They Might Be a Documentary

I'm all hyper and in a good mood tonight. It might have a lot to do with the fact that dinner consisted of popcorn and cherry coke. Maybe. I went to see the 7 o'clock show of Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns. It is about the band They Might Be Giants, a quirky alternative rock sort of group. I thought about who I knew that might actually be interested in going with me. As far as I know, the only person who would be as equally jazzed about this is Brian, but he's 3000 miles away in NY. Anyone who's had the domain Blue Canary is a fan. It seems Betty would have gone if she and Jack hadn't already seen it last Saturday when it came to the Castro Theatre. So I went tonight by myself. Just as I expected there were a bunch of other fans who had no friends to drag along, and why would you do that when you could revel in their coolness without having to explain stuff like the Dial-a-Song. Even the snitty guy in the box office who somehow interpreted, "One please" to be "Two Adults" and they gave me attitude because he screwed up (or perhaps he just got distracted by some cute hunk walking behind me) couldn't ruin my good mood.

I first discovered They Might Be Giants (TMBG) back in college at the record co-op at SUNY Albany. I bought their eponymous album, They Might Be Giants after getting hooked on Put Your Hand in the Puppet Head and Don't Let's Start. It was so weird yet so completely catchy I couldn't stop playing it. I bought it as an actual LP, vinyl, the big round black thing when cool album art meant something and when a CD was an investment instrument. I bought a bunch of their records. There was this cool guy who worked there, I think his name was Jeremy, who would stop me if there was a new album out because he thought they were the best and loved talking to anyone about them.

In any case it was neat to see that there were a lot of younger fans there too. I mean, these guys are 39 and 40 years old and married and still just as geeky as they were back in 1986 when I discovered them. Sure it didn't stop me from trying to decide which one I liked best in that fantasy date/fuck/new best friend way. Yeah, well I still can't decide. The documentary would have been boring if you don't like them, so don't go and see it and then complain to me. Come borrow a CD or something. Hmmm...maybe I better go grab those old LPs from Mom and Dad's basement.

Speaking of Mom and Dad, I was talking to my mom the other day. Dad's been reading a lot lately in an attempt to fill his crazy days of retirement. It reminded her of a day when my father "punished" me. It was a Sunday and I was sitting around reading when he came in and found me lounging about. "Is that all you can do - sit around and read a book?" he said. "Well you can stay in your room and read then." I suspect he was planning on doing something fun, but making me stay and read was hardly a punishment. I'm afraid it didn't make a lasting impression on me. Of course any Go-to-your-room punishment was anything but punishment since there was always something to do.

Well anyway, I've been fussing with the idea of a place to talk about music and maybe even give you a little taste of a group or artist that you probably wouldn't know about. Music is such a powerful thing and on a really bad day, I can always count on a good song to remind me that it's not that bad and that things will get better. Or that I'm not alone and someone else is there with the soundtrack for my pity party. Rather than intermingle the tunes with my written, ahem, pearls, I'll be setting up a link on the side which will point to the sub journal or blog. I've got an introductory page up and you can join the notify list if you want to get an email when I post new songs.