Still Life
Flasher – Still Life

The weather is gross tonight, it’s only rain here though my daughter just sent a picture of snow outside her apartment at college. It is likely snowing up at the office too. Three days ago it was 73°F. We still have the air conditioners in two windows.

I really feel like I could use a vacation to someplace warm and sunny but this time of year is crazy for travel what with Thanksgiving and Christmas, not to mention it is college application time and then there’s the whole cost factor. But apart from the handful of visits up to see my mom, the occasional overnight or two with a sister or friend, I haven’t taken any vacations in the past five years at least. I had time off from work but I kept within a day’s drive of home that whole time. The pandemic was part of that but I don’t think I would have gone anywhere even if it hadn’t happened.

Does the travel muscle atrophy if you don’t use it? Getting on a plane, unfamiliar beds, eating out all the time, it just doesn’t sound that appealing. But, man, I would love to get away from this still life. See different kinds of trees. Smell how the air is different. Instead I guess it’s time for bed.

The Numbers
Radiohead – The Numbers

My son and I went to see The Smile tonight, the side project of Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke. I couldn’t believe they were starting the North American leg of their tour in Providence. Providence! Amazing! Someone that well-known I would expect to start in New York, maybe Boston, but I was more than happy to reward their fine decision by splurging on the tickets back in the spring.

The show was great, though not for the uninitiated, and lots of Dudes with a capital D. That’s always a drag, except for if you want to hit the ladies’ room before leaving the venue. Thankfully, after the first song, Thom encouraged those of us who wanted to get up by saying, “just because there are chairs doesn’t mean you have to sit in them,” so we stood for the rest of the time. It’s much easier to ignore douchey bros when people are standing.

Angelica
Wet Leg – Angelica

In case you somehow missed the debut full-length album from Wet Leg, I’m here to tell you that it’s really good and lots of fun. Another missed opportunity concert in Boston (taking my son to see his favorite, the Microphones, up the road a piece in Somerville on the same night) but someone I know caught it and said they lived up to the hype.

Thick of the Honey
Fazerdaze – Thick of the Honey

Today felt like it was in slow-motion. Every time I looked at the clock I thought it was later than it actually was. Probably the gray skies were a big factor. Calling it good enough, for both the post and the day.

Expert in a Dying Field

The Beths – Expert in a Dying Field

This past February I was supposed to go see The Beths up in Boston. I’d bought the ticket as soon as I heard they were coming to the US because it’s not every day a band will make the trek from New Zealand. The show sold out and I hatched a plan to make a weekend out of it. Three or so weeks before the show, The Beths added a show at one of my usual venues, closer to home, but as I’d spent the money on the Boston show and had this whole plan, I stuck with my original Boston ticket.

My daughter had a concert she had bought tickets for, also in Boston on the night before the Beths show. The friend she was going to go with wound up having a conflict so I said I would go with her. She had been having a rough start to the semester and I was trying to give her a fun break, get a hotel room and have a girls weekend. But then a big snow storm pushed the Dodie concert my daughter had been waiting and waiting for to the same night as my Beths show. The two venues were probably a distance that you could have walked in the summer but in the snowy, below freezing streets of Boston in February, there wasn’t a viable way to do both. Dodie is my daughter’s favorite so I had to forego The Beths.

I could have probably made it to the closer to me Beths show that happened a couple of days later but by that point I’d already driven well over 500 miles in just two days and I was wiped.

So when I saw The Beths were already coming back, almost exactly a year later, I was torn. Again, just Boston or New York for the options and again, there is actually a perfectly timed hole in the tour dates when they could swing through and play that same venue. But I knew it would sell out! Risk it and end up missing it again or buy the ticket and possibly go twice if they add the date? Argh! Not to mention it will again be February in New England. The whole thing could be upended just like last year.

My Music League friend texted me and said, hey, did you see The Beths are coming back to Boston? She’d gone to that show at our regular place and encouraged me to get a ticket for the upcoming Boston show, she and two other people I know would also be going. So I bit the bullet and got a ticket. Here’s hoping my third chance to see them will be the charm.

Misinformation Age
Archers of Loaf – Misinformation Age

Unlike most of the last several election nights, yesterday I didn’t spend much time following the race results. I actually went to bed a bit earlier than usual, which accounts for the lack of a post for the day. I woke up at 4 in the morning and checked the results, no panic inducing news so I tried to go back to sleep and wait for more news in the morning.

Good things: I still live in a completely blue bubble, Fetterman and Shapiro won in PA, MA and MD flipped their governor’s seat (why those two were ever led by Republicans I don’t know), Tony Evers, Janet Mills, Gretchen Whitmer, and Kathy Hochul all held their spots. There were actually a lot of pretty good outcomes. If Frisch manages to beat Boebert in CO that will be glorious and Mary Peltola looks to be on track to snuff out Sarah Palin’s dream of getting back into government.

Bad things: Beto. Stacey Abrams. What do those two do now? If you lose state-wide races twice, it seems like you should probably figure out some other way to keep pushing for progressive causes because you just don’t have the turn out you need. Georgia’s senate race will have to go to a run-off, we lost four NY House seats when we really couldn’t afford to lose any. If we should find ourselves back in familiar territory with Turtleface as majority leader and a Trump sychophant as speaker of the house, lord help me.

I saw so many headlines to the effect of red wave didn’t materialize or Democrats surprise with victories in x, y, and z. Hey, news media, how about you do a little soul searching and realize that your penchant for sensationalizing and engaging in harmful misinformation, or at least not coming right out and stating when Republicans are lying, is actually the reason for your surprise. You ginned up a tale that wasn’t a true reflection of the situation in the insatiable pursuit of click bait ad revenue, and you’re still doing it with these headlines. You actively undermine our ability to make progress with shitty writing that tries to present the GOP lies as valid points. Stop. You need to stop.

To Hell With Poverty
Gang of Four – To Hell With Poverty

Last week, a bit reluctantly, my son and I attended a FAFSA night at the high school. They promoted it by saying there would be people from colleges there to help you fill out the financial aid form. I kind of figured I already knew what to do since this is not our first rodeo, but the prospect of having someone from a college, rather than the clueless high school counselor, on hand to answer questions made me think it might be worth it.

Now I’m not so sure. I kind of think we may have entered something incorrectly but when I tired to go in to verify it, the stupid form kept timing out after we logged in so I gave up on that for tonight. Instead I thought I’d get started on the CSS Profile. Oh happy day! We are broke enough to not have to pay any fees for filing that one!

It still amazes me that people can be so easily misled into believing that their problems are caused by whichever minority group the far-right would like to blame today. I mean, we all know how it has happened, but I can’t imagine being so willfully ignorant, so incapable of following basic logic, so completely incurious about the world, that you would look at the two ghouls pictured in this video and think yeah, I’ll trust them instead of my neighbors. I’m avoiding mentioning any of the current crop of fascists on election eve but Ronnie and Maggie really got that party started. Here we are, 40 years later, and I think they would be thrilled to see the state of things today.