I took a few pictures with my iPhone last night. I figure I’ll share a few of the decent-ish ones. It has been almost exactly four years since I’ve experienced live music. I knew I missed it, but I wasn’t aware of how much I missed it. I am not going to be able to wait four years before I get more. I did wear a mask through the whole show though. Some things have definitely changed over the last four years.
Anyway, random pics:
Gigolo Aunts…
Letters to Cleo…
Both at the same time…
Excellent show.
The last concert I attended prior to the pandemic was Letters to Cleo’s (sort of?) annual November reunion at The Paradise in Boston.
Tonight? We’re going to see Letters to Cleo again. Live music! I almost forget what it feels like. The only downside of The Paradise is there is no parking so you have to go early and hunt for one. Outside of that, tonight should be epic. Epic, like you’ve read about.
My step son has all of next week off from school. He’s coming home tomorrow. He’ll spend a few days here, then a few days at his dad’s new house, then Thanksgiving take two at our house a week from Saturday, then he’ll go back to school. My step daughter will be home at some point though, but she’s no longer a college student and has to work next week. We don’t know her schedule yet but she’ll be here for Thanksgiving take two as well.
With the return of at least one kid being imminent, I am really looking forward to this weekend. As an added bonus, this coming Saturday will also see me and my friends Larry and Mike (the bass player) reliving our roaring 20’s by going to see Letters to Cleo and the Gigolo Aunts at The Paradise in Boston. We’re going to pretend it’s 1996 or so and go check out some Boston music… even though most of the members of both bands don’t live in Boston anymore. So what, it’s going to be nostalgic rock and roll like you’ve read about.
Today has been quiet, apart from the plumber visit this morning. I’ve had a couple of meetings and have one more coming up in a few minutes. I’ve mostly focused on paperwork. It’s been a good day so far. It’s 60 degrees outside, which is nice. Warmer days are rare at this point in the calendar. Granted I haven’t gone outside since 8:00am today and at that time the temperature was in the low 30’s. Timing is everything, folks.
Right then. Time to go and prep for the next meeting. I just wanted to write down how excited I am for this weekend. So many good things on the schedule. I’m ready for them all right now.
I got up this morning to watch the new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds while doing my morning exercise and I found that there were two new episodes, not one. They released a Lower Decks cross over a few days ago and somehow I didn’t catch it. How the hell did that happen? That episode was fun. This week’s episode is dark. Woah, babie is it dark.
That’s not what this post is about though. Yesterday I wrote something about having a good day food-wise. I spoke too soon. Not that when things went bad it was that bad. It was not. It wasn’t even technically a problem. I was hungry when I left work. Really hungry. I had a protein bar on the drive, which put me over the 80 grams of protein goal for the day. I figured I’d have a little bit of supper with Jen and then I’d be set for the day. That was the plan.
When I got home though, she had dinner waiting for me. It was quinoa with chicken. She used taco sauce in the vegetable stir fry. It smelled like heaven. Amazing. I put a big spoonful onto a plate… then another big spoonful… then a smaller spoonful. I never thought I’d eat it all, and I didn’t. Not even close. What I did do was eat too much. WAY too much. I stopped when my stomach was feeling uncomfortably full. I should have finished 5-10 minutes earlier, but I didn’t. In the first few minutes after I stopped the uncomfortable full feeling started getting worse. I set a timer for one hour because I still had my evening vitamins to take even though I was already over my water goal for the day. I figured I’d have a few ounces of water with the two calcium pills and then I could move on with my life.
When the hour timer went off I was still painfully full. I set another timer for 30 minutes. I was still not good when that went off. I did it again, and again, and again. I had stopped eating at 7:22pm. At 10:20 I was still feeling too full to take the pills. I was also seriously exhausted so I just went to sleep. I wasn’t happy about missing a vitamin dose, but I could live with it given the circumstances.
At 2:00am I woke up needing to pee (TMI, sorry). My stomach felt normal again at that point, as I suspected it would. I took those two calcium pills with two ounces of water. Sure, they were taken on the wrong calendar date, and it was 9-10 hours later than I like to take them, but I got them in. I also did the dishes, which I was planning to do before I went to sleep but failed to. I felt pretty good.
There were a couple of weird things though. First, when I woke up I was dripping with sweat and my bed sheet was down right soggy. What the hell happened there? I have no idea. I didn’t feel hot at all, quite the opposite. Why was I sweating buckets during that 3.5 hours of sleep? On top of that, when I eventually laid down to sleep I couldn’t. What the hell, Robert? I was still feeling super tired. It just took me about half an hour to get back to sleep. Weird.
Okay, I just finished today’s Star Trek episode. It was really good. I mean, really good. I think next week will be a musical episode with songs written by two former members of Letter to Cleo. Boston music across the stars, babie! I am not sure that’s what’s going on, but that’s the rumor I’ve heard. Check Kay Hanley’s social media for details. I’ve been avoiding it out of fear of spoilers.
For now though, it’s time to get ready for work. Have a good day, everyone and if you’ve had gastric bypass surgery, don’t over do it with the taco flavored quinoa, no matter how spectacular it tastes.
Raise your hand if you successfully carved up a pie with an actual pizza cutter.
Robert raises his hand triumphantly.
Hey, brah. You want some zah, brah?
Look what came in the mail and made my crappy day feel quite a bit better!
Last night was the first time in eight years that I had the chance to see the mighty Letters to Cleo. I wish I could tell you how many times I’ve seen them now, but I lost count somewhere along the line. I saw them on the Common at a Hemp Fest right around the time their second record came out. I saw them at Merrimack College. I saw them at Avalon at least once. I think I might have seen them at the Hatch Shell once. Did I ever see them at TT the Bears or the Middle East? I don’t think so. It’s The Paradise that throws my memory off though. There were so many that I lost track. At least five before last night, but maybe as many as eight? I can’t remember. Suffice to say, I’ve seen Letters to Cleo a whole shit load of times, and each time has been fantastic. They are just a great live band. I’m hoping that this reunion thing will become a regular happening. A little new music, a few shows in some big cities, and a stop or two at The Paradise… where they belong.
The full photo album is here, but they all suck. Just warning you.
We missed a Lizard Fish show last night. It was at a bar that is practically down the street from us, but it was a kid night on the first full day since they came home from camp. I would have liked to have gone, but I would have liked to be home with the kids even more, so we stayed home.
Now that Rush has finished their tour, I don’t have any band to obsess about over their gigs.
Kay Hanley tweeted that Letters to Cleo was going to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first record. If that somehow fails to include Boston shows then there will be full scale riots in the streets.
Pearl Jam is playing two shows in Worcester in October. I just checked Ticketmaster (irony) and there are seats available for both. They are very high on my list of bands I have to see at least once before I die. Perhaps second on the list behind only Jeff Beck. Maybe that’s something to look in to.
So when I posted that little thing about Dunks and Letters to Cleo and Boston today it was one of those things that was funnier in my head than on the screen. That didn’t stop universehub.com from linking to it and giving me by far my busiest day page view wise since switching to WordPress.com. Thanks!
I put a link in the comments to the pictures I took on the night the Letters to Cleo live record was recorded. Here are a couple that received some love on Flickr, just because Cleo still rules the planet, even after being gone so long.
Inside the Red Head's Head 