Happy Blogday to You

It's my blog's fourth birthday! Or anniversary. Whichever way you choose to look at it. It's been through some ups and downs, including lack of posts for months at a time. And looking ahead to my move to Chicago and unknown access to the interweb, it may go into hibernation for a while. But for now, it's alive and kicking.

I forgot to mention about the Radiohead show (which was fantastic, by the way) that I saw them literally a few days after I moved to St. Louis, at the same venue where I just saw them last night. So seeing them again right before I leave town sort of made for some nice closure. The circle of life.

Yeah, it was a great show. Unlike last time (when I had seats), I was on the lawn. It made for a different experience. I wasn't as close to the stage, so sometimes it felt harder to connect to the show, but the lawn provided a great view of the sky. And we happened to get the one good day sandwiched in between all kinds of gross weather. So that was lucky. And being on the lawn, in the middle, pretty far in the back, also gave a great view of everyone else who was there. You look out, and it's just a sea of people in all directions. When Radiohead was on stage and it got darker, you could look out and see probably hundreds of cell phones being held up in the air, their little screens lit up. Kind of a more modern version of the cigarette lighter in the air thing. Also, they were undoubtedly taking all sorts of pictures, audio, and video.

Speaking of which - one of the best parts of the show was the video. Each of the guys in the band had a video camera that pointed at them, pretty close up, so even way in the back you could see what each of them was doing. And each shot was displayed in its own box next to the others and projected on a screen on stage, so if you were far enough back you could kind of take them all in at once. It was a great effect. Thom Yorke spent some time looking directly into the camera in a creepy way. The lights also made the show. They had these big vertical tubes on stage that must have had lights inside them, and during different songs they lit up in different ways and in different colors. During a song that talked about rain, it really looked like rain was coming down. At some points the lights even tracked the vocals, going up and down.

I think I also failed to fully grasp that I'm seeing two of my desert island top 5 (or 3) favorite bands in a span of 4 days. What are the chances? How great is this?? Can't wait to see Wilco.

In other news, here is one of the people who Wash U is giving an honorary degree to tomorrow at Commencement. I hadn't heard of her before, but apparently she is awful. Very conservative, anti-feminist, bigoted, you name it. She actively worked against the Equal Rights movement.

And the best part? She called her critics "a bunch of losers" and told them to "get a life."

Apparently when you reach a certain age, your idea of an insult reverts back to the level of a 7th-grader. I'm probably not going to be at Commencement tomorrow, which is too bad because I'd really like to see what happens.

More on the story here.

Concert week

I'm going to see Radiohead tonight. I'm seeing Wilco on Saturday night. Life is good.

Also, it's one day shy of the 4th anniversary of this blog. Woohoo!

The Bleachers

I'm going to the Cards-Cubs game tomorrow (Sunday) night, so if you've got ESPN take a look. Maybe you'll catch a glimpse of me. It should be fun. I haven't gotten a chance yet to see the rivalry up close. And it'll be my second game in about three weeks. We went to a Saturday afternoon game a few weeks back. Chilly, overcast, low-scoring. In fact, St. Louis didn't score at all. San Francisco had a solo homer and a couple of other runs, and that was it. The game was over in about 15 minutes.

The most notable part of the game was one of our fellow fans. We were sitting in the left field bleachers and sat directly in front of a woman who gave us a warning when we sat down.

"You must be new," she said. "Just to warn you: I'm loud."

No problem, I thought. I've heard a lot of ballpark knuckleheads before. I can deal.

After a pretty uneventful top of the 1st, the Cardinals came to bat. And our lady friend went to work.

Skip Schumaker steps to the plate to lead off the inning.

"COME OOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNN, SKIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!"

Mind you, she's right directly behind our heads, in the row right behind us.

Next is Chris Duncan.

"HEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRREEEEEEEE WEEE GOOOOOOOOOOO, CD!"

At first, people in her general vicinity look around at each other, laughing nervously. No one really knows what to do. But she's clearly a regular. She's greeting people as they come into the bleachers to sit down, asking about friends, family members, recent surgical procedures. She's calling the vendors by their first names, and they are returning the favor.

Eventually, she gathers support. People get into it and accept it as part of the bleachers experience. She even gains some new recruits who are sitting in the same row. They start doing her chants, her cheers, her sayings. She hands out t-shirts which explain "the rules" that you must follow and live by if you are going to sit in the left field bleachers. I wasn't lucky enough to receive a shirt, but I believe one of the rules banned cell phone use during the game. I'm certainly in favor of that one. I'm sure there was something stipulated about no Cubs jerseys. Anyway, by the end of the game, I game to realize that this woman in the row directly behind us was probably a Busch Stadium institution. And like it or not, if you sat around her you were going to hear it all.

I wish I could remember all of the sayings (or yellings) that she had. Everytime a guy whose last name was Izturis came up, she inexplicably yelled "COME ON, ITCHY!" I guess that's close to Izzy. And since the Cardinals already have an Izzy, you've got to go with Itchy on that one. Following foul balls with two strikes, our friend would also invariably scream the following:

"AAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! STAYING ALIVE! STAYING ALIVE!
AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! AAAAAAH! STAYING ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!
STAYING ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE! TWO RBIS!" (or however many RBIs were possible at the time)

The best was when a Cardinals player would make the third out, killing a rally. This would prompt the following muttering: "Son of a biscuit-eating basketball player!"

I also wish I had at least gotten her name, so I could refer to her as something besides "that loud lady behind me at the Cardinals game." Oh well. Maybe tomorrow night I'll get a chance to ask her.