This weekend has been all about the hipster urban living!
Friday afternoon, the chickie babe and I drove up to the city and picked up the keys to the new place. We unloaded the first bus load of stuff, amidst the typical fumbling of keys and exploring of a new space. Measurements were made of the floorplan so we could start plotting what would go where. I officially switched from fretting about packing up the old place to fretting about where we would find room for all of our stuff in the new place. I fret; it is what I do.
After sufficient fretting for one evening, we drove into the Mission and met up with some friends at the Phoenix for a couple of hours of drinks and laughter and too much noise.
Then we walked up to Market to the Cafe Du Nord for dinner and to see Mike Doughty perform! Lemme say a word about Mike Doughty, since no one I mentioned this show to seemed to have any clue who he was.
Mike was the lead singer and song writer for the band Soul Coughing. Okay, so it seems most people have not heard of Soul Coughing either. What can I tell you about Soul Coughing? They were a band from about 1992 to 1998, Their music was, well it is hard to quantify; I have a hard time slapping a genre tag onto their music. It tended to be a little fast, a little loud, a bastard child of techno, industrial and gregorian chant, in a fashion that would make the fans of any of those genres cringe and complain about the comparison. The iTunes Music Store says their “top song” is Super Bon Bon. If I had to guess the one song of theirs you might have heard on the radio would be Bus to Beelzebub.
Sometime in 2000, I heard Mike Doughty had started touring and performing solo, introducing a lot of new material as well as playing a bunch of Soul Coughing songs. To my surprise, I found out he was performing solo, with an acoustic guitar. I could not imagine what that would sound like. Soul Coughing’s music was so heavily produced and syncopated to the point of being mechanical, I had a very hard time wrapping my head around how that would translate to a live, solo, acoustic set. Then I heard some concert bootlegs and I was amazed. The roots of where he had been with his previous band were still plainly evident, but he had somehow taken his style and performance into a direction that just completely worked.
I am plainly not cut out to be a music critic. 🙂 Suffice it to say, I really liked Mike’s work with SC, couldn’t imagine how his style would work as a live solo act, and then heard some of it and liked it even more than I did his work with SC.
And last night I got to hear him live. And it rocked! Cafe Du Nord is a smallish place, a nice intimate space for seeing a band, where you’re able to get as close to the performers as Squeaky Fromme got to Gerald Ford.
Mike wasn’t quite solo; sharing the stage was a keyboardist, “Handsome” Dan Chen. I bought Mike’s latest album, Haughty Melodic at the show, in a hope that buying it there might mean he gets a bigger cut of the sale than buying it from Amazon.
Far too late, I finally went to bed with ears ringing and eyes bleary, so that I could face a Physics test and lecture the next day.
I picked up the album the day it was released on iTMS – it’s good stuff. A friend of mine says he descibes HM as “small rock” – which seems just right.
I’m bummed I missed the show – extra-so as you were there. But this week ground me to bone-meal, and I sat home and ogled CJ Craid on DVD instead.
“Small rock” is MD’s own term for it, and it was really a great show. Hope to see you next time! Hope you survive your week!
Heh – I guess I was less-than-clear in my comment! My girlfriend Mo said “he calls it” – meaning MD. Less commenting when i’ve had champagne cocktails, or editing for clarity… or something!
I’m very much looking forward to having you as a neighbor!
Dude! You don’t have to describe Mike Doughty to me. I was actually at the show. And I wore ear-plugs, so my ears are fine. I’ve long gotten over the misconception that mike doughty with an acoustic guitar won’t fuck up your ears. I didn’t look around much during the show or hang out long after, but in such a small space I would have expected to bump into you. Oh well. What neighborhood did you move to?
I suspect i am gonna be experiencing the “Damn, it is a small town” syndrome a lot over the first few months in the city. We were on the right side of the club, by the dining rail.
The new place is on the east side of Pot Hill, by 280 and Caltrains. Should make for an easy commute.
yeah – i’m doing the muni/caltrain commute from cole valley and I really dig it. Especially if you’re living near the station, it’s almost a no brainer to ride caltrain. sweet! I’m assuming you’re coming back to you-know-where, but I hadn’t heard you picked up a new job there or anywhere. congrats on the changes!
Living in a smaller city, and technically having never lived in the suburbs, I can tell you that you are probably right– but that’s part of the point. Find your personal Cafe Du Monde, etc., and eventually you’ll see everyone, and feel you must get out of the city for a break.
Oh man, I am so jealous. Love Soul Coughing & what little I’ve heard of Doughty’s new stuff.
Congratulations on moving into the city! What prompted it?
What prompted it? There are a few answers to that.
I have been in the same rental in the South Bay for about 10 years now. Which means I have lived in this house for longer than i have lived anywhere in my life, ever. It is time for a change.
Although I have/had the sweetest deal in the valley on rent in this place, the landlord has begun to be more lax about his upkeep of the property, which is making it feel more run-down and tattered than it should.
And, the kicker, I have never lived anywhere but in suburbs my entire life, which I find vaguely embarrassing. I feel like I should live in “the big city” at least once in my life. And SF is big enough for me to find out if this is something I will dig, or if I will want to go running back to the ‘burbs in a year. It is an experiment; it is an adventure.
How close DID Squeaky Fromme get to Gerald Ford?
Ha! Truth be told, I do not really know. But I am enough of a geek that I spent about five minutes on Google trying to find out when I was writing that line, before I gave up. 🙂
“I fret; it is what I do.”
You know, in a way I feel I know you, because I knew you a long time ago. In some ways you are the same as you were. But then there comes the realization that of course, I know the present you no more than you know me. You fret? When did you start that? You may be more like me than you used to be, in some ways.
Re: “I fret; it is what I do.”
Was there a time when I did not fret? If so, I think I would have a hard time pinpointing when that changed. As a wild guess, perhaps when you and I split? I spent a lot of time, grief, anguish and regret over that. Was it the right thing to do, was it the wrong thing to do, what could I have done differently, what should I have done differently… I do not mean to rehash old issues, but that event did give me a lot of practice at second guessing decisions.
For the more contemporary issues, I am in two spaces. On one hand, I am trying to be very relaxed and zen about it. I am starting a new job, I am moving to a very different space. I am sure there will be some things about both that I will really enjoy, and other things that will really frustrate me. Oh well. None of it is permanent, none of it cannot be undone. I could always quit if I hate the job. I could always move again if I hate this place. This is not a selection for the rest of my life; it is a choice for the next few months (years?) of my life. It is a change, it is an adventure, it is an invitation to growth and a refutation of inertia.
On the other hand, yes, I seem to have issues quieting the monkey mind, and so I fret about stuff that I can do little if anything about. Will the commute from SF to Cupertino drive me nuts? Will the vehicles be safe parked on the street in the new neighborhood? Will I get out and take advantage of the new environs as much as I hope I will, as much as I should? Will the chickie-babe and I cope gracefully with the transition from a lot of time together to much much less? Will I be able to handle being busy 7 days a week with work during the week days and class during weekends? No clue, and no way to find out except to just do it and see what happens. But that does not do much to quiet the monkey mind.
So, I am trying to focus on enjoying the here and now, accomplishing this transition with a minimum of unnecessary strife.
Am I more like you now? I do not know; what are you like now? 🙂 I am more mature, more thoughtful, more introspective. I am more well-rounded, more three-dimensional (no jokes about girth intended). I am also more prone to inertia, less stoic and more likely to gravitate to comfort.
And I am much less likely to provide terse, unambiguous answers. *grin*
What made you decide to go back ?
Just curious…what made you decide to return to the funhouse ? I am sort of taking a survey of ex and returning folks. Its almost like we should have a our very own little twelve step program 🙂
-Sherri
Re: “I fret; it is what I do.”
Possibly in our long-ago relationship I took over the fretting function for you. I remember you often planning, breezily, and dismissing questions: it’ll be great, of course we can, just be ready at seven, nothing terrible will really happen…
Are we really more alike now? Hard to say, but sometimes it seems so. We’ve both morphed a little, and I’m not talking physical change. I see someone steadier, more relaxed, and more practical than the very young man I knew.
But you see, and feel, it’s impossible for us to tell exactly how much we change. I’m always me, to halfway quote– everybody else comes and goes and changes. I know some deliberate changes in me- the switch from quietness to calm, from paranoia to an attitude of reasonable risk, and the shifts in my social spheres– but I have to think HARD to remember them. Until, of course, I tell a story and my partner says, “you’re not like that now,” or even, “I can’t imagine you doing that,” and I say, “I’ve had years of therapy since then.”
Re: “I fret; it is what I do.”
…or actually, I may make some more smart-alecky remark than the “years of therapy” one.
nothing to do with this thread, but…
i noticed you added me as a friend. just wondering how you found me… 🙂 i’m mary. please introduce yourself, and let me know if i should add you as well.
Re: nothing to do with this thread, but…
Hi Mary. I cannot recall where I first noticed your LJ account, or why I originally friended you. I have looked over your user info, and I do not even see any shared communities or LJ friends where I might have noticed a post of yours.
I tend to use LJ’s “friends” list less as a list of real friends, and more as a list of “blogs that might be interesting to read for a while.” I apologize if adding you without asking first feels inappropriate to you.
Re: nothing to do with this thread, but…
on the contrary, it doesn’t feel inappropriate. i was just wondering. see, i don’t have a lot of LJ friends and i don’t often go searching… so i guess it’s kind of a compliment. also i guess i was wondering – if indeed you added me becase you thought it might be interesting – how interested it really is since i post almost everythign friends only. (mayhaps you forgot i was even in there!)
Re: nothing to do with this thread, but…
(interested should read interesting)
Holy shit! I don’t know who you are or how you found my journal, but I was at that Mike Doughty show, too!