Shows and Other Disasters

It's been awhile since I've blogged, and I don't want anyone to get the impression that this is all we've been doing during that time or anything, but I have to admit we've been watching quite a bit of these video collections called TV Carnage. They're these compilations of random scraps of really terrible television, but put together in a pretty hilarious order. Sounds stupid, I know, and of course it is, but Ali and I got fairly addicted for awhile there. Seems like any time you turn on the TV you're going to see total crap anyway, so why not watch the crap that someone has selected as representing the absolute crappiest? Here's a couple of the "better" things we discovered. I think they're both from the same show, which I regrettably never saw when it was on.

And speaking of questionable performances, I played a recorded show with Al Tuck yesterday, opening for Ron Sexsmith. Pretty cool. It was part of a series called "Pop In Sessions," which are short shows played in a local recording studio and filmed for later release on the internet. Buck 65 did one recently that I guess was mind-blowing, though I didn't see it or even hear about it happening at the time. Here's one by Brent Randall and His Pinecones that turned out really well, in my estimation.

Anyhow, so this show went OK, I guess, although I think we've played better. But Al's recently moved to Sackville, NB, so there wasn't much opportunity for rehearsal. There was also some awkward tuning between tunes and a song that had to be started over due to technical problems in the sound booth. Every time I looked out at the audience to get a sense of how it was going over, they seemed to have expressions of concern and even fear on their faces, sort of like when you drive by a potentially horrific accident on the highway and can't help but looking even though you're pretty sure you'll wish you hadn't. It was kind of making me giggle a little. I've since been assured that everyone was just engrossed in the intensity of Al's lyrics. I'm not entirely convinced, but I guess you'll be able to judge for yourselves when the show comes online.

Oh yeah, and Ron Sexsmith, he has GIGANTIC hands! Before the show, he was playing this song on the piano and it was really nice and I recognized it as one my mom used to play when I was a little kid, so I asked him when he took a break what it was, and he told me the name even though I forget it now and said that it was something he'd always liked as a kid because it sounded like vampire music and asked if he'd ever met me before because I looked familiar but I said I didn't think so, as if there was actually a little bit of doubt about it, don't ask me why, and then I introduced myself and held out my hand and the hand that it ended up meeting halfway between us was GIGANTIC! It was also very limp, with almost no grasp at all actually, possibly because Ron, who seems like an especially sensitive and caring individual, worries that people whose hands he shakes will be afraid, if only briefly, that their own hands might be inadvertently crushed upon envelopment in his GIGANTIC meatloaf of a manual appendage.

And speaking of crushed bones, Alison and I were playing some tennis this afternoon with Meg and Johanna and Cliff, when Cliff dove for a particularly tough shot I now wish I hadn't hit to him and fell onto the concrete, breaking his collarbone. We had to call an ambulance for him and pull his partner, Angie, out of her yoga class to come to the hospital. She's promised to call us to let us know how he's doing. It was very upsetting. Cliff may now be out of commission for up to six weeks! Poor guy. He'd just been starting to go to the gym regularly, too. And this is pure selfishness speaking, but as he's the drummer in the band at present known as Lowlands, that project's going to move along even slower than usual. Bummer.

I'll keep you posted.

- Andrew