Macca At Safeco Field

Sweet jiminy bitchwhistle...Paul McCartney is playing Safeco Field July 14th.  Decent tickets are going for about $150.00...which leads to a real dilemma for me.  Paul is the last surviving Beatle if you don't count Ringo, but Ringo seems to play local winery shows every other weekend during the summer.  Paul, on the other hand, doesn't get around to this part of the world as much.  I'm really trying to take emotion out of any decision I make concerning this show, so let's break this somnabitch down pros and cons style...

Pros:  This might be Paul's last big tour and I don't think I should miss out, Paul's big hits with the Beatles and Wings are real crowd pleasers, he's still using the kick ass backing band he threw together 12 years ago, I've never seen any of the Beatles live...

Cons:  Jeebus, $150.00 is a lot of bones to pay to see a guy that struggles to hit notes, there's a chance he plays 'Say, Say, Say' or any other track off of the dismal 'Pipes Of Peace' album from 1983, he looked and sounded horrible at the recent Grammy awards, a lot of Paul's solo work without Wings is crap...

I think this is going to come down to me sleeping on it.  Prince played the Showbox recently and I passed on dropping $250 to see him with his new band in a small venue.  I've regretted that decision ever since, even though I'm glad my bank account isn't $250 lighter.  How much of missing that show is playing into me wanting to see McCartney?  Probably quite a bit...

Maybe I'll just watch 'A Hard Day's Night' and throw back a few drinks instead...

Cleaning House

It's been a while, so allow me to get a few things out of the way before cutting to the chase...

So, yeah...I went and saw Shania Twain while I was in Vegas.  Now, I didn't go alone...I promised The Better Half that I would take her to see Shania Twain when her Caesars Palace shows were announced over a year ago.  The opportunity to fulfill that promise presented itself and unlike every other situation I had promised to do something, I actually saw this one through. 

I am not a fan of Shania Twain's music.  At all.  However, Shania Twain's music was never meant for someone like me, it is/was targeted to females...the twang version of 'Girl Power' introduced by the Spice Girls in the mid-90's.  And that's fine.  I understand and accept that, so I just enjoyed the show for what it was, and that was a magnificently produced Vegas spectacle.  The set was simple but still saw numerous large piece changes ranging from a western saloon to a fake camp site to an icy snowscape...and there were two live horses and a flying motorcycle.

As a performer, Shania Twain is a pro.  She's much calmer than she was a decade ago, no longer running around the stage dressed as the world's wealthiest aerobics instructor.  Her voice is a lot stronger than I would have giver her credit for.  Song arrangements were stripped down and straightforward, driven by a top notch drummer that kept everything tight.  From a musical standpoint, it was good to hear the Mutt Lange overproduction from the studio kicked to the curb.

Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, one that TBH enjoyed more than I did.  I still had fun (the depth charge sized mojito I had before the show helped) and hey, if you are in Vegas and looking for a show you could do a lot worse than Shania Twain....

Now, back to business...

Here's the deal.  I've once again managed to roll up on some kind of identity crisis when it comes to this blog and writing in general.  Too many times I've stopped writing/posting out of fear of offending someone's tender sensibilities.  In my previous blog, that really wasn't an issue.  I had a dedicated set of readers that posted encouraging comments and sporadic readers that enjoyed telling me to get bent.  Good times!  I've been walking a fine line since linking to Facebook.  The fear is that some of my Facebook 'friends' may not get my humor or my point of view on certain topics, so I've self-censored.  A lot.  And it has been disastrous for me.

A turning point for me occurred shortly after the Boston Marathon bombing.  I posted a comment that read:  How long before the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC start asking, 'Does anyone really need a six-quart pressure cooker?'  This, of course, was a play on what some pundits had been saying about certain guns/ammo/clips leading up to the gun control vote.  The post was parody, but also designed to get people to think...why do we attempt to solve problems by skirting around the root of issues and going balls out to assign blame on inanimate objects and pass ineffective laws?

Well, this post set someone off and for some reason I allowed this person's hysterical and nonsensical reaction to influence me to the point of deleting what I had written.  I've regretted doing so ever since going back and reading our message thread about my post.  Unfortunately, I let someone's illogical and emotional reaction dictate my opinion on what I should and should not post.  As time passed I realized that I have been actively going out of my way to avoid posting on FB or writing in this blog anything that might be controversial or remotely interesting. I've stifled myself and that has turned something I really used to enjoy doing into a chore...worse, it made me boring.

Now, does this sudden burst of self-awareness mean I'm going to start dropping F-bombs all over the place as if they were fire bombs over Dresden?  Of course not.  It also doesn't mean that I am going to go out of my way to be offensive just to be offensive...or profane...that has never been my style.  I do have opinions though, very strong ones that not everyone agrees with, which is fine.  I welcome disagreement and opinions that differ from mine, as long as they aren't the rantings of conspiracy theory fever swamp apes or melodramatic mewling.  I've no time for either.

            

The Long And Winding Road

Hey, long time no posts from yours truly here.  My apologies.  It's been a busy couple of weeks...where shall we begin?

Howz bout we start with the beginning of the Pescado family Spring Break road trip.  When the Pescado parents moved to Utah last October I told them I'd try to visit them when the girls were on Spring Break.  Before making that promise, however, I told The Better Half I'd take her to see Shania Twain at Caesar's Palace.  I figured I'd take care of two promises I vaguely remembered making with one long road trip.

We left Washington last Saturday (4/6) morning during a driving rain storm that stayed with us all the way to the Utah border.  When we hit Utah all we had to contend with were some strong head winds.  In fact, wind was a central theme of the trip down and back.  The mighty Expedition handled well, but MPG suffered in a big way.  During last summer's trip to California we were averaging close to 15 MPG, this trip I never got higher than 13.8 MPG.  Battling through wind had the engine working harder, the higher altitude didn't help either.

The drive on Saturday took 13 1/2 hours because the girls are quite possibly the greatest road trip kids in existence.  We only had to stop three times on the way down for gas/potty/stretch breaks.  They never really pestered us about when we were going to get there, and didn't ask for anything at the crazy Pilot travel centers.  Now, even I was surprised that they didn't want any toys or games at Pilot.  Those places are nothing but one big giant impulse buy shopping centers.  They carry everything from bungee cords to CB radios to Funyuns to movies starring Kurt Russell you didn't even know existed...basically, everything and anything a homicidal trucker on a three state killing spree needs to keep himself entertained.  The only real moment of concern was when Maddy asked me why the loudspeaker kept announcing that so and so's shower was ready.  I just told her that truckin' is a dirty job...but left out the part about dead hooker blood not being able to wash itself off....

Our drive home was equally uneventful outside of more strong winds that were sometimes accompanied by sheets of rain, snow flurries and blinding dust storms east and west of Boise.  The stretch of highway between the Utah border and Boise, ID is what hell most look like, minus demons with fiery pitchforks running around.  That may be the most singularly unlovely stretch of highway in the western United States...flat, windy, dusty, and nothing to see but tumbleweeds.  Every other portion of our trip provided some scenery to gape at...and occasional wildlife, such as elk heading in Cle Elum, deer in Oregon, and dead coyotes in Nevada.  The only wildlife we saw in southern Idaho were crows and magpies.  That just isn't an enjoyable stretch of highway to drive....

Oh, we did get stuck on Snoqualmie Pass Saturday night, crushing my goal of being home before 9pm (We left SLC at 8:20 that morning and I was pushing the 'long way to go, short time to get there' Smokey & The Bandit meme).  Due to blizzard like conditions, several accidents, and an avalanche, we spent quality time together as a family for 3 1/2 hours near the pass summit.  Luckily, the kids had a movie to watch and were tired, so they fell asleep...TBH and I posted updates to FB and Twitter about our status.  Thankfully, we were in the first group to get escorted over the pass by plows and the State Patrol, so we were home before midnight...but the Bandit would have been disappointed.

Still to come, recap of our Vegas trip, my near disastrous hair of the dog moment at The Palms, a Shania Twain concert review, and more on the greatest 80's cover band I've ever seen in Vegas....!