Saturday, October 02, 2010

Freeloadin'

What a day it has been!!! Prepare for the run on sentence of the description of my day. Last week the kitchen sink developed a bad leak to where it was running all the time, so when I got up this morning I shut the water off & pulled the stem inserts out of it (might as well replace the whole thing it's been years & they could use it) so I went to the hardware store & got one for each side as well as new seats & I saw on the opposite wall they had a valve replacement for the toilet so I picked that up too since ours sometimes doesn't seal & runs just a little & while we were out dropped off 3 bags of outgrown clothes & shoes at Goodwill & bought some milk & then got home & Janice was losing coolant so I was going to look at that too since I couldn't very well add water until I put the sink back together so I did that first it works better than it has in years & the older boy was going to take the trash & recycling down while I was working on that because the ants are after it (the heat drives 'em indoors & it's been really hot the last week or so) & the security screen wasn't opening & he was blaming his brother for locking the door but I knew that didn't happen like that & I eventually stopped working on the sink & went around & pulled off the strike part of the frame & the catch isn't working at all so I yanked that & looked for the other one that came with the two pack of doorknobs that I bought and had to dig through a bunch of boxes and I found half a dozen hard drives & was thinking about hooking them up just to see what's on 'em & it turns out the door has just a bit of friction with the frame so it works pretty good without the catch but anyway then I looked at Janis' heater control valve where it's leaking & it has a pretty good sized crack which probably has something to do with it so it's loose right now I put some gorilla glue on it and a big C clamp around it for the night and while I had the glue out I put the side rubber trim that was coming loose back on & the around the window weatherstrip on Baby that came loose last night with the same glue I had been kinda planning on going to the junkyard's half price sale today but there isn't one up in Sun Valley like I was thinking there was but the one up there is having their half price day next weekend so now I'm thinking that & then I watered the plants while I was out there too & then finally I replaced the toilet valve so I've been a regular ol' handyman today even though I was in bed pretty much all morning!!!


BUT!!! What I was going to blog about was last night!!! I had something so good... (veiled Counting Crows reference) I had heard a couple weeks back about a movie screening with Counting Crows performing afterwards!!! The movie is called "Freeloaders", and while Adam Duritz isn't in the movie a whole lot (beginning and end, with a phone call in the middle) he is a rather pivotal role in it. He plays himself, and the MacGuffin of the movie is six people living in his house while he's out on tour. He's selling his place, and they've got 30 days to find new places. It's by Broken Lizard, the guys responsible for "Super Troopers" (one of the guys told a very funny story) and "Beerfest". A very funny movie, I wouldn't give it 4 of 4 stars, but probably at least a solid two and a half, if not three. Nigerians & Pirate porn, need I say more??? Made me LOL a lot, I give it a glowing recommendation!!!



It was at the John Ansen Ford Theater, across the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl. I'd never been there before, & I was impressed, it's quite nice, and not real huge. For October 1st, the weather was still great for an evening in an open air theater, even in shorts!!! The time listed for it to start was 7, and what with getting out of work at 5:15 (middle shift) and Friday traffic, I didn't think we'd catch the beginning. Nothing happened until 8, though, so we had time to get snacks & leisurely find our seats. Before anything actually started Adam himself came out and was wandering the audience. I spotted him right off, and was considering going up and saying hi, but it got pretty crowded, and besides I hadn't brought my camera and if anything that is what I would have really liked, to have gotten my picture taken with him.

Broken Lizard came out and did a couple of funny episodes, and then the projector wasn't ready (who would have thought that would be necessary at a movie screening) so the Broken Lizard guys came and told a couple of stories (see above comment about Super Troopers, and one about Willie Nelson, which prompted Adam to tell his Willie Nelson story), then on with the show!!!



The pictures here are ones I found that others there had tweeted, and show it pretty good. Checked the YouTube, and there's a couple videos from the show up, but none of them seem to have caught any of the songs complete!!!

Here's the set list:

1. Catapult
2. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby
3. Mr. Jones (started off singing "So You Wanna Be A Rock & Roll Star" over the intro riff, pretty good, you can catch the tail end of that part on this video)
4. Good Night Elizabeth (middle interlude some song about seeing the lights on Broadway, watch here)
5. Friend of the Devil
6. Angels of the Silences
7. Hard Candy
8. Recovering the Satellites
9. Miami
10. A Long December (with a bit of A Murder of One mixed in)

Not a hugely long show, but no disapointment either!!! One of the two best sounding Counting Crows shows I've ever heard, the other being the Disney Concert Hall show. The energy was up, and Adam was upbeat.

Oh yea, "Freeloaders" ends up with Adam singing Hanginaround, and at the hardware store it was playing over the speakers, pretty cool. Reminded us that last night I had something so good!!!

To top it all off, the cost for the whole evening was less than for a single ticket at all but possibly one of their shows that I've ever been to!!! Live comedy, a movie screening, and a concert all at a bargain price!!! A great evening!!!