it's good to have a blog

If I didn't have a blog, neither you nor I would ever know that I saw David Kilgour and Yo La Tengo play a show in 2007 (and I didn't enjoy it, but that doesn't really mean anything in itself). Amazing. I literally do not remember this at all, I don't know where it happened and my description of the experience is so oblique I am not sure why I had a bad time. Crazy! I suspect the bad time probably had less to do with the actual show, than I appreciated at the time. I am also surprised to read that I've seen Yo La Tengo six times. Six??? I really like them, but I can only vaguely recollect seeing them once, and it wasn't this 2007 show. Madness!!!

This is a picture of Perry and Nancy yesterday. Perry is at one of his doggy day care hangs today. I would be happy to have him stay at home all week but he really seems to need to expend the energy and he loves going to those places so much I can't deny him. But I miss him. I am fairly sure Nancy doesn't. 

Walking at the moment is not easy because while I am (I'm pretty sure) coming to the end of my four or five-month bout of plantar fasciitis I am still hobbling a bit and every time I stand up I don't know whether it's going to hurt or not. I am also often really, really tired which can't just be the fact that I am 60 now but has to be more than that. Well, I guess I'll find out over time. But it doesn't make me the ideal companion all the time for a sometimes boisterous three year old (dog). 

I got back on Netflix recently, I forget why but to watch something in particular, possibly the Sarah Silverman special which I actually didn't enjoy that much but perhaps it was too close to the bone. Anyway, what I have since discovered is that a lot of Netflix shows have a Finnish captions option, which means I can justify watching any old pap on that basis, as a way to keep treading water on my Finnish. Most recently it was a five-part British crime show called Missing You. The above reads, 'Didn't it bother you that he had a family?' (I didn't translate that all by myself, by the way, though I know some of the words). 

'Did s/he make a mistake?'

This relates to a website called, unconvincingly, 'Honest Aspect': 'I reviewed all Honest Aspect-related documents for errors'. 

I don't know how useful this all is in learning Finnish (my ten-year plan, to be fluent by 2035!) but it can't hurt - can it? 

middle aged man has strong reaction to rock and roll show

...as performed by slightly older, and also of course middle aged, men and women.

Last night we went to see David Kilgour and Yo La Tengo at the Corner. I didn't like David Kilgour's set at all, or rather, the only bits I liked were the rock out bits at the end of about 3 or 4 songs. Part of this I ascribe to his apparent desire to reference the sound of late 60s Dylan. It has come to my attention that I don't really like Bob Dylan's music that much. I guess the mid-to-late 60s is his best period but nevertheless: I don't like it that much. But I really don't like it when people feel they should base their sound on him, and particularly when people try to sing like him. I also don't like it when innovative artists lose their verve and gain a strong desire to become craftspeople doing work 'as good as' their heroes'. Anyway, really great drummer aside, I wasn't that into DK, but maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

It must have been about the 6th time I'd seen Yo La Tengo. I have always enjoyed almost all of their work, and I admire them very much. The first half of the show - from about 10 to about 11, up until they did the Beach Boys cover - was amazingly excellent. Just after that the whole thing totally jumped the shark. The second half of the show was a gruesome debacle that went on incredibly long and seemed to feature one song that may as well have been the sound of a peanut shelling machine with the cogs askew. It was woeful. Some guy about 1 1/2 years younger than me ran up to some other guy and said 'that was totally fucken incredible! that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen!' which it may have been but I doubt it, because it was shocking.

I conveyed this to the car on the way home and Shane said at least the encores were good and I agreed with him but I was telling a lie (inasmuch as I was faking agreement) because I just wanted to forget it all.

If more people went to Circus Royale more often, they would realise what a show was all about.