Fallout

I'm feeling the effects of too much. Too much sound (5 bands). Too many people (19,000 in one place). Too many miles at too slow a speed. (It took over 2 hours to go 35 miles on the interstate. At least we were crawling slowly enough on the beltway that I got a good long look at my odometer rolling over 100,000). Too many size 2 pairs of jeans with too many skimpy tank tops. These kids all dress like there's a uniform. Boring. A little variety would be nice. Too many breaks (20 minutes of playing then 30 minutes for the next band to set up.)

I took Cassie & her charming girlfriend to a concert tonight -- Fallout Boy. October Fall, From First to Last, Hawthorne Heights & All-American Rejects opened for them. October Fall was mostly noise, From First to Last had the pourest vocabulary (almost exclusively cursing & not even imaginative at that. It really did pour over you), Hawthorne Heights was pretty good (with a complete and refreshing lack of bad language) and All-American Rejects was my favorite. Fallout Boy was too much of the same thing.

The interesting thing I learned was that in such a youthful group, age has a certain authority, almost cachet. We were sitting on the lawn at Merriweather Post Pavilion and when a herd of those size 2 hiphugger jeans would wander in front of me blocking my view and acting for all the world like they intended to plant themselves there like trees, I'd merely tap them, ask them to step aside & they parted like the red sea. Actually I was more like Dustin Hoffman's character Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, "I'm watchin' here!"

Good night for now. The real excitement of the day was my class with Nancy Bush, Overture to Estonian Lace. It was fabulous but I'm saving that story for when I'm coherent, not at 1 AM.

PS Cassie said, "You're such a nerd" when she noticed I was working on a pale pink baby bootie during a rock concert. I felt complimented.