San Francisco Days, San Francisco Nights

Friday night, Rachel (my wife) and I, had tickets to see Chris Isaak at the Celebrity Theater here in Phoenix. It was the second time that we had seen him live and it was a great, if not a bit short, show. She got the tickets as part of my gift for our fifth year anniversary. He is probably our favorite artist, as a couple. We danced to one of his songs as our first dance at our wedding reception and have great memories of spending a lot of time together before we were married listening to Baja Sessions.

If you aren't familiar with his music, he does a throwback style, rockabilly/country/crooner, Roy Orbison meets Elvis type of music with lots of focus on love, heartbreak, and the blues. Pretty great stuff.

Being an anniversary gift, she sprung for good tickets and we were in the tenth row, right next to walkway where the artists walk onto the stage from the back. What was most amusing were the women at this concert. It was a heavily middle aged crowd, mostly husband and wife combos on a night out, but the minute Chris hit the stage, he was the only man in the place. The ladies screamed like little girls in junior high. He pumped his hips. They screamed. He swiveled his hips. They screamed. He hit a high note. They screamed. They were animals.

At one point, he ventured out into the crowd and stood four feet from us for twenty seconds or so of singing, which was pretty cool. It's funny how when you are a fan of someone it seems so cool to get close to them. Of course, as he is on the way out, my wife reaches her hand over the railing as he walks by and he grabs her hand and gives her this sweaty, lingering hand grab...and for a second, she was right there with the rest of those middle aged ladies. And to be completely honest, I think I was almost there too.

I was wishing I got the sweaty mauling...

He's not heavy, he's my brother.

My brother, Lance, called me today to brag for a while. He deserves it, I guess. He handed in his thesis for his Masters of public administration program at the University of North Dakota and that means he is officially finished...and, although I have always suspected that he may be smarter than me, (Not by much, mind you. For instance, if I were to score 150 on my iq test, he would be a 155. Just enough for it to bother me a little.) today it has been confirmed in the eyes of the world. Any idiot can get himself a bachelor degree, but a Masters? Well, by golly, that puts you in a whole 'nother category of educated types. According to 2004 educational census results, there are only approximately 12 million Americans with a Masters degree out of a population of 300 million. We'll call it the top five percent...and considering his plans are to get another Masters as well as a Doctorate, well, I guess he is going to end up one well-educated, pompous ass.

I just wanted to state for the record. I'm proud of my little brother. And I owe him a good wedgie the next time I see him. Remind him whose boss around here.

Unnecessary Censoring

I'm hoping that my blog with become more than simply posts about strange connections made while reading other peoples blogs...but so far, this is working out for me.

Another friend puts up a hilarious hit and run post and a comment to it makes me think of this really funny Jimmy Kimmel clip.

Can you keep a secret?

Flipping through channels tonight, I stumble across the new All American Rejects video for the song Dirty Little Secret. Not that I knew the song at the time or that a group of rejects recorded it but something in it caught my attention and forced me to sit through the whole thing waiting for the band and song info that shows up at the end.

I discovered an interesting blog called PostSecret when a friend posted something about it. Neither of these things are of much note...until the video I spied on MTV2. At first I just thought the videomakers stole the idea from PostSecret for the video (which consists of the obligatory shots of the band pretending to perform the song intercut with shots of people holding up handmade post cards with secrets written on them). The interesting part is that they actually used real cards from the PostSecret site. I recognized at least five of them.


Like this one...


And this one.
And this one.
And this one.
And this one.


Okay, so I think we all get the point. And they weren't just copies or the wording. They were using that actually cards as submitted by users. I don't know how to feel about this. I know that part of the deal when you send these out is that they have the rights to them and it supposed to be liberating, but when the guy then turns and sells them for a cheesy music video. I guess, the idealist in me feels like he kinda cheapened these people's feelings and made what was a really interesting art project into another dumbass MTV product.

You can't stop the bum rush.

So even after creating a blog, I have been holding off actually posting anything on it. Why? Mainly because every one I know has a blog. By the time, I thought it would actually be cool to have one, they were so ubiquitous that it seemed like a waste of time and space to publish one of mine own. Maybe it is my silly desire to not join the crowd. But, then I realize that I join the crowd in a million different ways already so what's the big deal. Just sell another piece of your identity down the river and wave as it floats away.

So what changed my mind? Well, a little bit of public embarrassment. And when I say a little bit, I mean, a REALLY little bit. Here's what happened. I saw something on TV which made me think of something I saw on a friend's blog. So I jumped online and started combing through posts to find it. Then I saw it. A link to my blog. Sure, it was spelt wrong, but still. The fact that it was there was staring me in the face. Of course, out of simple push of ego I click the link and it takes me to my completely empty blog. And now, here I sit. Typing to no one in particular, about nothing in particular. Strange feeling to be honest. But, hey, if everyone I know has a blog, why not join the crowd.