Weezer Impresses Geezer

UPDATED 10/30/09, 7:19 am:
At the end of this post I’ve added YouTube video of Weezer’s performance last night on the Late Show with David Letterman.

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I plead guilty to having for the most part ignored new music since the late ’80s. As a dad of three boys ranging in age from 12 to 18, that hasn’t been easy to do.

One of the few artists to have (barely) penetrated my musical consciousness since the late ’80s is the band Weezer.

They were one of son #1’s first favorite artists. More recently, son #2, age 14, has become a Weezer fanatic. Monday night he was thrilled to learn he was one of the winners of a Weezer fan photo contest on Facebook run by iheartradio, the web streaming portal property of terrestrial radio giant Clear Channel Communications. The prize: two tickets to an invitation-only Weezer show at the P.C. Richard & Son Theater in New York City.

Yesterday I took the afternoon off to escort my son and three friends to the show (one of those friends won the contest too). I hadn’t expected to see the show myself, but the promoters, as they crossed off the names of the contest winners and their guests lined up outside the theater waiting for the doors to open, offered me free admission.

I figured the promoters say the show will only be an hour long — how uncomfortable could it get. After all, it was a chilly evening, I wasn’t dressed warmly enough for a long walk in TriBeCa, and World Series game 1 wouldn’t even be starting on taproom TVs until just before the scheduled end of the show. So I decided to take up the promoters on their offer.

I’m glad I did.

Weezer’s songs are upbeat and catchy, and in the show they delivered them with intensity and enthusiasm. The sound, in the recently opened intimate, seat-less performance space (capacity 250) — “theater” is a misnomer — was clear and the volume just right.

For me the highlights were the infectious “I’m Your Daddy”, the very danceable “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” with its spoken word segments, and the raucous show closer, “Buddy Holly” from their 1994 debut self-titled “blue album.” (The first and second are singles from Weezer’s new album Raditude, scheduled for release next week.)

On the way in the room, the two young female security guards motioned all those entering toward the stage. That’s where my son and his friends wanted to be, and, as a result of our having lined up outside 90 minutes before the doors opened, they got their wish. (My son captured the  pictures accompanying this post.) I, on the other hand, asked one of the guards if I could stand in the back, lamely claiming “I’m a dad”. At first she was adamant, but quickly relented, probably after taking a second look at me, agreeing “you’re a dad”. It turns out I had nothing to fear — but I was glad to be in the back all the same.

There was one down note: the show lasted not an hour but a mere 30 minutes. Although I heard only minor grumbling in the audience when front man Rivers Cuomo announced after five songs that the next song would be the last — I think most of us were too surprised to react — I have to think the vast majority of the audience shared  my disappointment. My appetite had just been whetted when it ended.

So is it a lesson here that I should be at least a bit more tuned in to new music — that I might hear I lot of other stuff I would like? I may have gotten a sign to that effect: This morning the car radio, with its dial left set to the station my son favors on the rare occasions he doesn’t opt for his iPod, greeted me with “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” from the concert set list.

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Driving Cross-Country — Vicariously

As a roadgeek and a fan of road books and movies, I’ve long thought it would be cool to drive cross-country. So I waited with interest above and beyond the parental variety for the daily phone calls from my oldest son as he drove from our home in southeastern Pennsylvania across the country — nearly — to central Arizona where he is enrolling a few days from now as a college freshman.

His driving partner was his roommate-to-be. They arrived at their final destination last night after a week on the road.

Here is their route, covering 2,499 miles according to Google Maps, as near as I can tell from my son’s reports:

View Larger Map

Their vehicle was my son’s 22-year old diesel sedan, packed to the gills, with 304,000+ miles on the odometer — that is, at the start of the trip. There were, as one would expect, concerns about the reliability of the car, but thankfully it didn’t give them any major trouble.

No major trouble, that is, except for the air conditioning, which gave out on the second day. That the A/C was leaking refrigerant was known before the trip. We didn’t expect it to last the whole trip. He charged it a few days before the trip, at my urging, with the hope and expectation it would last most of the trip. The eventual disappointment on that score made the trip much more of an endurance test — in my mind at least.

Well Hey There, Lil’ Feller

Some readers may have already heard this news — others may not have known it was even in the works. But anyway …

I became a grandfather yesterday, May 31. My stepdaughter and her husband were blessed with the birth of a son, Benjamin.

He arrived almost four weeks early, the morning after an exhausting Saturday for my stepdaughter during which she co-managed a six-hour charity yard sale in the morning/afternoon and oversaw her dance school students performing in a three-and-a-half hour dance recital in the evening.

Benjamin’s weight at birth was 6 lbs. even. Since arriving he has developed some issues typical for early arrivers. It doesn’t sound like anything serious but we’re told that to be on the safe side he will likely remain in the hospital for an indefinite period after his mom is discharged tomorrow.

Newly minted grandmom Mrs. QC uncles sons #1, #2, and #3 are thrilled — as am I, natch’.

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Unseconded My Notion

Mowing season is arriving in QC-country, so this past Sunday my car’s parking accommodations switched from the cushy garage to the exposed driveway.

I’ve always locked my car overnight when it’s parked in the driveway. We’ve lived here since 1992. There’s “Black Beauty” right there:

But to lock it I either have to

• use the key

or

• close the driver’s door, open the same-side passenger door and then reach in and push down the lock button on the driver’s door.

A puzzling design decision — them Swedes are, um, quirky.

Anyway it’s a bit of a pain. So for this mowing season I got the notion I would leave the car unlocked overnight. The car is 15 years old, I don’t keep anything of significant value in it, and the neighborhood is pretty safe.

Unfiltered Perception

UPDATED 2/24/09, 12:52 pm:
I’ve read this picture is fake.

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That President Obama — boy it was fun to write those two words next to each other — was a cigarette smoker (and may still be) is well known, but I had never seen (nor sought) photographic evidence. So I have to laugh at this picture from a Facebook sidebar ad for an I.Q. test that’s been running in recent days.

Amazing how much less confidence he inspires in this picture.

Thanks, Facebook. Was that really necessary?

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Raining in Baskets

What a day brightener! Only minimal basketball knowledge is needed to enjoy this CBS Evening News clip (running time 2:45):

Thanks to my friend Pete S. for posting it on his Facebook profile.

An ESPN clip on McElway has more detail and the game footage is in color, but the cheesy music is distracting in my opinion — plus it’s twice as long as the one I’ve embedded. The detail I thought most interesting is that McElway actually missed not two but six shots. But that hardly detracts from his achievement.

I can imagine Tom McGinnis, the excitable Philadelphia 76ers radio play by play announcer, calling McElway’s hot streak. By McElway’s third three-pointer, you’d hear McGinnis’ trademark “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?”. The fifth would cause McGinnis’ head to explode — leaving you to deduce from the crowd reaction and buzzer that McElway hit a sixth to end the game.

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Every Day is a Gift

In our culture how do we primarily mark the passage of time?

• A year seems an overwhelming increment — until the moment you sit back and wonder where they all went.
• Weeks and months have their rhythms but those rhythms are subject to disruption, sometimes intentional, other times circumstantial.
• Seconds and minutes fly by too fast.
• Hours are rather nebulous. If the metric system were ever to be applied to time, I’ll bet the hour would go through the most radical transformation, likely whittled down from 24 per day to 10.

Ah, did someone say “day”? We mark time primarily by days, don’t we? What is unique about the day is it correspondence with our circadian rhythm. Only the day is demarcated by an activity necessary for survival. That activity is, of course, sleep.  Each day is  back-ended — well, technically front-ended — by a period of restorative sleep — during which the body rests but the mind stays active.

On MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the host famously marks time in days — counting up the number of days since the Bush administration’s declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq and counting down, originally, the number of days until the 2008 election, and currently the number of days, now in single digits, until the inauguration of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president.

No Pass for Marley

The dog ownership memoir Marley & Me from FOX 2000 Pictures, which opened in theaters Christmas Day, may turn out to be the top grossing family movie of the holiday season. The movie is based on the book by journalist John Grogan. Grogan is played by Owen Wilson. Also starring are Jennifer Aniston and the 22 yellow Labradors it took to collaborate to play the role of the energetic Marley. SPOILER ALERT …

audio book CD cover

The crux: Marley was a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but Grogan and his family loved him and now that he is gone, they miss him dearly. Although the movie is primarily a comedy, there is obviously a tearjerker aspect to it. James Berardinelli, my favorite online movie critic, uses the tag line “Three hankies, minimum” for his review.

Not all audience members will be moved to tears, of course. What may surprise the filmmakers is that not all those whose eyes remain dry are the kind of people rarely moved to tears by sad scenes in movies. For some there are other reasons to keep the tissues in storage.

Consider the Marley & Me movie going experience of a member of my extended family and owner of two dogs:

When Marley died everybody in the theater was crying. But I didn’t cry — because I didn’t like that dog.

Take that, Marley!

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’tis the Season for Throw-Up Coats

Having previously treated readers to saliva nostalgia, here I one-up that with some reminiscing about vomit. Stop reading here if the mere thought of vomit makes you queasy.

As children my brother B. and I were required by our parents to wear wool coats to dress-up occasions — like visits to grandparents — during cold weather months.

B. suffered from motion sickness. The 75-minute drives to and from our maternal grandparents’ apartment allowed ample time for the sickness to kick in. I don’t know how many times — it seems like more than a few — dad would have to pull the car over to the shoulder so B. could hop out and vomit.

I remember one particular episode with spaghetti at a Sunoco gas station on the suburban side of Philadelphia’s City Avenue, aka “City Line”. Spaghetti was not the typical fare at my grandparents — the most common offerings were brisket and corned beef sandwiches (not in the same meal). As B showered the Sunoco tarmac, dad, mom, and I were impressed with the similarity of the vomited spaghetti’s appearance to that of the spaghetti served to us earlier in the evening.

Matching Mismatches

I’ve heard one of my favorite songs, “My Old School” by Steely Dan, hundreds of times. However, it was not until this past Saturday, October 18, just hours before I went to a college football game in Newark, Delaware between the University of Delaware and The College of William and Mary, that I realized this part of the song lyrics specifies the commonly used moniker of the visiting school:

I was smoking with the boys upstairs
When I heard about the whole affair
I said oh no
William and Mary won’t do

Is this lyric a reference to the college? When I told Mrs. QC of my revelation, she insisted it has to be a reference to the college. Color me skeptical. I’ll revisit this controversy at the end of this post.

Now to the topic at hand — the football game. The University of Delaware is “my old school” for both myself and Mrs. QC. We went to grad school there. I previously wrote how I used to attend Delaware games when I was growing up.

It was a beautiful day for football — sunny, not too breezy, temperature pushing 60°. Mrs. QC and I bought subs on the way to Newark and then tailgated briefly before going into the stadium.

The game was a mismatch. Au contraire, Steely Dan — William and Mary did do — they rolled to a 27-3 victory. It was the first time Delaware failed to score a touchdown in a home game since 1990.

My thanks to Mrs. QC for taking these pictures. Click ‘em to enlarge to 800 × 531 pixels.

The west stands at Tubby Raymond Field at Delaware Stadium, University of Delaware, Newark, DE.

The Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens (in blue) and the William and Mary Tribe at the line of scrimmage prior to one of the first plays of the game.

The Jumbotron (video display) is new at Delaware this season. It's not all that jumbo-sized, though. I couldn't see it very well from my seat at the 15-yard line near the other end of Tubby Raymond Field.