Midge's Blog

THE END

Folks, this is the end of Midge's blog. A lot has gone down in the last six months, including massive amounts of spam, and thus it is time for a new blog. A better blog. A blog that I haven't quite finished theming. Head on over to No Alternate Plan where I'll be posting from now on. Bookmark it. Subscribe to the feed. All will be well.

Adios, Midge's blog--it's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times...well, it's been times.

Chairs.

Michael Kaeshammer and Holly Cole

I'm gonna preface this entry by saying that I know I haven't been blogging much lately, but I really haven't had a whole lot to say, been busy with work and all that, you know? Anyway, I had a fabulous evening out with my mom at the Jazz Fest tonight. We went to the Holly Cole show, with Michael Kaeshammer opening, and it was a great concert. Holly Cole was a little loopy, but good as always, highlights were her amazing trombone and piano players, as well as the "song" during the encore (hey idiots who left before the encore, you missed a third of the show!) where she decided to play drums and get the drummer to sing--he did some pretty entertaining tall gangly white boy rap.

But the real highlight of the evening was Michael Kaeshammer's set. It was absolutely amazing. Not only did they look like they were having a great time on stage, but he was also really funny... Introducing what a turned out to be a fairly morbid "love song", he said something to the effect of "This next one is a love song, so if you're sitting next to someone you love, this is the one where you should hold their hand... And if you're sitting next to someone you don't like very much, then I'm sorry to have put you in an uncomfortable position." I don't know, maybe you had to be there, but I thought it was funny.

It was great as a music lover trying to identify all the little hidden bits of other songs, including everything from a bar of a really tough Bach song I've been learning, to some of Lily Allen's "Shame for You". He also did a nice Oscar Peterson cover, and a song of his own that I liked called "Days Like These" about homeless people that was inspired by a Stuart McLean short story. Oh yeah, and a song in 7/4--that always wins me over. There was also a little bit of experimental tapping on the piano and stuff that was cool--he and his band has this great clean style and he's just an amazing pianist, like technically some of the stuff he was playing was blowing my mind. I think my favorite might have been the first song, though, which was just a cappella, called "Be Your Husband" is was kind of a New Orleans style song, and I'm really hoping it's on one of his albums!

Jazz Festival's on through next weekend, don't miss out!

Damn am I tired, gotta hit the sack!

a couple more photos

Got a little time to kill while dinner's in the oven, so here's the much anticipated photo of my haircut, which now that I look at it, looks really similar from the front, but it's much shorter in the back. Excuse the crazy self portait, it's the best I could do!

And just for proper documentation (and cause it's a really funny pic), here is the action shot of Boris NOT tonging my wiener at SHDH.

(photo courtesy of Duane Storey)