I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Le Colisee, Quebec City QC (November 30 1996).

This is the 16th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour. This is the same show that the Double Live version of Saskatchewan was taken from. It is also the show Dave wrote about in On A Cold Road.

The site has recently added a DAT version of the show in conjunction with the existing fan-recorded version (which is quite different and an interesting perspective).

The show opens with a recording of (maybe) a French-language hockey game?  I love how the opening guitars of “Saskatchewan” just start during the cheering.

Obviously this is a great version if they chose it for their live album.

It segues right into “Fat” which opens a little funky.  It runs to about seven minutes with the rocking ending being fun as usual.  “Fat” segues into a quiet and beautiful “Digital Beach” with great guitars from Martin and then, surprisingly into “Claire.”  Martin’s solo sounds very different–single notes played in a unusual (for him) style.  I like the change and it works well for the song.

Dave asks: Whats the shouting?  more shouting.  Martin: WHAT!?  (on the other recording you can hear that some guy is shouting: “Bad. Time. To. Be. Poor.”  The guy then deliberately shouts: “We came here to see you guys.”  Shame it’s not acknowledged).

Dave says, “We’re gonna do four songs in one from our new album, The Blue Hysteria.  Thanks to the whistling bats over there.”

“Four Little Songs” is goofier than usual.  And then Don, ever the salesman says “this next song is the current single from our brand new record which you can buy here at the venue.”  When they do play “Bad Time to Be Poor,” (those guys must have gone nuts), it sounds great.

Dave: “Thanks very much.  Save a bit for The Tragically Hip.  I don’t want you to….”

On “Sweet Rich, Beautiful, Mine,” Martin hits a slight wrong note before the roaring midsection which is kind of shame, but he recovers fine and the rest of the song is spot on.

A lovely “Dope Fiends” ends the show with a cool acoustic guitar and drum middle.  Martin has some fun with the “dark side of the moon” ending growling it somewhat and Dave says “By Pink Floyd.  Side two.”  Just before Martin roars his awesome guitar ending.

The song and show ends with Martin playing and then singing “You Are Very Star.”  It’s a very sweet ending.

[READ: June 2018] Start Without Me

I really enjoyed this story.  It was funny and dark and played with all kinds of twisted family portraits.

As the book opens Adam wakes up in the house he grew up in.  But in the basement.
A young child sizes him up, “Who are you?”
“I’m Adam.  Uncle Adam.”
The boy shakes his head. “My uncle’s Travis.  He lives in Texas.”
“I’m your other uncle.”
“Why are you on the couch?”

Indeed, why is it?  It is Thanksgiving.  One of his siblings or their offspring is in his old room.  They weren’t sure if he would show.

Finally it dawns on the boy, “Are you the uncle who smashed the pinata?”
“Jesus, that’s what you remember?”  Did he actually owe apologies to the kids, too?

The boy looked at him and said “Nobody’s allowed to download mods on my dad’s computer.”

Adam snuck upstairs with the intention of going out–maybe get into his father’s car, put it in neutral and roll to the end of the driveway.  Then go to a friend’s house, or the woods, or a party, smoke weed and listen “to cassettes of Mudhoney, Guster, Pearl Jam, N.W.A.”  Ah, nostalgia.

But he did sneak out, this time for smoke.  And in the process, he let the cat out and upset the drip tray full of wet shoes.   He had ruined the day and it had barely started.

Adam had once been in a band with Johanna, the love of his life.  They were called Kiss and Kill and they had had a dedicated following.  And he had had a dedicated addiction.  Now he was standing outside on a frozen New England Thanksgiving having a smoke as the cat waited to be let back in.

His arrival here had been nothing but awkward.  His mother asking him if he wanted a drink and then apologizing, his father not knowing what to say.   Even the photos were embarrassing–all of the ones of him were from when he was little.   There were a few of him playing locally and even one photo of Kiss and Kill on Conan (with Johanna tactfully removed).

He went back inside and promptly broke the coffee pot.  He went back outside with the intention of … who knows what.

He went to Dunkin Donuts and tried to figure out who to call. In the past his older sister Kristen would have been the obvious choice.  But she was less forgiving now that she was married.  He texted his brother that he just couldn’t do it and he had to go.  Then he realized how bad that sounded.  Then his phone died.

He decided to just head to airport and fly back to San Francisco.  Deal with it later.

Then we meet Marissa.  She is a flight attendant and is on her way to her husband Robbie’s parent’s house in Vermont.    Robbie had sent her a text: “I’m not angry anymore.  Let’s enjoy the holiday.  I love you.”  She couldn’t recall what he was taking about–constant flights tended to mess with your head.  She remembered it was that she’s agreed to take a flight on the holiday–time and a half.  It descended into an argument about why she was a flight attendant anyway since his parents could pay for anything they needed.   But she wanted Independence–from her own parents and from his.

Robbie’s mother is a 5’2″ Jewish divorce lawyer.  His father is a 6’3″ black civil rights lawyer.  His sister was a beautiful go-getter and head of her own non-profit or something.  Marissa was a drop out and was a flight attendant.  She did not want to go to Thanksgiving dinner.

She decided to rest in a hotel before driving to Vermont.  But she was restless and then–the thing in fiction that can only mean your are pregnant– she threw up.  Robbie had been ambivalent about kids but now was very opposed to them.  The last friends they’d met with a child he’d said “They are crazy to do that to themselves.”

She went to the airport bar and ordered something.  It was here that she met Adam.  He asked if he could sit with her, it being Thanksgiving and all.  Normally she begged off creeps–and the waitress had her back on this, it seemed.  But there was something about him that she felt was safe.  So they shared a meal.

And after some moments, she agrees to drive him to Massachusetts (since she is going to Vermont).  But after some failed conversations with his family, he decides to go to Robbie’s parents house for Thanksgiving.  She says he can pretend to be a flight attendant with nowhere to go.  Adam proves to be an excellent random guest–full of compliments and stories.  There should be a bond between Adam and Robbie’d dad who has a pristine music collection.  But there isn’t.  Robbie’s sister sees a cause in him (he says he’s gay and his parents don’t accept him) and whisks him away to talk, and things go awry from there.

The dinner proves to be a fiasco on many levels (a couple unseen) so they change plans.  Marissa is going to see her mom and her sister who live nearby and Adam can go talk to Johanna.  Marissa believes he needs that.

Those plans don’t go very well either, so there’s not much hope for this Thanksgiving.  Or is there?

I appreciated that there was never any chance of Adam and Marissa hooking up (she is pregnant and married), although there is sex in the book.  I was also fascinated at the contrasts in Thanksgivings–uncomfortable and unpleasant in very different ways.

I found this book to be funny and clever and a very fast-paced read.