The Watchmen Rock the Pyramid

Winnipeg's own The Watchmen played Friday and Saturday night at the Pyramid.  I went to Saturday's show and my ears are still ringing.  They definitely had it cranked up to eleven. 

The show was sold out, and was attended by long-time fans of the band, like my friends and I.  Watchmen were a staple on the stereo at our high school parties.  Best known for their energetic live shows, we saw them play numerous times throughout high school and university.  They broke up in 2003 but have come together for various tours since.  And their fans are always hungry for a good show.  This was the first time I have seen them since at least 2003 so it was definitely a nostalgic experience.

Despite not playing together as frequently as in their heyday, the band was tight.  They played classic songs such as All Uncovered, Boneyard Tree, Any Day Now and Stereo.  Lead singer Danny Greaves was in top form.  His vocals throughout the show were dead-on.  As usual, at one point in the show the other band members left the stage and Danny sang a song without any instrumental accompaniment.  This time around he sang a heart felt version of Tom Waits's (Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night.  Outstanding. 

Soupy out

David Sedaris: Dirty Jokes, Animals and Old Ladies

David Sedaris has themes for each of his book tours.  On his latest tour the theme is jokes.  He asks everyone that comes up to get a book signed if they have a joke to tell him.  During the reading at McNally Robinson Booksellers on Monday November 22, he shared some of his favourites with the eager fans.  Most of the jokes were very dirty, but hilarious.  For example one involved Monica Lewinski, Lorena Bobbit and a flasher. 

As you can imagine an evening with Sedars at McNally Robinson is not a like typical book readings.  Neither is his book.  He is famous for his books of stories about himself. But his latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk is his first book of complete fiction.  It is made up of fables about animals going through situations that many of us can relate to.  Sedaris promised the audience that this publication does not mean the end of his very popular books of personal essays.

Sedaris has published eight collections of his sometimes funny, sometimes heartfelt, always unique stories. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, and you can also hear him reading his stories aloud on This American Life on Public Radio International.

Sedaris spent about half of his 80 minutes at McNally Robinson reading stories from this latest book.    He spent he other forty minutes reading journal entries; interesting tidbits about things that happened to him on his book tour.  This is how Sedaris tests his material for other stories.  He says that he often goes back to his hotel room after a reading and edits his work based on the reaction of the audience that night.  No doubt some of the anecdotes that he read aloud will make it into one of his future collections of stories.

His journal entry readings consisted of stories of embarrassment: at a hotel pool realizing too late that he had put his swim suit on inside out; the weirdest things he heard from people during book signings: a woman who had been served another woman’s breast milk in a plastic wineglass at a yard sale; and as I mentioned before, his favourite filthy jokes. 

One of the funniest journal entries involved him noticing “a cute little old lady” pushing a walker in a parking lot and getting into her car.  Then he noticed her bumper sticker which read: Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.  Sedaris, who has lived with his partner, Hugh for over 10 years, had a sudden and drastic attitude shift: “As I watched the old hag struggle with the door handle I thought:  people that get to use handicap spots should not be able to hold political opinions.  You have the best parking spot, so just shut the F#%K up.”

At the end of his reading Sedaris generously promised to stay at McNally until the last book was signed.  Which was very nice considering the size of the crowd.  There were between 150 to 200 fans there.  I did not intend on waiting in line for over an hour just to tell him my favourite dirty joke.  A priest, a rabbi and an orangutan walk into a bar…

Soupy out