dancerjodi

Watch Factory construction is underway http://www.dailynewstribune.com/news/x2109420758/Company-ticks-toward-its-grand-opening . I spent lots of time riding my bike through corridors there when Dad rented a space for his graphic design/printing business. He shared stores of underground "secret" rooms that his father showed him where homeless people would squat (both of Dad's parents worked there making watches - that's where they met).

I saw Annie last Sunday http://www.dailynewstribune.com/arts/x2109420700/Reagles-Annie-bursts-with-energy with some folks from the dance studio. I've only seen the movie before, and I loved the show so much more for its emphasis on the time period. Sally Struthers was perfect as Miss Hannigan, and reportedly a sweet woman in person. There was a huge break between matinee and evening shows, and one of the orphan kids is a girl from my dance studio. Her Mom who lives near the theater hosted a lunch/pool party in between shows to keep the kids occupied and Sally got wind of it and just showed up there! My dance studio friend (very down to earth, hard-working, 5 kids with a plumber husband) sat and chatted with Sally on the deck feeding her homemade lasagna. How neat!

20 creepy baby items http://www.cracked.com/article_16475_20-baby-products-great-traumatizing-infants.html - OK, is it wrong that I think Metallica lullabies are a cool thing? Related somewhat, when driving down to my sister's cookout last week I realized that its totally time to get JD some Iron Maiden and old Metallica CDs since he's getting into that music, is old enough to think about the lyrics for himself, and he's taking guitar lessons in the fall. Bwahaha!

I read the most recent Penzys One magazine in bed this morning, as Brian slept and Mal cuddled up to me. They mention an HBO series, John from Cincinnati, that I had never heard of before that I'm intrigued to check out. I'm not quite sure what we're doing with our rainy day, so perhaps we'll head out to Penzys to pick up some things and use our coupon for free adobo seasoning. There's lots of great recipes in this issue. I debate whether I want to continue this magazine subscription, because on the one hand there are excellent recipes and its always inspiring but on the other hand, once I've read one I often put it on the shelf to rarely flip through later (save for finding a recipe). It can be very educational, but I'm far too practical sometimes.

Last night I attended a fundraiser for Webster Rescue with my family. Dad created a painting for the Worcester 6 years ago (inspired by his friendship with one of the members of the station which lost those men), and has since donated proceeds from sales of the prints to various Firefighter related charities. There was dancing and piping Worcester Fire Brigade and various fundraising. Dad donated half of his sales of cards and prints to the charity and donated one large framed (signed, numbered) print for a raffle. I think a good deal of the ticket sales also went to the charity. There were about 250 people in attendance and Dad sold about $300 worth of stuff (he isn't sure yet what the tally on the raffle tickets was). It was fun hanging out with the fam and its neat to see Dad flourishing in his artistic endeavors after all of these years of him painting alone in the basement Wellesley, locking things up in the attic in Waltham for years (during poor financial situations) and then finally picking up the brush again after he and Mom got through a lot of huge hurdles. If you haven't yet, please check out his website. The pipers played a very sweet song again this year that I've heard them do a few times before, which for some reason always goes right through me The Water is Wide. I've never been a fan of pipes through the stereo (Dad always listened to piper albums) but there's something awe inspiring about seeing them live.

Iron Man was wonderful - go see it! :)

Freewillastrology CANCER (June 21-July 22):
Some religious traditions don't motivate you through the threat of punishment and don't make you scared of God. Some corporations don't rip off their workers, don't despoil the environment, and don't have tyrannical bosses. Some politicians don't lie constantly, haven't sold out their ideals, and aren't power-mad narcissists. In light of these facts, Cancerian, please try to keep an open mind about them all in the coming week, as well as about any institution, idea, or person about which you have made dogmatic generalizations. It's a perfect time to shake up and even purge some of the personal biases that you have enthroned as absolute truths.

Ah, so *this* is the construction cause in my neighborhood (right at the banks of the Charles, I may add - love that very dirty water!):
http://www.dailynewstribune.com/homepage/x22760304

We're thinking of going to check out http://www.myspace.com/theorganbeats tonight at Great Scott (a cool venue I've only gone to once for that awesome Jet Fuel show). Crazy!

I just finished Great Pretenders - My Strange Love Affair With 50's Pop Music . This is a book I heard discussed on NPR a few weeks back, and was able to find at Barnes and Noble in the music section. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and it served to remind me of things I had forgotten (like, Gram's Connie Francis record collection that used to be in the front hall to be played on the console record player in her living room).

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If anyone wants this to read next, let me know :)

Ozzfest was awesome. Rob Zombie was great (played mostly White Zombie stuff). Black Label Society was disapointing. Iron Maiden was awesome (though the set was too short); they'll be putting out a new album and doing their own tour in the next year or so. Sabbath was also awesome, and Ozzy sounded quite lucid, was in great shape, and was WAY better than when we saw him with his own lineup in 2003. My "holy crap, I can't believe they are playing this" moment was Electric Funeral - I never thought I'd hear that live! I'm amazed by the number of kids that left at the start of the Maiden or Sabbath sets. Um hello? These guys are the reason that all of the other bands here are making the music they are. Geesh!

The NEG cookout was fun, though I got eaten alive despite bug spray. We also hit the VT Faire on its last day. Alas, the Falconry and Artillery people weren't there, but it was still a nice day. Brian and I stopped at http://www.newenglandforestry.org/nqw/searchdetail.asp?id=117 on the way home for some ice cream and poking at the antiques. It was nice to check the place out again.

I finished "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way" so I'll start http://www.ovusoft.com/ today and read the new Harry Potter book once Brian is done with it. We ordered tickets to Spamalot, The Christmas Spectacular (for a NYC trip in early December) and for the Gigantour (Megadeth man, too bad Anthrax isn't on the Boston leg of the tour). Its been one nutso weekend!

I don't spend a lot of time on the computer over the weekend. I had to LJ skip 325 to catch up! I go back and forth on the usefulness of this medium, because in one way I'm able to keep up with people more easily and have met some cool new friends. In other ways I think it serves to keep us from living life and touching base in person.

The http://www.jetfuel-sound.com/ show was a lot of fun, and Jet is as crazy and energetic as usual. ( OI OI OI! )

I'm thinking a lot of things about the death of the pope. Mostly, I'm thinking of my grandmother, who really looked up to him and has multiple photos of him in her house. My Dad has the same name as him (John Paul), and I wonder if that was intentional. Poor Gram being housebound wasn't able to go to church and pray with her friends, I'm sure she would have liked to.

We fly out on Wednesday, but have an NEG event in the square tonight http://harvard.bkstore.com/default.asp?s=712424198794|300&m=0501 (see listing for Matthew Stover) tonight and I have dance class tomorrow. At some point I'll get packed! I can't wait for this vacation. :)

I like the new Tori Amos album. Nothing quite grabs me the way that Little Earthquakes did, but I wonder if it wasn't the music as much as the music hitting me at a particular time in my life when I needed her. It was an impressionable time when I was leaving one life behind and starting another - new people, new opportunities, new freedom. It was a time when I was looking for direction from strangers while wanting to make my own way at the same time. It was a time for loudly, passionately singing out in my Monte Carlo while I drove home late at night by myself after a night with "friends" who I'd later have the strength to leave, them not really being friends at all.

Either way, I do like this new album. For quotes today, I bring you the lyrics to "Toast" ( Read more... )

That was the most amazing musical experience of my entire lifetime. Prince definitely is "The Man". He knows it, and points it out quite often. But he's earned it. Its not cocky at all - it just is. The sky is blue, people breathe, and Prince is the Man.

OK, the show was so good, that Brian (not a Prince fan, and not a Funk music fan at all) was singing and dancing. Ponder that one!

It was basically like a 3 hour jam session with solos, acoustic sets, dancing, bringing the audience up on stage, connecting in the most awesome way with said audience, and rocking so hard that as he said "Nobody would be able to play music there again". Damn!

He of course took the opportunity to bash Warner Brothers, to emphasize the importance of "Real Music" (versus MTV or radio). At the end there was a little reference to look to God to help you out in your life. Considering he's a Jehovah's Witness, I'd expected something like that (and was suprised that it only took up a fleeting moment).

Yay yay yay!

Today will be a nutso day, so I won't be able to pay attention to LJ much (and won't get too much work done). I'll be at a meeting from 9-11:30 (There I get to tell a bunch of hospital execs that our length of stay is increasing quite a bit - lovely. This would be a wonderful time for my boss to be here (but she's on vacation). Shortly after, I'm leaving for training at 1:00 in Needham that will last the rest of the day.

Anyway, the Metallica movie (forgive the typos, I don't have time to go back over this):

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If anything, this is a movie that's interesting to anyone into psychology. And to anyone that's in a band. And to anyone that wants some good laughs. Or, to anyone that wants to see Lars say that he regrets the Napster thing (to a degree), doesn't like "being the most hated man in rock and roll". Oh yeah - and to see Dave Mustaine make him cry. :)

Oh my was that an awesome show. It was so loud, the energy was so intoxicating, and so many Eddies!

Their new album comes out in September, here's hoping for another tour at that time. They got a dig in at Metallica when they went on a spiel about how they think downloading music is cool with them, but ask if you like it, pay for it (they mentioned that "not all bands feel this way, some of them beginning with the letter M" only to get massive cheers from the audience). Bruce also got some digs in at the movie Braveheart and Mel Gibson for changing history in the story. I was also suprised to see him in the mike yell at some people smoking pot in the front row, saying that "that's not what we're all about" and asking them to go out and pollute their bodies outside somewhere. Rawk! sXe :)

Dio was great, I've never been a fan but the man's vocals are amazing given how long he's been doing it. It was fun giving devil horns to the originator of it all (he did them at the end of every song I think). Motorhead was well, Motorhead. I think they did a good job but put up next to Dio's vocals and Maiden's energy and performance it seemed less than spectacular. Still - Lemmy is going strong after all these years, wow.

Its a week for lots of music: new albums from Jane's Addiction, Kiss and Queensryche are all out today. Yikes!

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I forgot how much of a fetish I had for sexy long-haired guys (only to be reminded of it when surrounded by them all at these shows I've been going to). I feel like I've come home again :)