Meow House Theatre

Edit:  I am SURE that I edited this a long time ago to say “Sunday” instead of “Saturday.” It annoys me that it didn’t take.

I want to remind everyone to watch John Oliver’s special on Comedy Central on April 20. Because John is a funny funny man, and because he’s a super-nice guy to take the time to talk to vague acquaintances upon seeing them unexpectedly, and because I am going to be appearing in the show.

Disclaimer: John does not know I was in it. Well he probably knows but surely doesn’t care. Okay well to be totally honest about it, I wasn’t actually “in” it but I was in the audience in the front row and I have been told that they got some shots of me in there. So technically I am not lying: I am in a TV show with John Oliver. I am just not credited for it. Mere unimportant details such as that do not overly concern me.

Funny this post should follow one about ex-Hitler Youth Pope Benny. I swear there is no earthly connection.
No, I just wanted to share this: I just went to the bathroom and what should I see on the front of my underwear but a series of three holes that bore an amazing resemblance to this picture. It’s Munch in my pants! See how the guy’s right eye isa little bit bigger than his left? Well the hole on the left (so that’s the right of the “face” of my hole-y underwear) is bigger too.I believe this is call for selling them on ebay. The underwear. It’s only a few steps from here to seeing Jesus in a Cheeto.

I’d wash them first. There’s probably less money in that but I’m doing it for art. And salvation.

I’ve just bought the most lovely pairs of jeans, one by Ralph Lauren and one by the unfortunately named “Baby Phat.” I loathe that word, “phat.” It sounds like something unpleasant occurring in digestive system which makes you not want to leave the house. I suppose it’s supposed to be “hip.” They ought to come up with a clothing line called “Phat Hip” but then everyone would read it wrong and thus nobody would buy it.

Anyhoo, I do love the jeans. Yes I admit it, my last pair of jeans was what are called “Mom Jeans”: high on the waist and with straight legs. What can I say, I bought them a long time ago and they were still serviceable, and since I mostly wear shirts untucked it didn’t matter that the waist was above my belly button. But those straight legs did bother me. It’s hard to get them over boots, even just low boots, which is mostly what I wear unless I want to look nice. So yesterday while waiting for my lovely new triskele ring that I plan to have reside permanently on my pinkie to be resized I wandered over to Macy’s and tried to spend as much money on clothes in 1/2 hour as humanly possible, or at least as can be done in a department store chain.

And these jeans fit so well! I was born in the wrong century, apparently, to most clothing designers, since I have an ass. And a chest. And my shape is not that of an adolescent boy. Every time I try on jeans it’s yet another depressing day of not being able to find something that fits the butt and yet also fits the hips & waist. Either they fit the waist (which these days is not the actual waist, but lower than that) and are too small in the butt, or they fit the butt and have a gaping maw in the back where the waist is too big. Or they sort of fit all over but I’m left with muffin top. I’d rather wear mom jeans than have muffin top. Brrrrh. So girls, if you are not a pedophile’s dream of a body type, try out Ralph Lauren and Baby Phat. The rest of you can shop in the girl’s department.

Men are lucky. They can just buy Levis. From the used-clothing store. You guys have it easy.

# # #

Today’s Boston Globe lead picture: “Pope Benedict XVI’s arrival in Maryland yesteday marked the first time President Bush has traveled to the airport to greet a visiting leader.”

Oh for chrissakes. It fucking figures. Of all the people to do it for, it has to be HIM. Ol’ Benny doesn’t look frail to me; couldn’t he have just changed out of his ruby slippers hopped over to the limo stand?

This song is an allegory. It might be the best cover of someone else’s song ever. It’s a crime that Christy Moore is not more well known in this country. His voice makes me cry every time I watch it.

And I’m paying for this Web site so I guess I can post whatever I want.

First, I snapped the handle off another brush. While brushing my hair. This is the second one this year and about the 30th in my life. The handle breaks off where it narrows down near where the bristles start. It’s not from trying to pull it through tangles, either. I’m just brushing straight down and then near the end the handle snaps. I don’t know, is there such a thing as too much hairbrush torque?

Second, some strange man accosted me this morning and offered to cut off my hair. This likely would be strange all by itself but what made it really bizarre was that this was in the train station, not a salon, and he was carrying scissors at the time. I declined and then found an official-looking person to report him to. The request is not the worrisome part but that he’s carrying scissors while doing it. Maybe the next person he won’t ask first, right?

In related news I have had to cut my fingernails on the left hand because I can’t play the guitar with them so long. Dolly Parton apparently manages with her talons but I’m not sure how. I’m not even sure how she can play at all with having to prop the guitar so far away from her torso because of her natural attributes in the frontal regions. I suppose she has gotten used to it all. Anyway, my fingernails: I haven’t cut the right hand yet to match so I’m a little lopsided right now.

Today I need to go find a jeweler and see if he can make a ring smaller. It’s a five and I think 4-1/2 would have been better. I don’t want him to have to cut it and re-solder though. This is the danger of buying rings without trying them on in person. Right now I’ve got a piece of tape wrapped on to the underside but that’s not the best solution and it’s rather unattractive. But, if I don’t do something this ring is going to pop off. It already has once. And it’s brand-new and I really don’t want to lose it; it’s a really pretty sterling carved triskele with more carving on the sides. I don’t think exchanging it will work as the maker only does it in whole sizes and I’m pretty sure a 4 will be too small.

Maybe I should just let myself become much fatter, because then the ring will fit fine. Decisions, decisions.

I would like to point out that I have made seven posts since April 4, five today alone I think; and of the seven, four of them are incredibly short (for me). I am feeling like I’m doing that “twitter” thing, which is some kind of cell phone bloggy update thing that I don’t understand the point of. I guess you send messages to heaps of people you don’t know and it comes through to their phones? I don’t understand how that wouldn’t be annoying but maybe that’s not really how it works. Hell, I only learned how to send a text message a few months ago. That area of technological advancement just passed me by for some reason.

To the person(s) who said they would have to leave me if I didn’t start posting more, I blame you for all this.

Be back soon!

P.S. I’m going to do my darndest to get a free subscription to “A, The Abortion Magazine.” Then I’ll read it openly on the train and secretly photograph people trying to nonchalantly look at me when they think I don’t notice them.

And another thing: one of the searches that gets a lot of hits to me is some combination of: chloroform, gerbils, redhead, and “how to pronounce dextromethorphan.”

I have never in my life written about chloroforming redheaded gerbils and/or drugging them with cough medicine. It sounds terribly messy, doesn’t it?  I would not choose to be involved in whatever hideous practices are related to such activities.  I don’t understand why I get so many hits off these words.

I’m the eighth link on google for “photos of shane macgowan.”  Huh.  I don’t have that many of them.

(I discovered this from looking at my flickr stats.  Not from googling the words “photos of shane macgowan.”  Because I know that would be weird.  Not that it’s weird to do it, but weird for me to, since I already have photos.  Oh never mind.)

There is an actual publication called:

“A, The Abortion Magazine”

I don’t think anything is wrong with the magazine’s topic but that name just doesn’t seem like a very good marketing strategy to me. It vaguely reminds of “O, The Oprah Magazine” and while they might be trying to generate thoughtful mainstream conversation about reproductive rights, all the name makes me think of is some fluff to pick up in the checkout line. With slick photos. I’m sure that’s not what is in there but the thought is making me ill. Just in time for lunch, jolly good.

I’m pretty sure there’s also “W, The Wart Removal Magazine” out there somewhere, and “AT, The Abscessed Tooth Magazine.” I’m trying to find links.

(No I don’t really equate the topic of “A” with warts or abscessed teeth. Please save your indignation for someone in Congress.)

HEY fucktard and you know who I mean.  This stuff is mine no matter how insignificant it might be.  Write your own damn shit.

And if you want to use my pictures, try asking and then I’ll probably say yes.    If you want to use a tiny bit of one for an icon, fine, you don’t have to ask.  If you want to go and post them and let people think you took them, um no.

There were a grand total of five seats filled at my show last week, if you include the tech/soundboard guy. It’s damn hard doing a show for four people. Although they seemed to have a good time. Well the two previous weeks we were sold out or close to it, so I guess that’s better than four seats for 3 weeks. We just changed our show time slightly too and maybe that confused people.

I got my new 50mm 1.8 lens today and it is simply delicious. I took many shots of my Starbucks coffee foam. I can’t wait to use it for some low-light shots.

Then I returned to the office and discovered that all four elevator banks were out of order. A fire alarm went off or something. And I would not choose to walk up 11 flights unless a murderer should be chasing me, so I had a little nap down in the lobby. Actually I wish they had taken longer to fix things. While I was down there, before dozing off, I was watching the TV and what should come on but some hideous plasticine’d-actor commercial for god-knows-what product. I couldn’t figure out what the hell it might be for until the words “Viva Viagra” appeared along with some pseudo Elvis singing. Well lemme tell you, if I were that guy’s wife (or neighbor, judging from the commercial–hmmm, kinky, for a pharma co.) I would not be falling all over myself to get it on with him. He looked as if he’d been dipped in caramel epoxy. I’m sure there’s something Freudian in there if you think about it. Unfortunately I can’t find the commercial on either Pfizer’s Web site or on YouTube, so you’ll have to watch out for it yourself. It’s the one where the guy keeps driving home in his boring sedan until one day when he presumably pops a few little blue pills and suddenly he’s Elvis come back from the dead, zoomin’ up in a chopper and a Hell’s Angel’s helmet. Sorry, not a turn-on.

When are they going to start showing commercials for women who can’t have orgasms until they take the magic genie cure? I’ll tell you when: NEVER. It will never, ever happen; one, because there is no money in making such a pill; and two, because no matter what anyone tells you about bullshit such as “this is the Land of the Free,” this country will find a way to prevent the commercialization of women having free & enjoyable sex. We’re still Puritans deep down, or the religious right is anyway, and therefore a commercial showing women who like to have sex and want to have sex and are GOING TO HAVE SEX AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WITH THE AID OF WHATEVER CHEMICALS THEY CAN LEGALLY GET AND HAVE PAID FOR FROM GROUP INSURANCE will never, ever air. Of course it’s okay if they DO have this kind of sex–this is 2008 after all and we’re so sophisticated now–as long as everyone pretends it’s not happening, because nice girls don’t zoom into their driveways on Harleys and sweep their neighbors off for a quick trip to nasty-ville. Therefore, such a commercial will never air. I’d take book action on that.

As our Fearless Leader GW Shrub says, the more we shop, the more we fight the terrorists. (Or something like that.) So I’m doing my part.

I have been buying a hella lot of stuff lately. I got two new lenses for my camera (a 55-200mm VR and a 50mm 1.8); a couple of sterling-silver rings that I can wear as long as I haven’t bitten my fingernails down (maybe the rings will be an incentive not to–I go in spurts about biting/not biting); a replenishment of my collection of Pogues CDs, which I was listening to on pirated copies and have been feeling bad about for ages so I finally decided to plunk down and get the real thing; and last night I bought a new guitar. Well, a new used guitar. My current old one is pretty junky and I wanted one I can plug into an amp. I got a lovely Washburn electric-acoustic. Nice bright sound. They had another one I also really liked but it had much more of a classical-guitar sound (even though it was steel string) and I wanted something more treble-y. And that one was 4x the price. I had a hard time finding one that fits because I have small hands and a lot of guitars have necks that are just too huge.

I got it at Cambridge Music in Cambridge. Mike was super-helpful. Didn’t even care if I bought the guitar there; just wanted to help me figure out what it was that I wanted.

They had a spectacular-sounding acoustic Gibson from the 30s–all beat up and glued up and it played like a dream. I wonder who owned it before now and what they played on it, and how it ended up alone in the store. There was no way I could buy it (it was far too expensive for me, and too big besides) but someone would be getting a piece of history with that one. Too bad guitars don’t come with a provenance record like a piece of estate jewelry does.

I hate this layout more than I can express with mere words.  I have GOT to find someone to fix it for me.

I’ve got 21 pictures processed so far. Here are a few of my favorites:

You can see they’re pretty dark and noisy, which is what happens when you’re using a smaller camera. Although I do like the noise effect in concert pictures. I think the gritty look can be effective in them. Have to learn to live with it anyway, because there’s really nothing that can be done to eliminate it.

The whole set is here. It works out well to set it on slideshow.

You can click through to the next one yourself or you can set it to advance automatically. I still have 15 or more to put up. Next time I have got to arrange it beforehand to be get clearance to bring in my Nikon. They would have been SO much better if I had used that.

Shane McGowan Pogues concert March 19, 2008 Boston Orpheum Theatre theater meowhouse meow house theatre http://www.

Shane MacGowan has still got it.

I scored a front-row-center seat to the Pogues concert last night at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston. I was able to get a bunch of pictures that didn’t come out too horribly, considering I was using a P&S and no flash. They’re fairly grainy but I kinda like that in a concert shot. Unfortunately they did not allow professional-grade camera equipment inside; only small digitals with non-removable lenses. I had been looking forward to bringing my Nikon but I was worried they’d want to “hold on to it” for me and I don’t trust people to hold on very seriously to other people’s expensive things. So, these were shot with my little Casio EX-Z1050. And although I really love that camera and it’s super-small size, I really wish it had a viewfinder in addition to the window on the back. It’s hard to get a good shot in low light without having something (your nose and face) to steady the camera. When I went inside to the hall, the usher asked where my seat was and I told him “DD 105″ and he said, “You’ve got the best seat in the house,” and I was all “I know!!!” Thank you to Jessie for not using the ticket. I’m sorry you couldn’t go but I’m so glad I could.

This picture is just the first; there will be more up within a few days. I’m going to see if I can edit them a bit in Photoshop and make them look better.

I had a smashing time and can’t wait to see them again. The entire audience was focusing on them the whole time. Pogues fans are pretty damned happy during a show. I don’t know if it’s the music or the ambiance of being in the room with those guys. Most likely both. There were all ages there: I saw people old enough to be my parents and couples with small children wearing Irish green. Shane seemed to be doing okay. I hope he stays okay. I haven’t read any reviews yet but he didn’t seem drunk to me. Or not overwhelmingly so, anyway. He was drinking something but it could have been a dark-ish beer or it could have been a Coke. Before the show started, I had my IPA (yep, they let you take actual liquor into the theatre at the Orpheum) on the edge of the stage and one of the crew came up to me and asked me to not leave it there, since it might spill “and Shane might be tempted.” That made me totally crack up–I said, “Well we definitely don’t want that to happen!”–but it was sad too. He has so, so much talent and it’s been nearly completely fucked up by booze.

They did two? three? encores at the end and every time they left I kept yelling as loud as I could, “Shane, come back! Come back, Shane!” I hope he heard me somehow. I hope he doesn’t end up like the other Shane. We’ve got things for him to do …

I have a bunch more pictures to put up. Check back here or on Flickr.

Update: both The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald have posted their reviews. The Herald’s was in some ways a little more complimentary and I think more accurate. The Globe said “MacGowan was, inevitably, a mess, but his legendary insobriety hardly merits mentioning anymore.” I don’t think that’s entirely fair. He was not a mess. He was nowhere near a “mess” on the Shane MacGowan Scale of Messiness.

Boston Globe review (published on Boston.com).

Boston Herald review.

Shane apparently went to J.J. Foley’s after the show and closed out the bar. God damn it! I was so tired I went straight home afterward. I should have just pinched myself and headed over there. Next year.

19 March set list–courtesy of Vagabond at pogues.com:

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