Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

BIRTHDAY CAKE, PUNKOUNTRY, G.I. JOES, KIWIS, AND OTHER DELIGHTS

Where should I start....? See, unlike usual, I've had an eventful past few days...

Let's see...first, Jenn made me a birthday cake..a chocolate cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting. There were like 3 sticks of (real) butter in the frosting alone! It tastes like a heart attack. Mmmmmmm...sticks o' butter..

OK...So..got some presents and stuff...standard stuff...Cabela's & B&N gift certificates, then, Europe on a Shoestring, gin, whisky, and port, a subscription to Cook's Illustrated, a Doc Sarvis t-shirt. Oh, and Jenn got me waders earlier this summer for my birthday.

Then...in a surprising, delightful, and thoughtful gesture, Abbie brought over a whole slew of gifts for me...She gave me a G.I. Joe lunchbox (the second one I've had in my lifetime), and packed inside were smoked oysters, smoked clams, sardines, mackerel, kippered herring, a Snickers, a Butterfinger, a Hershey bar, and perhaps some other tinned seafood products I've forgotten, as well. (Thanks Abbie!)

I should probably point out that when I have lunch at school, it typically consists of crackers, some sort of tinned, usually smoked, seafood product, and Tabasco sauce, and some sort of fruit. So that's why I received so many aforementioned fish products.

Then, Friday night, Jenn and I drove down to Denver to catch an Old 97's concert. 1st time I'd seen them. Sarah (Lee Guthrie) and Johnny opened for them. The venue was this converted theatre painted (as one of the other concertgoers pointed out) like Emerald City. We had swell seats in the balcony, more or less right above the stage. So..the Old 97's, for those not familiar....

"Whatever happened to good Rawk & Roll?" you ask...

"Who hijacked country western music and replaced it with this lame-ass, watered-down, twangy teenybopper garbage? (e.g. Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, etc)" you might be wondering...

Well, back in about '92, Rawk & Roll seduced and made love to country music and about 9 months later, in '93, the Old 97's were born. Musical influence diversity breeds strength in the same way that genetic diversity does, apparently. Old 97's started with the goal of "somehow [tying] together the music of Elvis Costello, Hank Williams, X, The Clash, Johnny Cash, David Bowie and Camper Van Beethoven." The result, I would say, is perfection. I think it's impossible to overstate how much ass they kick.

So..the concert. I think they played for a little over 2 hours, but they played ALOT of songs, mainly because they play freaking fast live. The fans were as age-diverse as any concert I've ever been to..Everyone from middle school to nursing home (all gringos, though, for the most part). It was amazing, because you could look around, and practically everyone was singing along to every song. These are clearly some dedicated fans.

The band members do not look like they belong to the same band. First, you have the lead singer/guitarist, Rhett Miller. This dude is a gangly, long-haired Star Wars looking guy that would appear to be about 15 years old. And he dances as though he were made of jello. The bass player, Murry Hammond, looks like a cross between Steve Schnell, this guy here at UW (Brian), and..um..a sock puppet. But dressed all in black, with a pearly-snap shirt. The lead guitarist, Ken Bethea, just looks like some chubby little guy that would work in a record store...almost like Jack Black in High Fidelity, but less chubby. He even wore one of those 80's style wrist bands on his right hand. The drummer, Philip Peeples, looks like a chunky Ben Folds, but, you know, autistic. He didn't really associate with the rest of the band. He just came out, sat down, and played the drums like a freaking hurricane.

With most bands, you can usually say "Well...the guitar player is really the heart & soul of the band..." or "Their drummer kind of lags sometimes.." or something like that, but with the Old 97's, every piece is perfect, and you can't imagine it being any other way. Maybe that's why the still have all the same members as when they started like 11 years ago. Rhett Miller's voice is perfect for that style of music, and his stage presence is outstanding. Murry sings on a few of their songs, and his voice is perfect for those songs - plus he's one of those people that is entertaining just standing there. Ken is an amazing guitar player. He can shred as well as any metal guitarist out there. And, like I mentioned, Philip, the drummer, is excellent. He was doing this thing where he played 2 drums and 2 symbols at the same time, by hitting the drums with his fists while hitting the symbols with the sticks. Perhaps that's nothing novel, but I've never seen it. And it's not easy drum work, either.

So the concert kicked ass. And the next day we discovered that through marvelous serendipity we were located smack in the middle of an REI, a Barnes & Noble, and the Rock Bottom Brewery. So we checked out the first two, and then went for lunch at the latter. The food we got there (2 kinds of pizza) was excellent, and Jenn got a beer that is probably my 3rd or 4th favorite beer of all-time. It was a brown ale that was aged in old bourbon casks. It was an incredible flavor - the bourbon flavor was fairly strong, but not overpowering. The only cruddy part was that they only made a few kegs of it, so they weren't selling it in growlers or anything. I was considering moving to Denver to take advantage of the remainder of those 2 kegs. It was THAT good.

On Bacos bottles, it says "Refrigerate after opening for freshness and convenience." Why is it more convenient to store them in the fridge?

Um. That's all I got.

-m