Let the picketing begin!

There's not much going on in this teaser trailer, but if the movie comes anywhere close to capturing the essence of the book, we're going to have yet another national brouhaha over religion in film.

Home Sweet Moe

Lisa and I saw Glen Phillips tonight at Neumo's. It was excellent, with Glen doing a smattering of his new stuff and quite a few of his old stuff with Toad The Wet Sprocket. His backup band included our good buddy Jonathan Kingham on backup vocals, guitar and keyboard. JK's really improved in his keyboard/piano. It was a good set, and it wouldn't be complete without an amusing political aside about places like Fred Meyer (the inspiration for his song of the same title). It was a weird look at what is certainly a plausible future: food shortage and environmental devastation driving us to live at suburban malls and giant one stop shopping stores like Fred Meyer, since that's where all the supplies are. The song includes a reference to Costco, but Phillips said he's thinking of taking it out of the song altogether because of its progressive hiring practices and fair benefits (and I don't think he even knows that Costco's founders are big donors to the Democratic party). He's thinking giving WalMart that dubious honor. The best moment of the night came towards the end of the encore when Jonathan sang his song "Grace" (the one he did at our wedding). Phillips played backup. Look for that song on JK's upcoming album. I'm thinking that song will get some airplay (I hereby suggest it to be used as background music for an emotional scene in an episode of Scrubs)

It's been an active couple of weeks for us, concert-wise. For three shows in a row, we've gone to Neumo's. On April 23rd, we caught Brandi Carlile, an incredible newcomer from Maple Valley, WA (Lisa's hometown; Carlile even went to Tahoma High School, Lisa's alma mater, and a few times during the show Lisa mouthed "Go Bears!"). Carlile packed the place. There wasn't any room on the main floor or the balcony. Seriously, check her out and buy her music. The most recent show prior to tonight was Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls. That show -- this past Friday -- was amazing, because Amy gets to express more of her harder edged punk roots. But it still felt like half a performance because her fellow Indigo Girl, Emily Saliers wasn't there. In fact, Lisa didn't like someone else harmonizing with Amy (I thought she was ably backed that night by Jody Bleyle, formerly of two of my favorite bands, Team Dresch (I think she's still in that band) and Hazel.

All these shows brought back memories for me, when I used to go to that club about five times a month. It was called "Moe" ("New Moe's" now, get it?) back then before it was turned into a dance club for a spell. Other than The Crocodile Cafe, I don't think there was another rock club in the 1990s that I hung out at more than Moe. Saw plenty of good ones there: Shonen Knife, The Jesus Lizard, Superchunk, Alice Donut, Buffalo Tom to recall a few. I think more good artists are coming to town to play Neumo's, so I think a new era of concert-going is fast approaching. Sweet...

Born To Run

If you're fascinated about African dominance -- particulary the Kenyans -- in distance running, check this out. It's inspiring, and intimidating, to elite runners worldwide, not just off and on runners like me.

Now Playing:
Faded From The Winter, from The Creek Drank The Cradle, by Iron & Wine