The Wedding, Part 1: Go South, Young Man

Fast-forward: on March 7, 2009, on a cloudy day in Austin, TX, Pam and I got married. The hubbub surrounding the big day has been a cause of great excitement and even greater stress for us over the past several months. Combined with the pressures of law school, pet ownership, theater, and the this-that-other of life, maintaining a reasonably updated blog has been near the bottom of my to-do list.

I had a week at home with the animals after Pam left Virginia on February 25 to get pre-wedding preparation underway. It was fairly eventful; the dog had just been castrated and required constant supervision/Elizabethan collar restraint as a result of his compulsively picking his wounds open with his claws and teeth. The cats were no help. I also settled into full-on rehearsal mode for my latest (and last) show with the Georgetown Gilbert & Sullivan Society, "Ruddigore." Theater usually falls into the "What fun!" category for me, but I happened to be getting through the last blasts of a mild bout of pneumonia (yes, doctor-diagnosed) and was still operating with cough-ravaged vocal cords and at lung power levels of about 75%. It was what it was, I guess, and I could have sounded worse. That Saturday, I had some of the guys from school over to my place for an evening of man-type stuff - y'know, poker, Iron Man, video games - and before I knew it, it was March 3rd and I still hadn't packed for my two-week trip, then 24 hours away.

The next day, I left a long note and a check for the house-sitter (more on that some other time), did the dishes and about half of the household chores I should have done, skipped class, and headed via train to the Baltimore Airport. I arrived in Austin to brilliant weather, dinner at one of my favorite old places (Star Seeds, where the breakfast tacos are thiiiis biiiiig) and a nice reception from Pam and the various family members and friends who either lived in or had already descended upon Austin for The Party.

Thursday was Bachelor/ette day. From what I understand, Pam's party was fairly tame, and involved a gay bar, penis beads, that kind of thing. Of course, my understanding of what happened at Pam's bachelorette party conveniently omits the drunkenness, tearful admissions of regret, and various feats of tasseled cockery that I hear happen at those types of get-togethers. Live and let live. Mine started pretty harmlessly. I ate mediocre enchiladas and got housed on margaritas at Polvo's, a pretty happening Mexican pre-game favorite in south Austin. There was a patron at the table next to us whose not-at-all-appealing butt crack (tiny digression: is there a euphemism for this, or even a less-offensive-yet-accurate descriptive term? Slit between buttocks? Crevasse?) was at least 40% visible the entire time we were there, and unfortunately it is already what I remember most about the meal. For proof-positive that it will be what we look back on about our night at Polvo's in twenty years, my cousin Sean got a couple of decent pictures of the offender.

We moved on from there to one of "our gang's" old favorite haunts, incidentally a place I've always been fairly neutral on, the G&S Lounge. We played pool and table hockey, and laughed at the wedding-appropriate songs that kept coming up on the jukebox. "Knives Out" was my favorite. I hadn't played pool in a couple of years, and it showed. The tandem of myself and my best man lost most of the games we played, and it was pretty much my fault every time. We were joined at G&S by a friend from DC whose plane had gotten in not too long before, and not too long after the decision was made to head for darker waters.

It's like this: I have always, always disliked strip clubs. I have friends who have gone to one once a week for 10 years. I can count the number of times I've been on one hand, and one of those times was because my then-girlfriend was a waitress there (because I know you're wondering, yes, it was Pam who worked at the strip club). But anyway, here's the thing. For as long as I can remember, I have had a positively visceral negative reaction to commissioned salespeople. I'm not known for my politeness and tasteful restraint when I am annoyed by something, and commissioned salespeople are very close to the top of my "please, no" list. I'd love to say that I have nothing against them personally. I know they're just doing their jobs, that their living depends upon successfully convincing me or someone else to buy something - preferably something expensive. But when I'm there, and they're in front of me, God help me and them, but I hate them. They don't care about the product. They don't really want to give me good information. They want to tell me whatever it will take to make me buy whatever I am most likely to buy. And they want to be extremely in my face and annoying about it, to the point that I can't look around for thirty fucking seconds before one or more of them has been in my face.

Now. Imagine you're at a Best Buy, you're there to look at all the sweet TVs, and the salesmen start approaching you - one after the other. Now imagine they're coked-up, they sit in your lap, and you have to pay them money, but you don't get to take the TV home. You just get to watch it super close-up for two minutes, to the point that the picture is blurry, and for some reason, the closer you get to it, the more the TV smells like baby powder. This is similar to how I feel when I go to a strip club. It's overwhelming. I feel trapped, suffocated, defeated - and like I'm never going to really get to look at the sweet TVs, which is all I really wanted to do. And you know what? I would NEVER go to Best Buy if they charged me a $10 cover.

So wouldn't you know, gambling isn't allowed in Texas. That kind of leaves only one other option open for closing down a bachelor party. I'd known what was coming since the moment Pam said "yes" last February, and had been steeling myself. And you know what? You only live once, and I'd gone 31+ years without a lap dance.

TO BE CONTINUED...

My Top Ten Albums of 2008

Again, sorry about the delay. First off, I've been very busy. I've been acting in a play, planning a wedding, doing a surprising amount of schoolwork, applying for the bar, watching change come to Washington, and you can fill in whatever else. The second reason this has taken so long is that it has been absolutely agonizing picking my top 10. 2008 was a far better year for music than I gave it credit for last month when I started thinking about the best records of the year. I am already excited for 2009, which has already seen the release of one of the best records I've heard in the past 2 or 3 years.

A caveat to the list - I wasn't really able to set consistent rules. For example, Radiohead's In Rainbows was self-released by the band in 2007 and didn't receive a "proper" label release until early 2008. Due in part to the enormously massive nature of the self-release of the record, I consider In Rainbows a 2007 thing. If I hadn't already thought about it in the context of 2007, it's probably my #1 this year. Another one that was self-released in 2007 but didn't get a label release until this year is Delta Spirit's Ode To Sunshine. I love this record, and thought about putting it on my top ten for 2008, particularly because almost no one heard it in 2007. I say almost, though, because I was one of the lucky ones to get my hands on the record. It, like In Rainbows, made my 2007 list, and I would feel weird including it again. Sounds like a reasonable exclusionary policy, right? Not exactly. You see, yet another record that was self-released in 2007 but did not receive label support until 2008 has made it into this year's top 10. But, I didn't hear it in 2007. I'll stop trying to explain.

So, where are we? Before the big list, a couple of add-ons:

Best Album of 2007 That I Wasn't Aware Existed Until 2008 And Is So Good That I Almost Included It In My List Anyway: The Bowerbirds - Hymns for a Dark Horse

Best Album of 2008 That Was More Miss Than Hit But Was Really Interesting And Had Some Fantastic Production: Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

Best 2008 Albums That I Am Just Now Getting Into That I May Have To Edit My List For: Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Beach House - Devotion
Sun Kil Moon - April
Q-Tip - The Renaissance

Best Albums of 2008 -Honorable Mention:
Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
Blitzen Trapper - Furr
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
Black Mountain - In The Future
Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life


And now, my favorite albums of 2008, in reverse order. Each one is fantastic. I will let them speak for themselves. If you haven't heard them, they all deserve 45 minutes of your time.

10. Dr. Dog - Fate

9. Sigur Ros - Meo Suo í Eyrum Vio Spilum Endalaust

8. The Killers - Day and Age

7. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

6. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

5. Portishead - Third

4. Deerhunter - Microcastle

3. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

2. Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

1. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago


Discuss.