Further insult at the Tespressco

They no longer carry
* generic (read: "cheap") tortillas
* Diet Pepsi
* almonds
* lettuce

WTF?

I think I am in love with Neko Case

Radiohead, Hammersmith Apollo, London, 19 May 2006

This makes up for The New Pornographers, even before I see Neko Case next week. Thom Yorke, in all his weirdness, is the coolest Weird Guy there ever was. I told Mark that I get him as a freebie, should I ever be lucky enough to have the chance, mainly for the sake of science.

(Everyone knows Ryan Reynolds is my real freebie.)

Setlist:

01 You And Whose Army?
02 The National Anthem
03 2+2=5
04 Open Pick
05 15 Step
06 Exit Music
07 Dollars And Cents
08 Arpeggi
09 Videotape
10 Street Spirit
11 Paranoid Android
12 Myxomatosis
13 Go Slowly
14 Spooks
15 Idioteque
16 Bangers N Mash
17 Everything in its right place

Encore 1:
18 There There
19 House Of Cards
20 Black Star
21 Lucky

Encore 2:
22 4 Minute Warning
23 Karma Police

By the way, that Carrie Fisher novel sucked

Couldn't get through the first 100 pages of The Best Awful. It was like reading a Bret Easton Ellis novel, with all the name-dropping and intimate details of celebrity status symbols, but not even as cool as BEE because at least his characters were interesting. Uck.

Betrayed ... and ignorant

I feel like I've been told that I'm giving birth to a boy, only to have a baby girl (or vice versa). Like, still cool that I had a baby no matter what, but man, I was really counting on that pink decor working out ... among other things.

It's also sort of like your dog giving birth to kittens. They're still cute and cuddly, but not what you were expecting, and you might just want to give them back. You're awed and appalled and still a little giddy, but reallly, just pissed off.

I will compare last night's concert experience to something more mainstream, for those who cannot understand what Neko Case means to me ... It would be like showing up to a U2 concert but the Edge isn't there. It's still U2; they're still gonna kick ass; it might even be better than you'd ever dreamed. But the Edge wasn't there and so you feel gypped, like it could have been -- even better.

So last night's New Pornographers' show in London did not feature Neko Case, but someone who I think is A.C. Newman's niece. Or something. Either way, she was not as sexy as Neko Case (she played the keyboard with her nose at one point), her voice was nothing compared to Neko's, and if anything, she was an uberbitch who had to stop the show three times when another band member wasn't playing up to her liking.

I almost left the show. I had been building up to Neko Case for weeks. I am in love with her, in an almost non-platonic way. (As an aside, I had to leave the only show of hers I've ever seen many months ago because I had just given birth and was TIRED by 10pm.) When you never get to really have a night out without your child and you actually fork up £30 for a babysitter, you expect Neko Case.

The only redeeming factor about all this is that I found out Neko is playing next week at Shepherds Bush and I bought a ticket as soon as I walked in the door at 12am. So there.

Is this like if you tried to see Radiohead without Phil Selway? Yes, I do think it is. And they cancelled their show in Amsterdam for that very reason when Mr Selway's mother passed away.

I hold A.C. Newman partly responsible for agreeing to play without his better half, but what's most importantly (please, someone get that Kanye reference), I hold myself responsible for not knowing that Neko Case wasn't even on the last NP album. Duh.

Bloggers' block

It's not even that nothing's going on. Truly, for the first time in many months, there are things to talk about. However, they're still just things, and I wonder if that really means anything to anyone, even to me. The world isn't falling apart (or coming together for that matter), we haven't suddenly become rich and I'm not newly thin or busty or even smart. I think that reading The Bell Jar has taken its toll on me. I managed to escape without Sylvia Plath's suicidal depression, but I seem to have taken some of the darker, humbling reasoning with me.

I wish I could eat a ton of peanut butter and not gain any weight. I think if this were possible, my angst would all go away. Of course, this would be assuming I lived in a country where Peter Pan were readily available at the grocery store. Kind of like the time on Christmas Day in Texas when I found dozens of cans of Rotel tomatoes in every convenience store I tried, but wheat bread and skim milk were nowhere to be found. Texans know what's important. Britons do not.

So maybe it's hard to write about something that's "important" when my life consists of reading celebrity gossip, multiple trips to the Tespressco and how many shades of pink I'm willing to let my daughter wear at once. That pink thing could turn out to be important in the distant future, I bet: the difference between a Britney Spears-wanna-be and a Mia Hamm-wanna-be. Hmm.

I just found out that cooking rice in tons of excess water helps reduce the amount of starch in the edible portion significantly. To me, this would have been VERY IMPORTANT information years ago when I strictly adhered to the low carb diet. Where was the Barefoot Contessa when I needed her?

Shmook clubs

Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe book clubs are bad ideas? Because Oprah has one, does that mean we all need to participate and pay attention? Why do we have to discuss with a group of people something that may be personal or relevant to very few?

Here is my beef: I just read The Life of Pi, and I have to admit I'm almost mad I even read it. It wasn't a waste of time. It wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't a story that required more than 30 pages. It wasn't an exploration of anything. It was a biology lesson. Maybe they should make it a requirement for "summer reading" for college freshmen. (I've heard about "summer reading" in places such as Jersey, though in Corsicana, we were not required to read a damn thing over our juvenile-deliquent summers.) Basically, I could have spent my time re-reading any other book I have already loved (e.g., Lonesome Dove, The Time Traveler's Wife) instead of spending 3 days reading that one. And I feel like it would have been more worth my while.

That is not to say that Life of Pi won't appeal to anyone. I know there are people who loved it, though why, I cannot tell you. Even my mother didn't love it, and I thought by the end you were supposed to believe in God, which is right up her alley. [By the way, I did not find myself necessarily believing in God by the end of this book. Not at all.] My point is that just because someone, even someone you love -- even if that someone is freaking Oprah -- recommends a book, that doesn't mean it's going to be good for you. Even the people you usually trust can lead you to hours' worth of pointless reading you will never be able to retrieve for other purposes.

My advice: put a book down if you don't like it within the first 100 pages. Corollary: don't buy books; check them out at the library.

Is it I who has the problem? Do I just need to buy the Cliffs Notes?