bands and other things i'll miss

number one on my list of things i'll be jonesing for while in el salvador is seeing one of my favorite bands - crossties - play every month at a bar in cleveland. they play some WICKED bluegrass and i absolutely love them. a week ago i went to see them play one last time before i leave. they are so friggin' awesome. the only bad thing was that my friend roland wasn 't there b/c he's sick so he couldn't jam with them. but it was a good show anyhow, and roland would have been proud. a band called two dollar bash played before them and almost moved my friend to tears w/ some irish song. they were fun and i'm sure they got sick of hearing me say "if it's not scottish, it's crap!" ha. anyhow - i had such a fun time. plus, i got some really great news too.....there was this painting hanging on the wall of the tavern of a dog - sort of howling or something - and it always intrigued me. it was mostly blue, but had a bunch of other colors and for the six years that i've been going there, i've wanted that painting. well, the other night when i was there, it was gone and so i asked martin - the owner - where it was and he told me they are going to try and make a poster of it. apparently, at the moment it's being formatted and all that. so it looks like i'll get that painting after all. i just have to have someone else get it for me while i'm gone.....um, jen m. you know that's you, right?

crossties (minus roland), two dollar bash
and martin (owner of the barking spider tavern)

i'm already missing pearl jam but that's mostly b/c i went up to canada to see two of their shows this weekend. the people in canada always kick my ass w/ their kindness and their clean cities and roads. how do they keep the roads and cities clean you ask?? recycling, my friends. and probably the no littering thing helps too. duh. anyway - about stone gossard, i mean, pearl jam.......yeah, they rocked. i can't decide if i liked the show where ed was drunk more than the one where he wasn't. i was quite drunk for the second show so that probably clouded my assessment of ed's lack of drunkeness the second night. all i know is this - between the two shows they played "hard to imagine" and "rearviewmirror" - and did a pretty friggin' awesome "indifference" and "grievance." and i always go nuts for "not for you." so for me, those were the highlights - although both shows were killer. oh, wait, i forgot about another highlight - and that was seeing stone dancing this ridiculous ass-shaking dance instead of singing. other hilarities/highlights included: mark asking me "i wonder what 'londex' means?" (you had to be there for that one); mark and i christening his car "mr. mcfeeley"; meeting some awesome people (here's a shout out to my new friend nick....mr. NYU....i mean, seriously, NYU??? and b/c he got a tattoo in kitchener b/c he wanted something to do. no, he didn't decide to - like mark and i did - just drive around, or eat a big giant breakfast at the restaurant where the waitress called me "darlin'" about a hundred times, completely snubbing mark. no, nick got a friggin' tattoo!!! and apparently it's a cool one too - so kudos to him.); learning a TON about kitchener from the mopey couple next to us at the kitchener show....apparently, kitchener has the second largest octoberfest in the world and tickets sell out in may or something. so get your tickets early next year folks; and finally, seeing stone's plaid pants. the only lowpoint was they didn't play "lowlight." i also felt somewhat cheated at both shows b/c i couldn't see jeff that well. i suppose that's what the latin american tour is for - so i can somehow manage to get some tickets and focus only on jeff during any shows i make it to.

ed, jeff, stone and matt

mike

as for everything else - i've basically given up on thinking i'm ready to go. i mean, i'm ready to go and get out of here and get there and all that. but there's so much crap here to deal with still - tax forms and student loan stuff and powers-of-attorney, etc., etc., etc. i'm surprised my brain hasn't exploded at this point. and i see that curb your enthusiasm is premiering the week that i leave. that's just fantastic....i've waited a friggin' year for that damn show to come back on and "it's not tv, it's HBO" decides that the week i leave is the perfect time for the premiere. at least i got to see "look who's talking too" eight million times, along with a boatload of other crappy movies that HBO seems to think the public wants to watch. i wouldn't watch those movies if they were wrapped in gold and hand-delivered to me by unfrozen caveman outfielder johnny damon himself.......wait a minute, yes i would. i still love johnny damon, shaggy hair and all, even if he does play for the bosox. i was just talking w/ my friend today about baseball and johnny's name came up, and it was like i suddenly remembered him. my head has been so filled w/ peace corps stuff lately that i've not been paying attention to much else - including baseball playoff watch - as much as usual. plus, the tigers aren't anywhere near playoff status right now, and the indians are, so i think i'm just trying to block it from my brain. so many of my friends are tribe fans and it sucks to hear "well, the tigers didn't go anywhere again this year did they?" ugh.

tomorrow i'm going out to dinner w/ a bunch of my friends one last time. for some reason, i am losing my voice - like i'm getting a cold. it could also be from yelling like a moron at the pearl jam shows. i think becky and steve are having a bonfire at their house afterwards. that's always fun - but it might be torture because my voice won't be functioning at full capacity and i won't be able to argue w/ steve about hockey or canadians or everything else all night. i guess i could try. and besides, from what i hear, bryan will be there and he always backs me up. sweet.

if i ever figure this blog thing out for real, i'll post more pics. i'm sure these ramblings, as fascinating as they might be in my mind, are really a bunch of mumbo jumbo to anyone actually reading them.