Money to Burn, Time to Kill.
This weekend was a weekend of milestones:
Milestone No. 1: I drove crosstown and through the park twice! Of course, I was not at all happy about it. On Friday, I went into work early so I could leave early and get home with plenty of time to get to the pre-Mountain Goats dinner. Friday traffic is always the worst, and I was going to beat it, dammit. Of course, an MTA employee chose that day to drive into a sign on the Whitestone Bridge and shut the whole thing down. Hooray, MTA! Traffic everywhere became horrendous. I was crawling the whole time. When I got the engine up to six miles an hour, it felt like I was really cruising. I called Jesse when I should've been home to tell him that I was only at Yankee Stadium.
The situation called for drastic measures. I never drive in Manhattan (and don't know why anyone would), but I decided to drive straight to the concert and pulled off the highway. Compared to the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, it wasn't too bad! There's a lot of craziness to watch out for when driving in Manhattan during rush hour, but I didn't feel like I was taking my life in my hands. I'm still too cowardly-and, in my defense, I was running too late-to try and park on the street in Manhattan. That should be my next goal.
Milestone No. 2: Went to the UWS Shake Shack for the first time and had my first shackburger of the year. I like the Madison Square Park one better because of the cool mid-century looking shack, but damn those things are tasty.
Of course, all of these things were to get me to the Mountain Goats on time. Usually I skip every other MG show because they're around so often, but I went to this one because it looked like it'd be different from the other ones. And it was-and not just because it was in a churchy-looking venue with a couple of classy classical musicians opening the show (followed by John Vanderslice, who now is squarely in the category of indie rock boys that make my heart melt a little). This concert was different because Darnielle decided to fill his setlist with really old/obscure songs. I think I only knew about five of them the whole night. (But I still managed to recreate the setlist for Jesse-mostly.) I enjoyed the show because the old songs are the ones where he strums the guitar in a super fast/painful-looking way, and he did a lot of that. Also, when he and Vanderslice release their project that's somehow about organ harvesting colonies on the moon, I totally want it. The best part of the night was that we got a TRUE encore. The people demanded one (even though he was already over curfew), so he came out and did an unplugged, singalong version of "The Sign" after half the people had left already. Since I've never seen TMG do a true encore, I guess that could be Milestone No. 3.
(Aside: I wrote a review of the show for Beyond Race, which also posted my OK Go review, if you're interested. Jesse took the photo for the first one.)
Milestone No. 4: First Ben & Jerry's of 2009. You guys, I have a really bad case of cabin fever. (Or is it spring fever? Is there a difference?) Each weekend the weather gets a little nicer, but it's not really sit-in-the-park weather yet. (At least for me. I get cold easily.) I think Jesse's about ready to kill me because I keep bugging him to take me to the park and asking him if it's warm enough yet. I forced the issue this weekend after Monsters vs. Aliens and whined until I got ice cream. The world made me work for it, though, because after we decided to walk to the Times Square Ben & Jerry's, we found out it was closed, so we walked to the one in the village. It's all worth it for ice cream.
Tomorrow continues my rock 'n' roll lifestyle with another Hold Steady show. I might be hurting on Tuesday, but the idea that I'm doing something fun Monday night totally takes the sting out of the ending of a good weekend. I just hope that no more signs fall of the bridge so I can actually make it on time.
Milestone No. 1: I drove crosstown and through the park twice! Of course, I was not at all happy about it. On Friday, I went into work early so I could leave early and get home with plenty of time to get to the pre-Mountain Goats dinner. Friday traffic is always the worst, and I was going to beat it, dammit. Of course, an MTA employee chose that day to drive into a sign on the Whitestone Bridge and shut the whole thing down. Hooray, MTA! Traffic everywhere became horrendous. I was crawling the whole time. When I got the engine up to six miles an hour, it felt like I was really cruising. I called Jesse when I should've been home to tell him that I was only at Yankee Stadium.
The situation called for drastic measures. I never drive in Manhattan (and don't know why anyone would), but I decided to drive straight to the concert and pulled off the highway. Compared to the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway, it wasn't too bad! There's a lot of craziness to watch out for when driving in Manhattan during rush hour, but I didn't feel like I was taking my life in my hands. I'm still too cowardly-and, in my defense, I was running too late-to try and park on the street in Manhattan. That should be my next goal.
Milestone No. 2: Went to the UWS Shake Shack for the first time and had my first shackburger of the year. I like the Madison Square Park one better because of the cool mid-century looking shack, but damn those things are tasty.
Of course, all of these things were to get me to the Mountain Goats on time. Usually I skip every other MG show because they're around so often, but I went to this one because it looked like it'd be different from the other ones. And it was-and not just because it was in a churchy-looking venue with a couple of classy classical musicians opening the show (followed by John Vanderslice, who now is squarely in the category of indie rock boys that make my heart melt a little). This concert was different because Darnielle decided to fill his setlist with really old/obscure songs. I think I only knew about five of them the whole night. (But I still managed to recreate the setlist for Jesse-mostly.) I enjoyed the show because the old songs are the ones where he strums the guitar in a super fast/painful-looking way, and he did a lot of that. Also, when he and Vanderslice release their project that's somehow about organ harvesting colonies on the moon, I totally want it. The best part of the night was that we got a TRUE encore. The people demanded one (even though he was already over curfew), so he came out and did an unplugged, singalong version of "The Sign" after half the people had left already. Since I've never seen TMG do a true encore, I guess that could be Milestone No. 3.
(Aside: I wrote a review of the show for Beyond Race, which also posted my OK Go review, if you're interested. Jesse took the photo for the first one.)
Milestone No. 4: First Ben & Jerry's of 2009. You guys, I have a really bad case of cabin fever. (Or is it spring fever? Is there a difference?) Each weekend the weather gets a little nicer, but it's not really sit-in-the-park weather yet. (At least for me. I get cold easily.) I think Jesse's about ready to kill me because I keep bugging him to take me to the park and asking him if it's warm enough yet. I forced the issue this weekend after Monsters vs. Aliens and whined until I got ice cream. The world made me work for it, though, because after we decided to walk to the Times Square Ben & Jerry's, we found out it was closed, so we walked to the one in the village. It's all worth it for ice cream.
Tomorrow continues my rock 'n' roll lifestyle with another Hold Steady show. I might be hurting on Tuesday, but the idea that I'm doing something fun Monday night totally takes the sting out of the ending of a good weekend. I just hope that no more signs fall of the bridge so I can actually make it on time.