To Be Young (Is to Be Sad)

Hello Friends.
As confusing as I found the recent Ryan Adams concert to be - I still can't help being massively in love with the new album... Here is the title track for your listening pleasure. WARNING - there is an alarm clock sound at the beginning. PLEASE forgive the annoying host and the alarm clock. It's totally worth it.


Ryan Adams - Ashes and Fire

I wish MY eyes were indigo! And I want my man to tell me that my skin smells like black cherries! But, alas, my man "does NOT write happy love songs." He has to remind me of this rule often.

Sidenote: I was talking to (a Canadian) person that I had just met about music and mentioned that I was going to a Ryan Adams concert the next week and he got really excited. Then I realized he thought I said BRYAN ADAMS. Whoa.

ps - you might not want to click that link...

Anyway, I picked this version because he opened the Eugene show with it. And I love his America (or is it Rasta?) guitar and black binder of tunes. He referred often to it during the performance.
The man played solo for THREE FULL HOURS. Just one pee break.
If you listen to our radio show, you have heard enough about the show. But just in case you missed the show last week - for shame - The music and the voice were IMO incredible. Incredible.

But - friends - the audience.

So this was my first time to the Shedd, which I like to think of as the "grown up" venue in Eugene. Not only is there no beer served and the shows start at 7pm, rather than sometime after 10pm whenever the third opener feels like jumping up on stage and starting, and it is "sit down." Meaning - there were assigned seats. And the tickets cost $39 rather than $8 advance, $9 at the door. Also, KWVA doesn't score free tickets. Anyway, this show was announced and promptly sold out when I was in FL visiting the parents this summer.

But I just couldn't pass it up. Have any of you EVER got a ticket on Stub Hub for 50% of face value?! Not double - but half! Friends, it's never happened to me before either - but I didn't ask questions! 

So I'm thinking - Awesome.

Because, as rarely as I imagine myself to be a "grown up," I also often don't enjoy the moshing and the spilled beer and the earaches that come after the "kid" shows. I don't like when people are talking during the shows or singing at full volume along with the songs (I am looking at you, 16 year old girl who RUINED Head and the Heart's encore of Rivers and Roads for me last month. Or you - middle age fat man who ruined AN ENTIRE John Prine show in Missoula a couple years back by singing every word quietly but audibly. Yes, I am still mad about that). What I am saying is that I am cranky and old - without being grown up enough to know better and not actually attend these shows. Never!

So - I'm thinking that people at the Shedd are going to be quiet and respectful. People who paid the big bucks to have a "real" seat. Before the show there were ads running for all kinds of adulty events upcoming like jazz trios and theatrical performances called things like "The Laugh Heard 'Round the World" and "Yule Be Swinging" (I am not kidding).

So - I'm thinking this will be a nice adult evening.

Friends - apparently grown up audiences have their own issues. Especially Ryan Adams fans.
At first it began with about 3~4 minutes of full blown applause when he came out. Then the yelling out "I love you Ryan!" over and over, in between every song. This was seemed to be several different folks each time - and all men - not that there's anything wrong with that - but what possesses you to yell something like that?
This devolved into more creative (?) yells such as "Hi!," "Move to Eugene!," "Can I pick the next song?" and my personal favorite "I want you inside me" (this was a man also), followed by "SHUT THE FUCK UP."

And this behavior really wasn't discouraged by Ryan. He kept saying "what?" And he really did leave to pee at one point. He claimed since "we" were treating him like we were all hanging out at his house, he would treat us that way too. He also talked about death metal and nosepicking. A lot.
He said it was one of the weirdest concert experiences of his life. "No fourth wall!"
Anyway, we went to some other concerts this month and we have a couple coming up - Blitzen Trapper, Dawes, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Bear Hands...

We are also contemplating a Langhorne Slim New Years Eve show in Portland. I think we should do it. Who knows, it could be the last time we get to do something like that...

we have to start being grown ups sometime. soon?

Gimme Little Drink...

This post is kind of about a drink. Well, it's gonna start out that way, who knows where it'll get to by the end, BUT that gives me a great excuse to share this treasure with you:

I absolutely love this video - it is so cool to see Jack White with that huge grin on his face, getting totally starstruck by the Stones. I don't think I've even seen him crack a hint of a smile before or since. It's a clip from Shine a Light, which is a great watch in its entirety, but this was really the highlight for me. Enjoy. 

How can it be, that at 31 years of age, I get the opportunity TWICE in one month for a fishbowl? For the uninitiated (and reading this blog that is probably only momma bird, though I may have told her already about at least one of these incidents), a fishbowl is a big bowl full of various liquors. If you actually see this being "mixed" it's even scarier. The Ritz used to put swedish fish in the bottom, quite a nice touch I think. Thanks Stacia). 

I have not even seen a fishbowl in about 10 years at least, but now, two times in row. In different states. 

This is what 20+ academics at marketing symposium in Nebraska do afterhours. Who would have thought it? Sorry for the poor photo quality, having only my Blackberry. I wasn't expecting such a photo op to present itself that night. I have never been to a marketing symposium/conference/consortium/etc and I may write more about it another time, but for today all I have to say is this was surprising.
And I was there! But, my friends, this was the second time.

Sidetrack: The first was in Hood River on the previously mentioned ski trip. Somehow I forgot to tell you all that we went out *a bit* after skiing. There is a fantastic brewery there Double Mountain, but it closed pretty early. We went down to "Jack's" (I put this in quotes because there was no name on the outside and no one seemed sure that was the real name) - Chinese restaurant by day, club (?) by night. They had a variation of the fishbowl never before seen which was two size choices (what?! large and extra large) served in those huge chinese family style soup bowls. And they didn't call them fishbowls, they called them Scorpions. A stranger we met tried to get us to share one with him. We politely declined. Several times.

The symposium was a great experience, but the flight back was epic (bad way). We flew from Lincoln to CHICAGO to SAN FRANCISCO to EUGENE... We had been flying for about 5 hours already when I looked to that lovely little screen that must be meant for hypnosis only because who ever looks at the progress of the plane and thinks "wow, that's further than I thought!" and we were flying RIGHT OVER LINCOLN. Thanks travel agent. And I am serious, this flight had to be booked through a travel agent. It's shocking with the value that these people add that they are in obsolescence, isn't it? Oh, and the 5 hour layover in SF was a nice touch.

I also wanted to mention that spring is in the air back in Eugene.

My massive magnolia in FULL BLOOM. Missed it last year because I was in FL.

Spring means

1) Baseball.

For the first year in forever I get to PLAY softball. I used to love to play when I was in high school, but that was a while ago. Yeah. I'm a little nervous because it's been a long time and I am playing on an established team that is a group of people who passionately and intensely work out together so we'll see how I stack up. I did have the best batting average on my team. In 1995. 

My man and I got some gloves. I couldn't believe he found his (lefty) at Goodwill. I'm pretty sure that mine belonged to a young boy in its past life. 

And just because I am talking about baseball does not mean I want to talk about the Sox and their 0-6 record. Or the Rays and their acquisition of Johnny Damon, Manny or even the returning, AK47-toting Longoria. 

Now all I can think of is It Was A Good Day by Ice Cube. Let's hope Evan never has to use his A.K.

2) Spring means winter quarter is over. The evaluations are in and I did not win any popularity contests. I don't want to go off on too much of a rant here, but can we just do away with student evaluations? In the words of a sage advisor, you can't let twenty year-olds affect your self-esteem. Evals really are just not helpful. Case in point (these are real word-for-word "feedback" I get from students):

Good: 

"I really enjoyed taking Cat's class. Her teaching style was really great for me. She is definitely very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject."

Or not so good: 

"Her expectations were completely unachievable. Although Cat's in-class teaching was somewhat satisfactory, her out of class techniques and methods were completely unfair and unable to be met" 

(This student also called me "completely irrational" which I can almost take as that she learned something about consumer behavior since I show the Dan Ariely talk Predictably Irrational. Great video, great book btw. If you have an extra 20, check it out. If not just finish up here. In fact, if she had just said predictably rather than completely as her adverb here I would have been able to laugh about it sooner.) I would like to mention to the readers that the average final grade of the class was an 84, highest I've ever given and highest allowed by the business school grade scale guidelines. 

How about this?

Cat was awesome and fun, really enjoyed the class!

Counterpoint:

She didn't seem very friendly either.

These two comments are FROM THE SAME STUDENT:

"Just an overall dissatisfaction with the professor" and "Good class and relevant material"

So are these two (different student):

"lectures can get boring" and "interesting material"

At least this quarter no one mentioned their wish that I brought donuts more often like a previous student had used his evaluation to let me know.

I have never brought donuts. 

Maybe I should?

Half Awake, In a Fake Empire

The end is in sight. The summer paper that is somehow creepin into the winter. We will present our paper in about a week and a half, and, while slightly panicked, I am so happy that it will be over and we can all move on. Deception is out. Pricing nerd will be back in full force.

Also, almost over is my torturous soccer league. I thought I would love playing soccer. After all, I loved it my whole younger life, from kindergarten up through freshman year of college. Strictly for love of game, not the competition, as I never made the varsity and played on intramural (not university team) one year of college. I was the honorary captain of the VJ team, maybe because of seniority (literally, there weren't a lot of seniors on the jv) Actually, thinking about it now, I don't think that I made it through the whole college freshman season... Anyway, the point is that that ten years is a long time. Skills that were marginal at best get a mite rusty AFTER TEN YEARS.
To prepare for my first game, my man and I got a ball at Target and kicked it around the backyard. Of course, we wanted to go to the park, but, as I might have mentioned before, we have a beast of a dog who does not like to be left alone and does not play well at the park.

I know it's hard to believe, but trust me. 

So with the only other soccer practice area we could consider being the dog park, we settled for the backyard. Anyway, one errant kick headed straight for the satellite dish and I should have known soccer was not going to go well for me. $75 dollars and 5 days later our cable was restored and I was off to the first game. When the goalie asked me after 10 minutes if I had ever played soccer before, I realized:

1) I was not going to make any friends on the soccer team and

2) I suck worse than I had feared. 

The (sort of) good thing is that the rest of the team in general also kinda sucks. We do have some good players (My man: "You need to be more like Leslie") but we went six straight games without a goal. (My man: "I think your team's goal should be to score a goal." Meaning don't even think about winning). Another good thing is that once the other team is up ten goals you can get an extra player. That has happened to us. Several times. 

Oh yeah - it rains here too. Every Sunday. And we do not cancel games for that here in Eugene.

So anyway, tonight is my second to last game with the dear Soccer Otters. They are continuing to play an indoor league starting next week. I say they because I will not be there.

Related to soccer? Yes, but also everything else.

Some might say this advice is simplistic, but I think it's got to be the key to life, right? And, for real, I am not talking about soccer anymore. And, you know what? It's not simple. It's really complicated. And this advice is hard to follow. Inaction is easy. The key is forcing yourself to move when you need to IMO. 

Ain't no Sunshine

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey...

So, I have never been the most excited person about halloween. But in the spirit of others being excited, I thought I'd post the coolest song ever written that involves Halloween. I mean, how many times can you hear the monster mash (although I admit the first two times I heard it this year I realized it's a pretty neat song).


Not sure what is up with this video, apparently Ryan Adams is a weird little dude.

So I am sitting here getting ready for the radio show tonight and enjoying some Divine breakfast....

We are doing a rain theme tonight. It's part of my attempt to accept the inevitability of what is going to happen for the next seven or eight months. I said to my man this week, I don't know if I can do it. I lived through last winter and now I know what I am in for.... He reminded me of our friend who lived in Eugene for about a year who told us that he "did one year and when the rain started again, I had to get the hell out of Oregon." I guess it's the same in MT. The cold comes in and stays around forever. But I like the cold. The dry cold. I am freezing here in Eugene already and I don't think it gets below 30 degrees all winter. Oh, well. I hope I can make it. Four more of these winters. My wooden dresser drawers won't open and close. Everything feels damp. Our front door gets so swollen from the rain that we can't use it from now until May. Did you guys see that horror movie with the girl from Labyrinth that moved in the wet apartment? This is my life.

 My man says, maybe this winter there'll be snow.... I hope so. I dreamed three nights ago that F and I were looking at houses to buy in some strange city and it was snowing those big fluffy flakes in the gray sky and it was wonderful. I am not holding my breath. Anyway, because of the rain show I have been listening to some really fun stuff this morning.... and, yes, I am playing November Rain. F found his Use Your Illusion I down in the basement. He told me he bought it the day it came out.

I am not much of a dresserupper. The only thing I bought this year was bobby pins.

My man said I could wear a white robe. I said I'll wear a white shirt. That's about as festive as I can get. I wish F would be Han Solo.... oh, Han. But he has decided to be Magnum.

We went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a live cast last night. Quite an interesting experience. There is a troupe of transvestites here in Eugene, there were probably 20 or 25. Being marked, and I mean physically marked with a huge lipstick V on my cheek, as a virgin (never seeing the movie with a live show) I had to get in front of the theater... I was sweating. I got off easily, having to only run through the tunnel of molestation.... it kind of reminded me of a grown up, perverted Happy Wheels when you have to skate through the tunnel of people... use your imagination here. My man tried to get out of it and was heckled until he was forced to participate. Other than that, and while the costumes and the passion were impressive, I got a little annoyed - I couldn't hear my favorite songs. I mean, I think that the songs are awesome enough. They are already funny, why change the lyrics and have 25 people yelling out over it? Also, really bummed to discover this morning that Over at the Frankenstein Place doesn't even mention rain so we can't put it in our show tonight.

We have three Halloween parties on the agenda for the next 24... I wonder if we'll make it to any. I have 54 short answer exams to grade. Happy Halloween my friends.

Is That The Thanks I Get?

Who remembers this?


So, I love going to live shows. We have been taking a little break from performances because of the musical overdose that happened at Sasquatch. Recently getting the itch to go see some live music again...
We have this place called the WOW Hall 4 blocks from home sweet home. Billed as "Eugene's Finest Venue" I have to say, it's a bit more like a mini high school gymnasium / sauna....

And actually, I am just going to stop a minute here to discuss something that has been really bothering me lately. Are there not any laws regarding how many bathrooms there need to be related to the number of individuals in a building? Because TWO toilets seems woefully inadequate if any more than 10 ladies are in attendance. Every show I end up fifteen minutes (per time) in a turtle speed line. Same goes for bars. What is the deal? Seriously, is this an issue that the fire marshall should be dealing with? To whom should I address my complaints to about this? Anybody?

So anyway, bathroom grievances aside, it's an ok place to see a band. Lots of little bands go through here. Corey Feldman's band played there recently. But we chose to go see Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, which I always kind of thought were the same band, but apparently not. Same singer though. That man must have been exhausted by 1:30am when they were finished.

Maybe due to the 'intimate' nature of the venue there was a lot of what I'll call here 'interaction' between the crowd and the band. Normally, I like when the band members talk a little in between songs, but I get a little nervous when they start reacting and conversing with the members of the audience. I have seen it turn bad... Jeff Tweedy prime example.


The best Jeff Tweedy heckle I ever heard "JEFF! I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR VOLKSWAGON!" Even he admitted it was a good one.

So anyway, there was lots of discussion, where did you come from type of stuff. One guy came from a place that was a unintelligible mumble that the singer tried to figure out for a minute. Then the guy said it's 100 miles away so you better be good! Then "requested" a song. To this the singer says "I am in the band and I traveled thousands of miles so I get to pick the songs." The heckler promptly turned around, walking by me on his way out and yelled over his shoulder in a totally (totes) genuine way "That's FAIR."

Cracker made me ponder the nature of the universe. I was thinking: Man. When is the last time I heard this song (Low, the big hit)? Probably sitting in my bedroom playing a mix tape on Signal Mountain in Tennessee, like 16 years old. Wonder what my teenage self would think if I told her: In 15 years (which is basically the entire span of your life again), you will be hearing this song live. In Eugene, Oregon. Where you live because you are enrolled in a PhD program. Two weeks before you marry your artist musician husband. And you're so happy.

I'd probably be like, whatever lady.

The idiot wind, blowing through the letters that we wrote

Warning: The title of this post is way too cool for the content.
We all agree Craigslist is really cool, right? (except for that casual encounters area, that is creepy).
Here's what I've got so far when I put out the call for calligraphy for the wedding invites.
*Names hidden to protect the dumb.

First off, it's June lady. Second, why would I pay you $3 for something that should take you about 10 seconds and I could do it better.

Same comments as above, but at least the price is moving in the right direction.

This was actually the best sample I got, but interesting word choice for a wedding invitation sample, don't you think? The other one says "Suicide Victim." 

I can't.

In other, unrelated news, we were not able to attend the Ms. Whiteaker pageant which I was so excited about because it was sold out.

Apparently, there were pretty serious restrictions on capacity... The fire marshal was mentioned. I think my man felt bad because earlier in the evening we went to the Crapple to buy some beer and, let me tell you, the 'hood was out representing in full effect. I saw two young guys in a banana and a bugs bunny costume, respectively, which both looked vintage (and NOT gently worn). I said "Hey banana, are you going to the pageant tonight?" He got very defensive and eventually replied that he "might be." They were buying juice. I think there were hallucinogens involved. Anyway, when I got back to the car I mentioned the (slight) increase in characters and said maybe we should go pick up our tickets before we go to the rum tasting, power tools and lash party (oh yeah, that was what we were doing first). But we didn't and we got denied. It was very un-Whiteaker-like I must say. I thought we were all about punk rock over here! Who listens to the fire marshal anyway! So we licked our wounds at Tiny's where we caught the tail end of happy hour with $1.50 PBRs. It wasn't so bad.

~Tiny's - my new Silver Dollar of Eugene. The cash only part kind of sucks, but check out the record player~

Make it Rain

So, have you heard it rains in Oregon?

Because when I decided to move to Oregon, that was all people told me.

Better bring your umbrella

And, yet, I still was not prepared for the amount of wetness I have encountered.

I came from this:

(this is actually pretty wet for Montana)

to this:

But right as I was about to write a seriously negative post about the rain along the lines of COME ON, IT'S MAY ALREADY

I saw this:

Too heavy handed? Sorry, that's really how it happened. So there.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

Do people knock on the front door in your neighborhood? To ask you if you want to buy tamales? No? Hmm. Because they do at our house.

What about window washing offers? Not interested? But, he has references! This car is unrelated to either of those services, but is often seen in these parts.

I heart Whiteaker.

*edit: My man removed his stereo from the car on the way home from dinner last night saying "Friday is the night we always get robbed."

Allow me to reintroduce myself....

So the FIRST blog post. I wanted to yell that, but yell it quietly mind you. I just found the best way to procrastinate... but really, even this shiny new blog can't distract me from "How Well Do Item Parcels Represent Conceptually Designed Latent Constructs? A Two-Facet Approach" for too long.

If I promise to not talk too much about being a PhD student and how tough it is, do you promise to read my blog? Come on, I read your blog....