Thursday, May 20, 6 to 9pm: Meridian Audio and Stereo Exchange will host an evening celebration to introduce the new Meridian Sooloos 2.1 music server system and Meridian 808.3 Signature Reference CD player. Wine and music will be served.
I spent yesterday at my mom's house, celebrating my sister's 14th birthday. Uncles and aunts and cousins are scattered around the house, laughing and eating and shouting at the television screen as if someone is just going to die if the Celtics don't win this game. See me and my sister sitting side by side, somehow apart from it all: She's absolutely engrossed in Weird N.J., Vol.1 (I'm very proud of her), and I'm similarly rapt by Acoustic Sounds' "Under the Radar" list.
See these two smiling faces? That's my uncle Omar on the left. He's standing with John Rutan of Audio Connection in Verona, New Jersey, a short and happy drive from downtown Jersey City, along the Parkway and up good old Bloomfield Avenue, dotted with trees and liquor stores, pizzerias and movie theaters. A very fine place, indeed.
At the show, there wereno kidding(!)five people who came over and complimented me on this here blog. I was flattered. One was Josh Gladstone who said he was surprised to learn that he was the first to buy Todd’s At Work CD. And, patting his pant pocket, he added: “I’ve already got it in my iPod.” Another was Mike C., of Hoboken Rock City, who keeps a blog of his own and frequently sends out fun podcasts.
I was in bed for what felt like five minutes (it was actually five hours) when the little alarm clock let loose its hybrid buzz-chirp: 7am, time to wake up. I stumbled into the bathroom, my mind filled with thoughts of the previous night at Maxwell’s. The fluorescent white light above the cracked mirror blinked on and off for a couple of moments before steadying itself, reminding me of the camera bulbs that flashed while we were on stage. I heard myself think: “We’ll never play a bad show again. That’s all behind us now.”
I've been working on the Buyer's Guide all day long. It's a drag. Zzz. If I was Elizabeth (we're now calling her "Lizzzie," by the way), I might let my hair loose and kick something.
Web Monkey, Jon Iverson, has informed me that today is the 40th birthday of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held at Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York. I really don't know much at all about Woodstock. I haven't read any of the books or watched any of the movies. I know that Richie Havens opened (and played and played until he couldn't play anymore), but I've only just recently acquired that bit of knowledge. I know that Jimi Hendrix tore through an angry version of the "Star-Spangled Banner." I know that Janis Joplin was there. I've seen that funny video of Joe Cocker singing "With A Little Help from My Friends." And I've heard that many of the performances absolutely sucked.
These are my MIMOBOT flash drives. In theory, these cute little guys would go back and forth, delivering InDesign and image files, between me and our graphic designer, Pip. That's how we make the magazine, you see: We pass files back and forth and voila!
Good morning, _____.
Thank you so much for following the show blog. My goodness, these shows are such great work. Writing, in general, you know, is a kind of solitary activity. I think that's partly why I've been drawn to it; I'm a kind of solitary guy. But this team-effort show-blogging stuff is not solitary at all. The entire process runs opposite to what I normally think of writing and to how I approach writing. By the end actually, almost right from the start I am feeling completely drained.