Bits&Pieces

Neil Haiku

[Edited: added a different file! You can read the awesome poems again, though…]

Forty-four hours
Is all the time that I have
Before I see you

(Damn. That sounds WAY stalkerish, doesn't it?)

Maybe try this:

My house is crowded
I'm sitting in the front row
Neil will sweat on me.

(That sounds better. Far, far LESS stalkerish.)

p.s. Here is my basic InDesign template (i subbed in Arial as the font, though I personally am using Avenir). I saved it as an InDesign INX doc, so it shouldn't matter what version of CS you have. You should be able to open it. Go ahead and pick your own fonts and colors.

Hope it works:

Okay, here's a CS2 file. That's the best i can do. For you mac users, you HAVE to download the file to your desktop, not to open in a web browser, because it won't read on a web browser. Which means if you just click on the link, it's going to give you a bunch of code in a new browser window. Make sense? Hold down your Option key, then click. In Firefox, which is what i use, it will start downloading the file to your desktop.

PC users, what ever you have to do to get the file to download to your desktop, do that. : )

Download recipe_template.indd

Hit me like a bomb

…baby, come and get it on.

Woooooo. For those that just finished rocking, we salute you!

First, much love to Mr. Tommy Shaw for the awesome 17th row seats. Dude. You rock!

Styx had to pull out immediately after their show, so we didn't go backstage, but honestly? It was so much fun, we didn't care. It was a massive sing along night, with Renegade being my personal highlight. And actually, despite only having one original member, Foreigner rocked it out. I wished both Styx and Foreigner could have done longer sets.

Def Leppard was tight. Sure, Joe can't really hit the notes from the days of yore, but damn…the view of tight, hairless man boobs more than made up for it.

(Phil Collen, you are one fine specimen of man!)

Good times. One of the guys we went with last night, instead of throwing the ubiquitous rock and roll horns, he made us all make "ok" signs with our hands, which we then did all night. I guess you had to be there, but trust me, it was good.

Heading to Utah tonight. Will post from the open road. Or something like that.

It was a Monday, a day like any other day…

I left a small town, for the apple in decay.
It was my destiny, it's what we needed to do
They were telling me, I'm telling you.

It's triggering something, yes? Everybody in the house who went to high school between 1980 and 1984 say hayyyy, hooooo… hayyyy, hoooo. Oh, you KNOW it.

The above lyric, of course, is from 80s AOR AND pop chart kings Foreigner, who, along with Styx and Def Leppard (two other bands that provided the soundtrack to many a thing I shant have been doing in my late teens) are playing tonight at the last show of the Minnesota State Fair.

And thanks to my friend, Krista, who is not only the most connected chick I know and shares my obsessive love of all things Neil (remember, it is officially the Month of Neil, in case you forgot), but she also happens to be close, personal friends with Tommy Shaw, and what this run-on, and poorly constructed sentence is trying to communicate is that I have four tickets to tonight's show, and possibly even backstage passes, thanks to both Krista and Mr. Shaw.

I'm thinking this is pretty cool, even at 41. If I had been 17 and found myself in this position, I can only imagine that a) it would be similar to how I feel about the upcoming Crowded House show and b) i'd be applying make-up at least four hours before leaving, and trying to, ahem, whore up the wardrobe just a wee bit, you know, to stand out in the crowd.

Come to think of it, that's not really much different than my plan for today.

Actually, the difference is today, were i to have, say, Joe Elliot sign my boob with a Sharpie, I don't think he'd be inviting me BACK back stage, if you get my drift. He'd be like, "Sorry, love…could you lift that one up just a bit more and hold still. It's not really a firm surface."

Still…I plan to spend the evening singing my heart out, and making Dan look bad, because I will know EVERY single song these bands recorded prior to 1995. Yes, while Dan was busy moping around to Joy Division, and slam dancing to the Sex Pistols, I was busy figuring out what to with Too Much Time on My Hands. Thank you very much.

IN OTHER NEWS
• I have a weakness. I've talked about this before. Her name is ElisaLou and she makes purses I cannot resist. I ordered this one for the Crowded House show, but I plan to debut it at tonight's rock spectacle. Oh for cute.

This is the Jordan bag, and the strap is long enough to wear slung across your chest, if that makes sense. The fabric makes me so happy every time I look at it. It's called French Wallpaper-Duck Egg.

• A dear friend who I had not seen in an unexcusable length of time (unexusable on MY part, believe me) who we call C.T. (because, that's her name) came over last night for dinner. C.T. is the woman who introduced me and Dan, many moons ago. Anyway, as we were catching up on what each other has been doing, I of course, had to fill her in on the evolution of the Neil Obsession (she too, had been a huge Neil fan, but not to the degree, well…you know)... Anyhooooo... i ran up to my office to bring down my two Neil DVDs, this one, and this one, and she smiled and said: "This is your porn, isn't it?"

Nice.

On that note, happy Labor Day! I plan to watch my birth videos this morning and start putting makeup on at noon. A full concert report tomorrow.

 

wee bits of goth nostalgia

So yesterday, as will happen on occasions too numerous to mention, I got sucked into the YouTube vortex, searching for more bits of my partially squandered youth.

I was reading this post on Dooce.com about YouTube, and how back in the PYT (pre-YouTube, not Pretty Young Thing) era you'd have to stay up to see MTV's 120 Minutes in the hopes of getting any sort of video coolness.

And that is what leads me to today's post. Well, that…and this:

We are driving home from Nisswa, Minn., last Sunday afternoon, and pull into a St. Cloud BP right off of Highway 10, to get some snacks for the kids and use the facilities. As we are standing in line, something happened that has never, not in my 41-plus years on this earth EVER once occurred: Bela Lugosi's Dead began to play on the PA system. In the gas station convenience store. In St. Cloud, Minnesota.

I looked at Dan. He looked at me. I looked around, thinking, "Is this some sort of a hidden camera deal, and any minute, a chorus line of young black-clad, goth kids are going to come out doing freaky (but way cooler than YOU can do) dances?"

I actually said outloud: "I cannot believe what I'm hearing." And the 50-ish man standing in front of me asked me what that was. And i said: "They're playing Bela Lugosi's Dead. In a gas station," which was pretty much a conversation killer. He really had no where to go with that information.

And that's what propelled me into the YouTube vortex. Memories of Pete Murphy and Bauhaus, a band I started listening to in 1984, a full year after they broke up. A band that got me in touch with my dark side. And, a band that I actually saw in 2003, from my seat in the 2nd row, when they reunited and toured. And it was the gothic, feel-good concert of the year.

I just found out they made a film about that tour, called Gotham, which i plan to order later today.

I do firmly believe that Peter has one of the coolest voices in music, and cheekbones that could cut glass. He's a complete original (except when they're covering Ziggy Stardust, then they're just doing Bowie, but some would argue they're doing Bowie one better). And here's a song that I always adored. And it's very cool to see the clips interspersed.

Undead, indeed.

radio makes mistakes

In honor of my friend Krista, who at this very moment, is sharing a series of the most killer e-mail recaps with me from a secret Crowded House show she saw last night in New York, from the second row where she made insane amounts of meaningful eye contact with our friend, Neil, no less… I share this video clip.

It's a shame that radio will not likely pick a song like this up. I could be wrong. But it just won't play that well along side "My Humps." And I think that's probably a good thing.

Cheers.

I'm fully aware

of the fact that the way I obsess and drone on about Crowded House is the way you, or someone you know, goes on and on about, say, Supertramp, or, Robbie Williams, or possibly, the Backstreet Boys.  And what I mean, while serving up nothing but love for these artists, is that, you might love something that honestly? no one else actually cares about. Or at least on your side of the ocean.

I was checking the iTunes stores in Australia and th U.K., only to find the new Crowded House album was in the number two slots in both places. Here in the U.S., as of yesterday, number 20 on iTunes. Hey now, HEY now. That's not bad.

But do you know the feeling of wishing that everyone knew what you knew?

I remember being 11, and forcing my dad to sit on my bed while I played samplings of every track on my Paul Stanley solo LP, in the desperate hope that he would concede to me, what was obvious to EVERYONE who breathed air: Paul Stanley was a musical genius.

And I've never changed. Like, I remember wanting my much beloved friend Tara to have her life completely changed by listening to Try Whistling This, Neil's first solo album.

Imagine my horror to find out she simply liked it quite a bit.

Maybe it's even a little like scrapbooking. That you know if people just gave it a "listen" they would run through the streets professing their new found englightened state. I CAN MAKE MAGIC WITH PICTURES AND PAPER FLOWERS!

Or not.

I have an extra copy of the new Crowded House album to give away. Might even toss in something else cool, too.

Just leave your name, and someone's life will SURELY change by day's end.

[edited: i found some fun stuff to add to the giveaway…. A cool collection of papers and embellishments from Tinkering Ink , a chipboard mini-album from Maya Road , some new Making Memories goodies, a stamp from Cat's Life Press, and of course, that CD....

I'll pick a winner later tonight! good luck.

 

new music tuesday

I pre-ordered two of them.

Did I mention the front row seats?

I was a Roland girl

In the category of Going against the obvious choice, (much like my preference for Grieco over Depp, which actually was period related, in that, i'm no fool in 2007—I'd choose Depp) i was a Roland (yes, look right) girl.

Deciding I needed to take a break from searching YouTube for every obscure Neil Finn-related clip I could unearth, I was looking over Celebrity Playlists on iTunes because my friend Lisa McG (fellow musically obsessed soul mate and all around rad chick) told me to check out John Cusack's list. Which got me lost in celeb lists, looking for, you guessed it: those who liked Neil.

Only ONE band had a single Neil song: Death Cab for Cutie. Nice.

But while looking, someone (and i can't remember which fabulous celebrity it was) listed a song by Tears for Fears, Woman in Chains (see link on my new link list), and that got me to search my own iTunes library, to listen to a band that, for a time, was my favorite band in the world.

I really believe if they hadn't broken up, (from their original form) they would have continued to take over the planet. Although I personally loved the TFF albums without Curt. Because I am a Roland girl.

Why? Because when he sings, he means it. That's really all it takes for me to get hooked. If they mean it. That's why i'm breaking my usual pattern of NOT listening to female artists and putting Brandi Carlile on from time to time. She bloody MEANS it when she sings.

So I'm lost in nostalgia right now.

I actually saw TFF on their comeback tour a few years back. New album is actually good. So was the show. But it's not like Neil love or anything.

And speaking of…

I had the WORST dream last night. I was going to the concert....(remember, front row seats?) and i got there, and realized they never sent my tickets. And the show was starting. After FREAKING out and crying to the ticket window people, i realized that i did, in fact, have the tix in my purse, and i ran to the front, where Pete Yorn had already started, except that he wasn't playing. He was sitting next to a man on the stage, who was lying on his back, and Pete was covering him with moss...

then i woke up.

What the hell does THAT mean?

And my arm…not going to be talking about that either. I'm focusing on the positive. And, heading to Utah for a week, next week. So…next posting will occur from the beautiful Salt Lake area...

Until then…it's Roland forever.

And, a bit of proof about just how much he means it. A cover of Radiohead's "Creep," complete with f-bombs, for those who may take offense. But still.... it's a voice, man.

Download creep_live_radiohead_cover.mp3

Row 1, Seats 5 & 6, Orchestra Pit

I cannot breathe right now.

Never. Ever. Ever. Never. Ever. Have I. Gotten. Front. Row. Seats.

to ANYTHING.

NOTHING.

(Okay…I did have seats in the Second Row, for the Bauhaus reunion show in 2003, but that was not about love. That was about nostalgia.)

This is about LOVE. Love. Deep. Abiding. Pure. Inspired. Love.

My stomach hurts. I am in pain. Joyful, giddy pain.

I am going to be sitting in Row 1, Seat 5, in the Orchestra Pit, to see Pete Yorn and Crowded House in September.

This will roughly be my view:

After I finish weeping, I'm off to buy some lottery tickets. I figure, while you're hot…

I called Dan, and my voice was so shaky, he thought something terrible had happened.

Terribly awesome, perhaps.

I don't even know how i can proceed with my day. I'm not kidding. I'm freaking out.

(And…thank you so much for all the kick ass recipe sharing! I'm printing them out today, and prioritizing...after I run around my house screaming at the top of my lungs that on Sept. 9, i will possibly receive actual sweat molecules from Neil Finn's forehead on my skin.)

Happy [early] birthday, Neil!

And in Auckland, it's 6 a.m. tomorrow, which means, it actually IS Neil's birthday on the other side of the world. So I say… let's celebrate TODAY!

I know it might seem weird, to those of you who don't obsess and beat dead horses in your own lives (like the man I married…not an obsessive-compulsive bone in his body, except for maybe the sex part)…but it's really the only existence I've ever known. I actually have no concept of telling myself, "Shut up, already." It's not really part of the "me" package.

Happy Birthday, Neil Mullane Finn. I love you (and not in a potential hook-up way, but in a "you make music that moves the souls of many, including myself, and music=love" kind of love).

I'm off to celebrate. And clean the bathrooms.