Pub Pressure: Punching a Plonker

A Man Man Concert Review


Rumours of the possibility of a bar brawl involving me are greatly exaggerated*. Sure, I was swishing saliva for the next encounter. And, yes, my fists were pressed for combat. But that’s about as far as it gets.

A month ago, when Sealed With a Kiss Productions started posting up bills for the Man Man concert, Graeme had just informed me that he was planning on once again dropping the Bloc Party ball of paying me back for promising to take me to their sold out show**. I thought, ‘these guys would make for good live entertainment,’ and pressed for a “trade” of sorts. Graeme, down with that, finally got around to picking up tickets on Saturday.

Between my initial expression of wanting to go to Man Man, and actually getting to Man Man, I dropped my BCID card outside of the Shopper’s Drug Mart on Granville. I don’t go to bars or many concerts or clubs, but for some reason, everyone else has dragged me out for birthdays or concerts since I lost my ID. I’m old, but not quite haggard looking enough to pass for over 18, apparently, and only government issued photo ID is the only way to prove my age. My first hurdle at Richard’s was to get in using only three pieces of government issued ID (no photos), and a student ID with a photo—the names are all exact. Dramatic pauses involving what my night will look like are likely to drive me crazy—worse still is that it’ll be close to two months before it is ratified. Short story short, I eventually got in.

After some shuffling of locations, and a mediocre and boring opening set, Grae, Scott and myself settled up in front of the stage (on my left hand side). One of the first signs of stupidity was the girl (literally), to my left applying the reddest of rouges on her mouth. In front of the stage. With her compact mirror. In between sets. I actually proclaimed to my concert companions ‘what the fuck?!” Scott said that girls smelled nice, and that ended the dispute over whether or not her behavior was rational or called for. This girl is going to need a name, so it is probably best if I give her one now. Tiffani (with an “i”) will cause me grief tonight. She’ll be drinking red wine from the bar, which you know is going to be plonk. Only the finest plonk is served at bars. It is only when I see her vat of black piss that I realized her need to cosmetically enhance herself ‘omg! right now!’: She has to put lipstick marks on her wine glass to distinguish it from everyone else’s red wine glasses at Richard’s. The vinegar scent is still fresh in my nostrils as that would be the scent of Man Man’s concert for me this night.

Aside from smelling bad, and kind of looking bad, she was also representative of “what’s wrong with the world today”. An exaggeration, perhaps, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Enter: Man Man.

Within the first song***, she had touched my head from behind three times to take pictures on her $150 digital camera from the Superstore. Twice were full on collisions, the third was merely the brushing on the hair that creates that tingle in your head that is not comfortable. She apologizes for one clocking and the brushing. The brushing will continue throughout the next song, until I finally decide “I can’t spend a whole concert twitching because someone has to have 300 pictures of the same set, angle, singers, etc.” and I pivot on my left heel and face her directly and ask her nicely to stop touching my head. She pretends to not see me, and I turn around knowing I had made my point very clear.

She will now use her time at Man Man to talk loudly about how mean I am. How much of a bitch I am for not wanting my head to be used as a tripod. I am a horrible, horrible person. It was so awesome when her yelling actually overcame the quieter parts of some songs. I wish I was more like her.

Four songs and countless glasses of grape vomit later, Tiffani’s still insisting that my head is fun to touch and my annoyance with her is unfounded. I keep turning my head slightly to express “stop touching my head”, until finally she reaches over me entirely to take what was inevitably her bestest shot ever! And so, tired of her antics, I decide, ‘fuck, I can block her lens and ruin any chance she has at getting any further shots; ruin my night, I’ll ruin yours.’ Sure enough, not half a song later she’s back on my head, and my hands go up to block the lens. Irritated and drunk, she screams, and shift her camera to my right. I block it again. She has a hissy fit, and I turn around to address her. Her eyelids are shifting closed now, as the effects of alcoholic’s vitamin C are weighing in heavily on her. Her babbles involved “I hope I make you feel good just by being here” and other promises her dirty old uncle would whisper to her. Her good friend, had the mind to take the camera away from her and aim it at me. At first, I was like “why are you taking a picture of me?” and then I realized after the fact that I was mad enough to have my fists clenched and likely raised. I began screaming about how I wasn’t infringing on her ability to enjoy her night, why should she feel she has the right to do it to me and other such logic based arguments that are so hard to resist when you’re drunk. Graeme turned me away before the flash went off, and her friend moved Tiffani closer to centre stage. By this point I was seething and began to build up spit for any repeat encounter she may have wanted.

The music was awesome and I got two very awesome buttons for my shoulder bag.

*if only to the disappointment of myself.
** that he still went to. I hold grudges about promises, people.
*** holy crap, they play fast.

As if Corinne Didn't Have Enough Reason to Hate Rap

I present to you (in linkage form, because embedding youtube videos is so lame) MC Karl Rove.

"He can't be beat, he's so white from his head to his feet."

Truer words have never been spoken. You can't keep a good cracka down.

Via, the always fun poplicks.

My foray into The End

After spending just over an hour listening to the dulling hum of CBC Radio Two (which was markedly more vivid than CBC Radio One), I decided it was time to listen to something more upbeat. My office chum suggested The Beat, and seeing as how I had the entire world of internet & radio in front of me, I thought better of it. Besides, pint-size was off to do her afternoon run in 15 minutes.

Having not listened to a radio station of my choosing in close to a decade, nostalgia beckoned me to the radio dial’s logical conclusion: 107.7 The End.

First up, AOL Word Search, or its modern equivalent: Google! In a moment of judgement relapse or just plain laziness, only numbers and decimal made its way to the search bar. To my fortune, Seattle’s 107.7 was the top search item and I didn’t have to scroll at all. This is where the ease of internet radio and 107.7 end.

The website is black and red with white font all over; and, like a bad joke, it’s ugly. After deep searching for any information about listening online through the various sidebars, I returned to the front page mess. And finally a link was found! Hooray! So click, wait, wait… and… “please register to listen to streaming audio”. For a moment I consider the possibility of not listening to any music ever again, before going through the painless process that doesn’t even involve email verification!

Some more clicking and waiting, and finally, it arrives—with a video ad to greet me. And then:

As if the cosmos aligned to let me know my entertainment had arrived: Elvis Costello is in the midst of his rendition of Radio, Radio.

In the past 90 minutes, they have played two Violent Femmes songs (one was a cover by Gnarls Barkley), Weezer, Nine Inch Nails and Heart Shaped Box.I wonder how long it will take them to be called a “classic alternative” station…

Seven Months Later...

So, I've drank more Coca-Cola products than PepsiCo. brand, but I blame cherry flavouring for that. But PepsiCo. is the better company.

I have yet to be asked if I wanted to be on a test circuit for PD-1 suppressants, but I have learned that foreskin increases men's chances of HIV infection, and may lower a woman's odds. There's another argument for male genital mutilation for mysogynists to use. That, my friends, is called "irony".

Special juvenille bonus: The director of the World Health Organization's AIDS department is named Dr. Kevin De Cock.

The Crane Wife rose to the top of my favourite albums of 2006, but in doing so also put Decemberists fans at the bottom of my favourite list of 2006. How did they manage to get into the high schools? We must ban mixed tapes, CDs and iPods immediately to prevent good music from falling into immature hands! [/curmudgeon]

Another argument against the glass ceiling was released at some point in the past month: Boys are just as good at quitting as women. Take that Human Resources Departments! Equality in job hating! We have to start somewhere.

The Crane Wife and other tales

After obtaining a pre-release of The Crane Wife through no illegal activities of my own doing, I can start to actually make initial observations (by request).

My very first impressions based on a two track experience is that I really like 80s maritime can-con ballads, so this is so far up my alleyway. That being said, I am certainly finding less story more redundance. With all new soon-to-be-friends (even ones you know that are automatic bed-dudes-4-ever), The Crane Wife and I are just kind of bopping our heads trying to find out what we have in common in order to build relations with. She's definately toying with my desire to dance when cleaning with The Perfect Crime. I do like the less-pussy-more-pitbull rock
attitude that is in on this album, which is the biggest distinction that I have found.

Will think more once I master the names and track sounds. As a whole, so far, I am enjoying it and know that I will enjoy this for years to come. Just how many remains to be seen.

New Decemberists Album Leaked

Currently just over halfway through. So far not too impressed. Very proggy. Seems to really take from the same set of influences the Tain ep was big on. Haven't listened too deeply to the lyrics yet however. Will update on in-depth listen.

Available where all good music stolen.