Monday, June 23, 2003
Guess what I got?
I'll give you a hint. It starts with an 'L' and it ends with an 'e' and it means that airport security won't be able to harass me on a particular point anymore.
If you don't know, I stick my tongue out at you. Yes, you, sir or madam.
Anywho, I haven't blogged in a few days but life has been slightly busy/insane for a few days, so I'll use that as an excuse. There's also going to be a blog hiatus for this week (after this one, obviously), as I will be in Michigan, getting all oriented-like. So unless I get some time at my grandmother's house to blog, I won't be blogging until... probably Sunday. Jus' thought I'd let you know so no one emails me thinking I'm dead or somesuchathing.
So! Leslie was here this weekend, woo yay and houpla, of course. Swampscott is always more tolerable when Leslie's here... it sort of motivates us to do things. Not that there's much to do, but it feels as though there is. We're allowed to delude ourselves on this point occasionally, it doesn't hurt anyone.
We went to the Jack Johnson/Ben Harper concert at the FleetBoston Pavillion on Friday, 'we' being me, Leslie, Jess and Stephanie. It was really a very good time, much more so than I had been expecting. I am not a Jack Johnson fan, and I didn't really know who Ben Harper was, so I was just tagging along for the comradery of it all. But it ended up being glorious in pretty much every way that a concert can be glorious.
The weather was perfect. The Pavillion is an outdoor venue, so weather matters. It's under a big tent-ish thing, so I guess it wouldn't have been cancelled if it rained, but it would not have made the evening more fun. But we had the most splendid concert-going weather you can imagine. Not too hot, not too cold, not a drop of precipitation. Magnifique.
Jack Johnson was OK... like I said before, I'm not much of a Jack Johnson fan. He sounded pretty good live, as it happens. His music is acoustic and he's got talent, so it doesn't sound different live like some bands that use a lot of electronics do. And he doesn't suffer from the Britney syndrome, where the performer sounds like crud live because, in real life, they can't sing any more than I can. So he was OK in concert. But still. Not particularly a fan. And his performance was... quiet. Sedate. It didn't do much to get the crowd going.
Ben Harper, on the other paw, was a-frelling-mazing. I didn't really know his music, but once he started playing I recognized some of his songs. He had a real band (as opposed to Jack Johnson, who just had a bass player and a drummer) and they were all these great, slightly crazy characters. One of the drummers was from Boston... he played the bongos and this musical box thing, and he was glorious. Ben Harper definitely knew how to play the crowd, which made him a much better show than Jack Johnson. And I found myself actually enjoying his music. I still don't think I would get one of his CDs, but it was enjoyable to listen to for a concert.
The people at the concert were full of craziness and gloriousness. There was a woman sitting right in front of us who may or may not have been pregnant. Anyways, she looked to be in her... well, late 20s or early 30s, maybe, but I'm not good at judging that sort of thing. She had her hair in braided pigtails, but her hair was sort of old-person stringy, so it looked retahded (say it in a Boston accent). She also had these awesomely cheesy plastic little-girl barettes in her hair. She was a beautiful specimen of womanhood. I took a picture, let's all hope it comes out, shall we?
There was a group of maybe six or seven guys sitting in the row in front of us, several seats down. They were rather hot. We rather enjoyed regarding them. One of them had a Michigan hat on. Yup. Enjoyable.
It definitely was not a little kid concert. Most of people there looked like they were college students, or in their 20s. It seemed as though we were the youngest folks there... rather, there were others around our age, but we were in the youngest age group present. This is, in my opinion, a good thing. You know my thoughts on *shudder* young children *shudder*. There were also a somewhat surprising number of middle-aged folks there, no idea why. I conjecture that they were Jack Johnson fans, since he is the more calm singer, out of the two. But that's merely conjecture on my part.
We also saw a number of our teachers there. Gasp! No! They... they have... lives??? I never would have believed it! Hee hee hee. Yup, we saw Mr. Schwatrz, Ms. Labouda and her non-teacher boyfriend, and Ms. Ganci, who was presumably there with her boyfriend but we didn't see him. The amusing bit was that all three were liberally partaking of the expensive alcohol provided by the Pavillion.
We only saw Ms. Ganci for a little bit, so the only sign of her, um, slightly impaired state which we saw was her explaining determinedly to us that she wanted to have both Jack Johnson and Ben Harper's babies, but Jack Johnson's baby first, because Ben Harper already has a baby, and do we know who his girlfriend is? She's this actress, and she's got his baby. As this was laboriously explained to me, I was trying very hard to not start sniggering. You'd find it difficult as well, no doubt.
Mr. Schwartz we got to see more of, because he was sitting in the row in front of us. While Ms. Ganci seemed to only be a bit tipsy, Mr. Schwartz was well into the realm of drunkenness. He kept on shouting things at inappropriate moments and his actions became more and more uninhibited as the concert wore on. A 19 year old girl whom Jess knew from camp was sitting next to him, and he began to hit on her. Severely. Whispering in her ear, putting his arm around her, etc. It caused us much mirth.
During Ben Harper's performance, a man asked a woman to marry him. Ben Harper brought them both up onto the stage, and the guy read some poem into the mic and then got onto his knees and proposed. The crowd went absolutely wild. It was incredible. It prompted Mr. Schwartz, who was rather inebriated at this point, to begin yelling, "Fuck that, man! Don't do it!" Oh yes. We laughed some more.
So, it was a very good concert over all. I was a bit worried about how it would be going into it, but after the fact I thoroughly approve. Yessiree. And yes, I was sort of dancing. Sort of. More like swaying back and forth, smacking the camera into my palm in time with the music. I only mention it because you're bound to hear it from someone else and I don't want you to form any erroneous assumptions. That would be simply... tragic.
After the concert we walked back to South Station, since we had decided that it would take about as long as waiting for the shuttle anyways. It's actually quite a pleasant walk, considering that you're walking along highway most of the time. You're right on the water and Boston looks all purty and whatnot. It's also really easy to find your way along except for one teensy little bit.
This teensy little bit is where you have to get up or down. See, the way we went, the road you use to get to South Station is raised up, like an overpass, and the Pavillion is on the ground level road. On the way there, we just used a staircase inside of the Boston World Trade Center Hotel to get down.
On the way back, things were slightly more difficult. We found our way into the Trade Center Hotel just fine. Once inside, however, we couldn't find our way out onto the upper level. So we were running along all these unmarked, anonymously hotel-looking corridors, trying to find a door that wasn't locked or a hallway that wasn't roped off. Very nerve-wracking. Eventually we managed to get out, but not before getting ourselves in a bit of a blither about it. After all, this is the World Trade Center we're talking about here. It was around midnight. I admit that we were not a particularly threatening-looking group of people, but still. We're pretty lucky we didn't run into any security folk.
Once we found our way out of that, it was smooth sailing (other than sore feet, of course). I took some pictures of Boston at night, because it looked vurry vurry cool. I hope they come out. I think that I am in love with Boston. It's such an extremely glorious city. This is why I have to go out of state for college. If I went to college in Boston, I'd never leave.
After we got back in the general vicinity of home, we decided that we were hungry. After all, dinner had been quite some time ago, and we'd spent most of the intervening time on our feet. It being rather late, our choices were limited. So we decided to go to the 7-11 in Revere. In case you are unacquainted with them, I now have the priviledge of telling you that the late-night 7-11 crowd is full of strange and frightening wonderousness. I really wish that I had had my sketchbook on me, or, better yet, my video camera.
When we came in a woman was at the counter harassing the cashier, claiming that he hadn't given her enough change. The poor man was most unhappy and flustered, and the woman was not acting in a gracious manner. By the time we had gotten our provisions and made our way to the counter, another couple had entered and were attempting to make some purchases.
It was fairly evident that they had been smoking the ol' grass, and I don't mean the kind that's on your lawn. The man just seemed sort of out of it, but the woman was clearly in an altered state of consciousness. So to speak. As we were standing in line, she cornered us and began to blearily yet intensely talk to us. "So, you girls hungry, huh?" Here she gave a significant nod and what I assume was an uncoordinated attempt at a wink. "You should go to Kelly's. I just came from there and had a huge thing of fries." Then she attempted to lower her voice conspiratorily, although it didn't really work. "It's the best thing for the munchies."
We just sort of smiled and nodded, figuring that it wasn't really worth it to try to explain to her that no, we were not high, just hungry after a lengthy night of entirely sober concert-going. So she grinned at us and said, "Well, at least you're honest about it." More smiling and nodding and glancing at each other with barely suppressed amusement. Then she jerked her thumb over at the man she was there with and said, "Never get married girls. Look at me. Married twice with four kids and I want to shoot myself (here making a gun gesture with her thumb and forefinger)." We nodded solemnly and took this advice to heart. Of course.
The dispensors of wisdom are often to be found at 12:30 at night, in a Revere 7-11.
Anywho. We eventually got home and threw some rocks at Noah's window to wake him up so that he could see Leslie before he left for the west coast. I don't think that his mother was very appreciative of the amount of noise we were making. Mais quoiever. I trotted in the door around one-ish. A highly glorious night, all in all.
The next day I got Harry Potter! The fifth one. I read it all. Already. I'm already rereading it, actually. It was frelling wonderful. Yes, it was long, but I sort of wish it were longer. Sooooooo good. Captivating, entertaining, as deliciously written as all the previous ones. Go and get it if you haven't already. If you're not a Harry Potter fan yet, what the frell is the matter with you? Huh? Punk.
Harry Potter! Wotch out fr'that bleedin' owl, woodja? She'll take that arm straight off in a bleedin' second, she will!
Oh kay, this is a looong blog, but it's probably the only one you're getting this week, so you best be lovin' it. I posted links to The Levellers and Poe under the Music section, and I put up the Weebl and Bob board link under the regular links section. As I said before, the board tells you when there's a new Weebl and Bob animation. You ought to check it regularly so you don't miss a single fantasmic one.
I desperately want a Harvery Birdman-- Get Ready to Feel the Power... of Attorney tshirt. Desperately. If you watch Adult Swim you know what I mean. Lawdy, it makes me laugh like a deranged little house elf.
No Return to Sender update this week, which makes me sad. If you haven't read it all yet, do it now. You fools.
Arright. I figure that ought to hold you until maybe Sunday. Have a good week, folks.
5:01 PM
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