If you told me a month ago that I'd genuinely give a shit about Bruce Springsteen, I'd give you 100 reasons why I wouldn't... starting with how in north Jersey we were loyal to Billy Joel, not Bruce.  And his lyrics ("Show a little faith there's magic in the night / You ain't a beauty but hey, you're all right / don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again / Don't run back inside, darlin'  you know just what I'm here for / because this dick won't suck itself / and I'm desperate so I guess an ugly chick will do for now / Ohhhhh THUNDER ROAD!" -- I may be paraphrasing and messing things up a bit.)

But in the spirit of rocking the early '70s and punk male bravado, I put that all aside and fell in love with this music last night.  I got to play a Bruce Springsteen tribute with The Rock Orchestra at LiveNation/The Queen to a sold-out crowd, and I learned a totally new instrument in just a few weeks and I, dare I say, fuckin' rocked it considering.  (Sorry. I don't give myself props often, but I'm pretty proud.)

This band, which had many people I'd never played with before, was a fucking well-oiled machine. It was a level of excellence I haven't experienced in a tribute show before. I mean, playing tribute shows are always fun (and lucrative), but this band is really stacked with TRUE pros... it feels good being a weak link and really having to hustle to keep up... and still feeling like one of the band.  Matt, who I consider 73 times the musician I am, also felt like a second-string player to these guys. But it was so freakin' wonderful watching the cougars in the front row LITERALLY licking their lips at him like drunk sorority girl wannabe porn stars when Matt took a sax solo. I am not shitting you.

The only crappy thing about doing these shows is that we work our asses off to nail this music only to play it twice.  Our first show was last night (1/20), and the second and final show is this coming Saturday at the Milton Theatre in Milton DE, down by DogfishHead and stuff.  It's almost sold out already, so if anyone wants to come and wants a comp ticket, let me know ASAP. 

I sing backing vocals and play percussion which is my usual gig for these things... but I had to find a glockenspiel, write out all my parts, and learn how to play the damn instrument in less than 3 weeks and 2 rehearsals.  Fucking nuts. 

Here's a little clip of the GlockenspielCam of me doing a bit of "Born to Run."  A pro-mallet player I'm not... but I'm proud of what I could do having never played one of these in my life a month ago.  (...and if it sounds like shit, please remember you're listening to my monitor mix through a phone camera. This isn't what the audience heard.  But GAAAAH I LOVE THAT THAT HAMMOND ORGAN SWEET JESUS!)

Goddamn do I love being a musician.

And if I may be totally superficial for a moment (and I am NOT fishing for compliments):  It is startling to me how one moment I look like a ridiculous old lady struggling for relevance and hipness and failing terribly, and other times I... don't? 

I'm not really a fan of the physical aspects of this aging business, I'm not gonna lie.  *sigh*

OK, so, um, I have a problem. 

Matt is music-directing this show at the Wilmington Drama League called "Disaster!" which is a funny-as-hell spoof on 60s-70s disaster movies (best of all, it only uses real pop tunes from the '70s as the show's songs). They start Tech Week tomorrow, and it opens on January 26th. We saw it on Broadway and loved it. Matt has kinda sworn off theater and said the only way he'd ever be involved with another show is if an impossibly unlikely 'perfect storm' occurred where he was music director for Disaster!, with Nick D'Argenio directing. And guess what happened? Yep. So, Matt's been busy.

Anyway, without giving away spoilers, there is a scene where a character, um, interacts with sharks, and we needed to create some shark-props for this, so Matt bought two stuffed sharks off of Amazon. He brought one of them into the bedroom to show one to me, and I *instantly* fell in love with this shark and I cannot stop hugging it. So Matt saw this and said, "Uh, looks like I need to buy another shark... you're not giving this one up, are you?" NOPE. MY SHARK. MINE. 

So Matt had to buy a new shark because there is no way I could part with this shark... even though they are identical sharks.

The Shark is now Guy #5 who sleeps with us every night. For those keeping track, I have been sleeping with Fishy, which is a fish-shaped pillow I made in 7th Grade Home Ec class, since the day I brought it home in 1982. He travels with me everywhere. 

Next is Radar, who is Matt's teddy bear that we bought at Target for a Radar O'Reilly Halloween costume in probably 2014. (Yes, we named the bear after the MASH character.) 

Then we added Oscar in 2017, who is a teeny bear that came with a box of Russell Stover Valentine's Day chocolates our friend Helen gave us. Most people would toss the bear, but he is so friendly and good... he is not disposable. Oscar sleeps between my pillow and Matt's because he is teeny.

Guy #4 is Huggy Bear, which is a super-cheap, very flat yellow bear that Jeff (my brother) won at Circus Circus in Las Vegas in 1985. Huggy Bear is anti-social and just stays under my pillow. He has lived in a box in the basement for many years, but I found him a few months ago and felt bad he was just in a box. I kinda think he preferred it there, but for now, he's with us.

And now we have a giant fucking shark. 


But, if that's not enough of a problem, I think my Fish is NOT pleased about this latest shark development. When I woke up after my first night with the shark, the shark was on the floor and my Fish was smugly in the bed. I can't say I blame him. 

So now I have to sleep with them separated, Fish on one side of me and the shark on the other. 

This is a LOT of friggin' drama, folks. I'm doing my best.

Jesus, at a party, has a real good time,

Changes water into Boone's Farm wine.

I made a flag. White bedsheet, red pillowcase, green material that was just hanging around the house.

And then I attempted to make a stencil for the flag, but I gave up after 5 hours. Well, didn't so much give up as decide my design needed to be simplified. So I walked away from the effort for a while. Hopefully will get back to it soonish.

Thanks to UnFuck Your Habitat, I cleaned the entryway to our house today. 

I may have been putting this off for a couple of years. It’s always too hot, or too cold, or too nice out to be indoors. Today the high was 63 and it rained like hell.

perfect.

Assuming for a minute that you believe it exists, what is your definition of Good?

There are plenty of schools of philosophy that cover this, but that's not really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a simplified "this is how I see it in daily life" definition. Specifically, how it applies to people. IOW - what does a good person do/think and what does an evil person do/think?

Or if it's easier for you to pin down, perhaps describe your definition of its sibling.

Also, I think two of my goals for this year will be:

1. Be less verbose.

2. Lose 100 lbs.

Christmas

Had an especially lovely Christmas up at Chez ElderKnapp. I don't know if it's because my brother's kids are older now or what, but it was just really fun, funny, dorky, kind, playful, and full of love. I feel very lucky. Matt and I got up there late on Christmas Eve, and we came home later on the 27th. 

I'm sad for my poor mom... everything just hurts her so much, and because she's on so many medications for other things, she's not allowed to take NSAIDs (Advil, Aleve, aspirin) -- so she's limited to Tylenol, which notoriously does nothing for my mom and those of us who take after her side of the family. So she just HURTS. She really tries to be a trooper (trouper?) and smile through it all, but it really takes its toll and it's heartbreaking. I can't imagine living in that much pain... and it SUCKS that one friggin' Aleve fixes it perfectly for 12 hours, but she can't even take that. Man. I keep asking her to beg her doctor for something, but naturally as soon as you say "pain" to a doctor they think you're shooting heroin or something idiotic. Like, can't they reduce the amount of blood thinner she's on so she can take one miserable Aleve? I don't get it. 

Phish in NYC

Friday the 29th Matt and I, along with BT and KT went to NYC to see Phish. It was BT's 93-millionth Phish show, KT's 4th, Matt's 2nd, and my first Phish show. The crowd was absolutely awesome-- so friendly with a kind, inviting, Burner vibe. Everyone was baked or tripping and the guards were lenient and friendly, which was refreshing, since nobody was hurting anyone/anything. We sat in section 115 which had a great view. The floor is general admission and people aparently line up very very early to get a good spot on the floor. From our view above the floor, we were all super-impressed with how everyone on the floor respected each others' space. Nobody pushed, nobody crowded or shoved. It just seemed great. 

Some guy who calls himself Malacoid greeted us when we got to our seats, and he greeted everyone else as they filled in. He introduced us all to each other, and after about 30 minutes we were all buddies. This guy Ryan (who was a long-haired, bearded Dave Grohl) looked like he needed one of my blinkie burner lights, so I gave it to him and he acted like I gave him a million dollars. It was great. 

Phish played from 8:15-10pm, and then played a second set from maybe 10:30-11:45. What amazing musicians! It was a pleasure and I'd love to go back. We slept in NYC (I booked two hotel rooms) and it felt great to have a comfy place to crash that night instead of driving home. FTN.

New Years Eve

New Years Eve was either going to be spent in NYC or spent quietly at home doing nothing... and then at the last minute it turned into a very small gathering (just 7 of us). Matt made dinner, we played Cards Against Humanity, and everyone went home around 1:15ish. We were absolutely maxxed out at 7 people (my house simply cannot hold more than 7) and it worked out fine. I was also happy to see all of the neat events happening around Wilmington this year. 

Phone Blather (BlackBerry stuff)

Anyway, I just got a notice that my beloved Blackberry Priv (it runs Android, so please stop making 2006 jokes about my Blackberry) will no longer receive updates from Verizon or Google as of 12/31/17, so it is officially end of life... which is some serious bullshit considering I bought it on the day it came out on March 4th 2016. Really? A $750 phone (yes, I really paid $750) gets barely two years of support?! Insane, man. Seriously.

Anyway anyway, over the last two weeks or so, I noticed that the micro-USB charging port has been getting a little wonky... like needing some wiggling, or needing to be positioned juuuuuust riiiiiight to get a good charge. This never ends well... and as of yesterday, the port is now completely dead. I'm sure it just became unsoldered as these things do, and if I had a T3 screwdriver I feel confident in my ability to take it apart, re-solder the connection, and move on with my life. Alas, I lack the right tools right now. (Gonna order them from Amazon shortly.) Anyway, as you can imagine, yesterday my battery drained completely, and now I officially have no way to charge my phone... which means I was phoneless all day yesterday. I don't get paid for a few more weeks, so I can't really afford a new phone right now (and even if I could afford it, what would I buy? I haven't even been thinking about new phones so I don't really even know what's out there. And something tells me that my physical-keyboard options are pretty damn slim).

So, late last night I fired up one of my three ancient Droid4s that I had laying around, but they all use an old-style SIM card, so I couldn't pull my BlackBerry SIM card and plonk it into my Droid4 and have it just work. (Besides, my Droid 4 is SO damn laggy, and it was horribly laggy in 2015, so in 2018 it is basically unusable.) And then I remembered... wait a second... My Blackberry Priv has wireless charging! I've never used it because I don't own a wireless charging station, but WHEEE! Here's a $30 fix for a $750 problem. And because I have the best boyfriend ever, while I was sleeping this morning, Matt woke up and went to Best Buy and bought me a wireless charging pad, so when I woke up, he was handing me a Qi charger that I got set up in 3 seconds and YAAAAAY, my phone is slowly coming back to life. I actually cried when I saw it charging up. It was like hearing your friend was in a horrible accident and then finding out he's OK.

So, what have we learned?
1) I can toss my Droid 4s now, because they're unusuable now, even as a backup. (But man, I missed that big-ass keyboard.)
2) My BlackBerry Priv has wireless charging and it works great... and I can use this charging pad for pretty much whatever device I wind up buying next.
3) I need to start shopping for a new phone, because my Priv is officially not going to get any security updates anymore, so if I wanna be a secure little technology consumer, I need to have a device that is still being supported. 
4) Verizon can eat a bag of dicks for selling a device and only offering support for not even two years. (I acknowledge it may not be Verizon's decision to stop pushing updates... it's probably Google's... but still. F Y'ALL.)


As of right now, my phone options seem to be:
1) A Blackberry KeyOne. The only crappy thing about that is the keyboard is visible/exposed all the time, so ass-dialing could be a problem with that device. (My Priv's keyboard hid away nicely.)
2) A Moto Z, which is supposed to be an open platform for people to design various cool mods for it. Some neat guys developed a super-sexy landscape keyboard mod for it that has its own battery, but that keyboard mod doesn't ship until the spring. 
3) A Samsung Galaxy S8, which has a nifty keyboard attachment for use in portrait-mode.

I dunno. I'm gonna see which phone of those three has the most horsepower and which one will likely be around the longest and go for that one.

[update] I'm gonna get a Blackberry KeyOne. I just watched 47,000 reviews and comparison videos by unbiased reviewers online, and even people who initially scoffed at a BlackBerry were ALLLLL about it by the end. So sign me the hell up. Two days of battery life is pretty awesome, too.


Lastly: 

I caught the plague that everyone else had. I thought I had caught it a few weeks ago, but I managed to fight it off with megadoses of vitamins... but now it has officially got me in its grips. I have yellow and green stuff coming out of my sinuses that I could really do without. We have a gig on Friday and I hope I'm OK, since we're headlining. I have NO voice, and it is excruciating to speak. Ugh ugh ugh.

It's supposedly gonna snow so I'm gonna go set up my snowcam. okbye.

We decided to spend our NYE on the TTC, taking a path from home to visit all four train lines.

Started off with Line 2 being shut down at High Park and points west because of an injury at Jane, so we hoofed it to Keele, being routed to the opposite side of the platform and then re-routed back normally. Rode the train all the way to Kennedy, then up two flights of stairs to Line 3, which was leaving just as we came up.

So a brief wait on the unheated platform, then the LRT showed up and we rode it to Scarborough Centre, where we were going to catch the 190 Don Mills rocket (a bus), except it was just leaving as we came down the stairs. This was the worst part of the adventure as the station was completely unheated and we had to wait 15 minutes for the next bus, and it was frigging cold.  AND we almost missed the bus because its stop was out of sight from where we were waiting but we saw some people running down the sidewalk and checked.

The bus went pretty fast, as it was an Express, but was frigging cold inside too, so we barely had a chance to warm up after the wait. Getting to Don Mills station on Line 4 was a relief because the rest of the trip would be thoroughly heated.  Line 4 is pretty nice but does seem kind of orphaned. It's just so awkwardly short. We rode it to the other end to meet up with Line 1 at Sheppard.

We rode Line 1 all the way around the Union loop and transferred to Line 2 unusually at Spadina because we'd never taken the Spadina pedestrian tunnel between the two lines before, and it was delightful as there was a person playing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" on a Chinese Erhu (a two-string bowed instrument with a sound like a violin).  

Then the short bit of retracing our path on Line 2 back to High Park Station, getting home a little more than three hours after we left.

I mostly read a book (Outlander by Diana Gabaldon) and people-watched.

My Christmas Adam had recovery from a daytrip to NYC, a lovely Christmas gamer dinner party, discovering a new dive bar with an old friendly bass player buying shots, Santa selfies, and lovely nightcaps with the best of friends.

My Christmas Eve had visiting of newborns, wrapping of the gifts, free yams, tearing up at Christmas carols, and the watching of Doctor Who (the Christmas Special from some years back).

My Christmas had family visits, naps, snake cuddles, firepit mashmallows, and vodka infused gummy bears.

My Boxing Day had the ex's cat giving me $50 for the local bar, midol, Cabernet, pillow forts, play date planning, and introspection.

Who knows what tomorrow might bring. Living the dream.

I had to run out for a second, and Folkadelphia (it's a radio show) was on 88.5 WXPN. A song came on, and I listened to it on the short drive home and then couldn't leave the car until I found out what it was. 

It's a song called "You Missed My Heart," and it's performed by Phoebe Bridgers. It's a cover... but holy shit, the words, the performance, the arrangement just all took my breath away. 

Here's info about it. You can listen to the song there and also read the lyrics.

Just... wow.

The Christmas Plague

In other news, everyone around me has been sick with this two-week head cold of death. I've been feeling pretty cocky and invincible until yesterday when I woke up with a giant spike sticking into my throat from my inner ear.  

It wouldn't be Christmas without me having a friggin' cold.  Matt has it too... though I think he's a day sicker than I am.

We're supposed to be the in-studio on-air guests on WDEL's afternoon show this Friday to sing a few Christmas tunes and to plug our upcoming comedy show at Logan House on January 5th. Let's hope I have a voice that day.

Driveway Moment #2

Driveway Moment #2 just happened now. I am still in the car, now in a totally dark garage because the inside garage light timed out. 

I just watched Anne Mollo 's absolutely gorgeous story of Her Winter of Bill (as I call it).  I was absolutely enraptured. I got choked up. There were a few times I caught myself not breathing.  Thank you Annie-- really. Thank you. What a beautiful story. 

Watch it here-- she starts at the 37-minute mark.