You're Doing It Wrong

Check out the Run Hit Wonder photos.

We had a fantastic time. The band we wanted to see most was General Public (this is Dave’s website and the intro thing is great — check it out) and that was the first band on the route and we ended up parking there until they stopped playing. Fantastic show — they sounded great, Dave looks great and was totally into it, and they played all the classics including English Beat. We heard: Tenderness, I Confess, Save it for Later, Mirror in the Bathroom, Tears of a Clown … it was SO good. But by the time that was over and we continued through the course we ended up missing Flock of Seagulls and the beginning of Devo’s set. Tone Loc, Tommy Tutone and Dramarama were on the 10K so we didn’t see them at all. Devo rocked too — I think I saw them back in the day. I can’t remember but I don’t remember them being so kick ass.

So here’s the Tommy Tutone story and I might have already told it once. Tommy Tutone played at Grad Night when I graduated from high school — that’s when Disneyland is open all night for graduates. We went to see him and for whatever reason the officials wanted us to stay in our seats. If we stood up to dance they ran over and made us sit down. This guy in our class, Carl, kept dancing and he got thrown in the Disneyland jail with all the ruffians busted with drugs and some guy who tried to stab someone. And he’s still getting mileage out of this story. At the reunion I heard him say: “I got thrown in the Disneyland jail — for dancing.”

This day has turned out to be a wash. I didn’t sleep well last night and we got up early and then we did this walk/dancing thing and my ankle is unhappy and I’m ready for bed right now. I think I’ll drink a beer and try to stay awake until 9pm.

Bob and I are doing the Run Hit Wonder tomorrow — I’d provide a link except the site is one of those flash-heavy, information-barren sites so I’ll spare you the endless download to watch a tour bus bounce and just tell you about it. Nike and VH1 are doing this 5K/10K race with classic 80’s bands Flock of Seagulls, Tone Loc, Dramarama, Tommy Tutone and General Public. The bands play at different spots along the route. At the end of the race is a show with Devo. I’d argue a majority of those bands aren’t one hit wonders and the terminally cool Mark Mothersbaugh Devo agrees. In the Oregonian he says, “I’m not thrilled by that name. Considering one of the most highly touted ad agencies Weiden+Kennedy, couldn’t come up with something better than that shows you the level of creativity these days. It’s just stupid.”

Just to make clear Bob and I don’t run and don’t care about running. But Walker did the race in LA and said it was blast to see the bands and the running part didn’t matter so we decided to sign up for it. Apparently Nike thinks the running part does matter because they sponsored a bunch of training runs and provide copious instructions dealing with their timing chip that we’re supposed to tie to our shoes. I’m not doing it. Maybe it’s the wrong attitude but I think it’s none of their business. But Nike has other goals. I’ll quote from something provided in our informational material: “You Trained. You Ran. Go Shop.” (with coupon for Nike store) You can see the logical, linear progression.

The bands share our interest in running. Mike Score of Flock of Seagulls says, “It’s one thing to play in the morning, but what are all of these people running for? The only thing I can run for at the hour of the morning is a donut. The running part of this event is certainly strange.” (Every time I hear “I Ran” I think about dancing to it at this teen club in the Valley called Phases).

Jerry Casale from Devo also had a good quote. He said, “It’s a beautiful thing to be performing in front of thousands of runners dressed exactly alike (each participant will sport a Nike Dri-FIT running shirt with a preprinted race number) dancing to “Freedom of Choice.”

We going to hear bands and have fun. I’ll take lots of pictures and tell you a story about Tommy Tutone tomorrow.

I’m not feeling inspired tonight so I’m going to keep this short.

(1) I put in some yard time. Shouldn’t ivy be illegal? I’ve been digging that stuff out for the past 3 or 4 summers. It’s brutal, dirty work and apparently hopeless.

(2) I fired up the new dishwasher last night while I was watching TV and it was so quiet I forgot it was on until Bob came in and said, “The dishwasher’s on. Cool.” Too bad we now have leak under our sink and the installers phone number doesn’t work. We called Sears and I guess this is going to be repaired under the warranty or something. It sucks being lame at fixing things.

(3) I kid you not, I know I said I would never do this to myself again but Big Brother 5 is the best thing on television.

A few more details about the Seattle weekend.

The restaurant in Seattle is called Sazerac and it’s on 4th in the Hotel Monaco and offers a “fusion of Cajun-style cooking and Northwest elements.”

I twisted my ankle on the step in front of Ken and Joyce’s because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and my foot slid off the step and I landed on the side of my foot. It isn’t swollen and I can walk on it but it feels tight and yucky.

And I had a semi-meltdown in the Central Public Library. It’s kind of embarrassing to tell since it makes me sound like a major wuss. As soon as we got inside I started to feel a wee bit of this vertigo thing — don’t know how to describe it any better than that. I figured it would wear off shortly — it’s not a regular occurrence but now and then I do feel a few clicks off when dealing with heights or bridges or tall stairways. We continued to work our way up to the readers spiral or whatever it was called — I wanted to see it. Meanwhile the tilted head kept getting worse and worse. At one point we were in an area with admin offices that was low ceiling and painted red and very enclosed and I wasn’t sure if I was going to puke or start screaming so I focused on my feet and found my way back downstairs and sat at a table and I still felt funky. I stayed there so Bob could find me and I found some paper and wrote notes to keep my mind occupied. Every once in awhile I’d take a quick peek at all the other zillions of people there who seemed to have no problem roaming around this incredible structure. I don’t know what the deal was. Hopefully next time I’ll do better.

We went to Seattle this weekend for the Celtic v. Chelsea soccer game at Seahawk Stadium. I’ll omit the part about how our party of 6 ended up getting divided into three groups due to various work schedules and activities for children but the gist of it is our team, Bob, Joyce and Pam arrived at the stadium first and scoped out our seats which were in full sun and fairly toasty. Since we were early, we opted to stay in the shade by the lemonade stand and ponder the bizarre hanging banners which looked like outtakes from a “My Little Pony” convention.

The rest of our group arrived before start time and precisely at that time, the sun had moved just enough so that our row (and everything behind us) was in the shade. A soccer miracle!

It turned out to be a great, fun game. Both teams played well especially considering there was no shade on the field and it must have been in the 90’s and it’s not like it was anything more than an exhibition game although I don’t know. Maybe they get cash incentives for winning. The paper reports:

“Chelsea did not play its best players yesterday against Glasgow Celtic in the ChampionWorld match at Qwest Field. … Yet Chelsea won, 4-2, exploiting the Celtic defense throughout the 90-minute match before 30,504 on a blistering hot afternoon.”

I wasn’t rooting for one team over the other although our section was strongly in favor of Celtic so it seemed best to cheer the loudest for them.

After the game we went back to Ken and Joyce’s and enjoyed refreshing cold beverages and cooled off somewhat. It was something like 103 in Vancouver on Friday so just about anything felt better than that. I had no complaints about Seattle. Hannah, Andy and Lily joined us later and we had pizza and ice cream bars and went for a nice walk and enjoyed the sunset and the breeze.

This morning while bathing I knocked the shower thingy off its holder and it hit the tile and reconfigured into numerous pieces. I’m sure to be invited back soon. We met Charlene and Kris for breakfast downtown at this place I can’t remember the name of and I can’t find via a quick online search so instead I will tell you that I had French toast with banana butter syrup which was fantastic and had a fancy name that I also can’t remember. This is why you should always take notes.

We’re home now and watering has never been less appealing. I resent the plants for needing the attention.

Bob wanted to see Jonathan Ames at Powell’s tonight. Initially, I waffled. But Bob said there was going to be a band (One Ring Zero which at one point I heard as Wandering Zero) and that Ames was hilarious so I decided to go. I think Bob compared Ames to David Sedaris only naughtier, and I admit here, I don’t understand the hysteria over Sedaris but I saw someone with his latest book tonight, something about Denim and, you have to admit, that cover is creepy.

But back to Ames and Wandering Zero.

I can’t remember but I recently expressed a problem with bands and accordions. Sort of like my fear of Reba McIntire (she’s scary!) I don’t like accordions or bands associated with them. So Bob started making jokes about how this band with Ames would probably have accordions and then when I met Bob in Powell’s he said he came in with the band and they looked like they were carrying a case with an accordion so you can imagine the yucks/dread when the band actually appeared with not one but TWO accordions. Okay, one was technically a claviola which is like a clarinet crossed with an accordion — can’t believe anyone woke up one morning and thought that was a good idea. When they came out Bob leaned over and said, “Maybe they’ll have a puppet show.” Part of their schtick is that well known authors write lyrics for their songs and at first I wasn’t clear if they actually did this on purpose or if the band just scanned through the books until a good passage turned up. Turns out it is the former and some of the featured authors included Rick Moody, Daniel Something, the lemony snicket guy and, of course, Ames.

When One Ring Zero first started playing, I could only think cruel, sarcastic things — come on, accordion, “claviola,” rhythm guy? Lyrics from literary writers — must be tough to stay cool and hip in New York. But when they brought out the theremin – they had me. And the claviola guy had a kind of Harry Potter thing going that was … pretty good in my book. And one of them was named Josh. There’s always one named Josh. They were so cute and fun.

And Jonathan Ames was great too. He read from his book, Wake Up, Sir (the Oregonian makes you give your zip and birthday and gender — be sure to lie!) (excerpt here (for grown ups).

All in all an excellent evening.

More High Sierra photos. You can view Walker’s photos here (lots!) (you don’t have to register at the site to view) and Matt’s photos are here.

In a related story, iPod (Bob’s) was injured during the HSMF trip and this tragedy was discovered as Bob tried to ready the music for the long drive home. He held it together pretty well which isn’t to say there was some powerful pouting. Luckily, I bought the Apple Care. If you never listen to anything else I write, listen to this: buy Apple Care for your iPod. That way when the iPod breaks, the procedure goes like this: call Apple Care with your problem, the next day DHL drops off shipping materials, follow additional instructions and call DHL, if possible they will immediately pick up iPod (in Bob’s case, about 1/2 hr. later) and transport for fixing. One week later, fixed iPod will be shipped to your front door. Moments later your husband will be happily loading the now bare drive with new music he’s been saving up all week.

And more good new: a new generation of iPods. Is it my turn now?

On Thursday I had a list of bloggable items and now I can’t find the list or remember much. I vaguely recall a rant about pens and how there are too many of them and how they gather and breed in our drawers and Bob’s pockets and how I take handfuls to the library sometimes and release them there, hoping to thin the herd. But that doesn’t sound so interesting anymore.

Last Tuesday I read in the paper that the Portland Timbers were going to be playing the San Jose Earthquakes — a MLS team on Wednesday. Willamette Week explains the significance of this here. Being that I’m a big Landon Donovan fan, (remember me getting up at 3am to watch the U.S. defeat Mexico in the World Cup a few years ago?), and since we’ve been talking about going to a Timbers game this summer — I left skidmarks running to the box office to score tickets for this game, which I did. And we had excellent seats and I got to see Donovan play a half. But both teams played great – it was super fun, especially if you were rooting for the Earthquakes.

I’m still coughing from the hippie festival. I’ve spent a lot of time in this chair this weekend working on a writing project and the cough seems worse when I’m here. The open window? Daily incense burning? Psychosomatic avoidance symptom? I need to put in my 15 minutes in the garden so computer is going off.

Already results — other person is out of the office all week.

Dang! I meant to post this yesterday but I got home late last night and forgot. I had to contact a government agency for a work research question. The regulations (from 1998) say that the agency was going to work with tribes to develop a particular policy and I need to know if this policy was ever developed. I can’t find anything on it so I’m guessing, no. Whenever you contact a government agency there are several things that can happen but generally never with you getting the assistance you need. First is getting sent to voicemail sometimes with no explanation, or else the person is on vacation or often the person is at “training.” (I’m not sure I’ve ever ranted about government training but I attended a government training on behalf of a client once and you’ve never seen such a gargantuan waste of time and money in your life.) Getting sent to voicemail has about a 50% chance of getting a returned call and in my experience about 1% chance of getting a returned call the same day. The other thing that happens is that the person you contact tells you they can’t help you, because apparently in the government everybody does just one thing and knows nothing about anything else. The person who can’t help you will send you to someone else, and you start the whole voicemail thing again. Assuming you actually do get to talk to a live body, half the time they are completely worthless — you can be as straightforward and coherent as they come and the person won’t know how to help you.

So back to this story. I contacted the government agency last night and sure enough, in my email this morning was a short note, “we only deal with [something loosely connected to your question but not connected enough] in this office and you need to contact [this person].” I have contacted the next person. More as the story develops.