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| 10 jun 2002 "i get out of bed at half past ten phone up a friend, who's a party animal turn on the news and drink some tea maybe if you're with me we'll do some shopping" neil tennant is one cool motherfucker. he's got one of the most distinctive voices ever. i was a sheltered kid. i didn't get to buy my own music until the summer after ninth grade at the earliest. i remember going to the store with my parents, and they said, "dardy, we'll let you get three tapes." so i picked out _invisible touch_ by genesis, the _st elmo's fire_ soundtrack, and pet shop boy's _introspective_. the nostalgia.. so, last night, i returned to the warfield, the last time being somewhere in the mid-90's. i really have a fond memory for that place, since it was the venue for my first concert ever (ned's atomic dustbin). but after almost 10 years, the neighborhood around the warfield is still pretty shitty. i went up with alan, and we met up with jack and his friends. the first thing i did after going in was look at t-shirts. i'm still in that mode where i have to get a t-shirt for every group i see live, even though it's resulted in me wasting money for some lame clothes i never wear. i really wanted to get this t-shirt that was white with pink letters that said "CLOSET HOMOSEXUAL." i thought about why i liked it, and it's because i want to challenge people. i have this thing about broadcasting phrases that make people uncomfortable, because i'm hoping that someday they will not be fazed. in the end, though, i balked at getting the shirt because i was kind of afraid of getting beaten up. it bothers me that i couldn't get something because of possible violent repercussions. in the end, i got a "SEXY NORTHERNER" shirt, and i was going to wear it to work today (as i usually do the day after a concert), but alan advised against it. so now i'm wondering why the hell i bought something that i can't wear to work. so before the show started, this old guy bought a HUGE plate of nachos. alan and i were worried that once the concert began and people started bouncing around (we were in the pit right in front of the stage), the nachos would fly everywhere. ok. i have this obsession (read: OCD) with concerts where i force myself to remember the playlist. every few minutes, i just stop and recite the list so far, and it's actually kind of annoying. but for your benefit, here is the set: 1) home and dry 2) being boring 3) red letter day 4) i get along 5) love comes quickly 6) london 7) <some song with purple lights> 8) the night i fell in love (it's about a love affair with eminem!) 9) new york city boy 10) always on my mind 11) sexy northerner 12) where the streets have no name 13) birthday boy 14) west end girls 15) love is a catastrophe 16) go west <encore> 17) left to my own devices 18) it's a sin 19) you choose my favorite was "love comes quickly." it was the first hard pounding song of the evening, and the lights blasted out this nice saturated red that gave the stage this cool crimson negative effect. the crowd, of course, went crazy during "always on my mind," which neil introduced by exclaiming, "this is a country western song!" before the place exploded with chris's famous 6-note keyboard refrain. one interesting thing was that neil's mic stand had a rack with six guitar picks on it. it looked like a fish backbone. and he would take one, use it during a song, and then sometimes throw it away, and by the end of the show, there were only three picks left. neil wore an untucked black buttondown with tapered tails, dark blue jeans, and chunky shoes. chris wore a white jacket and white baseball cap. the rest of the band was rounded out by two guitarists, one percussionist, and a sequencer who must have had an easy time (just push a button, right?) because there were times he just took out a digital camera (looked like a sony p51) and took pictures. the concert itself was good. i grew up on pet shop boys, and it was nice to hear some of their classics, although i really wish they had played "suburbia." the new songs were the low points (except for "home and dry"), and you could feel the energy being sucked out of the place, especially during "love is a catastrophe." the warfield isn't the place for lyrical songs. i miss going to concerts (except for that stuffy ringing nose in my head afterwards). but this warfield reminds me of how much better it is in these small venues, compared to huge arena shows where you can barely make out the people on stage. ----- friday noon, i went to play basketball, but i got there early. so i sat in my car for a while, taking pictures of random things like my blinker control, my seat belt receptacle, my hamburger cd case, and robato-kun (top right picture). the story of robato-kun is that jo-ann got it for me when stanford taiko toured hokkaido the summer of 2000. and hence it is on japan time. i was totally crazy for her back then, and when she arrived back in the states after her stay in japan and singapore, i met her outside the flo-mo dormitory. i never expect gifts, even in a culture like the japanese who give o-miyage after coming back from travels, so i was pleasantly surprised when jo-ann produced ths little robot clock. it's been hanging from my rearview mirror ever since. friday night, we (me, alan, peter, eddie, jay, ting) met up at bandera for dinner (bottom right picture). the food was not cheap, but the dip trio was pretty amazing. not to mention the cornbread. unfortunately, my rotisserie lamb was so-so. i dunno. i'm still not sold on pricey dining. i mean, the menu was advertising some fancy potato thing. and it was just mashed potatoes with some green shit mixed in. what's so fancy about that? after dinner, i had a weird emotional thing. we went to some international grad student party at the icon nightclub on california ave (yes, what we were doing at a grad student shindig?). i was very resistant to the idea, but in the end, the majority won, and after i paid my $10 cover and went in, i wanted to leave. so maybe it was my bad attitude that ruined the experience, but i swear, there was nothing interesting about the place, not even the funky russian/turkish/spanish/indian dance music they were playing. after a while, though, the other guys started actually having a good time, and i realized that i no longer see the point in dancing. and that's a weird thing to say because 10 years ago i was crazy about it. so i left. they told me i couldn't get back in, but i really didn't care at that point. i was bored, i was tired, so i just headed over to black pearl and read the newspaper. i dunno. it was kind of rude for me to leave and make it obvious that i was hating the night, but i have this problem where my emotions take over; i am pretty much incapable of hiding the fact that i'm upset. i don't like it when i'm moody. i thought this was a thing of the past, but friday night showed me that things haven't really changed. ----- saturday, i got up early and played golf with some ex-teralogic coworkers. maybe the bad mood from the previous night extended to the next morning, because i started asking myself out loud, "why do i play this game?" i shot pretty miserably, although i bogeyed on the last three holes, which is actually pretty good for me. after eating at pho superbowl (how cool is that name? if only their portions were that big) and trying q-cup for the first time (hm, a bit chocolatey), i stopped by the design within reach studio in palo alto. yes, it was time to keep stroking my expensive furniture fetish. i didn't buy anything, but i feel *compelled* to. i am fighting it as hard as i can, but my feeling is that in the end, i am going to break down and give in. this next weekend, i will probably visit their warehouse in union city and walk out with some pricey shit. the rest of the day was spent reading taking my first nap in months (sleep debt finally caught up with me), having dinner at jay's place, and watching _training day_ and reminding myself why denzel washington is a good actor. i really haven't been spending much time naked, not nearly as much as i would have thought. i had better enjoy this time while i don't have a roommate, right? ----- sunday i slept until 1pm and for the first time in months, i had a meal on a weekend by myself. this is a significant fact because before the depression, i had weekend meals alone all the time. partly due to my increased willingness to be social and partly due to the fact that alan, peter et al. are around more often, i have been not without company for the past few months. i read _time_ for much of the afternoon, had pizza at tony and alba's with peter and alan, and head up to the city at 7. oh, after the concert, i bumped into felicia (amabelle's sister) and jason. when i shook jason's hand, i greeted him by name, and i immediately thought it might be weird because i don't think we've ever been introduced; the reason why i know his name is because i had been reading his ex's blog. i got a nice long e-mail from winnie today when i responded to her latest entry on diamond engagement rings. you all know how i feel about diamonds. i think winnie has a good attitude on things, and the basic gist that i'm getting is that yes, it's materialistic and lame, but it's a social convention so why don't we just shut the fuck up and go along with it. i'm not comfortable with that just yet, but do i really have a choice? there a lot of things that don't make sense in this world (like bowties), but if we complained and questioned everything we'd be exhausted. maybe it's just better to nod our heads and follow the herd. yes, i'm being cynical. but, one thing i do want to do is sit down and have a nice chat with a woman who does demand a quality rock from her loved one. not because i want to mock her. but because i want to understand her way of thinking. i think the best way for me to deal with it (instead of ranting about it) is for me to figure out what the other side is thinking, so that maybe i will be able to accept it. so somebody please talk to me. |