Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
by krisis
I have now had the entire wedding party in the room at once.
The photographer is reportedly in the building and will be here for getting ready shots momentarily. Jack and I have resolved to start out wearing as little clothing as possible.
Jack’s underwear is nicer than mine. As the groom I believe it’s within my rights to commandeer it…
by krisis
“In 800 yards. Make. A U-turn.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Gina, it told you to make a U-turn.”
“What if that’s not legal here?”
“Then we just tell the police officer that the nice British lady in your GPS told us it was legal, so it’s totally cool.”
“Okay”
Gina commences epic U-turn across Street Road.
“Whaoooooo!”
.
Sometimes as Gina and I wander around being – well, us – I catch myself wondering: why are we allowed to do this?
At no time has this question been more present in my mind than today, as Gina chauffeured me around the city to cross last-minute to-dos off of my wedding prep list. Right now we are sitting in a hotel room on a key-protected floor looking at the ridiculously awesome costume jewelry Gina will be wearing tomorrow in my wedding.
This is after nearly crashing our luggage cart in the hotel parking lot, surviving our epic U-turn, me almost pitching my electric guitar through a display case at Bluebond, buying seemingly a hundred travel-sized personal condiments, earlier wandering around a masquerade store discussing the logistics of whether Moses’ crook is effectively the same thing as Little Bo Peep’s crook, and general driving all around the city wailing along to my official last-day-of-bachelordom CD, Pinkerton.
We are two fairly ridiculous human beings on our own, but we don’t typically verbalize or act upon any of our ridiculousness. As a pair both of those impulses are actively engaged. Which makes it clearly insane that I am getting married tomorrow, and Gina is captain in charge of making sure I get married.
We have not trashed the hotel room yet, but I believe that option to still be in the cards.
We are, after all, rock stars.
.
(As to where I’ve been: I was really sick. A week before my wedding. It wasn’t fun. And I got a chest x-ray. That’s about all that needs to be said.)
by krisis
In high school when I would procrastinate on homework X-Files was like the 2-minute warning on my weekend. If Mulder and Scully made it on screen before my assignments were wrapped up I’d be in serious trouble.
Since I’m always kvetching that I don’t get to tell you about all the awesome stuff I do every week, I’m going to bring back that dread high school tradition for that express purpose: Sundays nights I will rattle off my ravels and travails at length.
And, um, I have no idea where we left off. Before Christmas? After Christmas? Let me think…
Every Tuesday: Open Mic @ Time
On X-Mas Eve Eve I stopped by the new Tuesday open mic @ Time at 1315 Sansom (formerly Ludwig’s). It’s hosted by Pete G. (also the host of Fergie’s), and for the night was co-hosted by my multi-talented South Philly neighbor Michael Gall of Shackamaxon.
I played a lot of different open mics in Philadelphia in 2008, and no matter how nice the host or the equipment, or how good your songs or your playing, it often just comes down to the shape and mood of the room.
Time, as it happens, is a good shape and mood for me – or at least it was on X-E-E. The room is large and square with high ceilings and a low stage in the front corner – big enough for a songwriter, a reduced drum kit, and a slightly detuned upright piano. The low stage makes for an easy connection with patrons at the bar, and the depth/height of the room means everyone can see you playing.
I played first and had great fun warming up the room with some little played tunes, including “A Few Bars of Goodbye” and “Something Real,” plus a new one that I haven’t had a chance to record yet for the site. I wound up staying to last call to catch Ian (The Thief), James Cooper (bassist from Fergie’s), the lovely Francesca, and a host of other great local acts (links to come!).
Saturday: 80s Prom @ The Shubin
AKA my bachelor party. Seriously.
Sorry, kids, I have to come back to this one when I can ramble at more length (if such a thing is possible).
Last Mondays: Linda Cohen Benefit Open Mic @ National Mechanics
I suppose from there we can fast forward to the grocery store this past Monday. Elise, Steve, and I were in line at the checkout when I received a curious text message from one Victoria Spaeth, local songwriter, host of the Thursday evening open mic at Crossroads, and all-around booking machine: did I want to play a spot later that night @ National Mechanics?
Nat’l, on 3rd just under Market, is by far our favorite bar in Center/Old city – great beers and ciders on tap, pleasant pub atmosphere, and the best veggie burgers on the planet. I had done some inquiring over the summer as to whether they did any music to no avail, so I leapt right out of the checkout line to ring Vicky back and let her know I’d definitely come out to play the spot.
As it turns out, the night was an invitational open mic benefit for Linda Cohen, a pillar of the Philly music scene battling lung cancer. I arrived to find that I was on a bill co-hosted by the awesome Dani Mari, along with regular LP open micer Aaron Brown, Ian (twice in a week!), a slew of great local comedians (links forthcoming), and fucking KEN KWEDER.
As long time CK connoisseurs may recall, I met Ken in the middle of the street in University City while changing my guitar string in 2002. He was super-nice to me at the time, and I was surprised to later discover he is an underground songwriter of national renown, and known to tons of my pub-faring friends as well as my dad, who knew him in the 70s.
Anyhow, Ken was awesome, the comedy was awesome – the whole thing was awesome. Being a late and unknown add to the bill I was playing the last songwriter spot, post-1am. I was a little nervous in general, and even more nervous to be playing a super-late spot, as I’m historically not much of a drunk-bar-crowd pleasure.
Well, on this rare occasion I had nothing to be worried about – I was warmed up well, the crowd was nice, and the house speakers added a terrific bass whomp to my already percussive playing. I rattled off a muscular duo of “Shake It Off” and “Like a Virgin,” followed by another run through the brand new one (it’s starting to make sense).
The next benefit goes down while I’m out of town honeymooning; FaceBook it here. They also have a standing music/comedy night every Monday, and if you stop by you can talk to AJ re: booking.
(We also found out Vicky will be pinch-hitting hosting duties at the Tuesday night Lickety Split open mic on South Street, which is just up the street from my house!)
Tuesday: Alexandra Day @ Tin Angel
Gina and I met Alexandra Day while pinch-hitting a slot at Tritone in December 2007 (see, last minute gigs are always a good thing :), and I have been in love with her music ever since. Last spring she released my favorite album of 2008, No Castles No Moats, a luscious blend of piano pop, Philadelphia architecture, Maureen from Rent, and red wine.
I’ve made it a point to catch as many of Alex’s shows as I can since then, as based on the sheer, unbelievable amazingness of both her live sets and her disc I am confident she is mere steps away from a Regina Spektor-like blow-up in the near future.
Alex was opening for a night of song that I unfortunately skipped out on due to being a touch under the weather, but I did catch some of my favorites from her disc as well as a few of her new boy-crazy tunes like “Chemicals In My Brain” and “Red Heads.” She closed with her crushing X-Mas tune, “Bring It On Home,” which jerks tears out of me every damned time.
I’ll stop here, as I have another piece on Alex simmering at the moment, and I don’t want to steal all of my own thunder.
In other news…
I punked out on hitting Auction House for their monthly In The Round on Saturday because it was cold and I was deep into adding new features to my song tracking database. I missed out on a trio of Joshua Park, Scott Silipigni, and Steph Hayes – surely all awesome.
I also hit Wes and Gina’s for the Eagles game, where about half of everyone I know screamed at the television until our shredded vocals chords travelled back up the satellite connection and across the nation to Minnesota, resulting in McNabb finally connecting for a touchdown to seal the deal in the 4th quarter.
Never let it be said that I am a fan of Donovan McNabb. I’ll heckle him straight into the Super Bowl, if that’s what it takes. I am that committed.
Coming up!
I have designs on hitting the open jam @ Connie’s Ric Rac tomorrow night, but we’ll see if they hold up through a day at work. Tuesday would either be Time or Lickety Split if I get my ass out of the house.
The one place I will most assuredly be playing is Intermezzo at 3141 Walnut Street on Wednesday night, where I host the LP open mic. I’ll probably launch my solo opening set just shy of 8 p.m. – I’ll be playing the new tune and maybe some brand new covers. AC will likely grace the stage later in the night; music and drinks will continue through eleven.
Time to go watch some Supernatural DVDs…
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Peter is a Philadelphia singer-songwriter, half of the band Arcati Crisis, and Director of Communications for Lyndzapalooza (LP).
by krisis
I’ve been methodically tagging old CK posts in seemingly every spare moment ever since I first transferred from Blogger to WordPress in November of 2006.
At first the process was easy – I started with a list of my common post topics, and the content was new and familiar. It didn’t begin to get difficult until over a year later, when I found myself in the 2002 era. There I began to encounter memories I didn’t remember, or oblique themes I didn’t anticipate. I found myself walking over to E’s office to ask her about details I had forgotten, and constantly adding new topics to encompass some of my older worries.
As my excavation continued into the fall of 2001 I began to pass by the start of some topics – time traveling into the mind of a former me that had never been in a positive relationship, never met Elise, or never lived with Lindsay and Erika.
I already wrote about my sympathetic response in the current day, about how getting into the headspace of those old posts alters the current me. I’m past that now, though, past the first time I met Selina and the last time I was cast in a play.
It’s hard to imagine a Peter, less those milestones, but easy to understand why he’d seem so foreign without them. Every time I catch myself thinking, “this blogger is so young, so naive,” I remind myself that it’s not the years between us that cause that impression, but the experiences.
The last signpost of the modern me is Rabi, her personage and page omnipresent in my life for a seeming eternity. Yet, she too had a first post, and as I checked the box next to her “Rabi” topic I had a twinge of sadness that I wouldn’t get to check it again, so far back am I into my pre-history.
Two years after my big move from blogger and I am finally entrenched in my first three months, my first 900 posts. Posts about papers I had to write. Posts about days at the coffee shop. Naive posts. Posts about nothing. Posts prior to all of the major players in my current life. Is it even me that’s writing? Would that blogger recognize this current writer, content and a scant 14 days away from his wedding?
As I drilled through another dozen posts of tagging this morning I had an inkling that it might be time to give up, but there this OCD quality of mine to obey: I can’t let it go unfinished.
Will anyone care whether or not a three line post from December of 2000 is categorized in “rain”? The likely answer is no, but if I didn’t care about that I also wouldn’t care about a dozen other things that have kept CK lurching forward for over eight years. It’s the very point of CK – that I can excavate and time travel. It’s why I started it, and why it’s still here.
That’s the connection between your author here and your author then. That’s why I have to tag another 899 posts, no matter how tiny they seem from this great distance.
by krisis
Being a consumate overachiever, I am usually all over “small changes that can yield big success” articles. Like, whoo boy, sign me up for micro adjustments that cause macro improvements!
Except, at this point I have made every micro-tweak I can make. I am fully tweaked.
Take, for example. a CNN article from yesterday that suggests five simple diet changes that result in 500+ saved calories a day.
Here’s what they suggested, in comparison to what I do.
Old: whole milk
New: 1 percent milk
Me: rice milkOld: whole bagel
New: half a bagel
Me: low fat granola
(occasionally a bagel with non-hydrogenated, light spread)Old: chocolate ice cream
New: chocolate yogurt or a Popsicle
Me: soy- or rice-based ice cream, fruit chillers, or nutsOld: latte made with whole milk
New: latte made with skim milk
Me: chai made with soy milkOld: be a couch potato
New: take a 20-minute walk
Me: walk 1-3 miles a day
I could continue to match them one for one – they’d say, “eat lean meat,” and I’d say, “eat fish.” They’d say, “no more extra cheese,” and I’d say, “no more cheese.”
Articles like this make me feel okay for being thin, because I have clearly eliminated every source of culinary indulgence from my life already, and have largely found replacements that I prefer to the original gluttonous versions.
(I wish that articles like this could also make me feel like I can stop worrying that I’m going to turn into a giant Italian balloon when I turn thirty like half of my family did, but I’m just going to have keep being anxious about that bridge until it’s crossed.)
My total tweakedness isn’t limited to diet, which means I react similarly to “small changes” articles about budgets or goal setting – I’m excited to read them until I realize they’re preaching to the me of 2003. I’ve made most of these adjustments already because they all dovetail with my concept of living marginally. I suppose it’s my personal version of being green – why waste money and time on frivolous things you don’t even care about, when you’d rather waste them on frivolous things you actually enjoy?
So, to CNN readers I say, “If you like your lattes with whole milk, go ahead and drink them.” Micro changes are nice, but it’s a major change of attitude that’s going to make the biggest difference in your life.