Where Dave Is

Dave is…

As happy as he has been since last year’s NFC championship (with the exception of the first ten minutes of the Super Bowl and the last two minutes of the Packer game)

Rex Grossman is back and it was every bit as awesome as I dreamed it would be. Including him fumbling the first snap. I haven’t been so excited for next’s week’s game all year.

Only downside today (besides the most boring and atrocious opening 50 minutes of Bears football since 2004) was that I couldn’t drink. Had to go back and do work after the game. But Rexy’s 59 yard bomb demanded something so I had just one.

Next stop: Playoffs.

PS This is the hottest picture ever taken of anyone by anyone at anytime.

Dave is…

Show hopping.

The last few weeks have at times almost felt like the second half of my sophomore year. I’ve been averaging a show and a half a week (That spring I was going to something like three shows a week on average.) and as loyal but honest reader Barb has pointed out has led to a bit of a rut on WhereDaveIs. I’m not sure then that this will be an improvement as tonight I didn’t so much hit up one concert as three. Actually I don’t think you can call them concerts I think any performance at a joint smaller than MSG should technically be called a show, maybe Hammerstein depending on the band involved.

Anyway so tonight I went to see a traditional country/folk singer-songwriter, a Japanese action comic punk band and a rootsy super group of NYC based jamband stars. I hadn’t really thought how odd that combination sounds till I was describing my agenda to someone. As Liz Smith says ad nauseum, “Only in New York kids, only in New York”.

So after a long day in the library that still wasn’t near as productive as it should’ve been and a brief break to watch the last few minutes of the Illini’s upset of Ohio State (I’m a Saluki guy but it was sweet to watch IL ruin those assholes chances of going to the Championship.) I headed over to Mercury Lounge in the Lower East Side to see Laura Cantrell. She does a nice interpretation of traditional country/folk. She happened to be one of the musical guests on the A Prairie Home Companion show I saw at Town Hall in Dec ’05. Not only is she a hell of songwriter but she used to host a famous radio show on WFMU and managed all this while also being a Vice President, Business Manager of Banc of America Securities Equity Research Department. She quit that a couple years back when it became impossible to juggle it with her burgeoning music career. Really she is just awesome (check out her music HERE. I recommend listening to the titular track of her 2002 album “When the Roses Bloom Again” or her cover of Lucinda Williams “Letters”) and she doesn’t seem to play too often it was just a bonus that it was an early show in a great place like the Merc, one of the best intimate venues in NYC.

That show got done at 8:25 leaving me just enough time to hop in a cab (my first cab ride since I returned to New York) to shoot over to The Knitting Factory in Tribeca to see Peelander-Z the aforementioned Japanese action comic punk band (that’s a self description by the way) the generally go on to discuss how they are actually aren’t human but from the planet Peelander and their Power Ranger looking outfits are actually their skin. The shows aren’t really about the music, which is as basic as punk can be even before they give their instruments to the audience, but about the experience. They pretend to beat each other with chairs WWF style, they climb on the ceiling and they do human bowling.

That is exactly what it sounds like, they set up a bunch of bowling pins, then Peelander Yellow puts on a bowling pin suit and Peelander Red hurls him through the crowd till he hits the pins. Of course while this is going on the band consists of random people they gave their instruments too (frequently they seem to people who’ve never touched one before).

Even when they are “just” playing music they are waving signs for audience call and response (my favorite is in their song S.T.E.A.K. “how do you like your steak?” MEDIUM RARE!), elaborately pantomiming flicking boogers at people and in the case of their drummer stripping down to his underwear (he had on over 5 pairs).

And the crowd just loves it. There’s a heavy Asian percentage mixed with the hipsters and punk fans. Lots of low grade moshing, enthusiastic participation and tonight, even one guy who stripped down to nothing but a g-string. Which I have to say would’ve been pretty nasty even if he hadn’t been jumping right in the thick of the mosh pit.

Jay and I just love it. We discovered these guys the night before Bonnaroo III officially started. We got split up watching one of the Bonnaroo eve bands that was just terrible and I had walked over to another stage and was in no way prepared for the Power Ranger wrestling match that was raging across the stage (turns out that’s where Peelander Yellow lost his front tooth). Luckily Jay, who was in much the same state of astonished euphoria, and I ran right into each other and since then I don’t think we have missed a show in the city.

I even bought the Peelander package which included shirt and DVD. It’s getting on time for Christmas shopping so if you are looking for something for that hard to shop for person…

After the show Jay and Hannah and Corrine and I had a drink in the upstairs bar before around I bailed around midnight to hike back up to the Village to the former Acme Underground (sight of several notable Wounded Buffalo Theory performances) for a Mike Greenhaus special, his Post-Birthday Pre-Holiday Choose Your Own Adventure Party featuring an unannounced and secret American Babies performance. American Babies is the side project of Brothers Past’s Tom Hamilton but it could not sound different than his main gig (or the main gigs of Scott Metzger and Sir Joe Russo who are also in the band) which has a heavy electronic influence. This is really a rootsy band described by Mike as “a post-jam version of Ryan Adams/Counting Crows”.

Mikey is of course an editor at Relix Magazine and the man who coined the term “post-jam” so his party was a blend of ex-Skidmore kids, neurotic CT people and music insiders. It was also, unfortunately, way too crowded. Too crowded to find any of the people I’d know, too crowded to talk to them if I did and too damn hot. Even worse they were running well behind so I ended up bailing about 40 minutes into the show. They were alright, I’d never heard them before, not as good as their billing (but then who could live up to that) but pretty solid. I figure I’ll give them another try when it’s not so late, not so crowded and not following up one of the greatest bands in the world (ours or theirs).

(photos of Peelander by letsgoing)

Dave is…

Not a millionaire.

And neither is Wayne though the man did tear it up and walk away with $50,000 which makes his day a lot more productive than mine.

You may recall I posted about Wayne appearing on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Well it aired today at 12:30pm which meant the only place to watch it was Josies. So I ducked out of the law library, ran over to Josies and me, Martin the owner, Vonna and the waitress all stood around and yelled encouragement at the TV.

Wayne worked his way up the chain pretty fast before having some trouble with one question and having to burn two of his lifelines to get to 25k. The 50k question was even tougher asking what Crayola recommends to get crayon out of clothes. Despite how well dressed Wayne was for his appearance on TV I know damn well he doesn’t have clue one about that kind of thing. Luckily Krista does and she came in huge as his Phone a Fiancée correctly choosing WD-40 (seriously? That seems crazy.) It’s a good thing Max didn’t know that when we were kids. The little bastard loved to find excuses to use the stuff cause he liked the smell and if he knew the Crayola trick I have no doubt he’d of been rolling around in Crayons and huffing his little brain out.

So with 50k locked up Wayne looked to the 100k question which was, “Which of these Civil War battles occurred last chronologically?” The options were Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Antietam and Chancellorsville. I started screaming at the television. If ever a question were made for me this was it and I was trying to will it to him through time and space. I started to panic a little when Wayne leaned towards Fredericksburg and nearly had a seizure when he said, “I think it was the one that happened after the treaty was signed” and started yelling at him to take the money and run.

Luckily he was similarly inclined and walked off with a cool 50k. I told Martin that should mean pitchers on Wayne all Sunday and he responded with, “Fuck that. I’m only letting him buy top shelf”. No wonder Martin was so excited by Wayne’s success.

Congrats Wayne. You just made more than I’ll probably make my first year out of law school. Doesn’t help the motivation as I headed back to the books.

Dave is…

Expanding his internet empire.

Most of you probably haven’t noticed the new link I’ve added to the sidebar. Listed as Dave’s Stream of Consciousness it links to my Tumblr page (I don’t know what it is with these aggregation sites and there exclusion of the final vowel). This is another website I learned about from Noah (aren’t they all) and as described by Wired is, “blogging reduced to its absolute minimum — like Twitter with pictures.” I never got into Twitter (maybe cause it leaves the “e”) but probably cause if you ever try to hang out with Noah he spends have the time on his phone Twittering like a lunatic.

In essence it’s a collection of quotes, links, videos etc that I want to share but dont have the time or inclination to put on WhereDaveIs.com. For example if you go there now you’ll find a link to my roomate’s most recent New York Times article, a joke about the pope, a link to an article raising the question of can you rape a sleepwalker and a Biblically minded remake of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”. See these are things you cant miss.

And for those of you who are turned away from WhereDaveIs cause of my excessive prose here is a chance to get a full dose of Dave with half the calories. It’s Dave Light.

More importantly as finals season ramps up and I finally admit the necessity of real legitimate hard work I expect there will be a lull in the blog so the Tumblr page will be your only opportunity to gain insight into my insanity.

Oh and if you don’t listen to the catchiest song in the history of the world you might as well cut your ears off cause what’s the point of having them.

Enjoy.

Dave is…

Not doing karaoke.

You know I ducked uptown for a while tonight cause I heard Intralinkers were doing karaoke tonight and I have more than a few found memories of those evenings. But wow, times have changed. Other than the man of the hour Andres there were precious few familiar faces in the crowd and the whole tone of the evening was heavily into R.Kelly and that kind of urban dance music of which I know little and care less. It was not an Engelbert Humperdink crowd which is a damn shame.

They say you cant go home again, but I shoulda known that anyway. I hear they’ve gone and made John Trainor a VP. I would sooner grow dreads, stop showering, bathe in patchouli and start hawking 5 cheese veggie been burritos on String Cheese Incident tour than work under that guy (for those of you who don’t know I am vehemently opposed to all of the above). Hell, if I was doing a merger or acquisition I wouldn’t trust a damn dime to a company that keeps promoting a cat like that. If their personal judgment is that bad how can you trust them on anything.

It’s a shame too. That place used to have promise.

Dave is…

Watching electric apricot.

You ever seen American Movie? The documentary about the wannabe filmmaker and his friend Mike Schank and their efforts to finish their horror epic Coven? Its amazing. My roommate rented it once when I was horribly sick freshman year and we must have watched it three times that weekend before he lost it, we went home for Christmas and Blockbuster sent a collection agency after me. The characters were so ridiculous and it was so funny we argued about whether it was real for weeks. Turns out it was.

Electric Apricot: The Quest for Festeroo isnt. Its in the Spinal Tap style though, following a burgeoning band as it works to play at the premier hippie festival of the summer. It’s the creative baby of Les Claypool the wildly eccentric, albeit absolutely brilliant bassist for Primus as well as a wealth of solo projects. Hes played in at least a half dozen incarnations and he published his first book this spring but this is his first foray into film as writer director and actor.

Sure he picked an easy target, I mean who cant lampoon hippies. But really that’s no less obvious than Spinal Tap’s source material. Unfortunately its not quite as funny.

See the film was made last year and those in the hippie community have been waiting for it since but its release kept getting pushed back. Finally though it got bought by National Lampoon and is gonna have a limited theatrical release next week. For those in the know, though there was a private screening at the Film Archives on 2^nd and 2^nd tonight.

Since it was better than CivPro and just as free I was there early. Surprisingly though I was one of the few. I dunno if the invites were more limited than I thought or everyone just had better things to do on a Monday but other than the Relix crew, the Hidden Track guys and a few randoms it was pretty sparse.

Which made me feel a little awkward when the film began to drag on and the laughs became more sparse cause Les was there watching it with us. But I get ahead of myself. The first half of the movie was pretty damn funny. Again it is obvious material and the cast had no real improve experience (this was shot very much Guffman style with a loose narrative structure but overwhelmingly ad-libbed dialogue) but they had some pretty funny lines in it and some sweet cameos including a hilarious appearance by Seth Green and Matt Stone as hardcore tapers. The problem was though it went on too long and was dragging by the time they got to Festeroo at which point the jokes got perhaps too easy.

Still for a first time writer/director/actor and for a free mockumentary it wasn’t bad, and the soundtrack of Electric Apricot’s (the band of the title) music was surprisingly pretty sweet in a self aware kind of way.

And hell anything that ends with a Q&A with Les Claypool is pretty sweet. A lot sweeter than having to rush home to register for International Law for next semester. I’ve heard the prof for it is pretty harsh, but since he wrote most of the EU constitution I guess Ill let him get away with it. Still its worrisome that when I registered this class had far more spots left than any of the other One-L electives on the board.

Dave is…

Not getting enough shit done.

So today being the Bears’ bye week I figured I’d stay home. Get a bunch of misc shit done that I haven’t had time to do and then watch the Colts/Pats game. Well I got a lot less shit done than I expected. You know why: the Red Zone channel.

Bemoaning the Bears at Josies I haven’t had the chance to really take advantage of our Sunday Ticket package other than to watch a ton of Chicago’s postgame on Comcast. But this Red Zone channel is amazing. Any time a team looks like its gonna score they cut to that game. Its like football on speed, hot nasty bad assed speed. Its exhausting but awesome.

Follow that up with a Colts/Pats game that almost lived up to the billing and a Browns/Seahawks game that exceeded it and so passed my day. Everyone should have Sunday Ticket.

Dave is…

At Railroad Earth.

Railroad Earth is probably the only band other than the Truckers who could get me to go back to the former Irving Plaza (now known as The Fillmore in one of the most crass exploitations of hippie ideals). The venue is shit, the security there are assholes and they oversell the shit out of it. Hell it’s the only venue that I have ever been kicked out of and they did it just cause I was standing next to people who were smoking pot. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t know them, wasn’t smoking, and wasn’t involved I got rounded up with them taken downstairs asked to empty my pockets and was then kicked out even though I turned up totally clean. Assholes, seriously.

But I digress. Anyway Railroad Earth will always get me back, hell they once got me to go to New Jersey on mass transit. That’s love. Once again Bonnie was my partner in crime. Great God almighty she seems to be everywhere. There was reason this time cause she went to high school with the bassist a fact that I really feel she should have appraised me of years ago. Unfortunately despite high hopes she didn’t get a hold of him in time to gain access to the VIP balcony, and we showed up a little late but we got established pretty quick in what was surprisingly a good but not packed crowd.

I heard great things about their show here in the winter but tonight was a little more chill. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was dancing around as much as I’m capable of, but others had mixed reviews. Far as I am concerned any show that has Seven Story Mountain and Head as well as a cover of Powderfinger is A-OK with me.

Set I
Bird in a House
Magic Foot
Elko
Loving You
420
Warhead Boogie
Said What You Mean
Dandelion Wine (with Neal Casal)

Set II
RV
Head
The Good Life
Fruitful Acre
Powderfinger (first time played. With Neal Casal)
Railroad Earth
Any Road
Seven Story Mountain

Encore:
Walls of Time (with Neal Casal)
Ragtime Annie Lee

It was too bad though that they played the Old Man and the Land early this week. I love that song. Yeah I know I don’t devote as much ink to them as I do the Truckers but if there is one band I can suggest you all check out its these guys, beautiful spacey bluegrass. Like Bill Monroe meets the Dead with a touch of Dylanesqe song writing. Just great great stuff. It’s really been a solid month for music.

Dave is…

Feeling really lame.

You know what’s great in this city? Halloween. The city goes crazy. Thousands of people parade and tens of thousands mob the streets around the law school to watch. It’s insane. I think the day I realized just how much I loved NYC was Halloween of my freshman year when I walked out the door of my dorm into a throng of thousands of insanely dressed, insanely inebriated revelers who were still wandering around at 3am. I mean it’s truly amazing to witness.

That’s coupled with the number of big name musical acts that the city draws for Halloween shows. Shows that almost invariably feature interesting covers, rarely played classics and hardcore fans in the ultimate inside joke costumes. Really this town is to Halloween what Savannah is to St Pats and Berkeley is to Arbor Day (damn tree-huggers).

Unfortunately this year I had a simulated client interview for my Lawyering class which meant that from 7-8pm I was in a suit struggling through an overly disagreeable interview with a client who was just not interested in talking to us. By the time it ended and I had shed the suit (leaving it a garment bag in the school coat check where it would stay for several days) it was too late to get all the way uptown to see the Black Crowes do their Halloween show. Damn. I did walk out the door of the law school to see an angry looking Oompa Loompa run by waving a picket sign that said Wonka touched my Willy.

And since most of my friends seem to be on some bizarre alternate year cycle where they go all out for Halloween one year and the next barely acknowledge its existence and since the girl with the apartment overlooking the parade route foolishly moved to new digs while I was gone there wasn’t a lot of options.

So Josh and I and Jeff ended up spending 3-4 very pleasant, albeit tame, hours staking out Washington Square Park near the Arch watching the insane costumes and the scantily attired females. I’m not going to dwell on it cause everyone feels the need to pontificate on it and the deeper issues it represents, but daaaaaamn is it amazing. I think my percentage doubled or tripled tonight. Hell I might’ve been close to 15%, which for those of you who’ve played the game with me will know is waaay above my average. I will also say that the most brilliant use of the “Sexy ___” costume was a girl who went as Sexy Marijuana. Which was pretty much a huge pot leaf covering most of her torso and not a whole lot else. I’d guess that 80% of non-gay men in a 10 block radius would’ve shot someone to smoke her. Oh and the girl that went as the belly dancer, the one who was 98% naked? Yeah she was hot.

I didn’t bother to bring my camera out cause it takes such lousy night pictures but I did want to mention a few of my favorite costumes. (Photos are stolen from Flickr accounts but are almost entirely of costumes in the parade I wish I would’ve seen. Credit to killrzr, othergroundnyc and zodak)

I got to be honest if the girls are all “Sexy ___” the guys (outside the professionals) are all something out of the ‘80s-early ‘90s. Really with very few exceptions all the great costumes are inspired by something from the 80s. When my folks were out for Halloween in ’05 the greatest costume was Weekend at Bernie’s made up of two guys carrying a dummy between them. It was awesome.

The greatest 80s costume I saw this year I didnt get a photo of. It was Spaceballs the Costume. It was a guy dressed as one of Spaceball One’s crew of assholes with an official looking bumper sticker on his back saying “Spaceballs the Costume”. Fucking brilliant.

Amongst the year’s best costumes were Transformers (and yeah I know it was just a movie but the movie was by Michael Bay so it doesn’t count) which Josh and I saw on the subway,

From Star Wars (always an insanely overrepresented costume category but damn this AT-ST costume is freaking sweet)

Another look at it.

Predator

And Iron Man both classics but whose day is over.

And the pinnacle of the ‘80s and really, human culture: He-Man. Man I cannot believe someone went as Skeletor and I missed it.

What is even more amazing is that someone went as Hordak, Skeletor’s counterpart on She-Ra. He also featured prominently in the He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special, which I watch every year. But still that isn’t normal. I bet that guy is so cool. I really wish I had seen him. (And notice who he is posing with? A 80s/early 90s ad icon).

Muppets costumes are always a great call but the brilliance here is keeping Statlor and Waldorf in the booth.

This isn’t a costume, that’s actually Ron Jeremy. He was on a float that went by during the 10 minutes Josh and I were watching the parade itself. The DJ did a shout out to him but we thought they were just making fun of the fat guy on the front of the float.

Speaking of fat guys there was one guy who was the size of The Soprano’s Vito pre-weight loss who went as Peter Griffin from Family Guy. He had a plastic mask but what made it so awesome was the almost scary way he seemed to move and walk just like Peter. It’s what Peter would be like if Who Framed Roger Rabbit was real and Pete escaped Toon Town. There was two separate pairs of women American Gladiators who went at it with their giant Q-tips when they saw each other and a guy dressed as Billy Madison. I fucking loved his costume immediately but he put it over the top when he lifted his shirt to reveal that it really did belong to Frank. I about pissed myself laughing.

Ultimately after standing around so long that our legs were sore we tried to find a bar for a drink or two but at 11pm on Halloween everyplace was insane and as sober noncostumed kids we didn’t want to get involved in that so Jeff headed off to Brooklyn and Josh and I shared a subway back to Astoria with Death. No seriously, Josh and I were freaking out. He wasn’t in costume so much as ACTUALLY DEATH. Like Poe’s the Red Death cept this guy was all black. And huge. Like Andre the Giant huge, cept Death. I was freaking out.

We did make it home safely though (Death apparently was going to go claim souls on one of the last two stops on the N) to find that our next door neighbors, who we have long put off meeting. (Well not long for me I’ve only lived here a couple months. I put all the blame on Josh) were having a big costume party. It extended from their second floor apartment to the alley between our houses and featured at least two kegs. Now if we knew them at all we could’ve gone over there. Hell we probably could’ve gotten away with it anyway but we were real sober and it was going towards 1am and id already made one terrible drinking decision this week. But it was tough rinsing a dish in the sink after reheating some leftovers and looking out the kitchen window to the kitchen a few feet away where people were congregating around a keg.

Damn law school has made me lame. Wonder what Josh’s excuse is?

Dave is…

Playing Guitar Hero III like the Bears/Lions game never happened.

Good thing Guitar Hero III is amazing. I’d discuss it in greater depth but I am too busy making Tom Morello and Slash my bitches.