KT Tunstall visits Indianapolis

Friday, November 19, 2010

Studio 92 and The Vogue

As my brief bio indicates, I’m now 40 years old and with that title, I can’t seem to stay up late anymore.  Now, others will read this and say it’s not my age (those who are my age and older that don’t like admitting they are getting old) but a personal preference.  All I know is 10 years ago I could stay out long enough to close bars and then eat greasy breakfast food afterwards.  Today, I’d rather sit in the BMV all afternoon than close a bar.

So, the fact we left KT Tunstall’s concert on November 19 at The Vogue  after about 6 songs had NOTHING to do with Ms. Tunstall’s performance.  To the contrary, I was deeply saddened that I could no longer stand at a bar and listen to her perform…it was around 11 p.m.

Luckily, I was fortunate enough to see Ms. Tunstall at a small VIP performance at the WTTS 92.3 studios in downtown Indianapolis.  As you can imagine, I LOVE these “private concerts” as we get to see the artist up close and personal, typically by themselves and performing three to five stellar songs.  Best of all, it’s all during your lunch hour when you’re bright eyed and bushy tailed.

After waiting only a short while in a line, the guests were seated in a small studio with a stage big enough for only a few acoustic style performers.  Ms. Tunstall walked in and almost immediately played her first song, “Madame Trudeaux” prepping us with an explanation of the inspiration.  After her energy-filled tune, there was a brief q & a with a radio station dj.  I think you can tell a lot about a “famous” person by how they act when in these settings.  I’ve seen Ms. Tunstall three times now in “private” concerts and each time she is gracious, generous and professional.  I can imagine how hard it is to be on the road, but I also know it’s what these rockers sign up for.  Tunstall sings her heart out, answers questions with humor and is even patient to smile for photos.  That lunchtime, the small group also enjoyed listening to “(Still A) Weirdo” and “Fade Like a Shadow.”  All of these sections can be found on her latest release Tiger Suit.

I became a fan of Tunstall’s with her Eye to the Telescope release and was happy that I did hear “Black Horse & The Cherry Tree” later that evening as well as “Other Side of the World.“  I did miss “Suddenly I See,” but whose fault is that?  For those of you who know and own her music, you already know how special Tunstall’s talent is.  For those of you who are not familiar but enjoy female singers who play guitars, are extremely rhythmic and make your blood move a little faster, then you must buy one of her tunes or CDs.  I am one of those people that don’t listen to lyrics, so I can’t tell you the meaning of most of her songs….but I’m sure she’s profound.

So at her concert, Tunstall had an opening act – Hurricane Bells.  They played for about 45 minutes and I guess they were good.  In all honesty, I was trying to stay awake and look for a reason not to go home and sleep.  Finally, around 10:15 p.m., Tunstall took the stage with her band.  They were great.  To be frank, however, I most enjoy her when she’s by herself with her little recording device she controls with her feet.

When I hit the wall, we walked out of the Vogue and headed towards our car.  Next to the Vogue is another bar and they had a cover band that night….they were singing “Black Horse & The Cheery Tree” and I mouthed and pointed to the lead singer that we just heard the song…the singer laughed.

The Scottish born Tunstall is the real deal.  She’s the type of singer that even if they’ve not had a radio “hit” for years, her fans will always want to see her perform in person.  If you have the chance, see her live and make sure to have plenty of coffee as she starts late!

Holiday Celebrations

Baby Eating, Womanizer and Macy’s Elves

I think those Folger’s commercials are misleading.  You know the one, where the son comes home from somewhere and his parents and sister are SO excited to see him.  They start off their reunion with Folger’s coffee.  They’ve even updated this one with new, more modern looking kids and the son is coming home from Africa.  First off, you can tell that family has money.  If the son can afford to go off and do “good work” in Africa, he comes from money.  Have you seen the house?  Lovely.  There’s no way they drink Folger’s.  At the minimum they should be grinding their own Starbucks or scooping the Italian grounds from an Illy can.  So, aside from their choice of beans being unrealistic, I just can’t buy how excited his teenage sister is to see him.  Do people really act like that?

The holidays are hard for some folks.  I think because we’ve created these unrealistic images of joy and disappointment ensues.  I certainly don’t want to waste too much time on the obvious consumerism the season advocates.  More than anything, I just try to focus on the economy building all the shopping may help and that some folks find work when they need it most. 

What I’m finding is a shift in thought about the holidays.  I think the trend is to appreciate the time off work and the opportunity to have parties, drink, laugh and splurge on activities.  At least that’s what the holidays are turning out to be for me.

My season starts at an annual holiday party at a local advertising agency.  You can set your clock to this event as the activities are pretty boilerplate.  But, we all look forward to going and wouldn’t miss it because of the tradition.  It’s not a sweet party, although proceeds are given to charity.  The party starts with some social lubrication (booze), then moves to some musical numbers.  It’s amazing how many guys know how to play the guitar.  Jack, the artistic director for the evening, writes some new songs each year based on the year’s news and events – all set to popular Christmas songs.  The highlight is a song called Don’t Eat the Baby.  This is about a pig in the nativity scene that wants to eat the baby Jesus.  The room chimes in during the chorus with “don’t eat the baby.”  That’s why there is no pig in the nativity.  From there, we move onto a white elephant gift exchange where rules are thrown to the curb because of extortion and alcohol consumption.  Good times.

Depending on the year, I either have other parties to attend or I perform at some private function.  This year I was invited to a St. Andrew’s Day party (Scottish theme) and was later asked if I could sing.  So, my performing partner and I then turned into gig mode.  We show up early, set up and then chat other guests up until we have to sing.  For the most part, our act is pretty harmless.  I say this as we never expect kids to be around, but once they show up, anxiety is part of the prep as I then worry about being inappropriate.  I think we did okay at this event, but in our attempt to be cool for the tweens (yeah, I don’t think they were actually teens yet), we broke out Womanizer, Sexy Back and Humps.  I guess since I don’t listen to words, I don’t expect them to know how terrible these songs are.  I did find joy in some of the parental smirks.  They were uncomfortable a little, but this 40 something crowd still thinks it’s the 80’s and were throwing some caution to the wind….as much as they can with other parents from the private Catholic school.

Last week I went to see Santaland Diaries, based on a short story by David Sedaris from Holiday’s on Ice.  I am a huge fan of Sedaris and fell in love with him after reading Me Talk Pretty Some Day.  I distinctly remember reading that book in bed and shaking from laughter.  Sedaris is a master storyteller and his memoirs continue to bring me joy, so I was happy to see this play.  I’d read the short story about Sedaris before his writing career took off and he’d gotten a job at Macy’s in New York as an elf for Santa.  To tell you more would do his story a disservice as he is the funny writer, not I.  The play was rather enjoyable and only lasted an hour.  It’s only one actor and the play is pretty much exact to the short story.  Sedaris’ humor is slightly twisted, so seeing a slightly twisted holiday play was a perfect way to spend a Saturday before Christmas…much better than shopping.

There’s still time before the holidays and I’m pretty happy.  I don’t have too many more plans, but I do know I’m not going to make coffee for my brother, unless he asks.  

Idiot Servant

Church, A Prairie Home Companion and other weekend activities

I recently started going to church again.  I used to go as a young person with a neighbor lady.  She is German, so she took me to this little Lutheran Church.  Once I went regularly, my mom started attending the same church.  She is English, so the Lutheran Church seemed close enough to the Church of England.  That little church closed, but a new fancy church opened and that’s where my mom goes today.  When I was a teen, I went to a Christian Church and we did youth activities like going to see Michael W. Smith.  I stopped going to church towards the end of high school.

Fast forward 20ish years and I started back.  I tried the Presbyterian Church for a while, but it didn’t stick.  Too big.  See, I longed for the little Lutheran Church vibe from my childhood.  Oh, the Lutheran Church I grew up in was Missouri Synod.  It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the Missouri Synod is rather conservative, so conservative that they don’t allow female ministers.  I am not conservative.

All this leads me to the point of writing about my “religious” journey today.  I don’t think it’s actually a journey.  See, I don’t pay attention, do I?  Why didn’t I know more about the conservative sect of Lutheranism of my childhood?  I went to Bible school and was even confirmed and I never knew that all of my efforts would not allow me to lead a congregation one day.  Sorry, I get carried away.  I’m not really interested in the clergy.  But it’s like saying no female astronauts.  That would be an outrage, even though I have zero desire to explore space.

I really don’t listen at church and I don’t think I ever have.  Seriously, I probably should be ashamed for not knowing more.  Then why do I go?  It makes me feel good.  I feel safe there.  The only thing I worry about is someone remarking at the fact I wear jeans (an act of defiance and they are comfortable) or some nasty judgment in the sermon (if I’m paying attention at the time).  The reason I’m comfortable and continue to go is that the Pastor and the whole vibe reminds me of Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion.  The pastor actually looks like Garrison and the small congregation seems sweet and loyal to the church and the neighborhood.  I went to the church’s summer picnic in the park near my home.  When I approached the shelter where the congregation had gathered, I saw that there were several musicians in place and the pastor was in the front with a violin.  It was the local dulcimer society and the pastor was playing with them.  I took photos.  I fully expected a Guy Noir sketch after communion. 

There are several things I do throughout my weekend that have a similar effect, but not exactly.  Listening to NPR programs while cleaning rank right up there with working out at the gym listening to pop songs.  There’s getting an oil change and a car wash before grabbing a sandwich at Jimmy John’s and a Starbucks coffee.  I like accomplishing things on the weekend that affect me personally.  So many of us work outside of the home and pour a lot of energy into other people’s businesses and lives.  If you have kids, there’s even less time for self-preservation.  If you have a partner or spouse or other family members, you’re trying to carve out time for them as well. 

This entry is not about asking folks to go to church.  If I were to suggest anything, it would be for individuals to find an activity wherein one would feel refreshed, recharged or relaxed.  A selfish pleasure, if you will…something that makes you feel good, even if you don’t really pay attention.

Waiting For Superman & The Social Network

Waiting for Superman

This documentary from writer/director David Guggenheim (Inconvenient Truth) follows a handful of school-aged kids as they apply to charter schools within their respective cities to better their chances of educational advancement.  These individual stories reflect the overall mission of the film to better explain the massive deficiencies in the U.S.’s public school system.  Bottom line – the current and future educations of our nation’s youth are in a downward spiral unless there is an overhaul of the existing public school systems.  This particular story seems to favor the new charter schools with providing those rays of light.  Novel ideas such as longer school days/years and committed teachers really seem to do the trick.  Teacher unions do seem to get body slammed as a major part of the blame.  Bad teachers equate to bad student results.  Seems pretty logical to me. 

So, as we’re getting all whipped up about our embarrassing national academic results, we are following actual kids and their quest to better their lives.  Near the end of the movie, we get to see the famous lotteries where kids have numbers and if their numbers are called, they get in or are put on a wait list.  See, these charter schools are only so big and the demand for admission is far greater than the size of their walls.  Needless to say, I was wiping away some tears by the end of the movie. 

This is like watching 60 Minutes.  A story that is so important and so unappealing if you are not in the mood for the truth.  I think you should watch this documentary, even if you don’t have kids.  We all need to know where we fall short as a nation.  This documentary comes with a campaign -- a call to action of sorts, see link below for more details.

http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/

www.studentsfirst.org

The Social Network

A movie about the founder/creator of Facebook.  Or, The Facebook as it was originally called.  I like to put “the” in front of nouns…it’s funny.

I had a list of reasons why I wanted to see this movie.  Here they are in order of importance: 

 

1.    I like the writing of Aaron Sorkin, even though it’s a little pretentious and show-offy.  I LOVED West Wing, still do and so, his writing works.  Works really well.

2.    I like Justin Timberlake.  There’s something about him and I’m pretty sure there are lots of fans out there that wouldn’t admit it, but I just did.  He’s super talented.

3.    I saw Armie Hammer (plays both Winklevoss twins) do an interview on Kathie Lee & Hoda (the best part of TODAY) and he seemed really nice.

Those are my reasons.  I don’t Facebook.  I don’t trust it and I’m freaked out by its popularity.  But I wanted to see the movie and I enjoyed it from the beginning through the end.  I don’t think their portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg is so terrible at all.  I think Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of him is probably spot on.  The film paints the picture of a computer genius at school in Harvard.   He’s intense, frustrated, driven and brilliant.  So what if he’s a little socially awkward – that’s what makes the story so amazing.  The guy who creates the biggest SOCIAL communication network in the world is a little weird.  Great stuff.

So, aside from liking the story, I was satisfied with the writing, Mr. Timberlake and Mr. Hammer.  If it’s not in a theatre near you, then rent, download and/or buy it.