Someone call the wambulance......

PLACEBO, SHE WANTS REVENGE AT THE AGORA
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Someone call the wambulance, because there's going to be an accident... in MA PANTS, no not really. No it isn't the "wambulance" it's "ambulance" but SG finds Brian Moloko's voice (lead singer of Placebo) voice so nasal that that's all she hears when she catches that line from the song "Infra-Red".

Saturday I was fortunate to both catch a concert with Placebo and actually have someone make the two and a half hour trek up north with me. I say fortunate because in the past when I looked up tour dates for Placebo all that I would see was:

1.) Almost all stadium tours, and stadium tours are teh suck.
2.) Mostly in Europe and mostly stadium tours but or not I can't really tell.
3.) If not all in Europe then only in the bigger U.S. cities on the coasts.

To get an opportunity to see them in a venue as small as the Agora gave the whole experience something more of a religious pilgrimage than a drive to see a band. Take that and then throw in the fact that Placebo is apparently only playing six dates in the U.S. and I am in groupie heaven. I mean come on it would be like being able to see U2 if U2 were your band of holy grail and they just happened to be playing in a club that holds no more than a couple hundred people. I was going to say that I don't completely hate stadium and lawn style concerts but no I really do hate them. Oh.. oh please let me spend close to $100 for a ticket that gets me within binOcular distance of the band. I went to a Genesis concert when I was in middle school that was of the stadium variety type and it was worthless but that might have been because it was Genesis. I just don't get stadium concerts, when I go to a concert I want it to be in a dingy converted theater all run down with walls the color of soot that only can be got from generations of cigarette smoke and lack of maintenance. I want a pit sticky with stale beer and what I want most of all is the ability to SEE the band and to get right up next to the stage if I so choose. Now that's a concert.

Placebo is one of those bands where you either like them or you don't. SG can't stand them because as I said Brian Molokos has this hyper nasal pitched voice that sounds like God came down and pinched his nose together with an invisible clothing pin. I think I first heard Placebo at my first job back when Napster was king and internet radio stations were all the rage. There was this one internet radio station called "Evil Dildo" whose website had a evil looking baby with cake smeared all over it's evil toothless face holding a fork in a menacing fashion. Too this day I am still haunted by that picture. Underneath it said something like

"[something, something, something] going to chew your dick with my tiny little teeth."

There is so much wrong with a baby saying that they are going to chew your dick with tiny little teeth. . It was from this radio station that I first heard Placebo and from then on I can't seem stop my knee jerk response to purchasing their albums.

The concert was excellent and while I hadn't listened to any of the opening band She Wants Revenge before the concert I can say now after having listened to the album that they were pretty good. Sure She Wants Revenge sounds kind of pop-ish and sure they may not be the most original band but all and all they have some palatable music and can put on a decent show. As for Placebo they played a fantastic set doing every song off of their current album along with classics like "Special K".

The only thing I have to complain about as I raise my wrinkly old hand above my head clenching it and shouting was the people at the show in the pit. When She Wants Revenge played there was some clapping, head nodding, and little jumps of exuberance but all and all there wasn't much of a response. When the songs ended their was a roar of appreciation accompanied by clapping but during a song the people in the pit might as well have been mannequins. Huh? If you like the music enough to give that kind of response after why not get up and move a little. But they were the opening band and don't people usually just ignore the opening band? I guess. When Placebo started I found myself amidst a bunch of kids that were more interested in text messaging and drinking as many tall boy PBR's before the concert ended. Shit man even the Japanese, those quiet restrained Japanese, created a mighty fine pit for Jimmy Eat World. Who knows though maybe jumping up and down and crowd surfing is passe, something that the younger generation talks about in reference to those people that used to listen to that "grunge" thing. Or maybe Placebo just isn't the type of music that really lends itself to a energetic pit.


CARS FOR SALE, APPETIZING YOUNG CARS FOR SALE
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Our cars these days are giving us and particularly me nothing but trouble. I can just see them testing their boundaries like three year old children do. See me Mommy? I know you said I can't touch this but what if I keep inching closer and closer? How close will you allow me to get to it before I get in trouble. In this same way I can feel our cars testing me seeing just what it will take for me to take the final plunge and just get a new car.

It's not like I bought them two years ago and have grown tired of them, it's just that I don't want a car payment. Why? Just you lose your job for eight months and live off unemployment and you start to realize how tenative things can be and how something unexpected could push you into financial dire straits when you least expect it. Then there's the desire to walk right into the dealership, haggle a price and when they ask how you'd like to finance the car look them right in the face and say "CASH", dip into a silver suitcase and start throwing wads of bills in their face. I can just feel the satisfaction.

What started this whole feeling that our cars were testing their boundaries was when on Monday (October 30th) the Saturn decided to just up and die right as I was easing away from the driveway. Three days, one tow, a few phone calls, $57 and a blister that goes from one side of my tiny toe to the other it seems that the auto shop doesn't really know what is going on. Apparently the engine somehow got flooded and when I brought it in all they did was do something called a "clear flush" where you press the gas peddle all the way to the floor and start cranking the engine till it starts. In my mind if an engine is flooded you don't want to put your foot to the floor, it just seems counter intuitive. So I asked Mr. Car Man what was up with this "clear flush" thing and to which I found out that almost all cars made after the mid 90's have fuel injectors. Cars with fuel injectors all have the ability to do a clear flush which will reset the fuel injectors and thereby allow you to start your car. With Saturn's in this case if you put your foot to the floor while turning the key it will tell the fuel injectors to reset. So Huzzah for my $57 lesson in modern automotive technology. As for the blister? On the day that Saturn (for I refuse to call it my car and thereby accept any responsibility for it) died I decided to huff it to work and be all European with my walking and potential stinking. It was a nice day so I figured why not walk 3 miles in my dress shoes. Besides it will be a good to know how long it takes to walk to work if I ever have to do it again. The magical number? ~50 minutes and many blisters.

Continuing the testing of boundaries I got a call from SG Wednesday morning after she had left for work telling me that a side wall of one of my tires just blew out. Like a fireman I throw on a pair of pants, last nights socks and whatever pair of shoes that that were near the bed and drove to swap cars with her. I realize this has nothing to do the actual inner workings of the car and that the tires are a separate thing but nonetheless it still feels personal. Thankfully it turns out I have a month left on my extended warranty on the tires so for once the extended warranty actually pays off.


FEELING A LITTLE see-TRESS..
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While driving home the other night I was listening to Market Place on NPR. I can't explain my love for that radio show or why I have an unexplainable urge to download pod casts of it even though I don't listen to pod casts. Here is a show all about business, and markets, and money and things that I don't really care that much about. Err well I do like money. I think my love for Market Place has to do with the hosts wonderful super hero radio voice. I've heard the show when he isn't hosting it and the show just doesn't have the same draw for me. I find that Market Place parallels the British car show "Top Gear" where they are able to talk about cars and present it in such a manner that even SG (self proclaimed apathetic car person) likes to watch. I just wish that they would show more "Top Gear" over here in the states as it seems new episodes are sporadic at best. Along the lines of "Top Gear" there was a funny parody that some guys did using video game footage from Battlefield 2 where they did a "Top Gear" like review of I what I think was a Bradly tank.

Tanks, "Top Gear".... oh yes Market Place. So the whole reason why I brought this all up was that during a Market Place episode a few days back there was a Vietnamese guy named Andrew Lam who was doing a little story about how people in Vietnam are changing due to capitalism. What I found so humorous/interesting was that people in Vietnam had to adopt the English word "stress" into their language because the closest thing to stress in Vietnamese is "cang thang than kinh" - "tension of the mind". I sort of like that tension of the mind thing. Anyway if you are one who doesn't like real audio here is another link that will allow you to read the broadcast.