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as usual, i wasted my day off today. but in a good way.
i'm not sure why, but it's rainy and cold (39*F), so kitty and i have mostly stayed in bed, dozing and cuddling and getting annoyed at technology and pretending that we're going to fix the sewing machine later. i'm almost guilty, but not quite. i've never really been good at feeling good about doing nothing, but i'm working on it. i think when one is satisfied with one's life (or at least a few aspects of one's life), one feels better about cutting one's self slack. or maybe i just don't have a lot going on right now.
well, here comes my second music related post. (truly, i do not see that many shows, but when i do see one/some, i have to have to have to talk about it/them.)
A and K(2) and I went to see Lord of the Yum Yum last night at Ronny's. All sorts of crazy things went down. First, a super drunk guy yelled as us as we rolled up on our bikes (something like "I'm going to kill you on your bikes!!") and moments later was snared by the cops. He was out there getting ticketed for public drunkeness for quite awhile. We headed in and I took a little detour 
to the potty, which was filthy, but very "green," having been decked out in flattened beer cans. Kinda neat. I eventually got a beer from a very very drunk bartender, who was simultaneously getting screamed at in Spanish by his also drunk co-bartender/lady friend (she later broke her fist... she was sobbing as we left and the door guy was calling for help). K(2) got the wrong beer, and A got a beer for $1. The opening "band" was terrible, as openers can sometimes be. Everyone in the venue (20 people) was there to see Lord of the Yum Yum.
I had never encountered this Yum Yum guy before... A saw him somewhere awhile back and was uber-stoked to be seeing him again. I had no idea what I was getting into. He turned out to be a total showman. I was hooked from the first moment. He totally worked the (tiny) crowd and then mixed (live) these amazing beats based on classical pieces. Super down to earth and totally unlike anything I've seen before. Just this gangly, beat-boxing, powder-blue suit wearing, pasty, 30-something guy preforming his ass off.
I talked to him after for about 30 seconds and it 
turns out he's an elementary school teacher...he teaches general music. Kids would love this shit! We kept wondering if Yum Yum is his secret side project or if he uses this stuff in the classroom. Do his students know how awesome their teacher really is?
It was hard to get any accurate photos, particularly because Yum Yum is a perpetual motion machine, as evidenced. Definitely check this guy out live... he doesn't play often, but it's worth hunting him down.
As an aside, I really hate blogger, but have yet to find another host that I don't also hate. Who knew it would be so hard to arrange four images in a row on the left? Sorry this looks like shit. I'm bad at technology.
K(1) reminded me that Half-Handed Cloud was playing at Berry Church on Thursday night. We had seen him preform a few years (or more than a few years...) back at our college. I was deeply in love at the time but had had my heart trounced (thrashed, shit on, what-have-you). I'm sure this is an exaggeration but the night of that show is the first good night I can recall, post-heartbreak. I can remember how tired, just sapped of energy, I was; the way my mouth tasted from not really eating much and surviving on cigarettes for months; what I was wearing (oversized red-orange woolly sweater, borrowed from the very tall M(2)). I can remember how chaotic the music was, how fast and odd and accompanied by props. I hadn't really seen anything like it and I was so happy to be temporarily in the circle of this guy's creativity. Man, that was one sweet show, the kind where you just grin and grin and grin.
So, of course, this week's show did not quite measure up, but still, it was good music. Very communal, close, spazzy. He played some of the same songs he'd played that first night, years ago, and by association, i started thinking about love, something I forget is a real thing. Sitting there hearing that music, surrounded by old friends who I rarely see anymore, rocking out in the basement of my church to truly positive music... it was a very holistic experience, working on way to many levels. I was drunk with thoughts, none of which coherently made it out of me in any form. Thoughts about collaboration; vicarious metaphysical creativity, a massive unified creative conscience; how sometimes two people actually do fall in real love and are better for it; and on and on. I wanted to put my hands on everyone in the room... it was like Woodstock. For lack of a better way to describe my mindset, I will offer this rare excerpt from my notebook, written late, late that night:
By now, I am all alphabetic stitches and jumbles upon jumbles of songs in the making - I think only my Miraculous Jesus would be willing to add himself to this mess. By now, I breathe in and out b/c I know one day I'll get to stop. Heaven is like a dream only things make more sense and seem real (b/c probably the are).
After many failed attempts to upload video of the show, this picture is going to have to suffice. Maybe video later?
