More miles than money...

It’s interesting in that I am very tempted to write that I took this weekend off, which would imply that I did nothing other than sit on my couch and play Playstation the entire time. In fact, I didn’t do that at all. It’s more like my stories have little to do with spending a night in a bar and that is at least a little unusual. I’ll explain.

Friday night was spent in a bar or more accurately, Davey’s Uptown, as Alejandro Escovedo made a return visit to Kansas City. I was as close to the stage as I could get (technically a few people back though that woman who goes to the same shows that I do and brings her camera got next to the stage. I don’t know how she does it.) As he came on stage I did yell, “Welcome back, Al” and he looked at me and said “Thanks”, which was awesome. For those of you who don’t know the story, Alejandro is one of my favorite musicians ever. The guy started out playing punk rock and has since morphed into this singer songwriter who pulls from every source imaginable. It’s a rock band except that most rock bands don’t include a cello. When Al suffered severe medical bills a few years ago I donated to his medical fund because the enjoyment that I’ve received from his music doesn’t come anywhere near what I’ve paid for it. Any time I get to see him on stage I consider it a blessing.

The Friday night show was excellent as always. A slightly different band than his last performance but just a great high energy show. The guy just makes you love music and there are moments when a song just goes from pure punk noise to a classical cello and back again and you really wonder how anyone ever thought of combining the two. Watching the show was just a great way for me to get my head on straight after it had been somewhere else the past few weeks.

(Side note: In what can only be called a sad turn of events, the video store that was across the street from Davey’s has closed after thirty five years of business. Well, it was a video store and a, uh, “House of Adult Novelties…and other stuff.” Yeah, you get the picture. This is a bummer in a number of ways. First, it was so much fun knowing that my favorite place to see music in KC was directly across the street from a porn shop. It was like someone had a really strange sense of business synergies in mind when they designed the block. The second is that Heather (my favorite bartender of all time not named Donna) used to live in an apartment behind the store and would tell me the best stories of who she would see walking out of the place at four in the morning. Those are the sort of stories that make life interesting.)

Saturday was mainly spent watching movies in my apartment as I just felt like hanging out and watching comedies for hours on end. Rewatched The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (because I’ve been rereading the books and you can’t get enough Zooey Deschanel) and The Tao of Steve (because it is required viewing every six months or so). Sometimes I just need to sit back and laugh for a few hours and Snakes on a Plane was so fifteen minutes ago.

Today was shopping day as I actually bought clothes at the Gap for the first time in a long time. I don’t know if this means I am growing old, trying desperately to stay young or if I’ve just given up and decided to wear exactly what everyone else is wearing. On that, I have another question I’d like to pose to my readers. I’ve been thinking it is time to redo my personal style once again, or at least refine it. Meaning I don’t know if I can pull off the ironic t-shirts anymore (except when I wear them under an incredibly expensive shirt, which makes me seem successful and counter culture at the same time) but I don’t know of a look to try to emulate. I’ll take any and all suggestions because otherwise I might be forced to go back to wearing Duke Basketball t-shirts all the time and no one (including myself) wants that.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Tanya Donnelly “Beautysleep”
2) R.E.M. “Fables of the Reconstruction”
3) Zack Burkhart “Compass” (Zack gets a shout out on the blog! Awesome.)
4) Continental Drifters “Vermillion”
5) Jesus Jones “Doubt”