It was a fairly involved weekend. Friday afternoon Bob dropped Charlotte off with my parents, I got home from work as promptly as I could, and we headed out for dinner and a show. We went and saw Jackson Browne play at the Oakdale. We had a good time, although it wasn’t quite the show I expected: Mr. Browne has a throat infection, so he’s losing his voice. Can you imagine what a nightmare that must be? He commented on it a few times.
After practically every number, “Thank you for coming, and thank you even more for staying!”
“I’m in what they call “rare voice” tonight. If it doesn’t get better soon we’ll break out the Chris Christopherson numbers.”
“I’m probably too self-critical – I’ll say backstage “do you think that I’m too raspy, that I don’t sound good,” and they say “But Jackson, you always sound like that.””
“I just want you to know that when my voice makes that ripping noise, it doesn’t hurt. At least, it doesn’t hurt ME. It probably hurts you.”
“Just to reiterate, when my voice makes that ripping noise, it doesn’t actually hurt. Funny, I spent twenty years trying to make it do that on purpose.”
“This medicine they gave me to tighten up my vocal cords has this side effect that it makes me want to tell you things. We don’t want that.”
“I bet a lot of you are sitting out there thinking “I wonder when his voice is just going to stop coming out?””
The show started with him playing a few pieces in support of David Lindley – a scraggly looking guy in a Hawaiian shirt who would have looked perfectly in place at a gaming convention. He also apparently plays any instrument with strings really, really well – talk about an absolutely amazing musician. Jackson introduced him as playing anything with strings and "seriously compromising the dress code." Then he did a few pieces by himself while Jackson apparently nuked his throat with something and completely redid the set list for pieces that he had the range for. At least they certainly seemed to be making it up by the seat of their pants. He commented when he came back out that they had seriously discussed cancelling the show, but he hadn’t cancelled a show in twenty years, so he was going to give it a try. It ended up being a softer, slower show than I had anticipated, but the show was good, the music was good, and I certainly feel like I got my money’s worth. It was a gratifying show of professionalism. A few notes however, on the crowd:
* Some of those women needed to be either tranquilized or muzzled on their way in. I paid good money to listen to him sing, NOT to listen to you scream your undying love. Sit down and shut up.
* That was one seriously seedy looking crowd. The guy in front of us would have fit in at a gaming convention also, except he was the “creepy uncle” subset. Yeeeggghhh.
* Okay, seriously? Lady, you’re in your fifties. At least act *my* age. Maybe that looked good back in the 80s, but now it’s just sort of alarming.
* Ditto the women dancing by the stage. What are you trying to do – burn the poor man’s eyes out? That was a whole lot of jiggling, and not in a good way.
Oh, and who’s dressing him? He kind of blended in to the murk. I’m sure someone can find him a comfy shirt that we can actually *see*. But it was a good show and I’m glad I grabbed tickets.
Saturday morning Bob headed for an event on Long Island, and I headed down to collect the God-Empress of Burlington and spend some quality time with my parents. Mom has been hinting in progressively less subtle ways that this would be a good thing. By the time I got there, Charlotte had collected a bump/cut on the forehead and a splinter in her heel. Good times. We had a nice visit and got a lot of things handled that mom had been nagging me about. Yesterday was housecleaning and lots of laundry. Funny how you can spend an hour and a half cleaning a room, and the two year old can trash it in fifteen minutes when she gets up from her nap.
Now, here I am back at the office, catching up on stuff I’ve been falling behind on. Today is going to be flight arrangements, temps, and probably contract processing. Oh – and the A/C is out. It’s already 79°F in my cube. Supposedly the part was coming in today, but I don’t know if I believe that or not. Hair is up, stockings and shoes and jacket are off, fan is on. It could be a long day…