Nancy Davis Kho's Blog, page 19

Concert Review: Father John Misty

The Band: Father John Misty, Saturday October 7 2017. Father John Misty, street name Josh Tillman, is an enigmatic singer/songwriter whose earlier career included stints as drummer for Fleet Foxes and touring with Har Mar Superstar, along with a bevy of other acts. He released his first album as Father John Misty in 2012, and this year’s Pure Comedy is as good an expression of the dark times in which we find ourselves as anything I’ve read in 2017. Indie rock with a side of sardonic humor…yes please. Now more than ever.

The Venue: The Greek Theater in Berkeley. I go to so many shows at this WPA-era amphitheater that there is very little original for me to say about it anymore. I will say this, however. Three months ago was the first time I ever realized Amphitheater has an “f” sound in its middle. I promise you I’ve been pronouncing it AmPitheather since the Nixon administration. Now I say the word as often as I can, just to practice. AmFitheatuh, AmFitheatuh, AmFitheatuh.

The Company: I was lightweight panicked when I opened the front door to my friend/concert ride Maria to see her standing with her youngest child, my 15-year-old godson Ethan, what with me in charge of ticket procurement and holding only two tickets for three people in my hand. Sorry, kid, I forgot to oversee your spiritual development, or to buy you concert tickets.

Not to worry. They’d bought a ticket separately and it was a treat to attend my first Godmother/Godson show.

Also, Ethan is truly, no nepotism involved, one of the best photographers I’ve ever seen- follow him immediately on Instagram. When he texted me this little shot he pulled out of his hat sitting two seats away from me, I realized I need to hire him to be the official Midlife Mixtape photographer. As soon as he learns to drive.

photo by @ethan.michon on IG

The Crowd: I explained to Ethan my normal concert rule. If you come with me to a show, you have to give me three phrases to describe the crowd, and none of them can be “flannel-clad.” We settled on “big range of ages,” “happy people,” and “super different from who’s gonna show up at this AmFitheatuh on October 22 for the Solange show.”

Worth Hiring the Sitter? Yes, or make it an educational outing

Father John Misty – aka FJM aka Papa Juan according to my quasi-brother-in-law– has one of the most beautiful, pitch-perfect voices I’ve ever heard. I mean. His voice is why singing was invented. He nails the material, fills up the AmFitheatuh, has the whole audience rapt with his intelligent, intelligible lyrics. (Or as Maria said, “He’s like the anti-Bon Iver! I can understand EVERYTHING!”)

But what’s extra about the Papa Juan show, at least when you’re seeing it with your 15-year-old godson, is that it gives you several teaching moments. Lesson One: FJM is living proof of why women like men who can dance. Sure he’s good looking, but he’s so languid and slithery as he prances around the stage – that’s the secret sauce. Ethan’s a good dancer and I believe the feminine screams filling the AmFitheatuh impressed upon him why that’s more valuable than he probably understood prior to Saturday. (Or as Maria said partway through the show after FJM’s umpteenth shuffle, slide, dip and slip, “Ok, if he becomes a charismatic cult leader, I’m in.”)

Lesson two: don’t be a dick. Toward the end of what had been a spectacularly entertaining evening, a roadie handed FJM a guitar. Father John strummed it a couple times, tore it off, and grabbed a second guitar that the roadie proffered. Father John strummed it, tore it off, HURLED IT OVER THE ROADIE’S HEAD so it hit the back wall of the stage, and yelled “I need a fucking in-tune guitar!” into the mic.

If you think we felt bad for Papa Juan’s suffering, think again. He had the concert crowd in the palm of his hand, and taking a couple minutes to get the guitar in tune would’ve been no problem. It’s Berkeley on a Saturday night, after all, most of the crowd was half in the (Dorito) bag anyway. Instead I spent the remainder of the evening thinking, wow, I’m glad no one got hit by the flung guitar and I hope that poor roadie doesn’t get fired by this diva. It was a stupid, entirely avoidable moment of the sort you discuss in the car on the way home with a 15-year-old to make sure he sees that, too. We also noticed that FJM didn’t introduce anyone in his excellent band, which seemed like bad karma and bad manners. (On the plus side, it made Maria rethink the whole joining-his-cult thing.)

Lesson three: It’s AmFitheatuh.

                   
CommentsI'll meet you at the AmFitheatuh and we can practice together. ... by Nancy Davis KhoWell. I've been pronouncing it wrong too. Huh. And boo, to him ... by Charlene RossRelated StoriesConcert Review: BeckThe Head and the Heart, As Reviewed By a MillennialUnder Cover Tribute 

The Mystery At Litquake

Last night I was the emcee for a Litquake event on memoir, called “Naked on the Page: Six Memoirists Bare All.” It was a full house at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and for an hour and a half it was my honor to facilitate a discussion with six wonderful memoir writers on the ways that memoir helps readers understand and connect. We talked about writing as a means of processing hardship, of being honest as writers about our own foibles and not demonizing others unfairly, about chronological versus other forms of memoir structure.

What I didn’t realize until afterward is that during that ninety-minute memoir discussion, the Greatest Mystery Story Ever Texted was unfolding on my phone.

See, what had happened was, I had driven to the SFCB and parked nearby. Before getting out of the car I sent a quick text to my friend Vikki, who lives in Minnesota. Then I grabbed my various bags and got out of the car and, unknowingly, dropped my phone onto 16th Street before striding around the corner. In the three minutes it took me to get to the venue, realize my phone was missing, and backtrack to the car, a passerby named Ken found the phone and took it to a nearby art gallery, in case someone came looking for it. (Ken, you are the real hero of this story. Whoever you are, thank you.)

Ken, before dropping the phone off, saw that phone was still unlocked and the message to Vikki still open (really, I’d only dropped it 45 seconds earlier.) So Ken texted Vikki to tell her he’d found the phone and was dropping it off at the art gallery, and that she should contact me to let me know. A moment or two later, I borrowed a phone and called my missing phone, which was answered by the gallery lady who filled me on the details. I asked a Litquake volunteer to run around the corner to grab the phone for me because it was 6:59 pm and I was scheduled to lead the memoir panel at 7 pm. The volunteer returned with my phone by 7:02, waved it at me from the back of the room, and threw it in my purse. Total time the phone and I spent apart: 15 minutes.

What Ken didn’t know is that Vikki is part of a group text I’ve been in for 2.5 years, a group of friends who checks in on each other, all day, every day, including holidays. And Vikki was ALARMED about why my phone and I were apart and within moments, so were the other Group Text ladies. Thus, for the 90 minutes I was blissfully unaware and talking memoir, the Group Texters were conducting a full criminal investigation into my disappearance, by text. I present to you herewith a few of the screen shots of what awaited me when I turned the phone back on.

Names have been redacted to protect the ridiculous.

It starts off reasonably enough – Vikki trying to figure out alternate ways to reach me.          

They are even concerned about unnecessarily alarming my kids.

Suddenly it occurs to them that the mysterious Ken might be reading this reading this Group Text, and that he might not be the good guy he appears to be.

So they offer threats, and thanks, and a ransom, not necessarily in that order.

The idea of “exposure” for a ransom payout is confusing to some of the Group Texters.

They then decide to start a new, Ken-less text thread which is immediately named Operation Nancy Finder. I’d suggest this is where things go seriously sideways.

While one of them actually picks up a phone and calls my husband to alert him to the situation, the rest of them are sifting clues and postulating theories.

My husband is hystrionic-averse, has a cold, and knows I’m a pretty capable person, and therefore treats the news of my possible disappearance with a related level of nonchalance. (He also calls the friend he knows I’m with at Litquake and confirms with her that I’m fine, just busy with the panel discussion. But the Group Texters don’t know that.)

Meanwhile the Group Texters start spinning out of control.

One of them mocks this up right quick

It is at this point that I get a tiny break from the panel, figure out what’s happening on the phone, and text “I’m ok you guys, I have my phone back, more later” which elicits this:

And this:

And this:

And finally, inevitably:

My takeaway? I’ll never be able to write a memoir about a kidnapping. My Group Texters will see to that.

                   
CommentsI ended up in my car after the event scrolling these messages ... by Nancy Davis KhoFalling out of my chair laughing so much, Nancy! You've got ... by Anne B.Awesome. by Elan MorganHahahaha! Thank you Nancy, Vikki, Ken, and assorted friends for ... by EllenRelated StoriesBand and BreakfastSPINNING: Choreography for Coming HomeSo Cheesy 

Ep 15 Celebrity Makeup Artist Aliesh Pierce

“Take a seat within your soul:” Makeup artist, esthetician, and entrepreneur Aliesh Pierce talks about her early career in music videos, midlife as a time to turn inward, and what made her cry when she met the Obama family. Bonus: ode to skin masks!

Aliesh’s website
Respect The Process podcast interview with Aliesh Pierce and Jordan Brady
Aliesh’s favorite skin mask from MDSun

And her favorite music video she ever worked on…

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! And if you’re in the Bay Area, you can catch his new album release party on Dec 15 at the Lost Church SF – more details here.

                  Related StoriesEp 14 Environmental Entrepreneur Jeff KirschnerEp 13 DJ MisbehaviourEp 12 Major Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar 

Band and Breakfast

According this highly depressing article about GenX Women at Midlife that is all over social media in the past couple of days, I’m supposed to be hitting iPads with hammers, treating my husband like a ghost, and resenting Millennials for being younger than me. I have a better idea: I’m opening a Band and Breakfast. TM Vikki Reich

Actually I already run one, although I only have one customer, although I have a 100% customer retention rate. The deal is that a few years back a baby band from Traverse City, Michigan called The Accidentals was coming through the Bay Area, and our mutual music head friend Val Haller introduced us, and they ended up staying a night with us. Baby bands are paid so little for their gigs, and every night in a private home means less money out the door during their tour, so it’s a kindness to host them.

The Accidentals are an indie-funk-folk trio of the nicest, most talented young musicians you will ever meet. They travel with a manager who happens to be one of their moms, and a sound engineer. They wrote us a thank you note and buried us in merch and drive a van called Black Betty. We were instantly smitten.

The next time they came back in Black Betty, they’d added another member to their entourage, and played a slightly bigger venue. Same, though: grateful, delightful, merch mountain. Who could say no to these people? While they were here, their momager Amber – who sees as one of her jobs the training of all these young adults she’s traveling with in how to be good people who say thank you and are punctual and help one another – was negotiating a deal for them with Sony.

So, this time through, *Sony artists The Accidentals* had a show in San Francisco at a much bigger venue, and their entourage was exactly one opening artist – Jake Allen – larger. Of course we still wanted them to stay with us. I did my regular drill, of making up all the beds in the house including a borrowed airbed, a futon, and the TV couch. I bought hella berries and bacon and eggs and coffee. I truly believe the refrigerator was happy – with a kid off at college, it’s like an echo chamber in there because it’s cheaper/easier/lazier to order out.

I asked Amber if I could fulfill a dream: to work a merch table. I dragged my friend Jill along with me Wednesday night to do it. Jill and I quickly determined that we are not Merch Table naturals, and Sony’s accounting team may be scratching their heads for weeks to come at the number of “reverse transaction, accidental charge” line items beamed wirelessly to them from this little corner of their empire on Wednesday night. Vinyl isn’t CD, and they aren’t priced the same, I understand that NOW. It felt confusing at the time.

The band’s show in Sacramento the next night got cancelled, and I’m told the news was greeted with, “Yay, we get an extra night at Nancy’s house!” which even if that is fictional flattery, I’ll take it. So we had a luxurious 48 hours to fatten up this hardworking group of people, nag them to drink water, press them to do their laundry, take them on a big fresh air cure hike in the Oakland hills. They even got a bonus dose of dog therapy when we crossed paths with a walker of tiny dogs. I have never seen a group of young adults drop so quickly and happily to the dirt for the express purpose of being swarmed by dogs. It was astonishing. They’re midway through a three-month tour, though, so maybe not so astonishing.

DOGS!!

Thursday night, after they ravaged my Make-Your-Own-Taco spread, we sat in the kitchen while they told us about other bands they’ve played with and liked, and they played us videos and said things like “that Chance song is so close to this Vulfpeck song, it’s crazy.” I promise you it was more interesting than the dinner table conversation we’d had the night before they arrived, which was about aluminum vs. vinyl-clad replacement windows for the downstairs bedroom.

Now listen to:

Friday morning after some popovers and fresh fruit and way more coffee (they told me they remember their tour stops by the food and by god I was determined to imprint my popover prowess on them,) they climbed into Black Betty and were on their way to points north. I’m left with their latest album, Odyssey, and a new appreciation for Vulfpeck, and an idea for how I want to spend the empty nest years. Band and Breakfast has a nice ring to it, right?

Beats hitting an iPad with a hammer, anyway.

                   
CommentsKeep up the great writing and kind things you do Nancy! by Nica GringoThat is an EXCELLENT idea. Call me if you need a Seattle branch. by JillRelated StoriesEp 14 Environmental Entrepreneur Jeff KirschnerEp 13 DJ MisbehaviourEp 12 Major Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar 

Unextraordinary Weekend

“I had a really nice weekend.”

When I opened my eyes in bed this morning to the sound of the coffee maker beeping that it had completed its task – the sweetest Monday morning wakeup alarm in the world – I lay in bed and that sentence came into my head.

It wasn’t an extraordinary weekend. We stayed home one night, I did the laundry and cleaned the house, got some groceries, pulled the garbage cans to the curb.

But there were a few extraordinary moments: attending a join church service yesterday in an Oakland park with a predominantly black Episcopal congregation in Oakland that, together with my predominantly white church, has spent the year getting together to talk about racism and how we can address it in our city. A trip to Oaktoberfest with a ridiculous group of friends, where we got to see our youngest daughter hard at work promoting a local ballet school, handing out wands from her big white basket to tiny future dancers. My husband’s alma mater won its football game (go Badgers.) I went to hip hop class. I picked up some food at a Middle Eastern grocery store and chatted with the owner about the merits of pistachio vs. walnut baklava. Our college daughter called to fill us in on her plans to go to New York City with some friends next weekend.

I think, because I’m getting older, it’s getting easier to stop and remember not to take any of those little moments for granted. Faithful friends and healthy children and pistachio baklava and a spouse who you’re still in love with start to seem like the real miracles.

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my eyes in the past four months. Nothing permanent, and way too boring to go into, and my ophthalmologist and I are LIKETHIS right now in addressing it. But the upshot is that I can’t read comfortably for long periods of time right now, nor can I sit at the computer for long stretches and see what I’m typing. My close reading is, in a word, f*cked. Temporarily.

So add to the list of things not to take for granted: The ability to read and write. Those two skills that I’ve been throwing around with insouciance since I was four years old, I can only look at longingly, wondering when I’ll get back in the game with a 500 page book and a long essay prompt.

There was a time when I would gone full Drama Queen on my inability to read and write like I normally can. But by now I’ve learned I have a choice how I handle this, where I put my energy. Patience: it’s a thing.

So, this morning, eyes open, under the covers: thank you, God/Universe/Mother Nature for a quiet, unextraordinary weekend. That’s everything.

Then I rolled out of bed, poured that first vat of coffee, flipped on my phone, and saw the Las Vegas news.

Another senseless shooting at another concert. I already wrote that blog post. I don’t want to hit “Copy All, Paste” on that story over and over again.

I have three concerts coming up in the next two weeks. I am going to be at all of them. I will.not.let.them.take.my.joy.

But I am going to fight the NRA tooth and nail and foot and elbow in their efforts to make access to guns ever easier. I hope you will too.

Because unless and until we do, gun-violence-free weekends will become increasingly extraordinary.

Here’s the first October show I’m going to – my buddies The Accidentals are only gaining momentum, so come check them out at Cafe Du Nord on October 4. #LiveMusicHeals

                   
CommentsI'm going to a show on Wednesday too, and there are four more ... by EllenRelated StoriesSelective VisionFamily Camp BoundMore Things I’m Not Allowed to Do Because #Aging 

Ep 14 Environmental Entrepreneur Jeff Kirschner

“Meet people where they are:” Environmental entrepreneur Jeff Kirschner on how his Litterati project grew from an Instagram photo of a cigarette butt to a global community clean-up, and how data (and vanilla creme cookies) can drive sustainability.

Litterati web site

Dan Zanes (formerly of the Del Fuegos) – kids’ music you can listen to and maintain your self respect. Because I Listened to KidzBop So You Don’t Have To.
Why Generation X Might Be Our Best, Last Hope – Vanity Fair article by Rich Cohen
Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke by Rob Sheffield

And my karaoke song for 2017, for reasons I explain in the ‘cast. Everybody join in! (And let me know what yours is…)

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

                  Related StoriesEp 13 DJ MisbehaviourEp 12 Major Mary Jennings “MJ” HegarEp 11 NPR Music Critic Ann Powers 

SPINNING: Choreography for Coming Home

Four years ago I attended a brand new writer’s conference in Sonoma, where we were paired up with other writer/strangers to live for a couple days while soaking in the literary smarts of Pulitzer-prize winning faculty members. I had no idea with whom I’d be living, and was relieved when my petite, dark-haired, smiling roommate introduced herself and her bottle of whiskey. Janine seemed cool.

The first night there was an icebreaker that required us to identify who, among the other attendees, matched the descriptions on a piece of paper we were given. “Ooh,” I said to Janine. “One of us was a professional ballerina in Iceland! My girls are both ballerinas – they’ll be thrilled!” and set off to find that person at the mixer, thereby walking away from my roommate Janine Kovac who was once a professional ballerina in Iceland. I finally figured it out and by the end of the weekend, I was holding the iPhone aloft at the closing night Talent Show to project a tinny version of the Dying Swan from Swan Lake, while Janine danced it in street clothes. If you ever want to stun a bunch of yapping, tipsy writers into respectful silence, have Janine dance Dying Swan.

Janine was even more beautiful than this

Four years later, I can barely remember not having Janine as part of my writer tribe here in the Bay Area. She’s not just a gifted writer, but an encourager and connector of other writers through her work with Litquake, Listen to Your Mother, and now, Moxie Road Productions.

So I was thrilled when she asked me to share her new book, “SPINNING: Choreography for Coming Home” with the Midlife Mixtape audience. It chronicles the journey Janine and her husband Matt – also a ballet dancer –  embarked upon when Janine gave birth to micro-preemie twins Wagner and Michael, born at 25 weeks and each weighing slightly more than a pound. It also weaves in the story of Janine’s ballet career and how skills she learned in dance, about compartmentalizing, sacrificing, and smiling through the pain, helped her through this process.

Full disclosure: Janine is my buddy. I know how this story ends. And yet I held my breath throughout the book, and had to remind myself occasionally that I knew the ending already. That’s how well written SPINNING is.

Also full disclosure: while at that writer’s workshop four years ago, Janine workshopped a very early version of this story, one that didn’t mention her dance career in any way. It was beautifully done, about the two little babies she thought of as “Red Baby” and “Blue Baby” when she carried them, evidence of her synesthesia. But I told her, as a good supportive writing friend would, that I would also love to read the story of her career as a ballerina at some point.

With SPINNING, she’s managed to convey both the story of being a mom to micro preemies and of being a ballet dancer who is only ever one injury away from retirement, in a way that feels not only natural but necessary. Both roles require determination, a willingness to look fear in the face and act in spite of it, and above all a “fake it til you make it” mindset. Janine was never given a guarantee of how her boys’ lives would turn out, or how her career would unfold. But if she had doubts about either, she wasn’t about to call anyone else’s attention to them.

The other thing I loved about this book is that it is marked throughout with Janine’s wonderful sense of humor. While it deals with serious subjects, it’s not a sad book. And you heard it here – her husband Matt is actually just as nice in real life as he is in the book. Still, he’s never going to make NEE-COO happen.

Put it on your fall reading list or, hey! Here’s a perk of knowing the author! I’m giving away a copy of SPINNING to a Midlife Mixtape reader! To enter, just leave a comment below. I’ll choose a winner using Random.org next Tuesday, Sept 26 at 6 pm PT, and Janine will sign/send a book to you.

I was trying to find a song about writing and grammar and this popped up as a recommended song for grammar teachers because SUBJUNCTIVE! And Beyoncé.

                   
CommentsI would love to read this book! In a previous life, I worked in ... by Risa NyeRelated StoriesBART to Bar Litcaravan: Litquake’s Journey of a Thousand StopsMusic to RememberSo Cheesy 

Ep 13 DJ Misbehaviour

“Something that’s born in us:” DJ Misbehaviour on the reaction she gets as a white, middle-aged woman dropping sizzling hip hop beats, the method to her vinyl-filing madness, and the beauty of human connection on the dance floor.

DJ Misbehaviour on Instagram and Facebook
Nancy’s grandma’s recipe for Yorkshire Pudding – bookmark it for the holidays!
Article: “Dancing can reverse the signs of aging in the brain“

And DJ Misbehaviour’s new music recs: Joey Bada$$ and Anderson .Paak. What do you think?

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here!

 

                  Related StoriesEp 12 Major Mary Jennings “MJ” HegarEp 11 NPR Music Critic Ann PowersEp 10 Filmmaker Jordan Brady 

Under Cover Tribute

My marriage-induced love of all things professional cycling took a major hit during the Lance Armstrong doping years, so much so that I now follow the sport with disdain, and from a studied distance. I might not follow it at all were it not for my friend Mike Fee, who is the world’s most enthusiastic Fantasy Tour De France organizer. Not only does he have the process down to a science every July, not only does he run it as a fundraiser for the Make A Wish Foundation, not only does the winner of the first day’s stage win a KNIFE: Mike writes a daily recap that fairly sings off the page. His thoughts on each day’s Spandex-wearing warriors are a work of literary beauty. (Want in for 2018? Send an email to mackfee@hotmail.com to get on the list for next year.)

So when he asked to write a guest post about the Best Cover Band Concert ever that he happened to catch a few weeks ago, I made like a French fan in the Alps and screamed “Allez, allez, allez!” Enjoy.

Under Cover Tribute – by Mike Fee

I learned the difference between a tribute band and a cover band from my daughter’s soccer coach.

By day, Brian is a dad, with a job, finding time to coach youth soccer.

By night, he becomes a Robert Smith look- and sound-alike in Sorta Like Heaven, “Southern Yolo County’s premiere Cure tribute band.”

I’ve learned that most tribute bands indeed pay tribute to their musical forebears: Brian travels widely to catch Cure shows. The lead singer of Hollywood U2 evidently counts among his life’s transcendent moments actually singing onstage with Bono.

But a cover band plays whatever might draw a crowd’s favor. Sure, a cover band might adhere to one genre; consider San Francisco’s Tainted Love: “THE BEST OF THE 80’S LIVE!” But there’s always diversity within that set.

Tribute bands play imagined concerts; cover bands play at weddings and dances.

For their differences, though, both tribute and cover bands appeal to our sense of curiosity: What will they play next?

Tribute bands are my guilty pleasure. In recent years I’ve seen Hollywood U2, Sorta Like Heaven, This Charming Man (Smiths), Evolution (Journey), Super Diamond (Neil), even New Day Rising (Hüsker Dü!) At each show, the close of every song elicited anticipation: What’s next? Will they go deep, or stick with Strangeways/Escape/Joshua Tree? Can he do right by the vocal gymnastics in Any Way You Want It?

Cover bands elicit that sense as well, but it’s a lighter touch: Which hit will get some feet on the dance floor? Do these guys practice often enough to pull off something really recent? If tribute bands are a guilty pleasure, cover bands are a remorseless indulgence: I’m chaperoning a high school dance, and these guys are playing, so I may as well enjoy.

In both cases, we experience something uncommon in today’s music world: the unknown. Not a playlist, or even a since-you-liked-that-you-might-like-this recommendation, but today’s rarest of breeds: the musical surprise.

So when my wife Karen showed me an ad for Secret Stash, a supergroup (of sorts) that would play at something called the Finding Equilibrium Festival at Squaw Valley, my curiosity was piqued – though so was my skepticism: What combined sound would members of Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, fun., and…Godsmack produce?

Would they go round-robin, taking whacks at their respective bands’ deep cuts? Write and perform tunes just for the occasion? Just jam?

Would I be able to stomach the level of pretention at an event called “Finding Equilibrium”?

Suffiice it to say I stomached it all: my God, I ate it up. For Secret Stash, I learned, was an all-star cover band, coming together to play one immensely likeable song after another.

They opened with ELO’s “Do Ya,” Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready nailing that opening guitar crash, and immediately my wife, my kids and I all grinned. Thinking we might have gotten lucky with one of my all-time favorites, I shouted “No way!” when they next broke into the Clash’s “Train In Vain,” and it struck me: I’m in the fourth row for a show by the Best Cover Band Ever. Hands up!

From there we rode the anticipation roller coaster from one tune to the next, though after a half dozen songs it no longer mattered: every song elicited an ever-wider grin.

Lita Ford’s “Kiss Me Deadly”? Nate Ruess’ voice, which always grated with fun., now was admirably up to the falsetto task.

“A Touch of Grey”? Sure – throw a bone to the equilibrium-finders in the crowd.

“Man in the Box”? Godsmack’s Sully Cerna stepped up to the vocals and pulled off a dead-on Layne Staley, and converted a nihilistic wail into a party tune.

The high point of anticipation in any show, of course, is the encore:

Will they?

If they do, what will they play?

I’d never seen a cover band do an encore, but this was not your workaday wedding band.

So we clapped in unison, and stomped in encouragement on the grassy hillside, and chanted, and soon the stage lights shone again, and we shouted our approval as the band members took their spots, all except Ruess, the lead singer; the spotlight shone on an empty center stage as a familiar drumbeat kicked in, and we looked at each other and wondered, “Wait – are they going to play…”

And then Dee Snider sprinted onstage.

Sixty-two years old, same bleach-blond (though possibly now white-grey) ponytail and silver-dollar shades, and after a brief self-intro and while grinning even wider than the rest of us, he led us all in a fevered version of “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Needless to say, we sang along.

Through three songs – the opener, followed by “I Wanna Rock” and – yep – “Highway to Hell” – Karen and I couldn’t keep from laughing.  The kids couldn’t understand: Who is this guy, and why do you find his being on stage so funny? Something about Snider’s presence, and the timing, and the perfection of belting out those absurd songs at the end of this show, standing on a ski slope, waving my two-fingered, heavy-metal salute above my head –

All that, and sometimes, it’s really nice to be surprised.

Wanna see Mike? He’s the guy in the blue shirt next to Dee Snider’s left bicep in this shot.

 

                  Related StoriesConcert Review: Andreas MoeConcert Review: BeckConcert Review: The BoDeans 

Heat Wave

I remember watching a Dennis Miller show in the mid-1990s, in which he talked about what we still then referred to as global warming, not climate change. I’m paraphrasing here, but the bit went something like this:

“What’s it going to up, 1 degree? I can live with that,” Miller deadpanned. “Two degrees? Great, I’ll wear shorts more. Three degrees? I look better when I’m tanned.” He went on to talk about how the cavemen didn’t sit around worrying about their future descendent Dennis Miller, any more than he was going to change any of his behaviors so as not to worry about his great-great-great-great-great grandkids dealing with Global Warming.

I disagreed with his cavalier tone back then, but took secret comfort in the notion that I would never have to look in the face of the people in my family tree who would really bear the brunt of climate change, in the unlikely event that the human race decided to ignore its peril. Surely some great-great-great-great grandkid of mine would figure it out.

Raise your hand if you looked in the mirror this morning and saw someone bearing the brunt of climate change.

I highly doubt anyone on the Texas coast impacted by Harvey is reading this post and – if you are – I apologize in advance for not being funny in inverse proportion to the troubles you’re trying to escape, even for just as long as it takes to read a blog post. I owe you.

But if you are one of the many generous people in Texas and beyond who’ve donated your time, talents, and treasure to help those displaced by Harvey, you know you’ve been impacted by climate change already. (Great lists of on-the-ground organizations helping the Texas coast here and here.)

If you are one of the people in the Bay Area whose vast wardrobe of fleece layers were rendered obsolete and, frankly, threatening last weekend when we experienced two days of temperatures over 100 degrees, a situation that drove people to beg @KarlTheFog via Twitter to come back and cool us off (um, that’s not how weather works, people,) or to fill up their flatbed pickup truck beds with water (saw that in the Uptown neighborhood of Oakland Saturday night, mad props for ingenuity) you’ve been impacted.

If you are one of the people in upstate New York who spent the whole gloomy summer of 2017 trying to remember “what is this ‘sun’ of which people speak?” and ordering SAD-light therapy boxes instead of basking in daylight for the non-snow months, you’ve been impacted.

If you’re in Miami (and again, stop reading this and do something more important if you are) seeing Hurricane Irma bear down via satellite images, you’re about to be impacted. Again.

Wherever you live, you know this already: there are things changing in the environment much faster than Dennis Miller or I ever anticipated they would. But scientists had been telling us all along.

(No. I am not going to have the discussion with anyone right now, or ever, that climate change isn’t real, or that it’s irresponsible to tie a specific weather event to climate change. Human behavior has been proven by science to exacerbate the weather extremes to which we are now – RIGHT NOW – subject. The degree to which that is the case doesn’t interest me. So step to the back of the line and stay there.)

Over the weekend, Pope Francis and the head of the Orthodox Christian Church issued a rare, joint appeal to protect the environment. Eco-theology: it’s what’s up in 2017, especially now that CitrusMousseMussolini has withdrawn us from the Paris Accords.

Look, I don’t have an answer for what we’re facing, or even much encouragement. All I can say is that in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence paired with a lack of governmental leadership, we people of Earth still have some power to fix it. Recycle everything you can, and don’t buy stuff to replace it. Keep the A/C off. Walk, don’t drive. Wear your jeans for a year without washing them (it’s what all the handlebar-mustache-hipsters recommend anyway.) Compost. Use a rake instead of a leaf blower, and as a side benefit people may say “Suns out, guns out!” when you wear a sleeveless shirt.

Succumbing to overwhelm is not an option. I think fondly of my hair salon that has a lovely pile of clean washcloths to use after washing your hands in the bathroom, but also a handtowel hanging under a sign that says, “Community Hand Towel. Saving water every way, every day.” Tiny, tiny step to take. Those add up. WE can add up.

And Dennis Miller, wherever you are, may your shorts be irreparably cemented to you with your own flop sweat.

Heard this one in my Lyft on Saturday night…total Cocteau Twins vibe, right? Love you, Texas.

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