(no subject)

The sky is gray and dark and heavy-looking.

Bronson's concert today is outside.

I do not like this combination.

Phone Post

Phone Post

Phone Post

(no subject)

The concert!

I got there, oh, an hour and a half early, which was a good call; I had time to get some breakfast and have a smoke and still get an excellent spot right near the stage.

There was an opening act, which was cool. It was a guy named Chad Perone, who sings with the Boston band Averi. I'd never heard of him before, but neither had anyone except one very excited chick somewhere toward the back. Him: "Nice to have someone who's heard of you. We can pretend you've all heard of me!" *huge adorable grin* Us: "WOOOOOOO." We were happy to pretend we'd heard of Chad Perone, because he had a gorgeous voice and was a pleasure to listen to. (The website has a neat little jukebox feature; I'm listening to Averi right now. I like them.)

So, Chad played for a bit, getting us all pumped up with - a series of incredibly depressing breakup songs. Yeah. Sorry, you're feeling emo, Chad, but maybe a slightly peppier lineup would have been more appropriate? Oh, well. He still sounded good.

After Chad was done, we all waited around for a bit. And then?

Bronson.

He came up onto the stage to lots of screaming, messed with his guitar a little, and did some patter. He had us cheer for Chad, for Eli something, who was with him (Bronson, not Chad) playing the saxophone, and explained to us that he was waiting for a chair: "I'm gonna sit down like WIllie Nelson." The chair arrived. We cheered for the chair.

He opened with "Plush," and then did "Best I've Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)." I think that was my favorite performance, because before he started playing he explained that they were doing it because it was Eli's favorite to play, but he himself was "a little scared." And when he started, I could see why. He is not comfortable with that higher key, kids. He sounded shaky on the choruses, voice cracking on the highest notes, then switched to a lower key for the verses and sounded great. It was adorable; sweet of him to agree to the song for Eli when he knew it wasn't his best, and a charming demonstration of how amateur he still is.

He also did "Shimmer" and "Something's Always Wrong," then attempted to close with "Black." However, we demanded an encore - okay, I demanded an encore. The rest of the crowd was far choosier and demanded "Dirty Water."

He strung us along for a bit: "Do you guys want another song or more signing time?" "'DIRTY WATER,'" we all bellowed, especially those of us up front. He laughed and declined to play it: "Trust me." Hee. Some people were probably disappointed, but I figured, especially after "Grey Sky Morning," that he knows what he's talking about.

He did "Everlong" instead, and during the bit where Stephen King talks on the album, he made up his own line: "Sometimes . . . I lie in the dark . . . and dream . . . of a 2005 World Series victory." Crowd: "WOOOOOOOO."

During this, I called Betsey's cellphone and held it up so she could hear a bit, since she'd wanted to go but ended up working instead. Hope she got it okay. That was when I remembered that I (LOSER ALERT) have the number for making phone posts stored in my phone, so I tried to make a phone post of a last bit of the song, but I couldn't hear the instructions to do it. Sorry.

Then there was much, much waiting to get CDs signed. It was a long, LONG, rather disorganized line. My little section of it featured:

* An older woman who alternately chatted cheerfully and bitched about the line not moving, like, hi, half the population of Portland is in the line, and we're right in the middle, so relax.

* A twelve year old boy who did that twelve year old boy thing where he tried to impress via snark that is witty only to twelve year old boys. Nice kid, though.

* A couple girls maybe around my age, one of whom told me a couple of times about how she had met Gabe Kapler at the Portland Public Market last summer.

* Good natured complaining about the on and off rain, with interjections from those of us who went to the rally about how it was better than bitter cold wind.

We inched along bit by bit, and probably spent, oh, an hour and a half in line? Which was about what I was expecting, so I was perfectly content to wait, chat, and wish like hell that I had thought to bring a waterbottle.

Then, when we were on the verge of getting to Bronson, it started really raining. So, they redirected us around to inside the building, brought Bronson in, and resumed the signing.

The actual signing, to be honest, was pretty anticlimactic. Speed was the priority, so there was no picture posing (fine, I didn't bring a camera) and no time for small talk (which is a shame, I wanted to ask him if he'd heard of not_brandon; that's okay, though, I probably would have chickened out). I pretty much had time to pass my CD insert over, congratulate him on a good show, and get whisked away. He looked pretty blank, smiling purely on autopilot, and I don't blame him - concert the day after a start, tons of signing, and another session of it to look forward to before throwing the first pitch at tonight's Sea Dogs game? He must have been wiped already and trying to conserve a little energy to get through the next hour and a half worth of people behind me.

Overall, it was a great time. He sounded fantastic during the concert - much less polished and much more natural and relaxed. I am so glad I was able to go and see him.

And I know I said it in the first phone post, but it bears repeating: The cornrows are a lot cuter in person.

(no subject)

I have learned a different way to say "I love my team." It goes like this:

I HATE MY TEAM.

'Cos you wouldn't hate 'em unless you loved 'em, right? (I would prefer not to consider the implications of this and what it might mean about me and the Yankees; one trauma at a time, thanks). Well, here's how much I have come to love the Tigers since I began watching them when the season started this year:

I HATE THEM I HATE THEM I HATE THEM and I want to STAMP on them until they are all INJURED and will stop PLAYING for the rest of the season because there is no goddamned POINT.

This team is FUCKED. They were sliding badly before the trade, and since the trade they're different and wrong. Everything terrible is happening. Our starters are either sucking or ruling, and when they rule it doesn't matter because the bullpen is just WAITING to come in and spoil EVERY FUCKING GAME, and do you think that the offense can get any further than first base, maybe second with a good hit? NO THEY CANNOT. And that's just the material stuff. It's hard to explain the other stuff, the stuff that gets to me even worse than mere losing.

What happened? They've had such potential all year, such a solid lineup and capable rotation and the best bullpen among my teams. And they've spent the year teetering, just barely staying decent and respectable, and fleeing in terror whenever the threat of becoming good loomed on the horizon.

Now they've just fallen. Every team slumps, yeah, don't I know it, but this is no slump. I guarantee you right now that this is what we get for the rest of the season: A rotation whose performance is rendered irrelevant by a shitty bullpen, and an offense that has forgotten how to pick its pitchers up.

Today Jeremy Bonderman had an amazing outing. He threw a complete game. He gave up two runs on four hits and three walks. He struck out EIGHT, which I believe is one short of his season high.

And we still didn't win. Our ace was at the top of his game, the bullpen never got near it, and we still didn't win.

If I wanted to upset myself further with a few more miserable paragraphs, I could write about the rumors of dissention on the team. But I'm almost done, save for the point of this whole thing:

I believe that once you pick a team, it's your team, and that's the way it is, so I'm not abandoning the Tigers. That is incomprehensible to me. I wouldn't hate them right now if I didn't love them so much underneath.

But I give up on this season. I'll still keep track of the games, and watch some of them, but I'm not going to recap them here anymore. I haven't done any game recaps this week because each time I think of it, I think of getting into what the Tigers have done and my stomach turns. I'll talk about games that catch my attention for whatever random reason, and news that I find interesting, but for the rest of the season I will put more emphasis on the Red Sox and the Astros.

I love you, Tigers, and I believed hard all season that you could get over .500 and stay there, but now I believe just as strongly that I was wrong. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to put my faith in storage for next season, reorganize my thinking, and find a new way to enjoy you.

(no subject)

If you keep calling someone and getting a wrong number OVER AND OVER then maybe you should PAY ATTENTION to what you are DIALLING. Especially when you are dialling it at MIDNIGHT.