Long Stretches, Loudon Concert, and Plans

It's interesting that in any longer regular route one takes - whether in the car or on foot - there always seems to be part of the route in which you enter into some time warp and the distance seems to double or triple. For instance, on my drive from Chicago to Duluth the stretch of interstate between Tomah and Eau Claire just goes on forever. On my regular trips between Mason City and Duluth it was the stretch between the Iowa border and Owatonna. When I run to the lake, the stretch between Broadway and Clark along the cemetery feels similarly elongated (maybe it's because I'm holding my breath). Similarly, the stretch between the outdoor theater on Fullerton and North Beach has some similar hold over me and runs me down.

Today, I knew it was going to be a long run when about a mile in to a longer run I stepped in a watery mess of a sink hole. The last mile was endured only by blasting "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Somebody to Love." Queen can get you through a lot in life.

The Loudon Wainwright III concert last night was awesome. First, he had a great opening act: Kim Richey. She had such a beautiful voice that you could listen to for hours. Here's a clip from 15 years ago on Austin City Limits. She looks a little older now, things are stripped back, but she still sounds wonderful:

Then Loudon came on. He's really funny in and out of songs. He was telling a story about living in London and riding his bike in a park near Primrose Hill. He mentioned, "Primrose Hill was in a park, and in England you're not allowed to ride your bikes in parks. (taking on a fake arrogance) But I'm an American, so I do what I d--n well please!" He had many other funny one-liners that aren't appropriate for a blog such as this.

What's great about Loudon Wainwright is that he can write both extremely funny songs and amazingly poignant songs and sing them one after the other without losing continuity. One of the funny songs is off his new album 10 Songs for the New Depression (he quipped, "I'm going to cash in on these hard times.") entitled "Krugman Blues."

An example of the poignancy from last night's show was his performance of "The Picture."

Although he didn't do this one last night, he can also go from funny to poignant in the same song, like "White Winos."

The only problem with the concert was that it started at 10. By the time Loudon came out, I was getting pretty tired. I ended up waking up early to run, so now I'm going to take a nap, practice my sermon, and hopefully knock out a few pages on the Covenant History paper and figure out something fun to do tonight. Later.