Could the Raveonettes be any cooler?

I think not.

Yeah. You might be wondering what this is all about, what with the physics and everything, something that, I would add and you would agree with, I have no idea about and also, would never talk about. So what gives?

What gives is, this was part of a ONE HOUR documentary played before the Eels show in Santa Ana I went to last night. ONE HOUR. One fucking hour. I thought I would die for a minute (actually about 30 minutes) there.

Don’t get me wrong – had I been prepared for it, I would have handled it with all the grace and aplomb that goes with being a real and true fan. But I wasn’t, and I had my head craned at an unnatural angle looking up at a scrim 5 inches in front of me for way too long. Everyone else in the pit suffered the same fate. It went on forever and it sucked royally. Why didn’t you move? You ask… well, who knew it would go on so long? I did not want to give up my spot on the rail (but I did, because I needed another vodka after about 45 minutes.)

So when E finally went on, I was a bit pissy and also in that semi-drunk state where I wondered how he could do this to me, to us? Mostly I was drunk because that movie was so long I drank way too fast. Fucking E.

But then, of course, he was on stage playing and I loved him. I LOVE him. It is hard not to, even though he had his cohort Chet read spoken word vignettes about his life onstage, which from any other person/band would seem so, I dunno, trite and lame, unless maybe it was Yo La Tengo or something.

In my advancing years, I’ve become a bit jaded, and when a musician in the course of three hours makes me want to cry, hurl something at his head, get drunk, stay sober, and then want more, I know I have seen and heard something great. And Mark “E” Everett does this to me. I love him, but I hate him; I never, ever want to have a day when I can’t hear him.

So last night? After the movie and about eighteen vodkas, E went on and started out slow and beautiful, but eventually “The Chet” joined him and it became awfully jammin’ just with the two guys. E went on drums for a while and acted like he didn’t know what he was doing but then busted out some kickass drumming. Manipulator! I hate you! I love you!

Mostly, though, I love Mark “E” Everett. And I would never miss an opportunity to see him – though now, I will know about the documentary, and will prepare accordingly. Because it is a pretty cool and interesting hour, one that I’d like to see from a proper distance sometime.

I kind of love this Mark Ronson cover of Radiohead’s “Just.”

Thanks to Sue for pointing this out for me – and this looks to be sort of an insane week, Radiohead wise. So stay tuned.

My friend Eddie just set out on a 3 month adventure in Thailand. I would be jealous, but since he is blogging about it, I’ll live. Check it out:

Discovering Thailand

I didn’t start traveling overseas until I was 33 years old and I always go to Europe. I need to check out some other places, like Thailand and Indonesia.

And Eddie – if you read this – thank you for the picture of Paris, and can’t wait to check out pictures from this trip!

It’s a cold and foggy New Year’s morning here at the beach, and I am up fairly early because I have a party to throw. Last night? Went to The Vine at about 4:30 and drank some great wine, then rushed home at the early hour of nine o’clock to catch Radiohead’s “Scotch_Mist” on Current TV.

I have to say… or confess, whatever… that I cried through most of the first showing. Whatever stuff I’ve been holding in since March 27 came out last night between about 9:15 and 9:45. I love this band so much that I couldn’t even control myself. Thank all the gods here and in the universe for Radiohead.

There was another showing at 10:00 and I made it through that one OK, and I am listening to it right now, because it’s on current.com. Don’t know for how long, but I’d advise everyone who reads this to try to check it out. I was, am, totally blown away by it. This pretty much says it all:

As for my party? Got lots of food, lots of wine, and lots of good friends coming. Should be a good day, one with no tears.

I know I’ve been absent… I have a hundred reasonable reasons, I swear.

I have big plans though, it’s either write in this blog or get rid of it. And I guess I have a lot of readers I didn’t know I had (thanks for letting me know, Judy.)

But for now, I just have to let you all in on some of last months Google Searches that Lead Here, because some of them are too funny.

Besides “Britt Daniel Girlfriend” and “Britt Daniel Gay” (he’s not gay, I can assure you – either that or he puts up a mighty good front):

photo of what a walmart cashier looks like
what makes life exciting
stars with hairy backs
naked english couples
c. k. dexter haven and tracy lord deserve each other
shoelicking slave
still a virgin losers nerds
rick steves penis

I guess it was the last one that prompted me to post this – why on earth would anyone care?

I can’t believe I haven’t written about Top Chef at all, during their third season. Last night was part one of the finale and next week, it’ll be over until season four.

Believe me, I still watch it every week. But for some reason it is not the same.

Season three has been watchable enough, but just not, well, newsworthy. Everyone gets along, almost all of the chefs had their one or two days in the sun. It’s all a bit bland though. I miss the crazy peeps on season one like Stephen and Dave. I even miss Mikey from season two.

Anyhow, even with the boringness of the third season, where I don’t really even care WHO wins, I still watch and in the long run I guess I want Dave Levitsky to win. Or Hung, or Casey. Any of them. I am totally rooting for the winner, whoever it is!

I am continually blown away by the bloggers at Amuse Biatch. Faced with a blank screen, they come up with brilliance. Brava.

OK then, I’ll shut up. Now check this out.

It is about seven in the evening on our last night in Normandy; I’m drinking red wine and Colleen is drinking cider – her first and last. The past two days we covered a lot of ground, and I have fallen in love with Normandy.

Colleen summed it up this morning when I was searching for the right word to compare Normandy to the Loire Valley. Normandy is more dramatic. It seems like a different France here and I am completely enthralled. If I were to pick three words for Paris they would be: worldly, hip, exotic. For the Loire: restful, green, majestic. My three words for Normandy: raw, rugged, swarthy. But I can’t stop at just three words so let me just add stark white, deep blue, storybook pretty, war damage ugly, drunken, sated, and sad, all at the same time.

Yesterday we drove south on the coast, playing connect the towns until we reached the D-Day beaches. Yeah, that is one word I forgot above – HISTORY. Sitting on a bunker on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach, eating cheese and drinking wine, it was impossible for me to imagine June 6, 1944 when 14,000 Americans died there – and this was only the first day. I simply could not make it happen in my mind, and I am usually pretty good at imagining horrible things. It is just TOO horrible to think about and this was only one of the beaches… we also went to the American cemetary, a quiet, manicured place on the cliffs overlooking the beach, with row after row of evenly spaced crosses, all in perfect symmetry.

And every French town seems to have it’s memorial to those it lost in both the Great War and World War II. So sad.

So after the beaches we went to Bayeux to see the Bayeux tapestry – a thousand year old strip of cloth telling the tale, through embroidery comic book style, of William the Conquerer’s journey to England where he was crowned king of England. The Normans kicked some ass back in the day, let me tell you.

Today we drove in the opposite direction, north to the seaside towns of Fecamp and Etratat. The cliffs are straight up and down there, and the beaches have plum sized, smooth rocks there, not sand. We went to where they make Benedictine and had a crappy lunch.

I guess if there is one place we have not been very successful in Normandy is the food; but we have been in some pretty touristy towns. The best thing we ate was last night when we got take out from a kebab place here in Honfleur and brought it back to the cottage to eat with a bottle of Cab Franc I picked up in Chinon. Oh well – next time.

And there WILL be a next time. I want to come back here in the winter, when the season is over, when the waves are crashing and storms are coming in off the North Sea, when everything, from the cliffs to the beach stones to the sky and sea, is gray. Someday I will walk that boardwalk at Etratat with no sight of any other person. It’s that kind of place, where you want it to yourself. Paris is not like this. Not to me anyway.

Tomorrow we will be in Senlis, Saturday Paris, for the Techno Parade. Sunday I will be home.

Things I have learned on this vacation in France:

1) There is no way I will ever be able to pronounce French words correctly. Example:

Colleen and I are in the tourist office in Montrichard, and I am trying to ask the simple question about the “Fete du Pain,” a bread festival we read about.

Me: do you know of the Fete du Pain?
Tourist office girl (with blank stare, some time elapses): you want a bread and breakfast?
Me: Uh, no, FETE DU PAIN.
TOG: (another blank stare, more time elapses): Fast food?

Finally I wrote it down and TOG was like, Ahhhhh, Fete du Pain! Which she did not have any info on, but we found it anyway, more on that later.

2) French people are very nice, even in Paris. Certainly we ran across a few cranky people; but for the most part everyone has been super cool.

3) It is possible to have a bad meal in France. Up until now, we thought it was perhaps impossible. But now we are in Honfleur on the Norman Coast and we have are 0/2. There was grit in my crepe, Tom Colicchio would have a FIT.

4) Roundabouts, especially the 450th, suck. What is the purpose, anyway?

5) I miss Paris terribly, am so happy I get to go back for one more day.

As for now, we got here yesterday after four great days in the Loire Valley. We had a great little cottage, toured around all day and then went back in the evenings for dinner. We saw many castles and cool little towns, vineyards and cornfields. The Fete du Pain day was the one really hot day, and that was one hoppin fete. They had a big band; two drummers, electric guitar, horns, four singers; all the musicians of different ages; there were dancers and 80 cent glasses of wine, and of course, many breads. Our last day, we went to another fete, this time the Fete of the Oeuf (egg) but this one was not so great; it was like a big garage sale, though I did have a tasty omelette and another eighty cent glass of wine.

After the fete we drove to the medieval wine village of Chinon. I loved this town. On the hill, there is a castle, the Plantagenets lived there; I walked in the same steps as Richard the Lionheart. In the village we went to two wonderful wine bars. At the first, for lunch, my fabulous French served me once again; when I asked for the assiette charcuterie, the waiter replied, in a strong German accent, ” you want a big plate of MEAT.” Indeed, it was one tasty plate of meat.
After hiking up to, and around, the castle, we went to another wine bar owned by a very nice guy. I’ll post the name of the place later. It was a lovely day and I definitely want to go back and spend more time around there.

So, it took us a good part of yesterday to get here to Honfleur. It really is a beautiful, atmospheric place. It is also very touristy, and there are many people here, mostly Brits. We had a bit of a rough start – we were tired from the long drive, and then finally got to our cottage here, which we are not too thrilled with. I think it started when we were trying to figure out who would sleep where, and I saw a massive spider on the bottom floor, where one of the beds is. It was like an Arnold Schwarzaneggar spider. Or maybe, an Edith Piaf tarantula. Whatever. Suffice to say, neither of us are willing to sleep next to that thing. So, I am sleeping on the couch in the middle floor, it is comfortable enough, but we are still not too thrilled and I had nightmares about bug bites.

Then we went onto a wine bar, it was OK and then a truly bad dinner; new rule – do not eat somewhere just because it looks cute.

We did end up in a really nice bar that had an excellent jazz band, and it was especially great until some British tourists came to the table next to us and the girl kept her cigarette next to Colleen’s face. Finally I blew it back at her and she sniffed a sorry. The waiter, a very cool guy, came up to me at one point and amusingly, asked if I had any REGRET coming there. No, I said, and it was true, it was the best part of the day, even with the lameass table next to us.

Today we are wandering; we wandered all through town, the tourist part and the part where it seems the real people live, we wandered to the sucky creperie, and now we have wandered to the internet bar, very close to our cottage, the one with the mammoth spider in it. The sun is out, and I and not such a stranger here, in this town of tourists.

Sorry for the weird writing – I am having a hard time getting the hang of these keyboards. I will definitely be posting more soon…

A bientot!

It is a bright and sunny Saturday here in the Loire Valley. I have to be quick – there is only one computer for rent in this whole town… we are in Montrichard; there is a castle on the hill, and our farmhouse is about five minutes away. We are staying in a very quiet place surrounded by forests and cornfields, a big change from Paris.

So far we have visited three chateaux – as in castle not wine estate; Chenonceau, Chambord, and Chaumont. It is pretty trippy to walk up the same steps as Catherine di Medici… today we are going to try to find a festival of bread; and we are going to Amboise, where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last few years.

Yesterday, at the biweekly farmers market here in Montrichard, we bought enough food to eat in every night; a roast chicken and some potatoes that cooked under the chicken, sausages, mushrooms from the mushroom lady, onions from the onion guy, pork rillettes, figs, melon… I wish our farmers market was like this. I think I could live on those roasted chickens.

So, two more days here and then up to Normandy where I hope to find a regular internet place.

A bientot!