Atomictumor

I like technology, because sometimes it can capture certain nuances that reality misses.

For example, during the show last night, it was so loud that the communications with MastaG were done with the writing pad on my phone. I have attached these communications as they appeared, to tell you how it went.

(BTW, Of Montreal rocks, and my ears still ring. His are reportedly fine, so I guess I’m getting old)

1.

I’m not sure what the origin of this particular piece is, but I feel it speaks for itself.

2.

This would be his retaliation. Note how long his arms are as they choke me, while mine are so little.

3.

More of MastaG’s retaliation, but I’m not sure whats going on. Apparently the phone is, because it put that little square around what appears to be the action.

This was all done while we were waiting for Loney, Dear, the opening band, to start. We got there purposefully late, because we’d heard some of their music and didn’t really dig it, but they must have known that, and started late. Like, 45 minutes late. As in, they were going on stage as we arrived, expecting to see Of Montreal. At least we got a nice spot at the front, stage right, but behind all of the teenagers crowding the middle of the stage. Teenagers, for the most part, are to be avoided.

G was standing on a chair that the nice lady working the sound board behind us offered to him so he could see. However, as soon as Of Montreal started, he started sagging.

4.

Yes, they just started, have played a few songs, and G is wanting to go. They started out playing the first 5 or 6 songs of their new record straight through, which is always entertaining. One of the problems, however, with seeing them is that on most of their new songs the drums are preprogrammed, which means no deviations in speed. Its a slightly different loop than whats in the song, which is nice, but one of the joys of seeing some bands like the White Stripes or Wilco is seeing what they do to the songs live, after playing them over and over again.

I digress, the point here is that MastaG was asking to go. I voiced a reply.

5.

Yes, yes, I called my son a dumbass. He’s used to it, so don’t go calling child and family services on me. Anyway, it didn’t really matter, because he took the phone back and said:

6.

Yes, the addition of the frowny faces. In case you can’t tell, this is “After this can we go”. Now, after this can be construed many ways, and I like those kind of loopholes in my parenting. After this song? After the show? After the month/year? After the presidential term?

My reply was simple.

7.

Yes, so simple that once again, the phone boxed it. I was curious to see the response. I was prepared to go, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on the boy.

8.

Ah, a retreat. He was still standing on the seat. He wasn’t dancing, like I was, but ol’MastaGs not a dancer. He’s the stoic type that watches a show with his arms crossed, as if dubious about this performance that he spent several dollars on. These people expect entertainment, and they’ll wait until the show’s over to reflect on it and make sure that, yes, they were indeed entertained. Afterwards they’ll tell their friends about the kickass show they saw, but nobody ever mentions the fact that they were auditing the show.

Ahh, kids.

Again, I digress. Now, I gave G a few minutes, and then handed this over.

9.

Note the smiley face. Yes, this was a friendly message. I like to keep em off guard.

10.

Yep. Off guard.

11.

Now, I couldn’t yell, but I felt that this response did the job. MastaG responded with an essay.

12.

Actually, OK this last one was a joint effort. He’s tired and croup? Finally, I resorted to the good old second grade “circle yes or no”. He started to write “what” when I took it away to clarify things.

13.

Tried the circle thing again, and got a percentage answer. I still don’t know how to take this, so I just let it rest for a bit.

14.

We had made an agreement to wait until they played “Soul Power”, one of his favorite songs, but about an hour and a half into the concert, they hadn’t done so. We agreed that after this song, we’d take off (thats the K of agreement that I wrote, in case you’re not sure).

15.

And then he took it back. My frantic urge to shake him like a british nanny was reflected in my hasty reply.

16.

“Dude, just tell me when to go”.

Indeed.

By the time I handed this to G, they were bowing out. We ended up staying for the encore, where, yes, they DID play Soul Power, along with an excellent cover of Prince’s Raspberry Beret.

Of Montreal rocks. They switch back and forth, between life drums and electric guitars, to keyboards and techno drums, but its all a damn fine show.

We got home around 1, where I fell asleep, ironically, while he watched TV. What a dork.

MastaG and I just got here.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I ended up getting a hotel room.  So, uh, we ended up getting a hotel room.  Wifi!  Indoor pool!

And fortune smiled on us over it.  Lemme tell ya how.

This morning, I got up, called the inlaws, to tell them that Pigpen was feeling fine (still is, so we’re treating the fever as a fluke).  I mentioned that MastaG and I would be getting out of the show around 1 or so, so it’d be about 4 when we got home.  Papaw had some reservations about me driving that late, and frankly, once I started thinking about it, I did too.  So I whipped out some hotels.com, and got a room at the Ramada here in town, fully 20 bucks more than the cheaper Days Inn, which the cheapskate in me was wanting, but having that all important indoor pool which MastaG was adamant about (because somehow he figured out what I was doing).

So, got to the Ramada, damned if the pool isn’t closed, and theres all sorts of burly shirtless men putting big assed holes in the roof.  Renovations, the sign said.

Poppycock, I said.

So, I canceled the reservation, and went to the Best Western wheeeeere, we got a room for the same price as the cheap-o Days Inn in a place that has an indoor pool.  So, screw you, hotels.com.  You suck.

Gotta go, MastaG is getting restless

.

So, tomorrow is the planned excursion up to Asheville for MastaG and I to see Of Montreal

And, of course, today Pigpen had a temp of 99.3 under the arm.  Not totally alarming, but not exactly the circumstances in which I’m eager to be three hours away from him.  Frankly, I haven’t told the in-laws about it yet, but I reckon I’ll need to.  We had a big day today, with walks at the riverfront and Time-Out Deli (since we missed Monday’s visit).  He hasn’t hurled, and he’s acting fine.  In fact, I followed up on an early morning promise to take them bowling if they cleaned up some, and he did just fine.

And of course, like the Ghost Rider incident a few weeks ago, MastaG is damn near literally beside himself with anticipation to see the show.  He loves the new record, and has been telling me which song will be his favorite to see live (its different every time, like a Magic 8 Ball).

We’re going to play by ear, and see how it goes.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you with what Pigpen told me, as he looked so seriously at me across the little bowling table, sipping on his cup of water:

“Dad, I like to pee in the flowers.”

A few weeks ago Bos clued me into a super secret email he got from the Wilco fan club thing, talking about a super secret listening party for their as-yet-unreleased album Sky Blue Sky. Unfortunately, the listening party was at 10 PM CST on a Saturday Night, and Bos, Eaves, and myself are evidently too old to stay up that late for records.Alas.

However, some enterprising soul was able to stay up late enough, and also had the presence of mind to press the ‘record’ button on his computer, and put the album on the internet. Long story short, I have it.

Now, I’ve been pushing it on everybody over the past month or so, because the record jumps out and speaks to me like few records do. The responses I have gotten were all over the place. Bos loved it. Eaves didn’t immediately like it. Daco reportedly has listened to it a dozen times in 48 hours. Evan felt it didn’t have the power of their most recent records, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. Joel and Catherine don’t count, because they’re backwards and don’t like Wilco.

Why does it speak to me? Well, its a break up record, not unlike another recent favorite, Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, which may be part of it, because songs about how you try to live your life when she’s never coming back tends to hit a particular chord with me (apparently, I’m moving from Emo to whiskey soaked Merle). Musically, though, Evan’s right. Its a bit of a step backwards, into territory the band covered on AM and Being There, but they’ve added a certain punch to it. A swagger, for lack of a better word, similar to the swagger that the Stones put into their records in the late 60s and early 70s (I have long maintained that Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street are the best run of records found in rock and roll to date). Bos and I sat around and tried to pick out what the songs seem reminiscent of, sometimes we’d hear some southern rock sounding stuff, sometimes we’d hear something like Wings, sometimes it’d be something entirely different. Its got a bounce that Wilco hasn’t had before, and it makes for some damn good music.

Sure, it doesn’t have a song that just completely stands out from the others, like their previous albums, but it would seem this is because its a record full of excellent songs.

This brought me into Spring Break, and kinda was the soundtrack, for me, of the winter ending.

A second group of Oak Ridge citizens has congealed around the Crestepointe issue. These are the folks for it. Well, FOR is their acronym anyway.

I think this is great because now we can really solve this problem.

Here’s what we do. We hold a friendly mud wrestling competition between the two factions. Who ever wins– just wins.

Maybe we’ll get them a trophy.

We could even raffle off a ham, or a Dodge Neon…