Pier Six PolkaFest

When I did the Battle of the Rock Dinosaurs last month, I liked the review format so much that I have decided to use it for all my concert reviews even if I don't have two or more shows to compare. We had never been to Pier Six for a concert and my son has always wanted to see Weird Al live, so we headed down to the Inner Harbor last Friday.

Band	Weird Al Yankovich
Blurry Overexposed Cell Phone Picture
Synopsis	Weird Al brought all his song parodies and wacky routines to Pier Six. He played all the classics and the latest hits.
Opening Act	None. Instead, I took my family to McCormick and Schmicks for happy hour. While M&S is a tony semi-special occasion seafood place, the bar area has great happy hour specials. The signature item is a half-pound hamburger for $1.95. Plus, unlike the DC branches, the Baltimore location has a great water view. My son and I went through three rounds of appetizers before time ran out. The show didn't start until 8:30 so we wandered over to OtherBigBoxOfBooks next to the Hard Rock. I love that location with the big old chimneys right in the middle of the store.
Stage Presence	Al brings it. He does a costume change for nearly every number. He puts a lot of effort into the performance and all the impersonations are dead on.
Stage Show	While he is backstage changing, they run bits from his old shows on the big screen. These get nearly as many laughs as the songs themselves. His backing band also gets into the act with matching costumes and parodies of rock cliches. The accordion solos were pretty funny as well as the props and gimmicks.
Amusing Anecdote	He doesn't do a lot of stage patter, but for the encore, he says that he has just enough time for one more song and then goes into a fifteen minute version of "Albequerque."
Highlights	You haven't lived until you have seen the twelve Startrooper kickline for "The Saga Begins." "White and Nerdy" and "Amish Paradise" were also big crowd pleasers
Show Length	2:15 but that included the rather long interludes.
Audience Demeanor	Definitely a family show. As a pair of parents with a geeky teenage kid, we fit right in. There were kids as young as nine or ten, but they all had a good time.
Noticeable Omissions	"Like A Surgeon" - Maybe Madonna is a little too old school for this crowd.
Other Reviews	None I could find. The show was only about half-sold and escaped the notice of mainstream press.
Verdict	A great time with a lot of funny songs. There's a reason he is the king of song parodies.

Genealog-E

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Related Rant: I coaxed my wife into going to see Wall-E Saturday afternoon. She was a little reluctant to go see a G-rated movie. We had the choice of the 4:40 or the 6:00 showing. She insisted on the later one on the theory that being at dinner time and at the higher price bracket, there would be fewer tykes in the audience. Everytime a childless couple walked in, I nudged her and said, "See, we aren't the only ones."

Then about halfway through the movie a pre-schooler got out of his seat and started playing in the aisle. Mom was sitting at the end of the row but made no effort to sit him back down. Then he started stomping up and down the the steps. After about ten minutes, an usher came in and talked to the parent. The kid was put back in his seat but got back out pretty much right away. The person behind the mom tapped her on the back but it wasn't until a few minutes after that that the mom and the kid left. About five minutes later, the they came back in for the other two kids and left for good.

At this point I could rant for days about parents and kids and manners and public behavior, but it would just demonstrate my incipient geezerdom. I don't mind at all when kids at a family movie react to the film. If fact, it's pretty charming to hear kids laugh or gasp at the right places. But to use a theater seat as a babysitter is just unconscionable.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: At what age should kids be allowed into a theater? What age range would you recommend Wall-E to?

BooksFirst - Summer Vacation 2008

One of the secondary goals of my summer vacation was to get to as many independent and used book stores as possible. I didn't didn't do any research ahead of time to make a list and visit any on purpose, but if we were in an area with one (which was often), I stopped in and browsed. I felt obligated to find at least one book I wanted in each store. Since I didn't actually read any books while on vacation, I'm breaking my standard format for these BooksFirst posts and divide the Books Bought section down by bookstore.

Tim's Used Books - Hyannis, MA

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Located on Main Street in the busy tourist area of Hyannis, this store is large and well organized. The fiction area was along one side wall and had a great mix of contemporary and classic writers. I went with the Toni Morrison book, because I'm feeling I need to add a little heft to my reading list. We'll see if I can get through Morrison's sometimes difficult style.

Brewster Book Store - Brewster, MA

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This bookstore is one of the more famous bookstores on the Cape and was the closest to our rental. One afternoon I went antiquing with the three wives on the trip. We had lunch at Brewster Fish House and then went to Brewster Books Store. Crammed into a small house right on the Antique Row of Route 6A, this is a high-end new book store. Nearly half the store is devoted to children's and young adult books. The rest is a quality mix of recent releases, local interest books, and general stock. It packs a lot into a small space. While I didn't buy any books myself, my wife bought a couple of midlde-school-age fantasies that would appeal to Paoli or Pullman fans.

Yellow Umbrella Books - Chatham, MA

The Soft Machine by William Burroughs

Another highly advertised store located on Main Street in Chatham, it had a great selection of local interest. It's along narrow store with the new books in the front and used selections in the back. My son picked up the first book in the series that my wife had bought at Brewster Books. He ended up reading the first three of the series on the car ride home.

Tim's Used Books - Provincetown, MA

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell (autographed)

I'm pretty sure this Tim's has nothing to do with the Tim's in Hyannis. The one in Provincetown is the archetypal house that has been taken over by a bookstore. Tucked away off the main drag, this wood frame house has all four ground floor rooms filled with shelves with the check-out stand being a large desk in what would be the living room.

The selection was disorganized and spotty, but the there was a great assortment of modern first editions, a lot of them signed. I read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation two years ago and loved her quirky style. And here was a signed copy of another travel book by her. What was there to lose?

Lyrical Ballad Bookstore - Saratoga Springs, NY

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut (signed limited edition)
Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen
H is for Homicide by Sue Grafton
Science and the Modern World by Alfred North Whitehead

This bookstore was the most serendipitous find on the entire trip. We had dropped our son off at an old friend's house and we went into Saratoga Springs to check it out. On a side street was Lyrical Ballad Books (and I just learned that is the title to a William Wordsworth poetry connection). I told my wife I was just going to dash in for a few moments and then immediately got lost.

The store rambles around from room to room and is quite cluttered. Normally, I don't like the piles of books on the floor type of store, but for Lyrical Ballads it worked. Every room was full of treasures and I had to put back several books just to save me from myself.

Then at the checkout counter I casually mentioned that I collect Kurt Vonnegut first editions and I didn't see any on the collectible shelves. He ran to the back and brought out a limited edition signed collectors edition of Galapagos. It was pricey, but I had to have it.

While hanging around I then mentioned I also collect John D. MacDonald paperbacks. He named a few, but they were all titles I knew I already had. Instead, he rummaged around and found a back issue of Firsts, the magazine for book collectors that had a special JDM issue. I added that to the purchases and walked out of the store giddy.

Lyrical Ballad is one of the greatest used book stores I have ever been in and I found it strictly by chance.

Bear Pond Books - Montpelier, VT

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

While tooling around central Vermont eating dairy products (a topic for another post), I decided to stop for dinner in Montpelier, Vermont. Montpelier is the state capital but has a funky old-fashioned vibe. And there were bookstores all over the place. Bear Pond Books was a new book store and it showed a lot of personal touches. As you would imagine, the selection leaned to the granola crunching side, but it worked. The books displayed were interesting and diverse. I went with Omnivore's Dilemma (which is nothing like Portnoy's Complaint) because I have heard a lot about it and it is out in a trade paperback edition and it seemed the right book to get from this store.

Rivendell Books - Montpelier, VT

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Crystal Zevon
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Within rock-throwing distance of Bear Pond Books (if you have a good arm and some small rocks) is Rivendell Books which uses the Powell's style of mixing new and used books on the same shelves. It also had a distinct feel which was a little more relaxed and loose. Everywhere I turned there was something interesting, but by now my bag of books was getting heavy and I needed to taper off the buying binge.

I just love bookstores and visiting a whole bunch of independent new and used stores gave me a great appreciation for how good it is to be beyond the BigBoxOfBooks chains. Small bookstores can be just as fascinating by focusing the selection and making browsing an experience.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Where have you found a good bookstore unexpectedly?

Have A Coke And A Smile

Over at View From The Cloud, Jeff opened a firestorm by delving into the pop versus soda controversy. He also took time to ridicule those that called any soft drink a coke, whether is was bottled but the Coca-Cola corporation or not. This is a controversy of deep regional division as the following map (which I've used before) shows:

(click for a big version)

"Soda" is most common in the Northeast and California. "Pop" holds sway in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. "Coke" rules in the Deep South. I live in Maryland which seems totally befuddled. The most puzzling part of this whole kerfuffle is that few places call it "cola" which sure seems like it would be the most logical generic name for a carbonated cola-flavored beverage.

Most people when they see this map begin chuckling at southerners for not knowing that Coke is a brand, not a description. Jeff Foxworthy, in addition to his many fine redneck identification tips, once said that when people hear a southern drawl, they spot you ten IQ points right off the bat. He would know. That Foxworthy has a degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech seems to have slipped off his resume somewhere along the line.

I don't see the problem with calling soft drinks "coke". People blow their nose with Kleenex and take Tylenol for headaches after drinking too much Lite beer and Xeroxing their butts on the office copier. Lots of brand names become generic terms, often against the wishes of the manufacturers. Just ask Bayer.

Most of the time, if you are below what I call the Sweet Tea Line and you order a coke, you'll get Coke®, so their is a certain economy in ordering it that way. I once worked with a lady whose husband was the head of distribution for Pepsi-Cola in the state of Georgia. We used to tease her about what a hopeless cause that was. Besides, since most places let you fill your own know, so what difference does it make what you call it.

The last time we were in Georgia, we made point to visit the new Coke Museum which is full of great memorabilia and history. But best of all, they have sampling dispensers where you can taste all the flavors bottled one every continent. The Japanese apple flavor was the best and some Italian style that tasted like quinine was universally despised by visitors.

Going over my old blog posts, I realize that I fall in the "soda" camp. For this (as with most things) I blame my New England bred mother. She used to go on and on about all the great flavors of Nehi (which morphed into Royal Crown) like Radar O'Reilly. She also used to insist that subs sandwiches were grinders and that aunt was pronounced "awwwnt".

Cold cut sandwiches are another source of regional name differences. In addition to grinders, there are subs and hoagies and heroes. I have an unproven theory that the hero sandwich is an Americanization of gyro.

But you can call food and drinks whatever you want, but as long as it tastes good, I'll be there.

BlatantCommentWhoring®: What regional name for a food or drink do you use?

A Visit To Mianus

I’m always open to new experiences, so when I saw that our trip was going to take us near Mianus, I knew I wanted to see it. While I have been near it a lot of times, I have never been to Mianus. I warned my wife that we would be making a surprise stop on our trip which made her very nervous. I do have a tendency to get lost and end up in dark dangerous places.


I tried to use my Tom-Tom to find Mianus, but it didn’t have the location in its database. Luckily, a Mapquest search gave me exact directions to Mianus. We nearly went right past it but we got off the highway and backtracked our way to Mianus. We took a few turns and were soon deep into Mianus. When my wife finally realized where we were, she caught on that this was something for my blog, but she played along because Mianus was really pretty nice.

I didn’t know what to expect, but Mianus was both smaller and prettier than I expected. It was clean and bright and well manicured. We went up one side and enjoyed the view before I stopped to take some pictures of Mianus. The air was cool with slight breeze and a faint flowery smell.


What did surprise me was the lack of pride in Mianus. It’s hard to tell you’re even in Mianus. There was no Mianus Cleaners or Mianus Lube. Not even any Mianus Liquors. We found only one sign indicating we were in Mianus at all. I had to wait for a truck to pull out before I could take a picture. I bet those schoolkids make a lot of cracks about Mianus.

After soaking in the atmosphere of Mianus, we decided to press on and hit the road. While Mianus was very pleasant and a nice place to visit, I’m not sure I would want to live there. I like my current job and would have to find another one near Mianus. But who knows? Some day I may be back in the area and want to take a closer look at Mianus.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: Would you like to see more of Mianus?

BooksFirst - June 2008

Books Bought
Fodor's Cape Cod, Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard 2008

Books Read
A Purple Place For Dying by John D. MacDonald

Comments

Months ago I began a resolution to re-read in order the Travis McGee novels of John D. MacDonald. I read The Deep Blue Good Bye way back in 2006 and then never followed through. I had hit a roadblock when I realized that I did not have a reading copy of the third book in the series, A Purple Place For Dying.

I have copies of all the first printings (as shown on left) and I have multiple copies of later printings for many JDM books. This is because the first printings are often indistinguishable from later printings except by looking for subtle clues in book numbers and price. I'll often pick up an older book that is a good price and then check to see if it is collectible later.

A good rule of thumb is that any JDM book with a real ISBN number is a reprint. I finally broke down and bought a vintage reprint from an internet dealer for a few bucks, still cheaper than a new copy would have cost.

Purple takes Travis McGee, the freelance "salvage consultant", to the Southwest to help some bitchy ditz get back her inheritance. A sniper's bullet kills her and he is left with a quandry: Should he stick around and get to the bottom of this murder even if there is no longer any money to be made? Of course he does. And since, like James Bond, Trav beds at LEAST one girl per book, the death of the heiress and main female character leaves a plot quandary. When half-way through the book he meets the frigid sister of his dead client's lover, you can practically hear the porn soundtrack bass guitarist tuning up. Travis finds the murderer and takes said sister to her conveniently desolate Caribbean beach house for some sexual healing.

This is one of the lesser McGee novels, mostly because it takes Travis too far from the water while MacDonald is still getting his sea-legs with the character. It does have some glimmers of foreshadowed greatness to come. The story involves a crooked land deal, which would become a plot staple in books to come, and it introduces (off-screen) McGee's future sidekick noted economist Meyer.

I'm Baaaack!

In case you had been furiously clicking on the refresh button for the past ten day, we (in the royal sense) at Foma* Central have been on a perhaps not well-deserved but definitely much-needed vacation. Since I managed to blog every day while in England earlier this year, keeping up from Cape Cod would seem to be a snap. The rental house had Comcast broadband with wi-fi. We even brought along my son’s sparkling new Apple MacBook Pro that he somehow convinced my wife he absolutely needed for college.

Computers are now necessary traveling accessories. Every family we were with brought at least one, and up to three with them. Some evenings the living room was filled with four college-aged kids all staring into the screen of their respective Facebook walls.

So it wasn’t means or motive that stopped me, it was the three-on-a-match laptop sharing that kept me away. Between my son zoning out on Flash-games or my wife compulsively checking her e-mail, I just didn’t feel like conspicuously hogging the sole family computer for the lengths of time it takes me to put out a quality blogpost with my usually witty repartee.

Besides, on vacation there is so much more to do. We had taken bicycles, so I managed to fit in over 80 miles of riding over the week. We did a couple of day trips that required early starts and it’s tough to get eleven people all headed in the right direction that early in the morning (and for the college kids, ‘early in the morning’ encompassed any time frame before noon).

By waiting until the end of vacation to blog about it, I get to bore you with tedious horizontal slices of the trip rather than diary style day-to-day minutia. You will (and that’s a threat, not a promise) see posts about lighthouses, bookstores, bicycle trails, and clamshacks. Complete with photos. Maybe not all at once, but definitely eventually.

As a teaser, here is a partial list of the places where we either toured, ate, shopped, or some combination of the above:

Massachusetts
New Bedford
Mattapoisett
Brewster
Orleans
Chatham
Hyannis
Wellfleet
Provincetown
Edgartown
Aquinnah
Oak Bluffs

New York
Queensbury
Saratoga Springs
Albany

Vermont
Waterbury
Cabot
Montpelier

BlatantCommentWhoring™: So what would (or should) I have done in any of those places?

WaPo Gets Fünke

Ending weeks of speculation, the Washington Post named Tobias Fünke as its new managing editor. The surprise announcement stunned veteran press watchers because Tobias has no previous publishing experience other than his vanity press edition of The Man Inside Me, a recent featured selection of the Provincetown Library Book Club. His first action as editor was to extend health benefit coverage to include treatment of severe gymnophobia.



Fünke replaces veteran editor Gordon Downie who is retiring to spend more time touring with his band, The Tragically Hip Replacements.



The announcement was made by Katherine Weymouth, niece of aging bass guitarist Aunt Tina of The Talking Heads. K-Wey, as she is referred to by former WaPo National Enterprise Reporter Joel Achenbach (aka A-Bach), took time from her busy schedule filming romantic comedies to welcome Tobias to the family saying that despite recent downturns in circulation, there is always money in the banana stand.

Photo credit (all left side images): Joel Achenbach