Funky Time
Mood:  cool
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Yesterday I saw Dennis Rollins and the Bad Bones at Jazz Cafe with a friend from the Y.

Dennis Rollins

I had such a funky time..they were amazing...had a really positive vibe. I felt as happy as when dancing in mid-summer at tam tams. Sadly, the crowd was a bit stiff so there wasn't much dancing last night. But it gave me a chance to stare at the man-god playing the trumpet...wha-woo-wee-woo!

Anyway, must make my way to work...

Some Advice
Topic: Stephen Says
Never, never bite into a raw potato to prove your point.

(There's a reason why people cook potatos before we eat them.)

Soooooo,..
Now Playing: Rough Trade Indiepop vol.1
Topic: Stephen Says
Life is getting a little more back on track as I've had time to relax and Elisabeth has had time to have fun. We saw the Borat movie last night which actually is as funny as everyone makes it out to be. For the first time ever, we weren't the only people in the audience laughing and, in a weird twist of fate, we actually managed to randomly sit down in our assigned seats.

We hit our favorite Italian restaurant afterwards only to discover that they'd changed their menu and we couldn't get our deep-fried cheese any more. On the plus side, they were out of our favorite bottle of wine (Nero d'Avolo) and the host graciously gave us a better bottle of wine for the same price.

Anyway, off to do some shopping today and get all those vital little things that we've needed to buy over the last 2 weeks but haven't.

In the news this week, many of you may have heard that America has managed to start pulling its head out of its ass and has decided that it wants to try and regain some semblance of being a democracy again (As opposed to the neo-feudalist theocracy that it's been pushing over the last 6+ years). Anyway, if any of you mistakingly thought that this was a good thing, I encourage you to read Ted Rall's latest article so that you can get depressed all over again.

And finally, in the Look-at-Stephen-Snickering-into-his-Sleeve Dept., 46% of evangelicals think Clinton was as good a Christian, or better, than Bush.

Alrighty, I'm off to make breakfast and be a productive memeber of society. Wish me luck!

Finally Friday
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

It's Friday morning. I've eaten a bowl of cereal, Stephen's still in bed. It's quarter to 8. I am feeling so unenergetic right now. It's either the box of Lindor chocolates I've been polishing off, or the fact that I'm tired and frustrated. Probably just a combination.

I feel some relief that the democrats swept up the the mid-term election. Even if they let us down, it's the prinicple at stake that counts. They are the lesser evil.

Stephen's not working today or tomorrow, so we'll finally have some time to chill out together.

That's about all I can muster.

L8R

Bleah
Topic: Stephen Says
I spent too many hours at the local hospital (St. Peter's) this evening. Amongst the people I saw come through:

- A fellow who looked like someone had taken a tire iron to his face - he was split open from forehead to chin and spouting/ drenched in the kind of blood that they never show in movies - a combination of bright red, maroon and black.

- Another guy wiped out on his motorcycle and dislocated his shoulder and bunged up his neck but got dischaged relatively easily.

- A middle-aged Asian man who had a mild epileptic fit (I mean seizure. Damn you heartless British terminology!) who got rushed to the hospital thanks to some over-anxious neighbours. 20 members of his immediate family showed up and it was all a bit of a joke.

There are too many elderly peope in hospitals which is depressing. What's also depressing is that I got fucked over by the crisis response team tonight and had to deal with things that were out of my remit. Ah well, as was said to me by my manager, "You've done what you did because you have a heart. If you stop doing what you're doing, you won't have a soul." Or something to that extent.

Being a good wife, Elisabeth bought me some booze to help unwind after what has probably been my most stressful day yet. Being attacked, threatened and bathing in poo & pee has nothing on how I feel today, though that's not to say that one or more of those things didn't happen.

It's weird how my brain now just goes into 'deal with it' mode and no matter how much I might want to avoid dealing with things because their so dreadful. When push comes to shove, my mind just shrugs and says 'well, you've got to deal with it so rock'n roll.' And I don't feel tense or stressed and I just do it.

The stress comes later.

Excited
Topic: Stephen Says
Elisabeth wanted to post this entry but she also wanted to read the paper and, since the news (Even if it's yesterday's news) takes precidence, I'm once again monopolizing the blog stuff.

So what news is there? Well;

1) At the end on the month we're going to see Michael Palin read from and talk about his new book on the Monty Python era. Yep, that means that we'll have seen two of the Python's in person now.

2) We've booked tickets to see Colin Towns and the NDR Big Band: Frank Zappa's Hot Licks (and Funny Smells) + It's Later Than You Think featuring Norma Winstone which is super-exciting too. It's a part of the London Jazz Festival and is basically jazzy big band renditions of Zappa songs.

3) Finally, E wanted to post this picture of me at the Enterprise pub in Camden last night. God knows why - I look like a twat and, truth be told, am opposed to the posting of this picture in general:

Right, I've done my good deed; I'm off to bed.

Phew!
Topic: Stephen Says
Our 'when it rains it pours' week of unbridled busy-ness is at an end and we can get back to being dull yuppies.

The concert last night was really good. The Roundhouse is an absolutely beautiful venue which is not only non-smoking but also serves pizza slices, sweet & savoury popcorn and nachos during the concert. Have a beer, eat a pizza and see some music, how perfect is that?

The mysterious opening band (name unknown) was a duo which had a lady playing the viola and a gentleman sitting on the floor playing the accordian with a touque on and a drumstick sticking out of it so that he could whack cymbals for percussion. Genius. The picture of him doesn't do it justice:

Next of was Beirut, a band that nearly (If not succeeded in) overshadowed Calexcio with the fact that every member of the 8-piece could play at least 4 instruments really, really well (Except for one guy who could barely play the maraccas and whose role seemed to be Mr. Energy) and often played all four of their instruments at some point during each song. The only reason they weren't a headline band is because they haven't been around long enough.

And Calexico was very good. I'm not too familliar with their catalogue so it's hard to comment though, they really should let the Mexican guy take over lead vocals (Or at least find and edgier singer as Elisabeth pointed out) and every one of their songs should have trumpets in it. It was a night of lots of trumpets and accordians which, while it might be hell for some, was quite pleasant for us.

In theory, A quiet week of catching up on sleep for us.
In theory.

Busy couple of days
Topic: Stephen Says
I'm lazy. So lazy that I don't know what we've been blogging about, to be honest. We had the option of staying in London over the weekend but chose to come home last night where Elisabeth slept for 13 hours straight and I, 12.

So, let's see: Neko Case was wonderful as always. It's nice to see Elisabeth get all freaked out and passionate about something. As soon as Neko came on stage, Elisabeth separated from the group and pushed her way to the front. In an odd state of affairs, Neko was almost overshadowed by her opening act, a fellow by the name of M Ward, who happenes to play a really good guitar. (Hmm, can you tell that I don't know anything about music?). Basically he's one of these lone gutarist/ singers who isn't at all angsty and sings songs about random things like "That's why I thought O'Brien was a groovy guy."

The 2nd was supposed to be a day of rest'n relaxation but it wasn't and on the evening of the 3rd, Elisabeth went out with me and my co-workers to the Indian restaurant and dance club Masti where we ate the most lovely curry (Probably the best we've had in England. Please, if you go, try their fried cheese curry.) and saw Indian drummers and danced to some pretty obnoxious Asian dance music. Well, I did - E was having a hard time coping with being awake.

The drive in was marked with a bit of excitement when the other car in our convoy was crushed just outside of Wenbley by an 18-wheeler. No injuries, just a flat tyre, some pretty nasty damage to the body-work (The car getting compacted was a cute little MG convetable) and a badly shaken up Pole who was looking at losing his job as a result of his stupidity.

After the club, we spent the night in Greenwich where we stayed up past our bedtimes and 4 of us piled into a very small bed which meant that we didn't sleep very well.

Saturday morning was a slow one but E&I finally got our acts together and went to Trafalgar Square for the big Environmental Demo which, as it turned out, was more of a publicity event for famous people to feel good about themselves and teenie-boppers (Does anyone still use that term?) to pretend to have a social conscience while cheering on their favorite bands (KT Tunstile & Razorlight, respectively) or seeing a famous actor from the hary Potter movies (Miranda Richarson who played... um, exactly who?).

Some photo's from the demo:

It was nice to see the badgers so well represented. The mutant rhino's were less so:

On the way back to Waterloo, we stumbled across this:

I had no idea that Texas had seceded and turned their new country into a fast-food chain. God bless the Country-Formerly-Known-As-The-State-Of-Texas (And America herself) for setting new standards of quality and opportunity. What I really want to know is now that they're no longer a part of America, is Bush still allowed to be 'president?'

(mini) Update
Topic: Stephen Says
As you may have guessed by Elisabeth's recent post not one hour gone, we're just plain too busy to blog (Gasp! Horror!). So until we have no life again (most likely won't happen until the weekend is over), I'll leave you with this wonderful image of me doing the ol' rock out with your cock out routine at another Halloween party:

Oh, and Neko was lovely.

Neko Case again!
Mood:  lucky
Now Playing: Nick Cave (Henry's Dream)
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Quickly, as we are both tired and wanting to have been in bed asleep 2 hours ago (it's only 9:45pm)...

Last night we saw Neko Case again. We met up up with STephen's manager and his wife.

Neko is soulful and down-to-earth as always. So beautiful.

The stereotypical pix

That's all for now...life is good...