last blasts

We converged in Chinatown for an exhibit on the community's history, with photos, oral history, and a lion dance, which I've never gotten to see before. Wandered around the building and some galleries and then ended up at the kind of Chinese restaurant where there's no crackers and weird game shows on the TV, and picking something to eat is like picking lucky numbers in the lottery, but good times were had.

Helped my mom out in the morning, braved the grocery store on Saturday and chortled at "Born to Be Wild" on the Muzak, drove out to the lands of the east to a beautiful Victorian house for the nuptials, which were of course lovely.

The reception was under a big circus-style tent, with burgers and homemade pies and and popcorn. Cute kids were running around, I got to catch up with some people I don't get to see as much as I'd like, animal crackers were set on fire with the candles, much laughter, everyone around me instagramming the hell out of everything, hence images.  I don't drink at these gatherings, because I get absurd enough as it is in the right company. I'm so happy for them, it seemed like everyone had a good time, and everything was just kind of perfect and festive the way these things should be more often.

Sunday, plans were altered, me and one of my Parmastani girls went down to the festival that was going on all weekend, no longer under the bridge, but in a warehouse down by the harbor, which, given that it was daytime and not in a sweet Gaimanesque space, didn't quite have the same magic, kind of reminded me of a convention center with loud bands and echoey acoustics.

We looked at some nice art, ran into some people we knew, didn't find anything that was really all that super exciting and spent the rest of the afternoon eating ice cream on the rocks along the lake, walking through the park and chilling on the balcony before I picked up the Queen of the Bondo and met up with Cookbook for rocking out courtesy of Corin Tucker's new band. It's no Sleater-Kinney to be sure, though if I could have another record with the sound and fury of The Woods I'd be all too pleased, but still satisfyingly punky and noisy.

No wonder bands are skipping this town, because evidently everyone'd rather get fat at swank restaurants than go see live music. Or maybe it's because Corin Tucker doesn't have a TV show. I don't know. Anyways, the club was near-deserted when we got there, and decided to go and venture outside to find caffeine and by the time the show ended there were maybe 40 or 50.  Still, they played a great set, there was lots of loud guitars and her band was fantastic, fabulous rhythm section and strong chemistry, way more dubby in a postpunk way than I thought it would be, and I'm glad I've gained enough Reflective Powers to wear earplugs now so I don't feel disoriented when I leave. Unlike Wild Flag, who in comparison seemed to be phoning it in, the crowd was mostly dudes which was surprising.  Also, my camera sucks so youtubes it is.

Picked up the CD (not much on the youtubes, but stream here), we drove back through the dark quiet streets, I couldn't sleep last night, thank God for the espresso in the coffeepot.