The B.B. Boogie
I’ve been trying to see B.B. King in concert since I was a freshman in high school. He came to Portland to play, but I myself had to perform at a concert that night.
My chance to fulfill that dream finally came last night. B.B. put on a really great, if a little short show at Wolf Trap. His voice still sounds great at 78-going-on-79. And of course his guitar skills are amazing as ever, though his minimalist style begs for a really long set to be fully appreciated. He and his huge backup band played for about 1.5 hours after an hour or so of the opener, Dr. John.
It was a good time, and I no longer have to worry that B.B. King will die before I get to see him :)
Wolf Trap is a really neat venue—it’s actually the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. It seats about 8,000 people, half on the lawn and half under the roof. The structure itself is quite beatiful, constructed of Douglas Fir and Southern Yellow Pine. The only sad part now is that I have to wait until next spring to see another show there—the Filene Center (the biggest venue there and the one where B.B. played) is only open during fair-weather months.
It all started with Jessica Cutler
You remember her, the once-infamous “Washingtonienne”?
Well, those of us who attended the same university as her have long known that it has a tendency to produce over-the-top women with a message to the world.
Cutler’s message was, “I sleep with high-powered pols for money and then tell the world about it!”
Others’ messages, however, are (amazingly) a little less subtle.
As is the case in today’s subject. Dear readers, I give to you this decidedly un-work safe duo of images an SU alumna who is apparently proud of her 51st-best-in-the-nation college education and isn’t afraid to tell the whole world about it. At least the girls-gone-wild-following world.
Anyone recognize her?
Update 2005-05-10: Sorry folks, I guess the porn sites found me. Even though we have 1TB a month, the 3GB of traffic these images were getting was a little much in my opinion. The pictures aren’t up any more. They were just of a topless SU student at some trashy spring break party. Hey, you can see that any weekend you want in Syracuse!
The closeness of crime
It is natural to be disgusted at crime, especially that which targets innocent victims. This disgust is usually short-lived and more often only mild. When the victim is some anonymous character it’s all too easy to brush off the incident and forget all about it a moment later.
There has been a spate of robberies in the Dupont Circle area of DC recently, culminating in the slaying of a waiter walking home on Tuesday.
Now, I don’t live in Dupont. I don’t even live in the District. But I’m there all the time, and I’ve passed the restaurant where the late waiter worked, just blocks from where he was shot.
New in the Post is the report that a suspect has been arrested in his murder.
The first thought in my head was to make this suspect, if he turns out to be guilty, pay. The closeness of this crime, the spillage of innocent blood that resulted from it, the snuffing out of a man’s life, lit a fire that burns inside of me.
Why is this? I didn’t know the waiter. I’ve no connection to the restaurant. Maybe it’s just me lamenting the general nastiness that is present in this world. Why did this guy die? Because he didn’t have any money. The murderer couldn’t have just walked away, or punched him down. He had to kill the man. How tragic.
Picture dump 2004/08/24
It’s not too often you see a Lamborghini Countach cruising down the street in your neighborhood. So I snapped a photo. It’s also not too often that I have my camera in the car, but I was on the way back from hiking at Great Falls Park up on the Potomac, which in that area separates Virginia and Maryland, and it (the camera, not the river or the park) was in the front seat.
Great times with Katie and Julie in Dillsburg, PA, home of the world-famous pickle drop. I was up there this past weekend for a much-needed night and day of rest and relaxation…
… Including a marathon game of kickball.
Fairfax County Owns Your County
Or, at least its library system does. See, I’m now a member of the Fairfax County Public Library, the largest public library in Virginia. That’s right. You thinking of stepping? ‘Cause I wouldn’t recommend it. Just accept the fact that your library cowers in the corner when FCPL comes in the room.
I’m also online at my house now! I made the trip out to Sterling to Circuit City and its rebate-laden Linksys wireless routers. Nothing like lounging around the house with the iBook.
Tryst
So I headed into DC this evening for some wireless action with the iBook in the Adams Morgan neigborhood. Enter Tryst, a hip coffee shop/bar/socializing place with free Wifi.
I’ve been waiting for a phone call that I’m afraid isn’t going to come. Funny how you set yourself up for something only for it to fall out from under you. People are strange that way. Feel free to comment on this phenomenon.
On the upside, at least I’m slowly meeting new people around here.
Woo the gmail goodness
So, it was a long time coming, but I can feel the gmail goodness.
So email me at my exclusive address: heydanno@gmail.com.
Just another evening in warm VA, waiting for Charley’s wrath to be inflicted upon us.
Typographica lives
One of my weekly-or-so reads online had been Typographica, a journal of typography. However, for the past month at least, I thought it had been offline. I finally googled it and realized that the address has changed from the uber-cool typographi.ca to the less-cool-but-at-least-it’s-working typographi.com.
Just settling in
Life has become rather normal for me now here in Reston. I get up, go to work, come home for lunch, go back, come home. Here’s where the routine changes itself up a bit. I either a) hang around the house or b) go out and do something. The only real excitement occurs on the weekends now. And, while they are exciting, they only come once a week.
I guess this is just me being in my first emotional first funk since I’ve been down here. It also doesn’t help that it’s only Wednesday, and work this week has been anything but stimulating. Add to that the fact that everyone at work seems to be away or on vacation or getting surgery, and I’ve got a rather sucky week.
Suffice to say this is me saying, no, the working life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Which of course I knew all along. But now I’m experiencing it.
Korean Barbers
This evening I had definitely the most interesting, and possibly longest, haircut of my life.
So I headed down to Vienna, VA for a New-in-town Meetup at the Jammin’ Java, a local non-Starbucks coffee shop. I was early, so I decided to walk around the town, which is at least a little interesting (in that it’s not toally strip malls). So I walk by a barber shop, and I think, what the heck, I really need a haircut, and this looks like an honest-to-dog barber, not some fairy hairstyler.
At this point I have about 25 minutes until the meetup. Plenty of time, especially with barbers, who typically pride themselves on speed and accuracy.
I suppose the first hint that something was up was that there was a large rear-projection television playing music on it. Quite loudly. After sitting down, I realized it was playing karaoke songs. Interesting. Karaoke in a barber shop.
Phillip and I talk about what I want in a haircut. I comment on the karaoke machine, ask if he ever performs or has crowds. Of course he does. Silly me. Phillip the singing Korean barber is a very good singer. He can, as I now know first-handedly, sing a beautiful tenor.
And sing he does. Phillip is a very meticulous barber, and this was an excellent haircut. It just took a while. Mainly due to the fact that every time a new song came on, he picked up the mic and sang a few lines for me. But that was after the piano lesson.
See, Phillip also has a small electic organ in the shop. i mention it, since I’ve always had an affinity for the instrument—pipe organs in particular. He has a learning tape, he says. You can make lots of money if you’re a good blues player. Millions. (!) But the tape. He has one. So, let’s put it on, you can learn the piano.
Let’s recap. I’m sitting in the barber chair, getting my hair cut. A Korean karaoke machine is emitting the sweet sounds of the Eagles and Def Leppard. A video piano lesson is playing on the small TV on top of the big screen. And every third cut, Phillip puts down the shears and pics up the mic. The piano lesson has a timer on it, and we’ve covered about 20 minutes so far. The meetup is in jeopardy, and I’m starting to sweat, mostly because I’m not sure if Phillip is going to sing the whole song each time, or just a few lines.
Twenty minutes after, he’s still toying with my hair. Cutting, using the clippers, busting out the straight razor to do my sideburns and neck. He’s also singing, but this time, in different languages. He can sing in Korean (of course), English, and Japanese. And Italian. He’s an opera singer, after all.
By the time he asks me to sing, I’m ready to bolt. I haven’t any idea what time it is, but I know I’m late to the meetup. I tell Phil that I have some friends to meet. It’s 8:30 now. (a half-hour late). The singing will have to wait. But before I go, he wants me to play something for him on the organ. I do my best ‘On Yonder Rock Reclining’, the one song I remember from piano lessons as a kid. It’s beautiful.
Thank you, Phillip. I’ll be back again.
