Not Quite What I Was Expecting or Hoped For

This phrase could apply to so many things...

Yet again I am so behind on the things I want to write about, but I'll just touch on a few other things at the moment.  I was out pretty late at a concert at Danforth Music Hall.  It was a double bill of The Afghan Whigs and The Church.  I think it is fair to say I don't really know anything about The Afghan Whigs and not much or as much as I thought about The Church.  

The doors were at 6!  I managed to get there at 7:30, which is relatively late for me.  I usually do try to see all the acts, even the opening acts, but I just had to deal with some work issues first.  There was an opening act, Ed Harcourt, who was mostly through his set by the time I took my seat.  The Afghan Whigs are a guitar-heavy outfit.  The vocalist's style is a bit shouty.  He was very disturbed by people taking video with the camera light on, and he told people several times to put the light out.  One interesting thing was that one of the band members (I think the keyboard player) left his passport behind and so got left behind at the border!  I didn't really know any of their material, but it was ok.  I may or may not explore their recent work on iTunes.

Finally, The Church got started after a fairly lengthy changeover.  I think it was 9:30 or so.  First off, they have borrowed the light show from Love and Rockets where the lights bore right into the audience.  In general, this causes a lot of people to give up trying to film the set, but it also means that I had to shield my eyes or look away from the stage for long stretches of time.  Not ideal.  (On that note, Love and Rockets is touring with Jane's Addictions in the summer and fall.  I thought they were calling it quits after the tour last year.  I'm leaning towards going, but I have to check the date and see if tickets are still left.  I don't think I would pay a scalper to go, esp. out to Budweiser Stage...)

On the positive side, the singer's voice seems to held up well.  Apparently, they have released a prog-inspired "concept album" called The Hypnogogue, which is about some brain-sucking device that helps (lame) musicians write new songs.  And then they followed this up with a second concept album set in the same universe called Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars!  They played an awful lot of The Hynogogue during the concert, though only "Realm of Minor Angels" from Eros Zeta.  They held off until nearly the last moment to play "Under the Milky Way."  I had hoped to hear "The Unguarded Moment" during the encore, but instead they played a very long version of "You Took," which I didn't know at all.  Apparently, last year they were touring the States and they played concerts with two sets, and during those concerts they played "The Unguarded Moment" and a few more songs of Starfish and even a few more songs from The Hypnogogue.  Probably a bit too much of a good thing for me, as I am clearly not a die-hard fan.  I don't regret going, but I probably wouldn't have gone had I know exactly how the night would unfold.

I walked home from the concert and had just enough juice on my phone to check the hockey score, and learned that Edmonton had fallen short from their epic come back.  I have mixed feelings.  I mean I don't like rooting for Alberta in anything, but I do hate Florida (and Texas) even more, so in that sense, I wish the Oilers had won.

Then this morning I see that the Conservatives have taken an extremely safe Toronto seat in a by-election.  I think the best case scenario would have been one where the Liberals pulled off a super slim victory, but maybe that wouldn't have actually pushed Trudeau out the door.  I mean even this shocking loss might not do it.  He's certainly fallen into the trap of thinking he is indispensable, when clearly most people (including me) think he needs to step aside.  I'm really not looking forward to the next few years, particularly if Doug Ford pulls an early election (and wins!) and then PP takes over as Prime Minister, since he is such a piece of shit.  I'm very much back in my hating almost everyone on the planet funk.

And on that note, I guess it is time to go off to work.  I'm going to risk biking in and just hope I don't get caught in the rain on the way back.

Age is a Feeling

I'm a little late to the mark with this post, but there is one more week to catch Haley McGee's Age is a Feeling at Soulpepper.  While most nights are sold out, it may be worth dropping by to see if a ticket gets returned and they can squeeze you in.  I believe there are still a few tickets left for Sat. evening and the Sun. matinee on the 23rd.

This is an interesting show, since there is a strong random component to it.  She tells about her life from 25 to 80 or so(!), so even if there are some autobiographical elements up through 30 or so, the rest is clearly an imagined forward projection of her life, or more likely drawing on other family members to fill in the details from later in life.  Quite a few details are common to all versions of the performance, particularly interactions with her family.  But there are 12 episodes that fill in around this outline, and the audience chooses which 6 to hear on any given performance.  In fact, the way the episodes are chosen, one would have to show up 3 times to hear all the stories, and of course the odds are low that you would hear that one missing story...  So not a show for people with very strong feelings of FOMO, but otherwise it is a terrific performance.  I did go twice, and I managed to hear 10 of the 12 vignettes, so I think I did pretty well.

The episodes are sort of clustered.  There are three that mostly involve Haley's quirky best friend: Oysters, Hospital and Diner.  There are two that are about a frenemy: Fist and Inbox.  There are two about a major flame: Bus and Teeth.  Then there are one-offs.  Book is about a book that her father wrote, giving slightly deeper insights into her relationship with her father.  Eggs is about a midlife crisis that Haley's character suffers.  Plane is about meeting a random stranger with an interesting take on life.  Dog is a sad story about a dog that Haley owned.  Finally, Crabapple is a meditation on Haley's last partner.  I ended up seeing all of them except Fist and Inbox.  In a way that is probably more satisfying because I didn't hear only part of the backstory about her and her frenemy (and I did hear all the episodes about her best friend).  I think the only thing I would have changed would have been to hear Crabapple twice instead of Diner twice, but that is an incredibly minor quibble.

As I said, I thought it was a great show, and I would encourage you to check in out in its last week.

Computer Connection Issues

It is so frustrating when the internet (and cable) companies keep changing things in the background, forcing you to endlessly update.  At the moment, I seem to be completely locked out of Paypal, and since I refuse to do biometric verification, I am going to close down my account with them, though I certainly want to transfer the funds out first!

My phone is not upgraded enough to get work emails and so forth.  That's actually not a bad thing, and if work absolutely insists on my being connected 24/7, then they will have to pay for the upgrade or provide me a work phone.  I'm much more annoyed that Google wallet says it won't work on my phone starting today actually, as I have some summer concert tickets on there.  It says Android needs to be upgraded, but I seriously doubt this phone has the memory to upgrade.  I guess I'll find out.

Perhaps the most baffling and annoying is that MailStore has suddenly completely stopped working with Bell to backup my email.  It just says the connection was forcibly refused!  I'm sure this is something on the Bell side of things, though I suppose there is a tiny chance that it is a new firewall setting, but this isn't such a major provider that MailStore is going to go to the effort of releasing new instructions on what to do, and I can't imagine calling up Bell is going to be illuminating at all.  I am going to attempt migrating to a new version of MailStore, though I need to back the old stuff up on a different hard drive before I do that.  Anyway, this is all super annoying and really the last thing I wanted to be dealing with right now.

I'm also a bit frustrated by SFYS, as they don't even have the courtesy of saying whether my piece(s) was accepted.  Given that they extended the deadline, presumably because they didn't have enough scripts, if my piece isn't selected tonight, then I'm just going to cut my ties with them completely.  It is completely unhelpful for my motivation to try to get in with a cold read series that won't even take my work!  It is so unfortunate, but that's just the way it goes.  There were basically three incarnations of SFYS (that I was involved with at any rate) before this one.  I had mixed success with the first one, but there were so many actors coming by and the vibe was so positive, that it made up for that.  Then I had an almost perfect acceptance record with the second and third incarnations.  Those days are over sadly...

I'm also pissed off at the TTC.  I mean what else is new.  I am grateful that they didn't strike in the end (or at least for now).  But they really messed up my Sunday, though I'm not sure it is worth writing about.  The TTC is so unreliable these days, and I just try to bike instead when possible, and in fact I'm about to bike off to work right now.  Ciao!

Edit (6/10) My piece is being read tonight.  Yea!