06/01/2001 - 07/01/2001 07/01/2001 - 08/01/2001 08/01/2001 - 09/01/2001 09/01/2001 - 10/01/2001 10/01/2001 - 11/01/2001 11/01/2001 - 12/01/2001 12/01/2001 - 01/01/2002 01/01/2002 - 02/01/2002 02/01/2002 - 03/01/2002 03/01/2002 - 04/01/2002 04/01/2002 - 05/01/2002 05/01/2002 - 06/01/2002 06/01/2002 - 07/01/2002 07/01/2002 - 08/01/2002 08/01/2002 - 09/01/2002 09/01/2002 - 10/01/2002 10/01/2002 - 11/01/2002 11/01/2002 - 12/01/2002 12/01/2002 - 01/01/2003 01/01/2003 - 02/01/2003 02/01/2003 - 03/01/2003 03/01/2003 - 04/01/2003 04/01/2003 - 05/01/2003 05/01/2003 - 06/01/2003 06/01/2003 - 07/01/2003 07/01/2003 - 08/01/2003 08/01/2003 - 09/01/2003 09/01/2003 - 10/01/2003 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004 08/01/2004 - 09/01/2004 10/01/2004 - 11/01/2004 11/01/2004 - 12/01/2004 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005 04/01/2005 - 05/01/2005 a firenze

Tuesday, May 28

12:27 AM
I came home (to Columbus) for the weekend. Sunday night I saw Mark Eitzel at Little Brother's and it was amazing! I didn't know what he would be like in person. He jumped up and down excitedly while he sang. He talked with the audience quite a bit (we were practically in his face). I was happy to be right in front of the stage.

The set didn't seem very long. The opening guy, Tim Easton (from Columbus too, like Mr. Eitzel [sort of]), played for an hour, then Mark played for an hour and a half or so, but it seemed shorter. Part of the time he played only the guitar, part of the time he had a band. They played a bunch of AMC songs, some covers from the new album (including "Rehearsals for Retirement", which he credited Tim Easton with writing — and Easton looked a bit like Phil Ochs to me). Probably my favorite part was when Mark said "Well, I know some of you are deaf out there, so I'm going to mime this next song for you" and he did silly actions for most of the lyrics in "Proclaim Your Joy". For example, "some sing and dance" = hopping around, "turn into vampire" = holds fingers to mouth, forming fangs, "some throw a lance" = grabs his crotch, "some bake the bread" = turns around and grabs his ass, "some are big whiners" = points to self. I wished he would do some action for "some give you head in some eternal damnation", but he didn't. [I realized much later that the lyric is actually "some give you heaven, some eternal damnation", but I still like my version.]

The backing band was pretty sweet, although they goofed up a couple of times at the beginning of one of the songs that was in 6/8. He told them "just count to six!" then messed it up himself. It was a weird feeling being there. It felt too good to be true, in a way, or just that he seemed closer than he did before, much more local. It also seemed like the audience didn't appreciate him that much. At least some guy nearby me didn't — afterwards he said to his friend that he was like "the poorest man's Elvis Costello". His friend said "you have to get his vibe."

setlist (semi-complete):
01. ?
02. Proposal for a Theme Song for Any Show on the Discovery Channel
03. ?
04. ?
05. Snowbird
06. Gratitude Walks
07. Johnny Mathis' Feet
08. Rehearsals for Retirement
09. Why Won't You Stay?
10. Mission Rock Resort
11. Freedom
12. I've Been a Mess
13. Help Me Make It Through the Night
14. Proclaim Your Joy
15. Outside This Bar

I went with my mom to buy a new cd changer for the family van. Then she bought me some new clothes because she thinks my old pants are ratty. I couldn't disagree with her on that point.

Friday, May 24

2:06 PM
I'm back from seeing Shannon. We each spent half the time working on school-related things, unfortunately, but we still did some fun things.We saw About a Boy, which was good. I watched a couple of Jane Campion films (The Piano and The Portrait of a Lady) since she was the subject of Shannon's last paper — I liked The Piano more.

We went to dinner at Morgan and Liz's apartment and had a good discussion about women artists, mostly. They had a lot of good books in their apartment that I'd like to read.

I helped Shannon move from her dorm room into an apartment. She had almost literally a ton of stuff.

We ate out a lot. And now I dig Jimmy John's.

My brain is stupid right now, and I can't make the trip sound interesting. But it was.

Friday, May 17

3:17 PM
Hi from St. Paul. I drove up here on Monday, arriving in time for the last hour of Shannon's birthday. We've just been hanging out since then, and I'm trying to get out of her way as much as possible because this is her finals week. Tomorrow her parents are coming up from Iowa.

Nice weather all week.

Saturday, May 11

1:40 AM
Got back from the Belle and Sebastian show a little while ago, and it was really a lot of fun. When they first came on stage and started playing I was beaming, because it all seemed sort of unbelievable. I guess I never expected to see them live. Noteworthy stuff:

They played two covers, Baby Love for someone connected with the band (a manager or something) whose wife had a baby Friday morning, drinking champagne on stage; and Time of the Season in the encore (Stuart said it was good to dance to on a Friday night).

Halfway through the show Stuart invoked Robin, Kermit the Frog's nephew, singing a little of "Halfway Up the Stair", which he said was a number one hit in the UK.

He asked the audience if he ought to use the lyric sheet before playing "The Model". The audience said yes (as he had flubbed some lines earlier) but he decided against it. He said something like "You have to take risks"... no, a phrase like that, but funny. Anyway, after the first verse when Stevie missed a line, a stagehand ran over and put the lyrics in front of Stuart, who promptly threw them aside. Then Mick picked it up and put in front of him, and again, "Thanks, mate"... tosses the sheet aside.

During "Dirty Dream No. 2" they got twin girls from the audience on the stage to do the "In a town so small..." bit.

Stevie did an impression of the audience members in Texas. Stuart said the Texans accused them of talking like Princess Diana.

Isobel wasn't there. The opening band was kind of okay; they were called Slumber Party.

Thursday, May 9

3:10 PM

So I just bought my ticket to tomorrow's Belle and Sebastian show in Detroit. I was sort of agonizing about whether to go or not, but usually in situations like this it turns out better to Do Something rather than Stay At Home.

I was worried because I still have a paper to write, and I'm still worried about it. But the semester's almost over and I get to see Shannon next week.

Wednesday, May 8

2:07 AM

Otis Blackwell died.