Seven things to contemplate as summer wanes
by Jane Neal on August 8th, 2008
- Is there a band that you’ve seen numerous times, or would go see numerous times? I have a friend who’s going to see Dave Mathews for the 100th time this weekend. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Todd Rundgren … but I think it’s less than a dozen. I’d love to see Peter Gabriel again, since when I did see him I had a fever and passed out for part of the show. I’m going to go see the Crows (Counting, not Black) for the 3rd time this month. But 100… that’s like crazy to me.
- Facebook or myspace? Just in last two weeks, I’ve discovered so many long-lost friends through Facebook.
- Alex Tallitch’s wonderful post this week, “The Hoop,” reflects something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. What age were you when you first really, truly grasped mortality? Teenagers always seem to think they’re immortal, but sometimes something happens and it shakes you real hard and makes you realize how tenuous it all is. Was there a specific event you can recall that did that to you? I was a senior in high school when my first real boyfriend was killed in a hang gliding accident. That was my moment.
- Mountains or Ocean? To me, the sea is like a big amazing life force. I am awed by it.
- In the warmth of summer, was this past winter really all that bad? It was for me. I’ve been here 9 winters and that was the worst yet.
- What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? I met someone who wrote a book on that premise and it was also his ice-breaker question at parties. Being a good Catholic girl, I of course had nothing to offer him.
- On that note, have you ever been the subject of a really nasty rumor?
Friday Questions
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Dino Corvino said:
1. I have seen several bands more than 100 times. Janes Addiction, the Rollins Band, Social Distortion, Fugazi. None of which, nonne of those shows have ever been repetitive.
2. They are the same
3. 35
4. Mountains to maintain my humility.
5. I do not recall.
6. Its involved a girl and her brst friend
7. Constantly.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:59 am #
Tom Neal said:
1. multiple band attendance: Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, the Who, Kinks … Wish List is topped with Cream (never saw) and Hendrix (saw once)
2. facebook vs myspace: I like FaceSpace
3. I was about 5 (baby sister Patti)
4. mountain vs ocean: you can’t drown in a mountain and can walk across one
5. last winter: tedious, backbreaking, endless, traitorous
6. wasted precious time
7. case of mistaken identity caused quite a stir once; other than that, there this persistent rumor that I’m an a**hole.
August 8th, 2008 at 3:12 pm #
Mohawk Matt said:
1. Corpse Show Creeps about a dozen, Rancid 3, Anthrax a couple times, I would like to see the Stray Cats again.
2. I have myspace but no facebook, so I have to go with myspace
3. I was 8 when I was dead for eight seconds
4. The ocean is a very cold, lonely, boring place when you’re stuck in the middle of it.
5. Winter always sucks.
6.
7. Yeah, there are a few rumors about me circulating in some circles.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:23 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
thats right, your a navy man. i forgot.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:42 pm #
Jim Rosenberg said:
1. I’ve seen these people play numerous times, but I don’t know who they are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3SfWa18DPs&NR=1
2. That’s all I need: another website to start messing with.
3. I’ve been pretty lucky so far when it comes to having tragic, life-changing moments. This is obviously a temporary condition.
4. The sea, most definitely. There is nothing else like it.
5. Last winter hung around like an unwelcome house guest.
6. Some things are best left unsaid.
7. Can you imagine what people’s lives would be like if they were half as exciting as some of the rumors about them?
“The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy, with everything he’s got.”
The best Rumours I ever heard was that album by Fleetwood Mac in 1977. The rest are just rumors.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:38 am #
erik said:
1. I don’t think my wallet could handle 100 shows from just one artist. Plus so there’s so many talented groups out there, why limit your scope to just a handful of greats? The group I’ve seen the most is the now completely gone away Fenix TX, at a whole three times. All three were simply because they just so happened to be opening for other groups: Blink 182, NoFX and Bad Religion.
2. Facebook is so much better than MySpace, it’s not even a competition.
3. Alex’s post was very good. I don’t think I have one moment where it became clear to me, I’m very fortunate to have friends and family that have lived to ripe old ages. My first close death wasn’t until I was in college.
4. There’s nothing like getting on a boat, going out on the waves and just enjoying your friend’s company. To completely block out the rest of society for that short while and just bask in the company or your friends is nigh unattainable outside of that scenario.
5. I’ve lived in Wisconsin my whole life. This last winter was the first one in a long time that felt like the winters of my youth when snow was monstrous and everywhere.
6. I can remember tormenting my parent’s cat just because my friends wanted to even though I thought it was thoroughly wrong. I’ve done a lot of kind of bad things (really, a lot), but truly horrible I’ve managed to avoid.
7. Quite a few, usually involving the same group of people. Some people just love the high school melodrama and never leave it behind.
August 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Okay, so I have been accused of being terse, so I thought I would revisit the questions, and give them a little more there due.
1. Like I have said I have seen those three bands all more than 100 times. The reason being primarily was work, and friendship. I believe that live music is a transformatory influence, and those voices bring me back to the sort of internal vibrations I prefer. I think that specifically the bravery of the Rollins Band to take the hagukure metaphor as far as possible within rock is something that is so very missing in todays world. To rock that uncomfortable level, it is why I chap at the mention of groovy or being cool. It is because the world is not groovy or cool, the world is beautiful, and predatory, and can grind one to dust unless one stands with a strong back and a willingness to go further.
Janes Addiction might have been the greatest band of my lifetime. No band I have ever seen has ever provoked that sort of reaction from fans. I had always wished that the Bad Brains had been given a chance to develop like Janes, because NO ONE EVER has been a better live band than that Bad Brains. Not even The Stooges, and nothing is above the impact that Iggy Pop had.
Fugazi started in a gym in Madison with Will, and LT, and the rest. Now, it is something amazing.
And as far as Sociail Distortion goes, no front man in this millenium walks out onstage like Mike Ness. He literally changes the molecules of air in the room.
2. Don’t care. I think social media for intimate connections if a failure.
3. My friend Matt Hahn died on Christmas Eve my eighth grade year. My fathers death shaped me.
4. Mountain. The ocean is a blank thing, with an overwhelming amount of energy. Like a body builder or a Chinese male gymnast, it imposes based on its strength. It imposes. I feel most at home in water as a lifeguard in my formative years, but I choose the silence of the mountain. It is an example of being. Just being. The mountain simply is.
5. I loved this past winter. It made snowblowers, four wheel drive, carhartt jackets, snowmobiles…all things that were used for real and not for artifice.
6. The one girl who I truly look at my life as something I missed out on, something I threw away incorrectly. I dated her twice in my life, and the second time as adults I cheated on her with one of her best friends. I should have been stronger, and I made a mistake I regret everyday till this day. No other woman has laughed like that, or made me laugh like that. And I threw it away. And I cost them there friendship.
7. As I have grown up, I have realized that little of what I say or do has any sort of relevance as to what people say about me. I can spend most evenings in my basement reading books by Sarah Lacey or Henry Miller, and the rumors will still swirl. I often feel punished for things that I have not done,things that the rumor mill has taken care of for me. I am often left explaining to people that I know that I did not do or did not say something. I find this to be exapsterating, mainly because in the past I might have been that guy. But now I am not. But no one seems to allow for that change. I am more than willing to accept responsbility for that which I do, say, or write though.
August 9th, 2008 at 1:18 pm #
Alex Tallitsch said:
1. I don’t go to concerts all that much, they are hard for me.
2. I use Facebook, once your in though, it never ends. I have found many people from my past as well.
3. Who is the Alex Tallitsch you speak of?
4. I love the ocean, the emotion it elicits from me is amazing. I like it so much I got married on the sands of Jamaica.
5. Last winter was crazy, I swear all I did for three months is snowblow the driveway.
6. Oh god, I’ll defer that question to here www.citizenwausau.com/tsfr
7. Not really, I tend to squash a rumor early on.
August 10th, 2008 at 9:40 am #
timothyp said:
1. REO Speedwagon was the seemingly always the “opening” band when I lived in So. California in the late Seventies. It seemed like every time I bought a ticket to a concert, they were included. I never cared much for them even after the approx. 25 times I saw them. Saw quite a few bands that I liked more than a couple of times however… Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Maynard Ferguson, Todd Rundgren, The Cranberries, Edgar Winter, Alan Parsons and Rory Gallagher to name a few.
2. I used to have a MySpace page but gave it up when I purposely dropped out of sight for a few years.
3. Nothing affected me more to the tenuous time we have here on Earth more than when my Mother, Father and Brother all died within a year of each other.
4. Having spent time in both scenes, I’ll take the ocean. Nothing calms me more than the pounding of the waves, the USUALLY clean ocean smell and the sun setting/rising over the water. Plus….the bikinis.
5. I didn’t find it all that unusual, so it was more of the same to me. Unfortunately.
6. No comment.
7. A while back, I was in the public eye and caught the wrath of many by being too open and letting my opinions out easily. I was prodded into becoming a “mover and shaker” when it came to local music and rumors were part of the “game”. It ruined me completely… emotionally, physically, mentally and financially. Never again. I still cringe remembering what people were hurtfully saying about me and how it affected me, especially when most of them didn’t know me any more than I know any of you.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:45 am #
Billie said:
1. I don’t go to many concerts now that life has thrown changes at me. The only show I will NEVER miss is They Might Be Giants, whom I have seen about 30x. In the old days I saw Rancid 4x, Jane’s Addiction 2x, Pearl Jam 3x, White Zombie 3x, Live 3x,
2. Facebook, only because my far-flung friends encourage me to. I don’t check it more than once per week though.
3. In the fourth grade one of my close friends, her mother and a total of 4 siblings died in a house fire. Only the father, who jumped out of a second floor window, survived. The whole of our very small town felt the impact. I can rememer far too many details of the day I learned about the tragic event as well as the funeral service and burial. It still causes goose-bumps.
4. I find the mountains spectacular, but the ocean and all of the secrets that it contains both amazing and frightening.
5. Last winter was torture. If I had the means, I would spend every winter of my life in West Palm Beach.
6. Pleading the 5th.
7. I just learned of a really ridiculous rumor that seems to be out there about me. This is coming from people I have never even heard of, much less met. Sadly, some in our small equestrian community may believe and perpetuate this myth, which is a very hurtful one.
August 10th, 2008 at 11:25 am #
raolson said:
1. Don’t go to concerts; prefer theatre
2. Facebook - although entries can be disconcerting
3. My parochial gradeschool sang for funerals so I became acquainted with death without knowing the deceased
4. Mountains
5. Snow started in Nov and stayed through April - 6 mos out of a 4 season year is too much of one season!
6. Worst thing changes on mood for that day - I feel I have done many “bad” things in my lifetime but unable to rank them.
7. yes and it still hurts to think about it
August 10th, 2008 at 1:45 pm #
Jill Knetter said:
1. 100 times?! That’s nuts! Well…I’ve seen Ben Folds twice, which is more than I’ve seen any other band/performer, and I would see him 100 times if funds permitted. I would also love to see Jack’s Mannequin and Relient K again - they’re both amazing live. So yeah, I think those three cover it.
2. I am very much a Facebook girl. I have both, and I just prefer Facebook. It’s easier to navigate, and just seems like skeezy to me.
3. The time when the reality of death really hit me hard was when I was a senior in high school, and a boy who had graduated the year before me died after a very long struggle with liver cancer. Edgar is a small enough community that even if you didn’t know him well, you still really knew him, if that makes sense. Since then I’ve had two instances where I thought I was going to lose someone important to me - later on in my senior year when my dad had his second heart attack, and just this summer when my grandmother had to have emergency open-heart surgery. Both terrifying and life-changing experiences, but thankfully I get to keep Dad and Grandma Knetter a little longer.
4. The sea, I think. Huge, open bodies of water have always held a certain fascination for me that I can’t explain, even to myself. The first time I saw the ocean was when I was in France…that was amazing.
5. Having lived here my whole life, I have definitely had worse winters, but this one was pretty bad. I can remember when I was in 4th grade and we had snow up to my waist (and I was tall for my age - I quit growing by about 5th grade). That was crazy.
6. That’s an excellent question. I haven’t the foggiest. I mean, I’ve obviously done some bad things in my life, but nothing is really jumping out at me.
7. Oh yes, quite a few times. I’ve learned that you just have to keep your head held high and move on with your life. Eventually rumors die out and someone else falls victim. Tragic, but true.
August 11th, 2008 at 1:02 am #
citykid said:
Hmmm, having just left Wausau for parts north, I’d wonder about the County Boards decision to eliminate Senior Day Care (a droll topic for all the hipsters out there no doubt). Did they deep six the program to a) save money or b) stave of a rash of applications as the population ages. You certainly won’t get the real story from your 4 page wide local paper (don’t say I didn’t warn you when the Gannet chain bought the Wretched Herald - now you’ve got nothing)…..ahh good luck to us all.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:55 am #