fun. is fun.

It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon.  Where am I going with a backpack?
 
The fun headboard, the painted walls, the lamps.  I must be at a McMenamins Hotel.
 
Indeed it is.  It’s the McMenamins Crystal Hotel located in downtown Portland.
 
Each room is  named after a song and I was excited to have the “Louie, Louie” room.  The very nice desk clerk told me that the song was recorded just up the street.
 
Here’s a map of the whole hotel layout.
 
 And here’s my room’s “Louie Louie” painting.
 
Why am I here on a weeknight?  Why to see fun., of course.
 
You know, FUN.  The band’s name is fun.?  It’s the worst name ever, because no one has any idea what the band’s name is.  It’s like a mini “Who’s on first” conversation every time I bring them up.  But if you have been anywhere near radio (including pop radio, alternative and adult contemporary formats) in the last year, you’ve heard fun.

Notice the ticket says “A December To Remember”?  And notice it’s March?  The show was postponed twice, I was supposed to go on December 19, but they moved it to March.  Because I decided too late I wanted to see the band, the show was sold out, so I stayed in the hotel and was able to buy a ticket.

How was fun.?  fun. was fun.  The band Family of the Year opened and they were great to watch. They said we were an “amazing” crowd.  This was very flattering, although I’m sure they say that to all the crowds.  Here’s a clip from the show.  This song was clearly their big hit as the sing-along got very loud.  I particularly enjoyed watching the bass player, whose hair and stage mannerisms were straight out of 1994.  I say that with love.

fun. was a good time.  They were apparently jet-lagged, but enjoyed us as a crowd as evidenced by this clip. I was interested to see how they would sound live as there are only three of them, and yet many more sounds on their songs than three musicians can make.  They solved this by having additional musicians on stage.  I particularly enjoyed watching Emily Moore (at least that’s what Wikipedia says her name is) who played a lot of instruments.  I learned the lead singer’s sister lives in Portland, which was an interesting fact.  And I particularly enjoyed hearing “The Gambler.”  Here’s a clip of “Carry On.“

45RPM “The Darkening of the Light” Concrete Blonde

Where I match a song to a specific memory.

Most of my music tastes in high school ran to hair metal bands, but Concrete Blonde was the one group I listened to that could be considered “college radio material.”*  I have  a lot of memories of Concrete Blonde, but for some reason, I associate this song with two girls whose names have been lost to time.  They were a year older than me.  Both of them were drama chicks, so I found them somewhat annoying in that hyper drama chick way.  But they also seemed incredibly sophisticated, girls who drank coffee in coffee shops, who had read Gurtrude Stein and possibly understood her, who had figured out how to drink at parties without getting drunk.  As seniors, they edited the high school’s literary magazine and probably went to colleges like Oberlin, or Brown.  At least they seemed as if they did.  One was somewhat tall and willowy, with long brown hair.  Once she wore a dancer’s leotard to school with a long broomstick skirt.  The leotard exposed her long, thin back almost to her waist and had me wondering if I could pull off such a style.  The other one was a similar height, with curly hair and small eyes that seemed to be narrowed as if she was constantly processing the happenings around her.  I think she must have sung this song at a talent show.  I wonder what’s become of them both?

*College radio.  It was a phrase used a lot when I was in high school, but I never hear it now. Why is that?

Orthodox Lint Project

Hey!  Orthodox Lent is just beginning!  Just in time for my new idea for a Lint project:

Mashed Potatoes and Meditation!

Yes, that’s right.  From now until Orthodox Easter (known as Greek Easter to my family) on May 5, I will meditate every day and also eat mashed potatoes every day.

Why?

I have a sneaking suspicion that my insomnia might be tied to a lack of meditation and I want to test that theory.  Plus, meditation is good for me and I’ve fallen away from it.  As for the mashed potatoes, my favorite local actor, Andy Lee-Hillstrom (U of Idaho graduate!) ended his bio for the play The Velvet Sky with the following: Andy’s a sucker for a good montage, the sound of fingernails being clipped grosses him out, and he could eat mashed potatoes every day of his life.

When I related to Matt that I too could eat mashed potatoes every day of my life, he didn’t believe me.  So I’m eating them every day of Orthodox Lent.

45RPM: (Everything I do) I do it for you. Bryan Adams

Welcome to a new feature.  Here I will feature a song from my past and the specific memory or person I associate with it.  My goal is to be descriptive and brief, summing things up in one, and only one, paragraph. My goal also might be to torture you with songs from my past.  We shall see.

I hate this song for a variety of reasons: it was overplayed, it’s schmaltzy, the title begins with a parenthetical statement, it’s an example of Bryan Adams at the end of his fame, not the lean, hungry rocker he was in the 80s.  But I didn’t always hate this song.  When it first came out, I liked it for its subservient, romantic lyrics and I think the piano chords at the beginning suckered me in.  But I spent too much time with it–there was no escaping it for a good six months, both on MTV and the radio–and by the time they finally stopped playing it I absolutely loathed it.  I associate it with my first boyfriend, probably because it was the love song for the movie Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, that lackluster Kevin Costner effort I loved because I was sixteen and didn’t know any better.  We must have seen it together on a date .  But it occurs to me now that my trajectory with the song mirrors our relationship trajectory:  I liked him, there was infatuation, too much time together, and when it was all over I hated him.

Theatre Vertigo: The Velvet Sky

Kelly and I took in a showing of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s The Velvet Sky, a one-act where a mother has stayed awake for thirteen long years.  Her husband steals her son away one night and she must pursue them. All three family members encounter a variety of people as they move though the night.  Aside from the three main characters, there were 10 characters played by three actors.

This play hit a lot of notes in 80 minutes:  humor, confusion, terrors, longing.  I greatly enjoyed everyone, but Andy Lee-Hillstrom was fabulous as Bathroom Man/Mugger Man/Movie Man/PI Guy/Sandman.  At one point I had to remind myself that this was live theater and no CGI effects were going to swoop in and startle me.  And then Lee-Hillstrom spoke and every hair on my body stood up, he was so creepy.