Just a follow-up to say that the Blondie show was pretty cool... worth going even on a worknight while nursing a mean little hangover from hanging out with the girls on Sunday and drinking too much wine (how unusual!).
Wee and I were amused by the range of people in the crowd who came to see her, from college raver-kiddies to housewives and balding middle-aged dudes who were fans when punk still had its new-music smell (i.e. before most of the rave kids were born); perhaps not surprisingly, a significant contingent of GLBT folks showed up too. We were a little pensive on the band's behalf when we first got there (way early, as it turned out) and only saw about a third of 4th and B's general admission floor filling up; under-capacity turnout for a former superstar in a small venue is always a sad thing... but by the time the curtain went up, the floor had filled in and Blondie emerged to a respectably thick sea of bobbing heads.
It's amazing to me that Debbie Harry is pushing 60, and she's still up there getting her groove on the best she can - which is to say, still better than a lot of other pop divas out there. You could tell she was moving a little more stiffly and carefully in her high heels than she probably did 25 years ago, and she's got a bit of middle-aged waist creep going on; still, I think it's cool that she didn't take the Stevie-Nicks-flowing-robes approach to wardrobe, and instead wore a skintight, flaming-red shirt/skirt outfit, and an attitude which suggested that whoever didn't dig on her curves could pretty much go fuck themselves. She's apparently had some plastic surgery done, but I don't blame her - unless you're Keith Richards, it's a lot harder to pull off the rock star thing when your face is going all Shar-Pei on you. Obviously Debbie's still not the kind of girl to give up just like that... (Oh, noooooo-OH!)
Whenever someone famous appears on stage in front of me, I always seem to have kind of a delayed reaction about the fact that it's really that person, right there in the flesh, and not someone who just looks and sounds a lot like them... Last night it was when DH shot one of her sideways glances, and I got a good look at those distinctive, refurbished cat-eyes, and thought, No shit, that's DEBBIE HARRY! Her voice is still great, though it seemed by the end of the 2-hour set it was becoming a little thinly-spread. She gave her performance some good energy - shaking her wild blonde shag-do, striking weird poses, shimmying and vamping and pouting. When someone tossed roses on the stage, she said "Why do people keep throwing vegetation at me?", snatched them up, bit off the pink petals and spit them into the audience. (Say don't stop, to punk rock!) She knew which parts of which old songs the audience would inevitably sing along with and offered up the microphone to let them wail their hearts out.
Their newer songs were OK, worth a listen; but of course the highlight moments really were when they played the classics - "Rapture", "Heart of Glass", "The Tide is High", "Call Me"... All the songs that remind me of being Suzi's 9-year old sidekick, driving around with the radio on in Mom's curdled-cream-colored '77 Mercury Zephyr (possibly the ugliest car ever made).
The only really bad part of the show was that her sound technician sucked - the attention-whoring drummer's mic was way too loud, as was that of the freaky younger keyboardist (whose video-game-soundtrack interpretive touches on some of the songs were earning him dirty looks from not only the audience but some of the band members - I wonder if he'll survive the tour). I think it sounded worse initially, though, because we were in the balcony where the acoustics suck; the sound was better when we went downstairs, though DH's voice was still drowned out too often.
Anyway, all in all - very cool to see Blondie.
What BigR's automated Help Desk phone message said:
"You have reached the BigR Help Desk. Did you know that you can reach us more efficiently by email?"
What I heard:
"You have reached the BigR Help Desk. Did you know that you could hit Mars with a rock more efficiently by using a slingshot than by throwing it with your hand?"
Just coming up for air right quick to let my dedicated reader(s) know that I'm still alive.
Work is still hell; however, Wee and I have an unusually busy entertainment schedule over the next few days which hopefully will provide some good distraction from the daily grind... On Saturday we're going to see Henry Rollins' spoken word show - he used to come to Eugene pretty regularly but, as with the Grateful Dead, I never managed to go see him. Doc Norris saw him up north and gave a pretty good review of the show, so I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say for himself.
Then, on Monday, we have tickets to see Blondie. My sister used to listen to Blondie back in the day, which of course meant that I did too, so she helped shape my musical tastes early on. One of the first records Bill owned was hers (and she was, I believe, one of his first crushes), so we've both got history with Ms. Harry. It's amazing to me that she's still rocking at age 58... a guess a 16-year hiatus can really re-energize a girl. It's gonna be pretty amazing to hear her sing "Rapture" and "Heart of Glass".
Anyway. Just thought I'd share. We DO get out of the house, sometimes...
A comment I made to my coworkers today:
"There's a difference between 'lean and mean' and 'starving and psychotic'."
A year and a half ago, my department had five full-time buyers and a full-time expeditor (someone who follows up on orders to make sure they're going to be on time, pull them in if needed, etc.) Last year one buyer and the expeditor quit, and were not replaced due to lower workload at the time. In January, one of the four remaining buyers went on leave of absence, presumably due to day care issues with his new baby; his 12 weeks is coming up, but no one from HR has even been able to get hold of him to find out whether he's coming back, so it's not looking good.... And today, the other senior buyer in the department gave notice. This brings our staff down to all all-time low of two. The other survivor besides me is a hard worker, but has been having anxiety attacks on a regular basis, presumably from stress.
And the execs wonder why we're slipping contracts and losing employees on a daily basis. We're understaffed and totally demoralized. The results of the recent "Employee Satisfaction Survey" were almost funny, they were so uniformly nasty. I hope someone starts listening, soon.
/Off to try to ignore the stabbing pain in my neck muscles while I dig through the latest mountain of requisitions...