Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1609
Very social weekend: Boris and Agriculture live, trick-or-treating, Jane's birthday party, visiting friends, my grandmother reincarnated at the playground.
(Originally mis-numbered as 1598)
Good morning hello hi howdy how are you happy Monday woo woo. You ready? You feeling it? I am okay. Someone is doing a password reset on my Instagram account, trying to steal it. Relatively common thing with Instagram accounts. Putting my faith in 2FA and hardware keys and whatnot. Always a bit unnerving.
Excellent weekend, A+ no complaints. I don’t think I did a single chore. I mean I guess we’re a bit into semantics here since I did a fair bit of party prep, and some errands, but those seem distinct and different from chores. Second weekend in a row of non-stop activity and socializing, my cup runneth over once again. Which is great, I loved it. I am, of course, ready for a weekend hiding in the attic. Which will be the next three weekends, I think? That is exciting to me.
Friday day I, um… Man I do not remember. Emma and I went to Walmart, bought party supplies. We got subs for lunch together. Mostly I spent the day with my wife, which, you know, is a lovely way to spend a day.
My friend Nick arrived from Wilmington Friday in time to join Emma, Jane and I for trick-or-treating in the giant neighborhood nearby. It was surreal and wonderful as last year, always the best. Kids running around like lunatics.
Guy with the bright yellow C3 Vette gave me a Jello shot again. Two years in a row. Soon we will be friends. We talked about how and when he bought the car it was only a few years ago and he got to fly to Kentucky and drive it home alone so, you know, living the dude dream. One of Jane’s friends’ parents is a prof and she brought two of her French post-docs to experience an American halloween so that added a nice cultural-analysis layer to the whole thing.
Emma dressed up, most of the other parents were dressed up. Nick and I were not, though I was wearing a new(ish) Bikini Kill shirt that said BIKINI KILL in giant pink letters. Limited edition, recent fundraiser for World Central Kitchen, very happy with the shirt. No one had heard of the band but they were convinced I was dressed up. We kept telling people we were going to a rock concert soon, and they kept thinking Nick and I were dressed up as “people going to a rock concert,” rather than being two people who were not dressed up, but were, in fact, going to a rock concert.
Turns out not a lot of people in Briar Chapel have heard of Boris. Or Bikini Kill. SAD!
So anyway, Nick and I eventually depart the trick-or-treating and head to the show. But not before I hatch a cockamamie scheme that next year I am going to borrow one of our friends’ garage and set it up for halloween trick or treating and give out candy to kids because that is my favorite part of Halloween and no one comes to our house. Before Chore House came on the market I had considered buying a house in that neighborhood expressly for this purpose. But my friends tell me I can borrow their garage next year, so I am very excited.
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We are listening this morning to Saintseneca, who seem to be substantially less popular than I thought. I think they’re great, though. Sorta New Weird America folk, little big band-ish, little Neutral Milk Hotel ish. They are coming to town soon playing the small room at Cat’s Cradle. I am endeavoring to establish if it is a full band show or a solo show, would consider going if it were the former. New album is called Highwallow & Supermoon Songs. I am only four tracks in but I like it so far.
So anyway, Nick and I head to the majestic, glorious Haw River Ballroom to see two amazing metal bands my god the show was so good: Boris, with Agriculture opening. When I bought the tickets months ago, the day they went on sale, I had no idea Agriculture was opening, but they were, and their new album is easily one of my favorites of the year along with one of their members, Dan Meyer’s solo album which I was raving about in GMHHAY a few months ago.
Never seen them live before, was very excited and they ruled.
Dan looked like a cross between Bonnie Prince Billy and a faun, wearing a white beater. One member was a trans woman but looked and talked like an 80’s California surfer dude but had a black metal voice from hell. Bassist looked like a normal long-haired 70’s stoner dude. Drummer wore a white polo. Their look made no sense. It was awesome, ranging from full-on black metal, to drone, to acoustic spirituals, just all over the map. Amazing band.
(Incidentally we had a long chat in the GMHHAY Slack about the term “wife beater” and I agree it should be deprecated and we talked for ages about what to call it and I don’t think “white tank” does it justice and we settled on “beater” so here I am trying it out for the first time… I think it might work? TBD).
Also a black metal show is just the thing for Halloween, my god what a weird-ass crowd of a thousand in the middle of the woods of rural North Carolina.
“I forgot it was Halloween and looked out on this crowd and thought ‘man there are a lot of scary people here.’”
So many devil horns and witches and so many trans kids in a safe space and the whole thing was just so great. I was in a great mood and chatted with everyone and most people had driven an hour or two to get to the show. It was a lot like that Legendary Pink Dots show I went to a couple weeks ago in that respect: these shows are magnets for an entire region. And it makes me think about how lazy I am not even going to Raleigh for shows sometimes.
Talked to Agriculture after the show when I was buying (yet another) Agriculture shirt. Nice people. I was raving and ranting about how they’re like the best band right now probably made them slightly uncomfortable, boy two glasses of wine, Cymbalta and a lot of caffeine sure makes me chatty.
Met a dude named Austin who had driven three hours. Met a dude who said that every fairground corn dog has a “cheese element” to it. An hour later I saw him again and shouted “it’s cheese element dude!” He may have been confused.
Boris was also awesome. They had picked up a giant inflatable Buc-ees beaver when stopping on the road. His name, I am just learning now, is Bucky Beaver. It is absolutely insane a trio could make that much noise. They were doing a 20th anniversary tour for the album Pink. I am pretty sure I actually saw the original Pink tour? Hrm here it is. Does not say it is actually the Pink tour, per se, but… yeah. Anyway, they ruled, as always, and it was just such a treat to see em in such a great room I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere half as majestic.
Saw Swans with Seanny D a couple weeks ago and Boris with Nick. Apparently I am on a tour of going to see noise bands with best dude friends and groomsmen. Ryan and Doug I’m gonna come to Northampton soon and we can see Merzbow or something.
Bought a guitar pedal from Boris and it is a Boris Pink pedal from Earthqauker but right after I bought it I saw they had an Amplifier Worship Service pedal from Electro-Harmonix and I asked if I could exchange and he said they were the same and he confused me for a second and I thought maybe the Pink one was an Electro Harmonix Nano of the same thing but when I got home and saw it was an Earthquaker, well, now I have a lot of questions and it is gonna haunt me.
I could talk about this for hours but it was a packed weekend we gotta move on here.
Saturday was Jane’s birthday party so… Nick, Emma, Jane and I hit up Bojangles for breakfast, Dunkin so Nick could get some proper New England coffee, grocery store for more party supplies cuz I was gonna half-ass the cheese plate but then felt bad about it so I had to go buy more cheese, then Walmart so Nick could buy a NERF football because his family Meghan and Henry were en route to our house from Wilmington.
Party prep all day which includes the annual terrifying moment where we move the theater chairs and see how many pretzels and pieces of popcorn Rick and Jane have left on the floor. I made the cheese plate and charcuterie and veggie tray and cleaned the kitchen and handled the beverages and man that kitchen was so clean. Look at this bar this is where I dump all my stuff usually look how clean it is:
And people started arriving around 1 and it was great. Old non-school friends like Brian and Christine and Tom and new school friends and Girl Scouts friends. It was a crafting party. Last year all the kids sat and intensely crafted for hours. This year the playset and trails were a much bigger attraction and the crafting was only minimal.
I drank two BEATBOX alcoholic snowcone things that I had purchased a while back cuz an ad strategist friend of mine was looking for samples for research but by the time I acquired them (from Walmart, natch), he had some already, so they’ve been sitting on a shelf for, like, a year. Delicious. Sugary. Deadly. Took me all day Sunday to recover. I should not have done that.
Anyway, lots of good parental chats and met another parent who has 20 acres up the road, came from Brooklyn, seemed cool. That was promising.
Anyway seems I have lots of photos but they all have other people’s kids in them so I guess you don’t get to see them sorry. So here is a picture Henry took of our two families with my drone I loaned him.
Sunday we got a lovely breakfast at the local nice brunch place and the server was so good she made me not even mind that my burrito did not come for more than 45 minutes also thank you Wegovy because I was not in a rush at all. She was hilarious she was great.
Then to the playground and there was a girl there who looked like my grandmother Violet and I asked her father if she liked to throw things and he said yes so we decided she is my grandmother reincarnated I’m sure that’s not gonna make the playground weird in the future.
Great weekend. Jane had a great time. Not a tantrum all weekend just great. I guess the secret is to just give them an amazing exciting weekend without a moment of boredom every weekend doesn’t sound hard at all huh.
Moody and quiet this morning, all new except I threw on an old Spiritualized track to hit the hour mark or get close enough to it. Threw on a little Santseneca ditty so you could get an idea of them. I love love love this new Skullcrusher album, and this new Antlers album and this new Patrick Watson album lotta great stuff. I think Skullcrusher is coming to town soon? Gotta investigate.
OKAY BYE HAVE A GOOD WEEK BYE.
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Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.