… And that’s pretty good for me. The key, I’ve found, is trains. And given what’s currently happening at airports, more of us may be taking trains. At least take comfort in knowing it’s good for literacy.
… even though, I have to confess, two of the three books were consumed in Audible form, on my iPod. That way you can also watch the scenery. And the snow-covered trees were really pretty.
OK, the most important thing about finishing Oryx and Crake is that I’m no longer in the embarassing position of never having read a Margaret Atwood novel. Yes, I know. You’d be amazed at the great authors I’ve yet to read. Though, to be fair, I have tried reading Margaret Atwood before. I just had to give up about a third in, due to incredible lack of enjoyment. (Not even sure what book that was, anymore.)
But Oryx and Crake, I found really interesting. It’s an Apocalyptic future kind of tale, taking place in a globally warmed future where a single remaining homo sapien coexists with “Crakians”, genetically engineered humans who lack humans’ more destructive impulses. A lot of the realities of the book—the bizarrely genetically engineered animal hybrids, the smart technologists locked away in compounds away from the “plebe-lands”, the reliance on medicine to treat everything—seemed somewhat plausible, only a little beyond what is actually going on.
So it was an unpleasant yet somewhat familiar world, and it was fairly engrossing uncovering the mystery of what led to this point.
I had seen and enjoyed the movie, so I got curious about the book, which I did actually read, and without the benefit of train motion. Julie Powell had a blog that covered her efforts to make all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. Though a personal strain (these are not easy recipes), the blog became very popular—ultimately becoming a book, then a movie (obviously).
Watching the movie, I somewhat related to Julie. She and I both like to write about food, for example. She and and I both cook from written recipes (as opposed to just whipping up your own thing, which is a whole other talent). She and I are both in a long-term, childfree marriages to really sweet guys.
And reading the book, I found even more similarities. Like—I kid you not—her total obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the most dire crises of the book is when CBS wants to interview her on the night of the very last Buffy ever!
So part of my brain thinks, geez, why didn’t I think of blogging about making all of Julia Child’s recipes in a year so that I could get a book deal, and a movie deal, and get to write another book?
But then I’m reminded that there are some key differences between Julie and me.
She’s much more open than I about writing about personal, embarrassing stuff, for example. And that is a big part of the charm and appeal of the endeavour, which made it a success.
There’s also the fact that she was really dissatisfied with her secretarial job, and her difficulties in getting pregnant, both necessary fuel for taking on and maintain this crazy project of hers. (Along with occasionally copious amounts of alcohol, cigarettes, and expletives.) Me, I don’t have quite enough angst to take on making boeuf bourgignon until 2:00 in the morning, sustained only by nicotine and rum.
And most particularly… Frankly, I would never do classic French cooking. Reading the book, even more than seeing the movie, made me realize I have no interest in this type of arduous cooking: Digging out bone marrow, making gelatin from a calve’s hoof (seriously! apparently smells like a tannery), chopping up a live lobster (all the parts squirm, it appears), boning an entire duck.
This was the return trip audiobook. I had downloaded Fahrenheit 451 as well, but that was starting to seem like a little too much apocalypse for one trip, so I dug around and stumbled upon this one, the first Sookie Stackhouse mystery. OK, vampire mystery. But the vampires are still incidental, even though I realize this is the second time they’ve been mentioned in this post.
And also, that all three books are from a single individual’s point of view.
Anyway. In this case, the point of view is Sookie Stackhouse’s, a telepathic bar waitress in a world where vampires exist and have just attained legal status. Sookie meets Bill, a vampire who sets her small Southern town a-twitter by deigning to live in it. She’s intrigued because she cannot read his mind; this comes as a major relief. But their path to true romance hits stumbling blocks in the form of the murder of women who have a sweet spot for vampires.
Jean declared this too much of a chick book for him, though not too much for him to listen from start to finish.
I found it diverting enough, but I’m not sure I’m compelled to read any more of these. Sounds a bit weird to say given that the main characters are a vampire and mind reader, but there were more supernatural elements introduced later in the novel than I wanted. Made it a bit harder to believe in the world. Sookie was a fun character, it had some nice sexy bits, and I was curious about the murderer’s identify. But it’s not something I’d say you’d have to go out of your way to read.
(In case anyone was wondering, I haven’t yet seen True Blood, which is apparently based on, but very different from, these novels.)
Remember pen pals? I used to have a bunch of them. Back in the days before email, discussion forums, Facebook… It was one of the only ways to connect with strangers who lived far away.
And of course, mostly, I didn’t keep in touch with them. Some endured for only a couple letter exchanges; others lasted for years. But only a couple have lasted til now (even if more in email form these days): a grade-school friend from Timmins who is now in Edmonton, and Beth.
Beth is from Indiana. We were first matched via Teen Magazine when we were 13. (I just looked that up. Yep, still have all the old letters filed away…) Though contact has been far more sporadic in recent years than in our turbulent teens—despite the ease of email, et al—we have kept in touch all this time. Last weekend, we met for the first time. Because Beth was getting married. (Also for the first time. People keep asking that.)
Getting there
It proved fairly impossible to get there by train, and although plane wasn’t that expensive when leaving from Buffalo, in the end, we decided to drive.
We’d hoped to get away around noon on the Friday, but Jean’s work made that impossible, so it was more around 1:15 pm when we left. It was also pretty snowy and blowy. Fortunately, we left that type of weather behind us fairly quickly. We crossed the border at Sarnia, and that went well. We were a little ahead of rush hour going through Detroit. And then it just seemed like a lot of Ohio. Not the world’s most interesting state to drive through.
We were trying to arrive in time for a dinner for the out-of-town guests, to have a chance to meet a little bit before the crazyness of the wedding itself. Of course, with the late departure, we weren’t exactly early for dinner. (The predicted driving time of 7 hours proved to be about accurate.) But we did make it while people were still there.
Mind you, Beth wasn’t actually there at that point. That, combined with the name on the door—neither Beth’s nor her fiancé’s—threw us off a little. But then Beth’s Mom Judy recognized me. “You must be Cathy! I’ve been reading your letters for years!”
Thus welcomed, I also met Rick, the fiancé, who seemed like a really great, friendly guy. And not long after, Beth herself. Who was just how I expected her to be, really. And that’s a good thing.
But as noted, late arrival, so the gathering did break up not too much later. We went to check into the same Holiday Inn where most guests were staying, and were quite pleased with the large and bright room. But we were also still hungry, so we went to the Red Lobster across the road. Very friendly waitress, and the food would have been decent, had it not been doused in what seemed like an ocean’s worth of salt. Oh well.
Visiting Richmond
We had most of the day to ourselves before the wedding, so we went to the mall! And did get a few Christmas gifts there. But Jean was soon restless, so we headed into the “historic downtown” to see if that was more interesting. We did stumble upon a really great toy store there and acquired a few more gifts for the nieces, nephews, and friend’s kids. (We were puzzling over our duty-free spending limit, which we later looked up. It’s $400 for being away 48 hours. So no problem.)
Then lunch, for which we’d targeted an Italian restaurant listed under the “fine dining” section for Richmond. It was actually quite good and a really nice space.
Then we went to check out the local museum, which had some interesting items, like a mummy. Jean was particularly taken with the collection of classic cars. (I had no idea electric cars dated so far back. And rotary-dial car phones!)
Then back to the hotel for a bit of time in the hot tub (why is it always so hard to find the dial that controls the agitator for hotel hot tubs? We had to give up for this one) before getting ready for the big event.
The wedding
Wedding ceremony, dinner, and dancing were all co-located at the Country Club, another rather attractive space. Everyone in the wedding party looked lovely. The ceremony was very nice, with a personable minister presiding. My favorite was the quirky touch of having a “best dog” as part of the wedding party. (This is a dog Beth has been sitting for for years.)
There was no arranged seating for dinner, so we took the approach of seeking out a table of others who didn’t seem to know too many people, and asking about sitting with them. That worked out well. We first joined a colleague of Beth’s (from the college) and his wife, who were quite pleasant. Then we were joined by high school friend of Beth’s and her husband: Elaine and Scott. I was more on their side of the table, so ended up talking more with them. She’d managed to keep in touch with Beth since leaving Indiana after high school, but not too much with other high school friends, whom she was hoping to spot. (“I wish they were wearing name tags.”) Husband Scott was a school counselor for grade 3 children. He and Elaine have five children themselves.
Oh, and Scott kind of looked like Johnny Depp, which was interesting. Elaine was quite attractive also. The children must be beautiful.
Anyway, the fine buffet dinner was followed by some of the briefest wedding toasts I’ve ever heard in my life, then the first dance (which Elaine said Beth was really nervous about, but she did fine), then general dancing. D-J was good, playing a variety of music, and Jean and I got to practice the few jive moves we still remember. (We’ve actually signed up for dance classes in the new year, to get some of that refreshed.)
A few more quirky touches I enjoyed: Having jars of various types of candy (tootsie rolls, M&Ms, rock candy, that sort of thing) available for “the kids” to bag—then watching the many “big kids” also indulge once the smaller ones were done. And getting a demonstration of hula-hoop technique from one of Beth’s friends. Quite impressive, actually—though we didn’t quite catch it on video.
Eventually I did get to talk to Beth, and her Mom, a bit more, which was good. And I got photographic proof of the meeting:
Heading back
We had taken the Monday off, giving us two days to head back, which was nice. So we had a leisurely departure after breakfast, where we saw Rick and Beth one more time. We’d considered various routes, but finally settled on going back up the same way, through Ohio, but heading in through Windsor this time, in order to visit the Pelee Island region a bit (without actually going on that island).
The drive went fine. No weather issues, and the only somewhat hairy part was finding the border crossing in Detroit. That was complicated a bit by construction, so the GPS instructions couldn’t be followed exactly. Once we’d found ourselves, we were amused by all the signs saying “Following the detour signs; not your GPS instructions.”
We used Billy’s Best Bottles from last year as a guide, and stopped in Amherstburg first. We stayed in a little motel, which was older but fine, and had a really good dinner at a place called Caldwell’s Grant, that specializes in local cuisine. While there we had a moment of concern when Jean’s sister called him on his cell phone, as that was an unusual thing to do. Eventually it turned out that while Jean’s Mom was in hospital, it wasn’t a heart attack as they had feared earlier, but something much less serious. So they wanted to get in touch to basically tell him not to worry. (He also spoke to his Mom.)
(When we did get home, we had 10 messages from various siblings, all fairly vague on the reasons why they were calling…)
The next day we visited some wineries. The first we stopped at was D’Angelo. Though their website said they opened at 10:00, they weren’t open when we got there around 10:45. We later found out we can’t taste wine before 11:00 anyway, though. So no iced Foch for us.
Next, after almost despairing of locating it, we did get to Sanson, which was open. We tried a few wines here, then bought two bottles each of our favorites, which were the Sauvignon Blanc and the Baco Noir. They also had some organic meats on offer, and we bought some of those.
She recommended Viewpointe winery to us, so we went there next. That’s a beautiful site which must be a great place to picnic at in the summer. This time of year, we were the only ones there. We came out of here with four bottles as well: two of the Auxerrois, a white usually used in blends, that has an interesting floral flavor, and the Cabernet Merlot.
Finally, we visited Mastronardi, whose wines we’d enjoyed at Caldwell’s Grant the night before. And here we left with seven bottles: two Gewurtz (in a more off-dry style), two Cabernet Franc, one Merlot, one Syrah (more of a French style), and a very nice sparkling wine.
But that was enough! Next business was lunch, but that proved a bit tricky, as many restaurants are closed on Monday. We finally ended up at a “family” restaurant in Leamington. Though that term tends to make me leery, they actually did a find job of the sandwiches we had. The drive home was a bit dreery with fog, but went fine. We got in around 5:00.
So it was a nice getaway, and although not an intense first meeting, it was good to finally have one after 30 years! Maybe we won’t wait quite so long for the next. (And maybe, just maybe, I’ll even get on Facebook so we can keep in a bit more regular touch that way.)
That’s the provocative title on the latest issue of This Magazine.
Of course, they don’t mean everything, everything. There’s no passionate defense of rape and grand theft auto, for example. But it was a good, thought-provoking set of articles.
The most in-depth article was Legalize Hard Drugs. And they do mean hard drugs, not just pot; and they do mean legalize, not just de-criminalize; and they do mean in the sense of being able to go into some LCBO-like entity to pick up your heroin, not having to get a prescription from your doctor. So rather farther than most Canadians would agree to go.
Still, it’s a surprisingly compelling argument. Prohibition hasn’t worked all that well so far. All it’s done is fund the gangs and dealers who make the world more dangerous for everyone. Ounce per ounce, marijuana is more valuable than gold, the article points out—even though it’s a weed. And the only reason it’s that expensive is that it’s illegal.
Money currently spent prosecuting and jailing the never-diminishing number of dealers willing to take the risks for profit margins like that could be spend on product quality control, reducing the dangers of the drugs, and addiction treatment and prevention. It’s certainly a queasy-making idea to think of government supplying cocaine, which can bring on an instant heart attack, but they do sell cigarettes, which kill when used as intended. And alcohol, which has damaged many lives. And gambling, which is a terrible addiction problem for many. The line between legal and illegal substances is arbitrary.
But my favorite article was Legalize Music Piracy, because it laid out a plan that apparently has been tossed around for some time, but I hadn’t heard of it before:
All broadband Internet users who want to share music files would pay an extra monthly fee (estimated at about $3).
Those users could then download as much music as they wanted, keep it as long as they wanted, and share it with others.
Fees would be pooled to pay the artists.
Download stats would be maintained so that the more popular an artist, the greater their share of the fee pool.
Doesn’t that sound perfectly reasonable? Musicians like it. Music fans like it. ISPs are OK with it. The only ones truly and deeply opposed are record companies. And they just haven’t done much to endear themselves to most of us.
I have friends who refuse to on principle to see (or read) some popular culture phenomenon. Harry Potter books and movies. Lord of the Rings books and movies. Titanic. Star Wars. (Although how that particular person managed to have a 70s childhood and 80s teenagehood and still never see Star Wars amazes me to this day.)
Key is that you have never tried to watch or read the thing yourself, and then determined you didn’t like it. No, you just decided, based on what you heard about it, that it wasn’t for you. Then you go to whatever extremes to never see it, no matter how popular.
For me, it’s Twilight. Even its fans admit that the books are, frankly, badly written. Bitch Magazine wrote a scathing overview of it as “abstinence porn”. No movie reviews ever seem to be particular positive. Overall, nothing I want to spend time or money on.
The problem is, though, that because I was a big Buffy fan, a lot of people somehow think that Twilight would be just my cup of tea. I’ve come within a hair’s breadth of getting the DVD as a gift. I keep being asked my opinion of it. It keeps being recommended to me.
Yes, Buffy had vampires, but that hardly means I therefore enjoy everything with vampires in it. I’ve read no Anne Rice, do not watch Vampire Diaries, and have yet to try anything Sookie Stackhouse (though I know it’s supposed to be good, and I may try it at some point). Vampires were frankly, fairly incidental to my enjoyment of Buffy, because Buffy also happened to have great writing, compelling characters, heavy philosophical undertones, and plenty of humour. None of which, from what I can tell, Twilight shares.
So I was particular delighted to come across this YouTube video, wherein Buffy reacts to the stalkerish Edward in the way he deserves:
I can’t believe we were on vacation a total three days and somehow have an overflowing PVR again, after finally catching up from our last vacation.
Clearly, being a TV couch potato is a full-time job that allows for no time off. At least not during sweeps month.
So I officially hate So You Think You Can Dance (US) being on in the fall, when it’s so busy, instead of the summer, when it’s almost the only thing on and you can bask in it. Now I can’t keep up with it and can’t get into it. And having the judges make the selections for the first two weeks (due to the gods of baseball) was just weird.
What I have managed to get into? Battle of the Blades! I thought it would be sort of a joke, but those guys have turned into pretty decent figure skaters there. I’m impressed.
And it was very nice to see Ron Duguay again. Very nice.
And on Being Erica—is the idea that she is going to turn into a therapist? Because it sure seems as though everyone around her is a lot more messed up than she is, now. Well, except for that apparent sexual incompatibility she’s having with Ethan. Which I must say I found incredibly frank for a network show. (Or even a cable show—I don’t recall that even Sex and the City dealt with quite that situation…)
And the Glee soundtrack turns out to be best in smaller doses, or you end up feeling sort of overwhelmed by the cheese. It’s also missing some of the best stuff, like the two mash-ups, and “Push It”. (Of course, you can buy those songs individually.) But with some nice chasers of authentic music in between (a little Who, a little Joni, a little Johnny Cash), it’s kind of great. Though still a bit alarming to get such warm feelings about songs like “Can’t Fight This Feeling”.
The day after the concert began with breakfast at the Day’s Inn, which turned out to be rather better than these continental hotel breakfasts usually are, thanks to the available waffle batter and waffle iron. They did run out of coffee, but we were able to save that one by making a pot in our room afterward.
After checking out, and getting the word of mouth that general notices on the concert were good, we headed to the hottest spot in Ontario—the Flu Clinic! Seriously, we decided to go see if Orillia flu clinics were being run any better than Waterloo Region ones. And boy, were they ever. Very short lineup, everyone in it quickly assessed as to whether they qualified (Jean did, as a healthcare worker; I didn’t even try—I do have some morals) and given a time to expect their shot. In our case it was so soon, and the weather was so fine, we just stayed in line until it was done. The whole thing, including the 15-minute after-shot wait, took half an hour, 40 minutes, maybe.
Oh, and Jean had no after-effects from the shot, other than the expected sore shoulder muscle.
After that triumph, we headed to downtown Orillia to see what might be interesting there. We spent some time in a kitchen store (weirdly, perhaps, Jean likes kitchen gadgets as much as I do—maybe even more), and got ourselves a few things, and some Christmas stuff. We also traded casino concert stories with the owner, who had apparently seen a very awesome Santana show there. (Actually, it did sound great.)
Next was a clothing store that had some used, some consignment, some remainder items. So really great prices, and stuff for both men and women. Jean tried on this leather jacket that fit him really well. And this almost never happens—he’s just not an “off the rack” size. So at $19.99, that was pretty hard to resist, so we didn’t. He also got a leather belt, while I picked up three tops. The grand total was under $60.
It was around lunchtime at this point, and we were hungry, so we decided to go to the “restaurant in a train” place that we’d been to on our last visit to Orillia (to buy the tickets). We had the same waitress! It was an enjoyable enough meal. In particular, my scallop appetizer, in chili and cocoa, was quite nice, and Jean enjoyed his main of lake trout (or some local-ish fish like that).
We now figured it was a reasonable enough time to head toward Singhampton, where we had bed and breakfast and dinner reservations. The drive was just fine, and we had spotted the B&B on the way up, so no trouble finding it. It’s called the Avalon, and while not the cheapest B&B ever, it’s really nice accommodations. You get a whole downstairs (not basement) area to yourself, with huge windows onto a beautiful view. The owner also toured us around most of the rest of the 5000 square foot house, all very open and festooned with stained glass. And interestingly, it uses geothermal heat (and cooling).
The grounds are also huge, and we took a little walk around those next, and got some photos (as above). Then it was nap time, as neither of us had slept that well the night before. Then up to get ready for dinner at Haisai.
This would be Michael Stadtlander’s new, cheaper (though certainly not cheap) restaurant. And the room is very characteristic of him and his wife Noboyu, with a crazy festooning of pottery and all natural wood furniture. Noboyu recognized us from our stop in August and generally made us feel comfortable. We were a bit surprised to see that the restaurant was not sold out on this Friday; it was maybe two-thirds full. And they were having fireplace issues, so it was a little cool in there.
But, everyone wants to know about the food right? It was a 10-course tasting menu. I made a point of writing down what we had that night.
Single New Brunswick oyster—I forget how seasoned. But very nice.
Smoked hock (from their farm, smoked for six months) on whole-wheat bread made there. The meat had really lovely taste and texture not quite like any other “ham” kind of thing I’ve had before. (And I do mean that in a good way.)
Jerusalem artichoke soup with shallots and smoked pickerel. This man is really a soup genius; I couldn’t believe the creamy, wonderful taste and the contrast with the shallots. You almost didn’t need the fish.
Georgian Bay lake trout (caught that day) in wasabi butter with blue potatoes. Definitely a highlight, the fish was meltingly good, and the sauce was so amazing, it was difficult not to lick the plate after. And the potatoes tasted pretty remarkable, too.
White fish on a sauce of beet, chervil, and carrot, with spinach puree. Also a great combination of flavors.
Salmonberry (or maybe some other kind of berry?) sorbet on wild apple. He’s also quite good with the sorbet.
Roast piglet with wild mushrooms and cabbage. The meat was mouth-watering. Mmm, fat. Of course the mushrooms were good, but the cabbage also tasted just amazing. Because, I think, it was cooked in the mmm, fat.
Duck breast with roasted carrot, squash, turnip, parsnip, and a squash ravioli. The most interesting thing here is that the duck, while good, was actually the least of this plate. These vegetables tasted amazing.
Three kinds of Ontario cheese—goat, sheep, and gouda—served with pear and walnut cranberry bread. Ontario, it turns out, also makes good cheese.
Tarte tatin with rum ice cream.
The new restaurant has a wine list, all Ontario. We enjoyed our first five courses with a lively Frog Pond Riesling, then switched to a glass each of Stratus Red. That’s an expensive wine, but it did taste fantastic. We have a bottle here, and now I’m dying to open it. With dessert, we had Earl Grey and mint tea, both well above average.
We came in quite hungry, and ended feeling satisfied but not stuffed, which is perfect. And we slept really well that night.
Onto Saturday now, which began with the breakfast part of the B&B. While we’d met the wife more the day before, today it was the husband who sat and talked with us while we ate our apple starter, delicious coffee, fresh baguette, and frittata. He was quite an interesting guy. He told us about how they’d ended up moving from Toronto to this location, the whole process of designing and building the house extension, the mechanics of geothermal.
They made Creemore sound like an interesting little town, so we decided to head there after checking out. And it is pretty cute. We spent some time in a bookstore, and I wanted many things, but decided I really needed to catch up on my reading first. At an antique store, we bought new stools for our breakfast bar—not antiques, those, they were new. They do look a bit snazzier. (Can’t say we’re not doing our bit for the Ontario economy.) And at the 100-mile shop, we bought a bunch of Ontario cheese, including some we’d had the night before. Fifth Town Cheese Company from Prince Edward County—try them out.
Then we headed home, so you might think this travel diary is done, but no… We decided to keep it going.
That night, we ate out at Art Bar. Once again, the food was quite good, holding up surprisingly well to our recent experience at Haisai. But once again, we seemed to be left fairly close to curtain time. I still don’t understand why they have such trouble getting us out in two hours. But anyway…
We had tickets to Cirque de la symphonie, which was the KW Symphony playing various pieces while, during most of them, circus performers did their thing. This was riveting! I couldn’t believe how fast the two hours (or so) went by. Particularly notable was this beautiful trapeze artist who did a really spectacular set on a rope in the second half. And then there was the gorgeous man who did this act with a big square (I find this stuff hard to explain) in the first half, then, shirtless, did this Icarus act in the second, jumping and flying around with a white sheet flapping behind him.
And the finale were these two guys, all in gold, one of whom can balance on the other and get into the most amazing poses. OK, my whole description of these performances sucks, but trust me, they were wonderful to see. (And thankfully, the Centre was very full for this show.)
Anyway. We both ended up very satisfied with this little November getaway. And Jean also had a great paddle (canoeing) on Sunday. It was a beautiful day, wasn’t it?
I wanted to start by explaining why I’m doing this.
First of all, it’s just to get off my ass. Because singers with a fat ass… You don’t want that.
Secondly, it’s to keep the vocal chords lubricated. But it’s not like a guitar—you can’t just add new strings.
Finally, I just want everybody to have a bloody good time!
— Roger Daltrey, 5 November 2009 (quote probably not exact, but you get the gist…)
Neurotic
I’ve given up trying to figure out exactly what it is about Roger Daltrey, but let’s just say, I was really looking forward to this concert. Wanting anything that I can’t 100% control always feel a bit dangerous to me, and my mind skittered over all the possible occurrences that could prevent me from attending (weather, illness, death, fire), until it seemed almost almost miraculous that I’d ever gotten myself to any concert anywhere.
In the weeks leading up, H1N1 became the main focus of my fretting, and the difficulty of accessing the vaccine led me to shielding myself (and Jean) with an elixer of hand sanitizer and vitamin D, hoping that would keep the virus at bay.
I’d also been following the tour virtually since it began in late October. The digital age has changed everything, hasn’t it? After each show there were not only written concert reports but lots of photos and quite a bit of video. And reports were generally rapturous, until… the Cleveland show.
Chicago, by all accounts, had been a huge triumph. Cleveland was the next day, 2 days before the Orillia concert (with a day of rest in between). And in Cleveland, his voice gave out. And he had to cut the show short.
This was so not what I was hoping to read before my show. And if I’d been operating on fairly low-level neurosis before, it now kicked into high gear. Having managed to keep both Jean and I free of not only flu but also colds and food poisoning and any other ailment that could possibly keep us bedridden, I was now gripped with the fear that laryngitis would force a cancellation of the Orillia show.
“You should have been sending Roger Daltrey the hand sanitizer and vitamin D,” Jean pointed out.
Getting there
The night before the concert, there was no cancellation notice on the Casinorama website, and then I decided, I didn’t want any more news. From anywhere. Since I had to work the first part of the day, and since I have to use the web to do my work, that was trickier than you might think, but I managed.
We got away at exactly the time we’d hoped to (3:00) and although it was a fairly wacky weather day, switching rapidly from sun to rain to hail to light snow and back, the drive went really well. At our check-in at the Day’s Inn, just down the road from the Casino, it was clear that the concert still wasn’t cancelled. It finally felt safe to just get giddy about the whole thing.
The venue
When I would mention this event to people, the reaction would either be, “Who’s Roger Daltrey?” (and it’s very difficult to resist the temptation to just say, “Yes, that’s right” to that comment), or the comment that it was a bit sad he was playing a Casino.
I’m not going to comment on that aspect, but this is was playing a Casino (versus the smaller music clubs he was otherwise performing at on this tour) meant:
No Meet’n’Greet, first of all. At every venue on this tour (including some of the other casinos, actually), you had the option of buying very expensive tickets that gave you both good seats and a pre-concert meeting with Roger Daltrey. And from reading reports of these short encounters, he’s apparently very sweet, very generous about ignoring the “he will only sign one thing” rule, smells great, and is smaller (shorter, thinner) than you’d think.
Cheaper ticket prices. I don’t know the economics of these things; I just know that Orillia was one of the cheapest stops on this tour.
On-site amenities. Ten restaurants on site. While these may not be the best restaurants ever, some are pretty good, certainly better than anything on offer at a hockey arena. And an attached hotel, although because Roger Daltrey was staying there, room prices were jacked up to $450. And up. (Maybe they think rich people won’t bother him.)
No tour merchandise. Normally I don’t give a flying flip about overpriced tour merchandise, but this time, I did want the damn T-shirt. Now I’ll have to order it online and pay shipping. Which is sort of irritating.
No opening act. I don’t know if that’s a general rule at Casinos, or just because his opening act on this tour are apparently only 18-years-old, and therefore not allowed into an Ontario casino, but there was no opening act. As I hadn’t heard anything too incredibly wonderful about them, I wasn’t too sad about that.
No teenagers. You have to be 19 to attend concerts at Casinorama. And since The Who still has a surprising number of teenage fans, it’s too bad their youthful presence and energy was absent.
It apparently wasn’t a sold out show, but let me tell you, it had to be pretty close to that. (The venue holds 5000.) That was a big crowd. Age skewing toward baby boomer, I’d say.
The announcement that photography was strictly forbidden was not enforced and was completely ignored by everyone.
Our seats
Our seats were excellent, at least in terms of sight lines. We were in the seventh row, very close to the center, so pretty much in line with the lead guitarist. The stage was raised enough that you could see over the heads of tall people. There were large screens on either of the stage, but we didn’t really need them. What was less excellent (per Jean) was that the seats weren’t the most comfortable ever, and they were packed pretty closely together.
But one other aspect of casino shows that I discovered is that those of us in the good seats are allowed to go stand in front of the stage, if we want. I hadn’t realized that we were allowed to do that, though, until I saw a bunch of other people doing it. “I want to go stand there,” I told Jean (who’d previously told me if I “rushed the stage”, he was leaving). “You go,” he said. “I’ll watch your stuff.”
So after the opening number (“Who Are You”), I did. And there I stayed. Right up close to Roger Daltrey.
The voice
So how was his voice, after all that? Well, not so hot, really. Pretty hoarse. Actually, I can let him tell you:
The thing is, I barely noticed that. I was actually sort of stunned, afterward, listening to the video Jean that had taken, to hear how hoarse he was actually was. It just didn’t sound that way to me at the time.
I can point out that it became clear pretty fast that standing right up close to the stage does not give the best auditory experience of the event. For example, I was still pretty much right front of the lead guitarist, most of the night, and where from my seat the guitar just blended in with everything else, from closer up it sometimes drowned out other instruments, like the harmonica.
I could certainly hear Daltrey sing, though. But it’s like I couldn’t really assess the quality of what I was hearing.
Or, quite possibly, I was just too excited to be seeing him up close to care what he sounded like.
At any rate, the voice also forced the show into being a little shorter than it usually is, with Jean and I both sort of stunned when they were wrapping it up. Which of course was a little disappointing, but if the worst you can say about a show is that you wished it had been longer, that’s pretty good.
The set list
I made no effort to retain exactly what was played in what order, but it certainly was mostly Who, with just a side order of Daltrey solo. And of course, some of the big hits were done: a very exciting “Who Are You” to start; great harmonies on “I Can See for Miles”; a very fun “Squeezebox,” albeit without the hip thrusting that apparently accompanied the “In and out” chorus back in the day; and a truly rousing “Baba O’Riley”, featuring full shirt opening and the night’s only incidence of microphone swinging.
As I knew would be the case, there was no “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (great song, but I’m actually kind of sick of it anyway), nothing from Tommy (the girl in front of me who kept piping up “Pinball Wizard” all night obviously didn’t get that memo), nothing from Quadrophenia. He explained that they’d tried to drop “Behind Blue Eyes” as well, but the protesting there was too great. So instead, they’d rearranged it, and presented that version. It reminded me of the way he’d done in it in his wonderful 1994 Daltrey Sings Townsend concerts, with the “When my fist clenches, crack it open” part rendered nearly a capella:
I was surprised to hear “My Generation,” but this was the “My Generation Blues” version (as featured on the Maximum R&B video), and it segued, through another song that I forget, into a fantastic version of “Young Man’s Blues”—giving one to ponder on how the once young and hungry Daltrey is now transformed into “the old man—who has all the money.” Nothing accidental about that song choice.
But another thing he wanted to do on this tour was bring out some of the more neglected songs in The Who’s canon—like “Pictures of Lily,” which had been dropped along with Entwistle’s vocal range; “Going Mobile”, sung by Simon Townsend (yep, Pete’s little brother, who does sound very much like Pete); and one of my personal favorites, “Tatoo.” They also indulged a request for “The Kids Are Alright,” despite Townsend commenting that it might have been better if the band had learned the song first, and some debate about what key it was actually in. Keeping in mind the wonky state of my brain and hearing that day, the song really sounded great to me.
From the solo oeuvre we got a couple of very fun numbers from his quite good Rocks in the Head album: “Walk on Water,” dedicated to President Obama (“Those Americans don’t know what they want, do they? First they love him, and now… I mean, give him a chance!”), and “Days of Light,” which he explained harkened back to his days as a sheetmetal worker, a pretty crap job that made the weekends all the sweeter: the “Days of Light.” And a couple numbers I didn’t know, but still enjoyed.
As the set list hasn’t exactly been fixed on this tour, I don’t really know what numbers normally performed were left out in the abbreviated set. I think “Naked Eye” has made a number of appearances, and we didn’t get that. Nor did “Boris the Spider,” which would have been cool to hear him do. And he has done the beautiful “Without Your Love” a few times, but I suspect that one would have been beyond him this night.
Except for the afore-mentioned Simon Townsend, I don’t think anyone in his band is well-known. But they did do lovely vocal harmonies and quite a credible job of re-creating the Who sound. There was a drummer, a bass player, and a keyboard player. To my surprise, Townsend didn’t play lead guitar, but accoustic. As well as handling all the Pete vocal parts in the songs. The dude I was standing in front of most of the night, apparently recently named band musical director, ably handled the lead guitar parts.
It should be noted that Daltrey also played guitar on a lot of numbers, as well tambourine and harmonica. And ukelele.
The glitches reported on some earlier tour dates were not in evidence this night. No forgotten lyrics. There was only one request for monitor adjustment: “It sounds all horrible and basey. Or maybe that’s my voice.” (Someday I’ll have to find out just what a monitor is.) No complaints about excessive cool, drying air (it was hot in there). No giving up on songs partway through. He did seem to have to keep readjusting his earpiece; that’s about it.
The man
Let’s get the shallow stuff out of the way first: up close and in person, Roger Daltrey looks really damn good. He’s growing the hair out a bit (and there’s certainly still a lot of that), he seems to have dyed it blonde again, he’s tanned, he’s fit and muscular, his face still unremarkably unwrinkled. I’m about ready to drop the “for his age” qualifier from the “he looks really good” comment. (He’s 65.)
And, he seems to be having a great time on this tour. I have recordings of his 1985 and 1994 solo tours, and a lot of DVDs and recordings of Who tours over the years, and I have never heard him be as verbose on stage as he has been on this one. He was funny and charming and entertaining… yeah, kind of sexy.
In introducing “Tatoo”, for example, he explained that he wanted to do this song because it illustrated how much had changed, culturally, since the era in which it was written (1967). Back then, he said, only men got tatoos, and only a certain kind of man at that—a criminal sort, really, that he’d decided he didn’t want to be, and therefore remains untatooed to this day. (The song, by the way, is all about the singer and his brother deciding to get tatoos as a mark of their manhood.)
But now, Daltrey continued, it’s women who get all the tatoos. “And they get them in these places… That you couldn’t imagine you’d want a tatoo…”
Later, he talked about working with The Chieftains, and convincing them to do a Who song in return for his singing a couple of their songs. Their version of “Behind Blue Eyes” got picked up by radio and led to the album being a great success and them winning a Grammey.
“But I didn’t get a Grammy,” Daltrey complained. “I wanted one, too! By the time I finally get one, they’ll be called the Grannies.” (Now doesn’t the fact that The Who have never won a Grammy just make you think that there’s something terribly wrong with the Grammy’s?)
And after “Baba O’Riley,” he explained how he didn’t do encores. “We never did them in the Seventies,” he said. (And agreed that “smashing all your gear” was a good way to avoid them.) “But if we had, I could have used that 10 minutes to have some fun. But what good is 10 minutes to me now? That’s bloody useless. Now I need a whole evening! Sometimes two!”
My favorite part
Standing in the “pit” was generally a congenial experience, but there was one guy who kind of getting on my nerves. It was a little bit that he was just standing there instead of joining in on the singalongs and clapping, a little bit that his height occasionally interfered with my sightline, but it was mainly that as a people got tired of standing and moved back to their seats, he didn’t move over closer to Roger. Instead, he just left space there. And because he was beside me, that meant that I couldn’t move over closer to Roger.
Until finally… For the last three songs, he did get out of my way. Now I was more in between Roger and the lead guitarist instead of just in front of the guitarist.
Then Roger started in on his Johnny Cash medley (much to the delight of some dude behind me who’d been asking for “Johnny Cash” all evening, only to get weird looks from everyone around him). He explained that he was kind of worried about attempting these with his wonky voice, and that he might have to stop if it seemed too brutal. But he did want to pay tribute to this great singer.
And then he looked at me. I mean, right at me. And he smiled. And of course I just beamed back at him.
Then he said that if he got through it, the last number would be “Ring of Fire”, and he’d split the audience into men and women. And he’d have the women sing the chorus on their own, “because that’s really sexy.” And then the men would sing on their own. And finally we’d all sing along together.
So he did get through them (and sorry, I’m not enough of a Johnny Cash fan to know what songs he did), and he got to “Ring of Fire”, and he said, “Now all the women,” and he looked right at me again, through the whole chorus. And know what? It’s both intoxicating and intimidating to be singing about your “burning ring of fire going down down down and the flame getting higher” while Roger Daltrey is looking at you.
“Blue, Red and Grey” is this lovely little ballad on The Who’s underrated Who By Numbers album. Pete sings it, and Roger said he’d tried for years to get Pete to do this song in concert, but Pete refused, feeling he’d look like completely idiotic standing there with his ukelele.
Whereupon Roger, now alone on the stage, posed with his ukelele.
Even when in good voice, this one is challenge for Roger to sing—it’s in his upper range, it requires you to go from low to high notes in a beat. But I know he’s been performing it all tour and I’m delighted he attempted for us as well.
It was certainly a struggle for him. As his voice broke on the upper part of the second verse, he commented, “Makes it rather poignant, doesn’t it?” “You sound wonderful, Roger” somebody shouted, and as he did a fairly credible job on the last verse, the applause was very warm.
While we didn’t spend a lot of time talking to other people there—we aren’t very good at that—from what I overheard, it wasn’t just me who really enjoyed this concert. (Jean said it “wasn’t completely awful.” That’s actually pretty good, from Jean.)
So as to goals of this tour:
Fat ass avoidance—check!
Voice exercised—check! (I’ll trust this particular workout won’t have done any lasting damage.)
Having a bloody great time—check and check!
“He made me who I am. I owe him a lot and I love him.” — Pete Townsend on Roger Daltrey
A hazard of going on vacation when all the new fall shows are starting, and the summer fill-in shows aren’t quite done, is that you come home to heck of a lot of recordings on the PVR. We’re still trying to catch up, not much aided by the fact that every day, new episodes get added.
But here are a few thoughts on what we have managed to watch.
Best new show: Glee
Of course, this post will also reveal Glee is almost the only new show we’ve managed to watch, which perhaps diminishing that “Best” label. Still, we do like it a lot. Both of us, which is getting rare. It’s funny, wonderfully absurd (I particularly like that the cheerleaders always wear their cheerleading outfits to everything, no matter what), often touching, and will have a great soundtrack album.
New show I intended to watch but haven’t: Flashback
Though if I ever get around to it, I’ll be able to see all episodes in one marathon weekend, as they’re all stacked up on the PVR there. Anyone see this? Worth my time at all?
New show I was supposed to be offended by, but wasn’t: Cougartown
I don’t know; I just thought it was kind of funny. But after the first episode, just haven’t had the time or space to tape it again.
Old show I finally managed to drop: Grey’s Anatomy
Thank you, Katherine Heigl, for coming back to work on this show, thus freeing up my Thursday nights. Though I have to admit to being a little intrigued by the commercial for tonight’s episode. Who’s getting fired? Wait, who are all those characters? I don’t recognize half of them.
Show I’ve dropped for the time being: So You Think You Can Dance [USA]
Couldn’t do it—couldn’t watch both this and So You Think You Can Dance Canada. And since the US one is dragging out the audition episodes (to free up people for the Canadian show?), and since I can actually vote in the Canadian one, that’s the only one I’m watching now.
I’ve actually been pretty impressed at Canada’s voting taste. I’m OK with whoever wins the title. There is no Evan (or Cody) here.
Show we’re wondering about dropping: Bones
I watch for the characters; Jean watches for the plots; we’re both feeling kind of disappointed. Me, I’m particularly tired of them thinking that I’m desperate for Bones and Booth to get together. Get together, don’t get together; I don’t care—just stop dealing with it so much. I find the other characters more interesting, anyway.
Most strangely addictive show: Mad Men
It’s slow and understated and most of the characters are awful and some of the best characters have left the firm and… I love it. I’m totally drawn in. Three more episodes this season. Where do we go from here?
All the leaves are brown And the sky is gray I’ve been out walking for a while on a winter’s day I’d be safe and warm If I was in LA…
Or, better yet, back in San Fran…
Yes, it was a good trip. We were there for a week, Saturday to Sunday. We started with a visit to Yosemite on Sunday, headed to Napa and Sonoma on Monday and Tuesday, and drove into San Francisco on Wednesday, where we stayed for the rest of the trip.
People ask, “What was your favorite thing?”, which I can never answer. Too many options. But to quote Maria, these are a few of my favorite things.
The weather. Nothing but sun, all day, every day. Need I say more?
The wine. Particularly these aspects of them:
Interesting tours in Napa and Sonoma. Wineries with art galleries and patios where servers bring you tasting portions of their offerings. Organic wineries that give full tram tours and let you taste the grapes (very sweet). Organic wineries on beautiful grounds with hiking trails up to great views.
Cav wine bar in San Franciso, which may have been our favourite restaurant. The first time we went, it was because we tired of trying to stuff down dinner after having a big lunch. So we dined on wine and cheese. It was lovely. And later, we went back for a full dinner. Also lovely. Many wines by the glass, from all over, at pretty reasonable prices.
The taste, of course, which often surprised us with its subtlety and sophistication, particularly in the Bartholomew Park Cabernet Sauvignon and the Rodney Strong Estate Pinot Noir.
Not paying duty on the wine, despite bringing home double our allotment, which we declared.
Seeing the wild parrots of Russian Hill, who may or may not be the same flock as on Telegraph Hill. At any rate, we had read that almost no one got to see these birds, yet there they were, following us along on our walking tour of that neighborhood. (And with seeing the bear and the deer in Yosemite, and numerous birds there and in San Fran, plus all the sea lions in San Fran, it was a surprisingly wildlife-filled vacation.)
Great experiences for free (and not only because they were free), such as:
Just walking around the interesting, and very safe-feeling, neighborhoods of San Francisco, such as North Beach and the Castro, just getting a sense of the shops and the people and the atmosphere.
Free city walking tours, which San Francisco offers hundreds of each year. Our favorite was the City Scapes and Public spaces, which took us into the elaborate bank buildings and hidden park areas of the Financial District.
Experiences worth paying for, such as:
Alcatraz tour, where you take a boat to the island and are then free to explore it, including an introductory film and an excellent audio tour of the cells. Very well done.
SFMOMA, a modern art gallery that managed to balance the sublime and the ridiculous better than most.
Brunch at the beautiful Awanee Inn in Yosemite, apparently one of the best restaurants in the US. Certainly had some divine little desserts.
Listening to JD Fortune’s fantastic version of “California Dreamin” on the ride from Napa to San Francisco.
And then there were the more “interesting” experiences that will probably make the best stories…
Staying across the street from, and therefore finding it impossible to avoid, the Lovelution Festival, which seemed to mainly be about young people dancing to techno music in glittery underwear… If that…
Our insane, high-speed taxi ride to the hilliest part of San Francisco, that morning we were running late… We ended up arriving early…
Getting an impossible case of the giggles upon perusing the vegetarian, yoga-themed menu of a Napa restaurant I had insisted on, feeling not quite hungry enough for meat and potatoes. But you know, those beet-roast crisps and semolina gnochis were actually, suprisingly very delicious.
Jamestown, our home base to Yosemite, which really still looked like an old Western town, with saloons and such, and nary a Starbucks anywhere.
Rasputin Records, squarely aimed at the punk and hip-hop crowd, where old-timers like me who prefer classic rock are shunted off (really, driven off by the music) to the four floor, which was accessible only by a tie-dye painted elevators operated by one of the remarkably friendly staff.
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