller proffered the best guess at the question: driving around looking for a closer parking spot! I think he hit the nail on the head. How many times do you go up and down rows looking for the closest parking spot, and then if you find a great spot, you walk into whatever store and continue to walk around some more! What exact benefit is there to looking for a better spot? I'm not saying it isn't nice to have, but I've seen cars in parking lots look like sharks circling around in water.
If you've read any articles about easy ways to burn more calories in your regular day, one of the items that universally appears is parking farther away from your destination. That little bit of difference probably saves more time than it wastes.
I commend that caller for getting the right answer when the (presumably) professional study failed to deliver!
My very first thought was "making the bed." [For the record, now that I've had more time to think about it though, I probably would have said "responding to news articles online," which is an activity that I vehemently hate and nothing has made me think less of this country than them, and yes, it's the reason comments are not allow on my entries here.]
The first couple guesses were things like sitting at red lights, watching television, and texting, so one of the hosts got really annoyed about the lack of intelligence or forethought in these questions, so he started explaining the value in the time spent doing the wrong answers, i.e. stopping at a red light permits other cars to pass to prevent you from getting hit (although I understood the caller's point since I've spent plenty of time at a red light when there is NO traffic in either direction), television is a shared experience to discuss the next day at work, and texting is a form of communication.
The next guess was "cleaning house," and the host explained that the end result is a clean house, so it wasn't a waste of time.
The very next caller was "making the bed," to which the same host said, "ok, that one is a waste of time."
Eventually, we learned the answer was "playing video games," which immediately sounded like a lame answer to me but I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like I was offended, and it definitely wasn't that I'd call my "Virtual Ego Boosts" worthy of the time invested. But what really bothered me about that answer is that not enough people spend time playing video games for it to be called the "biggest waste" of time. Only a handful of the population play video games in the first place. I thought we were guessing at the one activity on which most people waste a lot of time.
The hosts said that the answer was determined by a recent study, so I think that study was a bigger waste of time than video games themselves. It seemed to be a very poorly construed study if that was their final determination.
Especially since another caller proffered the best guess at the question: driving around looking for a closer parking spot! I think he hit the nail on the head. How many times do you go up and down rows looking for the closest parking spot, and then if you find a great spot, you walk into whatever store and continue to walk around some more! What exact benefit is there to looking for a better spot? I'm not saying it isn't nice to have, but I've seen cars in parking lots look like sharks circling around in water.
If you've read any articles about easy ways to burn more calories in your regular day, one of the items that universally appears is parking farther away from your destination. That little bit of difference probably saves more time than it wastes.
I commend that caller for getting the right answer when the (presumably) professional study failed to deliver!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Up, Up, And Away
In under seven hours, I will be taking off on a Southwest flight to Tulsa. Historically, I used to stay up all night before a flight to make sleeping on the plane easier, but the past several times, I have not been able to last. Perhaps, because I was done packing/cleaning before it was time to go to the airport. Or perhaps because my flights were later than they had been in previous years. Either way, I am still undecided whether or not this will be one of those times I pull an all-nighter.
The difference here is that, before my flight, I need to go back to Jeordie's place and get her kittens to bring them over to my neighbor's place because she is going to board them for the few days that I am gone. I don't know whether I am going to continue boarding them until Jeordie & Chad return later in the month or if I am going to bring them back to their own home after I return.
There are several pros and cons of both scenarios, and it's entirely possible that my neighbor will volunteer to keep the kittens the rest of the time as well, which after making such a life-saving gesture, I would certainly allow her.
This afternoon, I looked in on the kittens and Moonpie looked extremely depressed. Neither cat was chipper to see me, but Moonpie walked right up to fresh food and walked away, which was very concerning having put a cat through six daily tube feedings two years ago when he stopped eating regularly. Considering Moonpie is about six months old, I wasn't sure whether he would be able to starve himself for five days without feeling the consequences. On the plus side, I don't need to worry about him while I am gone (and otherwise, I know that I would've worried about him the *whole* time I was gone).
Luckily, I'll be able to rest easy knowing that the cats are in good hands and all the loose ends are tied up. Of course, it's still a question of when I'll be resting.
The difference here is that, before my flight, I need to go back to Jeordie's place and get her kittens to bring them over to my neighbor's place because she is going to board them for the few days that I am gone. I don't know whether I am going to continue boarding them until Jeordie & Chad return later in the month or if I am going to bring them back to their own home after I return.
There are several pros and cons of both scenarios, and it's entirely possible that my neighbor will volunteer to keep the kittens the rest of the time as well, which after making such a life-saving gesture, I would certainly allow her.
This afternoon, I looked in on the kittens and Moonpie looked extremely depressed. Neither cat was chipper to see me, but Moonpie walked right up to fresh food and walked away, which was very concerning having put a cat through six daily tube feedings two years ago when he stopped eating regularly. Considering Moonpie is about six months old, I wasn't sure whether he would be able to starve himself for five days without feeling the consequences. On the plus side, I don't need to worry about him while I am gone (and otherwise, I know that I would've worried about him the *whole* time I was gone).
Luckily, I'll be able to rest easy knowing that the cats are in good hands and all the loose ends are tied up. Of course, it's still a question of when I'll be resting.
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