Scars and stitches always fade and only strengthen me

So, last night, my lady friend and fellow Gusterroid, Jaime, headed down to gorges Ithaca to see my favoritest band in the whole wide world, guster! For those who don't know I am somewhat obssessed with the band guster, and there music. Not in like a crazy stalker way, I just kind of watch them form a distance. No, but seriously, I am on there website on an almost daily basis, I've emailed them several times, have all there albums, including 4 or 5 live shows I downloaded off the net. It is safe to say I'm a fan. Now for those who are not on the guster bus, hop a board I'll burn you some tracks. But I digress. On to the happenings of this fateful Tuesday night in Ithaca, it's gorges (last Ithaca is gorges joke, I promise)! It took about 50 minutes or so to get to the venue, thanks mapquest, and we were ready to rock out to guster! Upon entrance to the State Theatre we checked out the merch table and both happily picked up new guster tees! Jaime's is a light green with some yellow sunflowers growing out of the band name, mine is a cranberry long sleeve with guster simply written in the middle in a blue bubble. I was happy. But then the show happened...
Our seats were in the balcony, a pretty good view, but there was not much leg room to sit, which would of course only be a problem until guster came on and I would be standing the rest of the evening. Now here is where I take issue. Guster comes out to raucous applause, almost, that's right ALMOST, everyone stands. But then a strange thing happened in our section of the State Theatre, everyone sat DOWN! WHAT the *@#%! I was taken aback as Jaime and I were the only ones in our section standing. Now guster is not a moshing band or anything, but as I heard one tool say to his friends who were planning on sitting, "because the balcony was steep", that, "this is a standing band, you gotta stand up, this is a standing band." Now I would never utter those words, well maybe now, in a mocking way, but he had point in his own douchy way, you don't sit at shows, concerts, etc. This is not the first time this has happened. Back in the day when I went to see Beck at the Landmark, Javen and myself, in the balcony again, were asked by the people behind us to sit down. You DON'T SIT at shows, unless you're like in a wheel chair or something. This ain't the opera or the philharmonic. So after about four or five songs, and after realizing State Theatre security was purty lax, we made our way down to the floor for a closer view. We felt much more in place, standing and singing along to the guster. So what else could piss me off you ask? Well I'll tell ya.
The fans at this particular show. Now I am all for a band growing its fanbase, and all, but it was pretty clear that this was predominantly Keep It Together fans. This was Guster's last album, and these fans were of course lost when the band decided to play some favorites from back in the day. But these fans should not get mad if I'm singing along, that's what happens at shows! The people in front of us had there arms folded across there chests, not singing along, and seemed pretty upset at our singing. Which makes me want to say, why weren't they stuck with the balcony seats,and more real, diehard fans able to get seats near the band? Can't they have like a band test or something to determine where you sit? This was not a good crowd. They even were cheering and singing along while Ryan, guster's lead singer, started covering a Lindsay Lohan song, mockingly off key I might add. Oh and I forgot to mention the girls screaming at the top of their lungs during songs. Totally unnecessary. Now comes the time for the encore, where everyone claps to get the band to come back out, and those people in our section in the balcony are STILL SITTING!
But the show was not all bad, there were plenty of highlights, aside from guster, themselves, being awesome as usual. The Lohan cover was amusing, although I didn't know what it was until I was told after the show. Really. They also played three old songs that I had never seen them perform live: X-Ray Eyes (one of my favorites from their second album), Great Escape, where they changed one verse to the chorus from "Add it Up" by the Violent Femmes, and Rainy Day, the last track off their third album, which can also be heard in the movie Life as a House. They also played three new songs that will be on their next album- Captain which had a kickass folksy twang to it, The Beginning of the End which had a familiar sound to it that I couldn't quite place and Satellite, which I don't recall that well. But, I think my favorite part of the show was when Ryan began singing "Two Points for Honesty", which apparently was not next on the set list. He sang the first verse, "If that's all you will be...." to which Adam replied into his mike, with a laugh, "WRONG". Ryan then asked, "why can't we play that one?" So they play that one and Ryan messes up the verses and after they're done with the song, says, "I've had a few" Oh that Ryan, he's a silly, silly man. Never a dull moment at a guster show!

Well, keep on truckin'!

Say it ain't so Theo, say it ain't so!

Today Red Sox Nation bids adieu to General, er, former General Manager Theo Epstein, who resigned on Monday. He gave us Big Papi, traded Nomar, got Schilling and helped bring Boston it's first Baseball title in 86 years. I'll miss ya Theo (sniff, tear).

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Well my friend Bill beat me to the punch (Ohhhh Yeahhhhhhhhh!) but I was intent on making a post on the Sunday night Bills-Patriots game. So here goes anyways. Now, first and foremost, if you don't already know, I am a Patriots fan, and have been since I started watching football. So keep that in mind. Now I'm not gonna talk much about the game itself, because I was passed out, from paying the Tedy Bruschi drinking game (drink every time they mention Tedy Bruschi), by halftime. Now I don't want to be insensitive or uncaring, because having a stroke of any kind is pretty serious, no matter what Bill and Javen say. If any of my friends were to have a "mild" stroke, well , okay, our lives would be much the same since we're not all that active as is. But here's the thing, was it a coincidence that Bruschi picked a nationally televised game to make his return? I'm thinking not. Now this is a pretty big story sure, but did this game need a big story line to get ratings? Probably not, the Bills and Patriots were battling for first place in the AFC East. Now allow me to elaborate on what really pissed me off about ESPN's coverage:

1) When cutting to commercial they showed a fun little Bruschi montage to the tune of Chad Kroeger's "Hero". Of course the tune I loved (sometimes it's hard to convey sarcasm in writing). Alright, fair enough, but this was done, not just once, but on several occassions. At least use a different song. for crying out loud!

2) The Bruschi story interfered with the actual game coverage. Let me paint you a little picture here.... The Patriots have the ball after a Bills kickoff, cut to Tedy Bruschi's wife in the stands, as they drone on about her helping decide on whether or not it was time to come back or something like that. Now the sideline stories etcetera are great, but I wanted to watch the game. So what happened you ask? Well, when they cut back to the game, the Bills had the ball. Now that is what I would call pretty bad coverage. Now after the Bills ran a couple of plays, they explained what happened and even were so kind as to replay the fumble. Gee. Thanks.

3) Similar situation later in the game, they were interviewing Bob Kraft while the Bills had the ball, and, apparently learning their lesson from earlier, they did a picture-in-picture with Kraft in the corner and the game, not taking up the whole rest of the screen, but a sizable portion. Now, while this was happening the Bills fumbled and the Patriots recovered. At least this one I could see, but was somewhat unsure of what was going on with the smaller picture and no commmentary. And could I just add that I'm thankful for Robert Kraft doing what he has done for the Patriots, but he should never, ever speak. Aside from his slow, annoying way of speaking he called Tedy Bruschi and intelligent individual. A decent linebacker, yes, but intelligent man? C'mon.

Okay, now I'm just want to say how much I het Paul McGuire and that I'm not all that thrilled with Joe Theismann either. At points they were like us being drunk at a bar commenting on a game. Like Theismann saying the play clock should be reduced to 25 seconds in the last two minutes to make the games "that much more exciting". To which Paul McGuire, replied, almost irritatedly yelling at Theismann, "They have 58 minutes to have a chance!" That was even stupider than Joe asking Paul, did they ever try and ice you? Yeah Joe, they tried to ice a punter. Then when Mike Patrick asked who they thought Mike Mularkey, facially, looked like, to which I, in my living room, immediately responded, "Kevin Costner!" He's not identical, but you can see a resemblance. Joe and Paul didn't know and after Mr. Patrick said, "Kevin Costner", Paul McGuire responded with a crass and curt, "No." As if Mike Patrick was the idiot in the booth? Not a courteous, "Nooooo" to at least humor him, but a flat out, you are out of your mind, have another one, "No." Paul McGuire you are a horse's petoot!
Keep on trucking everyone!