Friday Photo
a tearful farewell to my lovely niece, Regi

Regi leaves this morning to start her life's journey in the land of the setting sun, Japan. Whether she knows it or not, she'll be taking a piece of my heart with her...


I miss her already.
:...(

Running On Empty And Lovin' It
or the 23 1/2 hour day I spent with Jack Johnson

Okay, so yesterday after waking at the unGodly pre-crack of dawn hour of 3AM, I traveled to Blossom Music Center with my friend, Sheila and her girls to see Jack Johnson perform on a very toasty summer night. We all were excited because Mr. Johnson-THE perennial Hawaiian surfer boy-NEVER tours close to here. I've wanted to see him since his outstanding first album, Brushfire Fairy Tales. It's been a long wait, but well worth it.


SQUEEAAAALLL!

Being our dorky selves outside the gate
Sheila, Abby, Sheila and Moi (humidity-not a good friend)

So we piled in the car and two hours later were driving for what seemed like for-effing-ever to get to parking lot E. Blossom is HUGE! The performance shed is located in the middle of hundreds of acres of beautiful woodland. 

The original Shed venue in its lovely surroundings

Look how cool the inside is. 

The structure is very organic and sits unobtrusively in bowl of a hillside. There are plantings everywhere. No other shed venue comes close to the park-like surrounds of this original.

Embarrassing the teenagers
Nice air, Sheila!! 

Not to be outdone, the girls FINALLY show their stuff

Check out these jump pictures!! They were both captured on the FIRST TRY! I love this new camera! It used to take me at least eight tries on my old beast just to get the timing right. This Panasonic rules!!


Moving on...


Johnson is a big environmentalist, so to that end there were booths of charities and foundations present to talk with everyone as they ambled to take their seats, as well as water bottle refilling stations in an attempt to cut back on plastic usage.


In the middle of the tents, G. Love (sans Special Sauce) set up and played for about 30 minutes to a fairly large crowd. It seemed odd that G. Love who Jack Johnson wrote for before he became all that, would be relegated to the stage equivalent of the kid's table at Thanksgiving. Seemed kinda rude, you know? Aaaa, but turns out Mr. Sans Sauce was the second opener for the evening at the adult table stage.

G. Love Sans Sauce playing at the kid's table
How cute are those kids with the hats?

Mr. G bringing the love one song at a time

I'm not that familiar with his work outside of him being bluesy, but boy can he generate a BIG sound with just his telecaster and harmonica, getting the crowd all fired up and singing along. I was pleasantly surprised. Later he joined Johnson on stage to interject some of his high energy for a couple songs.


Johnson took to the stage in his breezy, surfer boy style and launched into three old favorites right off the bat before crooning a couple new tunes. The crowd stood from the start and remained on their feet for the majority of the ninety mellow minutes.

He played most of my favorites including Taylor, Bubble Toes and Flake. Here's Bubble Toes from last night. Okay, most of it. My battery died towards the end, but still how great is it to hear thousands of people sing your song back to you?

See? Isn't he the grooviest? How could you not bop around and feel happy listening to him? Plus, seriously. How great is this camera, huh? We were way in the back, for Pete's sake.


The encore was him, alone with his acoustic treating everyone to exactly what we'd come for...a couple moments chilling with one of the coolest guys in music. He called everyone on stage to sing the popular "Better Together", musically summing up his philosophy that together we can make the world a better place.


Oh yeah, and in keeping with my whole Summer of Cover Lovin', Ole Jackie pulled out a cool as ice, surfer rendition of Steve Miller's The Joker. And the streak keeps going. 


So, 23 1/2 hours later I pulled into my driveway completely exhausted, happily humming a cheerful little ditty  as I drifted off to slumberland... 


Okay, it was more like a dizzy drunk passing out after downing about 20 shots of Yager, only without the pee-stained pantaloons as the mark of shameful excess and questionable hygiene practices. I could barely drag my sagging ass out of bed this morning. No matter. It was worth the fatigue today. 


Maybe I'm getting too old for this. Pfffft!! No way! Outside of the fact that I'm looking more and more like the Crypt Keeper, I'm having too much fun to stop. Like our friend says, I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

Old 97's Return to the Burgh 
or my love of all things Old 97's/Rhett continues...ad naseum
Warning: Epic blog post alert because clearly I'm in need of a good editor


Okay, so last night my favorite, hard-charging band of all time — fronted by my fantasy husband — cruised into town on a big black tour bus to blow the roof off a desanctified church known as Mr. Small's. 


And boy, did they ever!!! 


More on that later. 


Geo decided to stay home (I know, right? What?!) so my Old 97's virgin friend, Yoko, came along with me. We met up with our friends from New York, George and Maria to nosh a bit before the show. Pittsburgh was the last stop of George and Maria's three-day Olds adventure. They started in Chicago for a freebie at the Navy Pier, then hit Detroit and ended in Pittsburgh.

So get this. When we got out of the car at Mr. Small's, a lovely woman from Youngstown, Noreen approached me saying she recognized me from this ole bloggity blog and Twitter. (Hi Noreen! Thanks for reading!) How weird is that, huh? That's a first for me. The world is a very interesting place now. 

And then we met up with another fan from the area, Cindy, who Geo and I had met in Annapolis, of all places. So we all hung out and watched the show together. I have met so many nice people because of this band. It's true what they say --whoever the Hell "they" are. Great bands have great fans, and Old 97's fans are quite an amazing community.

The guys finally hit the stage after 9pm. Rhett gave a nod of recognition my way and Murry said hi to me as he took his place in front of his mic. (be still my beating heart) Then they launched right into Streets of Where I Live, getting the crowd moving on Ken's first guitar lick.

They bulldozed through their 24-song set list in a little over 90 minutes, elevating the audience of their faithful with enough energy to power a nuclear plant. Seriously. If you could harness their energy output, you could supply an entire town with electricity for a week.


They left out a couple of standards, mainly Roller Skate Skinny and Big Brown Eyes, but treated us to two new songs Champaign, Il and Every Night...

Crazy Headbanging New Song: Every Night

as well as several lesser played chestnuts like 504, Can't Get a Line (their homage to the Monkees), Melt Show, Here's to the Halcyon (I've been waiting a long time to hear this one!!) and my beloved Bel Air! I tweeted a request for that tune which they played as the encore opener. 


SQUEEEEEEAALLLL!! 

My favorite songwriter playing my beloved Bel Air

Check it out. He's looking for me. *swoon*

Thank you, Mr. Miller! I just love that song. I mean listen to these lyrics:


"Drowning in the back seat of a 61 Bel Air/ I got a mouthful of your hair/a handful of skin./Oh, I ain't suffocating/I'm just sick and tired of waitin'/Stop this pointless hesitatin'...and pull me in!"


Whew! Hand me a cigarette already. 


I think I love Bel Air so much because it transports me back to a time when it was all about passion and urgency and all Geo and I had was a car, if you know what I mean.  


*sigh*


Anywho, they did a terrific, passionate cover of David Bowie's "Five Years" then closed with another balls-to-wall rendition of Time Bomb. I know I say it every time, but the first chord of that song is so bittersweet. I never want an evening with the Old 97's to end. EVER!!

Time Bomb head bang-how does his brain not hurt?

Afterwards, only Rhett came out to meet the gathered crowd, chatting, taking photos, signing anything and everything. And I do mean anything. Another Internet bud of mine can't sew worth a darn (pun intended) but had to create a doll for her daughter. It's horrendous. She named it Ghetto Gumby, GG for short and she's sending it around the country. Rhett didn't even flinch when I asked him to take a picture with GG. He even signed it.

Rhett proving what a good sport he is

nestling with GG

Again. Do you see why I love him?

Yoko, Rhett-actular and ... nice bra chippie.

We ran into Murry while walking back to the car and had a delightful lengthy chat about his punk rock past & bands from the 60s San Francisco scene. He and Yoko reminisced at length about groups from that era. After standing in the welcomed gentle rain, the tour bus revved up and we knew it was time to call it a night. 

A night very well spent indeed.

in the rain with Murry

Love the mood of this shot

he looks so angelic here

one for my girlfriends

Melt Show now with groovy spit take

Here's to the Halcyon

The energetic 504

His skill at story telling is all over this one

4 Leaf Clover

You can tell this is the finale. Jesus! There's more water pouring off his nose than a waterfall! No one can ever accuse Rhett of dogging it during a performance. Come here, honey. let me wipe you off.

Random Crap From My Dresser Mess
or cleaning for company


Okay, so by now you all know what a lousy housekeeper I am. My surroundings are, um.... cluttered to say the least. June Clever I am not. Every time I clean, I mean really CLEAN, I vow to keep things in order and not let the mess pile up into a beast large enough to consume me and Geo in one gulp. 


For the first couple of weeks I keep my promise to myself by conscientiously keeping my digs tidy, especially my dresser top which is a magnetic catch-all for the multitudinous scraps of paper generating forth from my being. Alas. By the second week the inevitable happens and my dresser becomes an unrecognizable mound of notes, coins and expired coupons. 


And then I start to hate myself a little...


*Sigh*


Major FAIL!


Anywho, I invited friends from work to come over tomorrow for drinks and snacks on the deck. So, naturally I wait until the day prior to start the gargantuan task of making the house respectable. I decided to clear my dresser first. I don't know why. It's not like we're going to be hanging out in my bedroom or anything. Still, this is what I found stashed on the right half:

copious collected crap

Lots and lots of worthless little scraps which mock my very existence. Here's the bounty this month:

1. receipts from purchases at Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond and Macy's for things I HAD to have only to realize later...meh, not so much. I have been frantically looking for these by the way.
2. Not one, but three expired free Cheesecake Factory cheesecake cards, expired MacDonald's game prize monopoly piece (from February), expired Kohl's 15% coupon (also from February), expired Cultural District membership card
3. missing Kohl's charge card AND Kohl's merchandise credit card! Double Word Score!!
4. Couple random email addresses/website addresses - for which again I've been searching
5. song titles by the Weepies and Gugenheim Grotto I wanted to look up on iTunes
6. notes about what to pack for SXSW (from March)
7. Christmas list from my Card Club grab bag recipient (pathetically from last year)
8. several notes about new electronics from our Latest Technology segment on PTL
9. directions on how to plot an arc on the robotic cameras (I should probably keep this somewhere safe, you know... like on my dresser)
10. Two words: Willie Nieswonger  (*snort* Come on. That's just funny)
11. Notes of random thoughts that pop into my skewed mind such as: 

"Help! I'm getting sucked into the Christmas riptide!"
Overheard in the control room: "Can't you just punch him in the box?" (that still makes me giggle)
and the beginnings for a past, never written blog about Take Your Imp to Work Day I jotted down while in the car that's kinda funny. I might actually write it posthumously so act surprised when you read it some time in oh...late 2020.


So the big question is why are there so many tidbits scribbled on torn pieces of paper scattered all over the dresser. Isn't that what the Moleskin notebook and recorder are for?


I know, right? But try telling my psyche that. She just won't listen. Between me and you, I think she's a little S-L-O-W. 


Now if you excuse me, I have to go mine the other "Catch-all Hell" known as our sofa table. If I'm not out in 30 minutes, send a search party.

In Which Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition Especially At The Gas Station?

Okay, so there are these things called "Fuel Perks". What it is is --wait, that looks really weird, doesn't it... "it is is"? Anywho-- What it is is for every $50 you spend at a certain grocery story, i.e. Giant Eagle, you earn 10 cents off each gallon of gasoline. The more you spend on groceries, the more you save at the pump. It's just another way to lure mindless lemmings like me to shop in their store. Honestly I think free cocktails dispensed at the checkout would work just as well on me. Besides, how fun would that be? Seriously. Somebody should get on that.

But I digress...

I needed gas...and my tank was empty, too. Budda Bing! It's all self-serve here in the lovely Commonwealth, so I drive my bad self on up to the pump and start the process, following the prompts on the read out:

Gas Pump: Do you have an Advantage Card?  yes or no

Me: Yes

GP: Please swipe your card

Me: *swipes card*

GP: You will save $.50 per gallon today. Would you like to use your fuel perks?  yes or no

Me: Hellz yeah!

GP: Please insert payment card

Me: Okay, but that's gonna hurt a little. Ha Ha! *Snort!* I crack myself up. *slides debit card*

GP: Debit or Credit

Me: Credito Muchacho

GP: Do you want a car wash? yes or no

Me: *sigh* No, thank you.

GP: Would you like a sandwich from our "Made to Order" counter? yes or no

Me: What? *bigger SIGH* NOoo

GP: Hot enough for ya today?  yes or no

Me: ???

GP: Is that your real hair color? yes or no

Me: Wait.. What did you say?

GP: Does this handle make my pump look big? yes or no

Me: *blink blink* Well, now that you mention it--

GP: Do you REALLY believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? yes or no

Me: No, not at all, but...what the HELL does that have to do with filling my f**king tank?!?

GP: Nice. Do you kiss your Mother with that mouth?  yes or no

Me: *gasp* Maybe I'll kiss the side of your metal ASS with that sledge hammer I have in the back of the car!! (don't ask) What do you say to that, Smart Shit? huh?

GP: Ooooo. You're a feisty one. I like that. Would you like to go out for coffee? yes or no

Me: Wha..Grrrr.. DUDE! I just want to get some effing gasoline and get the Hell out of here before I turn 100!! Besides, pah-LEASE, you are totally NOT my type. Pffft!

GP: If I said you have a nice chest, would you hold it against me? yes or no

Me: What the EFFF?!?! Are you retarded? Did you not just hear what I said. What is with all the questions anyway? I've been standing here so long, I have cobwebs growing off of me! Come ON! You got my flipping credit card number, just start the damn pump already before I---
GP: Shhh! Shhh! Shhh! The manager's coming. Just act natural.

GP: Please choose grade and begin refueling

Me: * blink blink * (looks around in disbelief ) What the?!

GP: I said... PLEASE. CHOOSE. GRADE. AND. BEGIN. REFEULING...NOW
(that last word was spoken through its little pointy, brown, rotting teeth. and dude, you need a breath mint--badly)

Me: *gives my best sideways skunk eye* You are one evil, evil bastard.


I am not making this up. Okay, maybe a little, but I swear to God by the time you pass the IQ test and get to the part where you can actually start filling your gas tank, you've taken another trip around the sun.

Ain't modern technology grand, and oh-so-convenient.

UGH!

or just.. Ugh!

Okay, so I've been really lax around this here blog 'o sphere. Sorry. Or maybe you've been enjoying my absence and I should say you're welcomed.

Anyways, a couple of Saturdays ago I went to a concert featuring local favorites, The Clarks. Salim Nourallah--of Old 97's producer fame--refers to them as the Beatles of Pittsburgh. He produced the lead singer, Scott's last solo effort. The band are regulars on our little dog and pony morning show, PTL. They're great guys. Always pleasant, usually on time, unflappable when things don't always go correctly.

What? You're surprised there are snafus at work? We don't call it the Special K for nothing.

Anywho, I've never seen them perform in front of an audience, or in this case a ginormous mass of adoring humanity spewing heaps of unconditional love. These mild-mannered gents hit the stage like rock stars! It was fabulous. You could feel the love emanating from the eager crowd. Everyone (except me) was singing along to every song, so much so that in at least five songs Scott just stood back and let 'em sing it. They were putty in his hands, man. These folks were rapt. Hanging on his every word. Cheering & squealing to his every strut. Crowd surfing.

Yes. Crowd surfing. At a pop concert.

(Note to self: Young people's heads are very hard, both literally and figuratively)

Turns out they're kind of a big deal. A REALLY big deal. Who knew?

They are HUGE FUN! The evening was terrific. The pre-concert deluge of hair-ruining rage ended at the exact moment The Spring Standards (you know, my fantasy hubby's little project) took the stage and it remained gorgeous all through the night until the last cheer echoed off Mt. Washington.

Sounds like a well spent evening, right? So what's with all the Ugh at the top of this mess of a post you might ask. You may. Go ahead. Ask away. I'll wait...

Well, it happened during one of the last songs from the penultimate band, Good Brother Earl. I was recording GBE when I heard an altercation between the Cougars to my left and an obviously drunk kindergartner behind me.

Cougar: Oh no you are NOT standing in front of me. I've been here for two hours. That is NOT going to happen. (shakes her head sideways in a girlfriend gesture)

Drunk Chip: witshoyehlso soeihsoe blah blah blah!?!!! *@$#

C: I am not kidding. Get back or I will call security to drag your boney ass out of here. (sound of Wolverine claws springing out)

DC: Wha?! You cahn't do that, bitch. I cahn be wherev--blah blah blah yap yap yap

I really don't know what she said there. She was so incoherent she was speaking in freaking tongues.

Then all of a sudden I was knocked forward. Okay. I gave DC the benefit of the doubt and let her have a pass. She's drunk, right. Her busting into me was probably an accident.

Then the wild-ass bee-yatch reared up and gunned it for my back, sending me into the kid in front of me. WTF?!?

And that's when it happened.

Me: STOP IT! RIGHT NOW!!!

 

* Sigh *

I am officially 50.

To make it worse, I looked her 15 year old boyfriend in his scared, saucer eyes and said, "You need to remove her NOW!" Cowering, he replied "I'm trying, Ma'am."

Ma'aM...

Double UGH!

I went from hipster doofus to crusty octogenarian in ten seconds. That inebriated idiot brought out my Mom-i-tude, and I have been trying to shove her and her f*cking Mommy jeans back in that steamer trunk ever since. You're not taking me alive, Sucker!!

(gun cocks *BLAST*)

The funny thing is when you crank the volume you can hear my spiral into June Cleaver territory at the end of this video.

in which I become my Mother *sigh*

The Spring Standards working their multi-instrument magic

The Clarks big time sing along (On Saturday) See...They ARE kind of a big deal.

True Believer

How about a little BadFinger, Scarecrow?

True to form at my summer concerts this year, they ended their set with a cover. This time it was Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World

It was an exhilarating evening filled with booty-shaking tunes and good karma, you know, once the drunken adolescent was escorted out.

As for Mrs. Mommy-Jeans, I think she's safely tucked away for now. I lured her into the basement with the smell of tequila and fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. She should be good for awhile.

But be forewarned...Don't be violating my space at a venue or I will unleash the ugly-ass hound that is my Mommy-tude. She bites.

Friday video

Who is this youngster?

Like you had to guess...

Okay, so in preparation for the July 18th return of my favorite boys, the Old 97's, here's a video someone on twitter found of Mr. Dreamy at the tender age 32 year old. Her post was quite the funny:

Her and a lot of other girls. Such power he has. Ha Ha!

I have no idea if the link above will work so you can click here to watch my honey. And because I love him so, here are a few more stills not to be passed up.

July 18th!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAL!!!

Look. He's blowing me a kiss. *smooch* right back at ya, Baby!