Waaaaay back on april 20th, I went to workplay to see the lovely and talented Ms. Vienna Teng. For those of you who don't know her, she is a pianist, singer and songwriter who's music sounds like it is influenced by classical styles, tori amos, and sarah mclaughlan, among others. She considers herself to be "chamber folk" music.
I heard a song on of hers called "1 bedroom 1 bath" on XM Radio and thought it sounded like something I might like. So, I looked her up on Amazon and loved all the 30 second samples, but it never went further than that. Until... I saw in Black and White that she was going to be here at Workplay, which is one of my favorite venues because it's small and somewhat intimate, and if you get a good seat, you can sit literally 15 feet away from the musician. So, I was curious about going, but not convinced since I had only ever heard about 30 seconds of her songs. I asked around and someone pointed me to internet archive, which has lots of live performances from different artists. It took about 5 minutes for me to fall madly in love and I practically begged my husband to give me $15 and say it was okay for me to go despite that he was feeling under the weather that day.
It was an incredible show. I am so glad I went and I will totally go any time that little lady plays at Workplay.
So, that huge, long, rambling info was all to talk about something that happened during the show. Vienna's real piano was off to one side and tilted on an angle. She had an electric piano in the front of the stage as well. At one point in the middle of the show she came up to the electric piano and said, "I always try to do one or two songs up here on the electric because the people on the side are stuck looking at my shoulder all night..." and someone yelled out "It's a pretty shoulder!"
This makes me wonder what it would be like to be her. She is up on stage in front of lots of people who are watching everything about her. They notice her voice, her facial expressions, her technique on the piano, her clothes, whether or not her toenails are painted and make judgments on all of these things. I can promise you that at least one person made a judgment on whether or not she has a pretty shoulder, quite possibly before it was yelled out from the audience. That's a lot of pressure. If I constantly heard that I had "pretty shoulders", "nice toenails", "great hands", etc. it would do two things after I got over the initial warm fuzzies: 1. It would make me very paranoid knowing that everyone was constantly watching and judging every little aspect of me. 2. I would feel that it would be hard for me to judge the reality of any situation.
A person can't possibly always have pretty toenails, sexy shoulders, perfect pitch, great rhythm and be wonderfully cheery. Yet, there will always be someone around to tell Vienna, and other musicians (and actors and directors and...) that she has pretty shoulders and her voice never fails.
To further aggravate this situation, she also has critics. There are some people who will never like anything about her no matter what she does. Someone will always comment that her lyrics are trite, her style is old fashioned, she's a rip-off, she's an asshole because she dares touch the electric piano instead of only using the baby grand--you get the point.
...And we wonder why musicians go crazy at the end of their careers and write awful crap that they seem to think is brilliant and then start asking for camels at 3:30 am and just seem to live on another planet altogether.
Luckily, Vienna doesn't seem like she's started joining prince world yet, and she seems down to earth enough that maybe she can avoid it. I'll cross my fingers.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
quick update
I now work at a daycare center in the afternoons here in Birmingham. So far it seems like a really nice place. I don't like going there because A. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in daycare and B. I told them I did. I hate lying to people, but in a larger city where there's lots of job competition, I kind of feel like I have to lie and say that their thing is the thing I want to do for the rest of my life in order to be able to get a paycheck. Because, seriously, would you hire someone who said "yeah, I have a degree in something else which I would rather be doing, but I'm desperate for a paycheck, so I thought I'd apply here."? Of course, I'm never quite that blunt about it, and I've actually gotten good at disguising the desperation, but still, no one wants to hire someone who they know will eventually leave when they have numerous other qualified people who say they want to stay forever.
Anyways, what else is going on... umm not much, we got another guitar controller for guitar hero and played together this weekend and it was a blast. I made home made cereal this past week and it actually turned out good. The recipe needs a little tweaking and I need to figure out how to make the production process less arduous, but I definitely think it'll be worth the effort once I get it down.
Oh, I guess easter has come and gone since the last time I posted. We had Whitey's mom and my parents down and we cooked a big Easter dinner. I made a whole roast chicken with Caribbean spices and rum, banana bread muffins with dried pineapples and rum, fruit skewers with rum and macaroni and cheese. Whitey made a tasty pot roast in the crock pot, white bread and stove top. Our parents brought vegetables and dessert and we all ate ourselves into a coma. It was a blast.
I guess that's all that's happened.
Thanks for listening to my rambling.
Anyways, what else is going on... umm not much, we got another guitar controller for guitar hero and played together this weekend and it was a blast. I made home made cereal this past week and it actually turned out good. The recipe needs a little tweaking and I need to figure out how to make the production process less arduous, but I definitely think it'll be worth the effort once I get it down.
Oh, I guess easter has come and gone since the last time I posted. We had Whitey's mom and my parents down and we cooked a big Easter dinner. I made a whole roast chicken with Caribbean spices and rum, banana bread muffins with dried pineapples and rum, fruit skewers with rum and macaroni and cheese. Whitey made a tasty pot roast in the crock pot, white bread and stove top. Our parents brought vegetables and dessert and we all ate ourselves into a coma. It was a blast.
I guess that's all that's happened.
Thanks for listening to my rambling.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
You gotta go see this!
Grindhouse is the shit!
This is the best movie I have seen in a long time and that's saying a lot because we just watched Clerks II, which was pretty fucking fabulous (although, he should have left most of the deleted scenes in in my opinion, but I digress), and most of the stuff I watch is pretty good. I will try not to give away too much, but yes, a girl with a machine gun for a leg is as sexy as you think it is, as is rose McGowan's naked ass. The action is awesome, the stunt work is amazing and I left the theater with adrenaline shakes. For those of you not understanding what I mean, adrenaline shakes, are what happen to me (And other people) when I ride tower of terror or almost get in a car wreck or something else comparably exciting-- my body and especially my legs shake and I'm restless. This doesn't generally happen unless I'm doing something, like performing in a show, or in something, like in the roller coaster when it loops upside down. Watching the roller coaster might make me nervous, but I don't get the shakes from it. This movie gave me the shakes. It was that good. As a matter of fact if any of our friends want to go see it again, both my husband and I are up for going again. Really. It won't bother us. I PROMISE!!!!!
This is the best movie I have seen in a long time and that's saying a lot because we just watched Clerks II, which was pretty fucking fabulous (although, he should have left most of the deleted scenes in in my opinion, but I digress), and most of the stuff I watch is pretty good. I will try not to give away too much, but yes, a girl with a machine gun for a leg is as sexy as you think it is, as is rose McGowan's naked ass. The action is awesome, the stunt work is amazing and I left the theater with adrenaline shakes. For those of you not understanding what I mean, adrenaline shakes, are what happen to me (And other people) when I ride tower of terror or almost get in a car wreck or something else comparably exciting-- my body and especially my legs shake and I'm restless. This doesn't generally happen unless I'm doing something, like performing in a show, or in something, like in the roller coaster when it loops upside down. Watching the roller coaster might make me nervous, but I don't get the shakes from it. This movie gave me the shakes. It was that good. As a matter of fact if any of our friends want to go see it again, both my husband and I are up for going again. Really. It won't bother us. I PROMISE!!!!!
Sunday, April 1, 2007
The Dog is a hellspawn
...?
Somehow, certain people who shall remain nameless have gotten the impression that the dog is a hellspawn. They say that our posts basically consist of "he ate everything in the house but we love him". I think this person is grossly misinterpreting my posts. Yes, my dog occasionally eats things like socks, blankets and poop.
First of all, He generally does not hurt things in the house unless there is something stressful for him going on. When the blanket died, we hadn't even had him for a week, which means that he had been in the shelter, where he would shake every time a dog barked because he was so nervous, and then moved from there to a new place with new people both of which he knew nothing about. The time he ate Chris' sock was within a month of moving houses in Idaho. The time he ate my shoe was within 2 weeks of moving from Idaho to home. The time he ate the sock most recently, Chris was on a business trip and didn't come home for a night (an occurrence that has never happened before while Ahboo was with us). The only times he's escaped the house were around moving as well. I'm not saying it's okay that he eats things, runs away, etc. or trying to minimize it, but I'm saying 1. he's a work in progress and 2. He is not a QUARTER as bad as the dog I had in high school was the first 2 years we had her. She was a sweet dog, but she ate something every time we left the house, and forget poop, she would chew rocks.
Second of all, when I post about the dog the purpose of the post is not "I love the dog despite the fact that he's a hellspawn."
Here's the thing: I wasn't too keen on having a dog, but my husband was SO keen on having one, that I eventually gave up and told him we could get one. I didn't want a dog because I liked my life the way it was. So, every time I get up in the morning I either resent the fact that I have to let the dog out before I eat and get started with the day, or I eat and get started with the day and then resent myself for not taking care of the dog in a timely manner/not putting his needs before mine. Since it would be tedious and most of you would view me as a horrendous bitch and it would get to be a drag every time I got upset about something dog related (because as I said, it happens pretty much daily), I only post about the really bad stuff. My posts are not so much "OH MY GOD AHBOO IS EVIL BECAUSE HE CHEWED UP A SHOE" as "Oh my god, I agreed to put up with this for the next 15 years?"
The posts always end with "but i love the dog" because I feel bad for bashing the dog for two pages because it's not the dog that I dislike. As dogs go, he's absolutely awesome. The honestly couldn't be a better dog for us. But I don't recall wanting to have to rearrange my schedule (or lack thereof) to make sure something else gets fed, gets to pee, plays appropriately, etc.
I realize i have not justified why the dog is aw some, and I realize that none of you will take it on faith that he is if you already view him as a hell spawn. So here we go: He knows the following commands:
Sit, down, up, stay, release, jump, speak, crawl, shake, come, drop it, bring it here, go to bed, go potty (all without obedience training)
AND he knows hand signals for all of those except drop it and bring it here. He can do a series of every trick he knows, sometimes with some repeated, then he'll stay when we tell him to, we can throw a cookie on the floor or roll a ball past him and he will stay and not touch the toy or cookie until we say "release". It usually takes him a handful of days to learn a trick whereas most dogs take closer to a month.
He knows the following words/phrases despite the fact that probably half of them we never intentionally taught him:
Ride in the car
poop (he knows the difference between potty and poop and we never intentionally taught it to him--this might seem trivial and/or gross but it is invaluable when he is poking you every 3 seconds and you can't figure out why and you say "do you need to poop" and he responds accordingly by dancing if he does or standing there if he doesn't. If you then keep asking questions, he'll dance when you get to the right thing)
French Fries (learned this after hearing it only a few times)
Peanut Butter (probably his favorite food)
Walk
out
O-U-T
B-E-D
bedtime (he automatically goes to bed when you say this now)
No (he knew this one pretty well when we got him)
How do we get attention? (to which he responds by sitting down)
Pup-peroni (learned this one very quickly. It may actually surpass peanut butter in his food preferences, but we won't give it to him anymore after reading the ingredients list)
Food
Dinner
Lets go in
Cookie
Nana (if you ask him where's Nana, he walks right to my mother-in-law)
Dad/Daddy
Mom
He knows our cars by sound (or at least mine) as evidenced by the fact that he paid no attention to the 3 or 4 or 10 other cars that passed him as Chris was walking him outside the complex, but promptly turned around and started wagging his tail right before Chris saw me come over the hill.
Seriously, I have never met a smarter dog. I have met much more mischievous ones. I have met much more strong willed ones. I have met ones that are much less willing to please. I have met dogs that are downright snobbish. I have not met a dog that amazes me almost every day, except this one. But that doesn't stop me from getting annoyed at disruptions caused by having a dog. Hence the ambiguity of my posts, which is somehow being interpreted as emotional blindness.
I'm not blind, I know exactly what Ahboo is: He's a brilliant toddler who has no way of expressing himself other than barking and chewing.
Somehow, certain people who shall remain nameless have gotten the impression that the dog is a hellspawn. They say that our posts basically consist of "he ate everything in the house but we love him". I think this person is grossly misinterpreting my posts. Yes, my dog occasionally eats things like socks, blankets and poop.
First of all, He generally does not hurt things in the house unless there is something stressful for him going on. When the blanket died, we hadn't even had him for a week, which means that he had been in the shelter, where he would shake every time a dog barked because he was so nervous, and then moved from there to a new place with new people both of which he knew nothing about. The time he ate Chris' sock was within a month of moving houses in Idaho. The time he ate my shoe was within 2 weeks of moving from Idaho to home. The time he ate the sock most recently, Chris was on a business trip and didn't come home for a night (an occurrence that has never happened before while Ahboo was with us). The only times he's escaped the house were around moving as well. I'm not saying it's okay that he eats things, runs away, etc. or trying to minimize it, but I'm saying 1. he's a work in progress and 2. He is not a QUARTER as bad as the dog I had in high school was the first 2 years we had her. She was a sweet dog, but she ate something every time we left the house, and forget poop, she would chew rocks.
Second of all, when I post about the dog the purpose of the post is not "I love the dog despite the fact that he's a hellspawn."
Here's the thing: I wasn't too keen on having a dog, but my husband was SO keen on having one, that I eventually gave up and told him we could get one. I didn't want a dog because I liked my life the way it was. So, every time I get up in the morning I either resent the fact that I have to let the dog out before I eat and get started with the day, or I eat and get started with the day and then resent myself for not taking care of the dog in a timely manner/not putting his needs before mine. Since it would be tedious and most of you would view me as a horrendous bitch and it would get to be a drag every time I got upset about something dog related (because as I said, it happens pretty much daily), I only post about the really bad stuff. My posts are not so much "OH MY GOD AHBOO IS EVIL BECAUSE HE CHEWED UP A SHOE" as "Oh my god, I agreed to put up with this for the next 15 years?"
The posts always end with "but i love the dog" because I feel bad for bashing the dog for two pages because it's not the dog that I dislike. As dogs go, he's absolutely awesome. The honestly couldn't be a better dog for us. But I don't recall wanting to have to rearrange my schedule (or lack thereof) to make sure something else gets fed, gets to pee, plays appropriately, etc.
I realize i have not justified why the dog is aw some, and I realize that none of you will take it on faith that he is if you already view him as a hell spawn. So here we go: He knows the following commands:
Sit, down, up, stay, release, jump, speak, crawl, shake, come, drop it, bring it here, go to bed, go potty (all without obedience training)
AND he knows hand signals for all of those except drop it and bring it here. He can do a series of every trick he knows, sometimes with some repeated, then he'll stay when we tell him to, we can throw a cookie on the floor or roll a ball past him and he will stay and not touch the toy or cookie until we say "release". It usually takes him a handful of days to learn a trick whereas most dogs take closer to a month.
He knows the following words/phrases despite the fact that probably half of them we never intentionally taught him:
Ride in the car
poop (he knows the difference between potty and poop and we never intentionally taught it to him--this might seem trivial and/or gross but it is invaluable when he is poking you every 3 seconds and you can't figure out why and you say "do you need to poop" and he responds accordingly by dancing if he does or standing there if he doesn't. If you then keep asking questions, he'll dance when you get to the right thing)
French Fries (learned this after hearing it only a few times)
Peanut Butter (probably his favorite food)
Walk
out
O-U-T
B-E-D
bedtime (he automatically goes to bed when you say this now)
No (he knew this one pretty well when we got him)
How do we get attention? (to which he responds by sitting down)
Pup-peroni (learned this one very quickly. It may actually surpass peanut butter in his food preferences, but we won't give it to him anymore after reading the ingredients list)
Food
Dinner
Lets go in
Cookie
Nana (if you ask him where's Nana, he walks right to my mother-in-law)
Dad/Daddy
Mom
He knows our cars by sound (or at least mine) as evidenced by the fact that he paid no attention to the 3 or 4 or 10 other cars that passed him as Chris was walking him outside the complex, but promptly turned around and started wagging his tail right before Chris saw me come over the hill.
Seriously, I have never met a smarter dog. I have met much more mischievous ones. I have met much more strong willed ones. I have met ones that are much less willing to please. I have met dogs that are downright snobbish. I have not met a dog that amazes me almost every day, except this one. But that doesn't stop me from getting annoyed at disruptions caused by having a dog. Hence the ambiguity of my posts, which is somehow being interpreted as emotional blindness.
I'm not blind, I know exactly what Ahboo is: He's a brilliant toddler who has no way of expressing himself other than barking and chewing.
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